I finished P.J. O'Rourke's latest offering in just over two days. It's a fun read and you know you'll get funny looks when people read the cover: "Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism." The book is not really a cohesive whole, but each chapter is a series of both serious and humorous observations not only […]
The Knight Foundation has come out with its annual newsroom skin-color diversity report. The report for The San Diego Union-Tribune, my employer, can be found here. The Union-Tribune doesn't score particularly well, according to the Knight requirements. In 2004, 16.9 percent of the newsroom staff was non-white, while 45.5 percent of the paper's circulation area […]
So I'm looking at books and DVDs when I come across Kenneth Timmerman's "The French Betrayal of America." As is to be expected with any political book, there are lots of 5-star reviews and lots of 1-star reviews. Of course, the 1-star reviews aren't actually of the book, they're of the book's politics. So, as […]
Just finished reading the inexpensive, paperback edition of Mona Charen's "Useful Idiots." The book is well written and would serve as a balance to much of the revisionism that seems to go on nowadays when it comes to opinions regarding communism. You can still find devoted communists and sympathizers nowadays -- just go to any […]
I just finished John Grisham's latest novel, "The Last Juror." The book is one of Grisham's better novels. "The Last Juror" is told from the point of view of a young journalist who buys the small weekly newspaper in Clanton, Miss., and takes place over a period of about a decade from the late '60s […]
Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning "An Army at Dawn" set a pretty high standard for the Washington Post reporter. Those of us who were awaiting the second installment of his trilogy will have to wait a little longer, because the Iraq War broke out and he was sent to cover it. The story of the latest […]
I just finished reading Dan Brown's "Deception Point" last night. Brown is most famous for his book "The DaVinci Code," which spawned some controversy by suggesting that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene had a child together. The claim is laughable -- Elaine Pagels says so. (And you know if Pagels thinks it's nuts, then it […]
As I mentioned before, I've been reading Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn." One anecdote that Atkinson relates is how government censors edited letters home from the troops. Journalists and other liberal conspiracy theorists who regularly decry government limitations on media reporting from the battlefield during Operation Iraqi Freedom should look at just how far […]
I've finally gotten around to reading Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the war in North Africa. The book is incredibly well-written and engaging. Even the prologue, usually part of the book that is a bore to read but necessary for understanding, is a joy to read. I've found myself repeatedly impressed by Atkinson's ability […]
I recently finished David Frum and Richard Perle's "An End to Evil," and I agree with about 99 percent of what they write. The book is an excellent roadmap to dealing with the post-9/11 world, both at home and abroad. My one area of disagreement with the authors is their attitude toward China. Frum and […]