Friday, October 10, 2008

The Good Fight, by Harry Reid

If you read biographies or political commentary, then read this book.

This is Senator Harry Reid's (Democrat, Nevada) autobiography and commentary.

I'll excerpt from page 285, where Sen. Reid writes about President George W. Bush:

"He has been bad for America and for the world. And he will leave severe, long-term damage in his wake.

In addition to getting us entangled in a needless war, in the wrong country, under false pretenses, and in addition to giving up the fight against the true culprits of 9/11 to get us into that war, and in addition to compromising our moral standing in the world, the Bush administration's blithe disregard for the Constitution and for the balance of powers written therein has led us to have a government that sanctions torture and spies on its own people without cause. In perhaps the most troubling development of all, his government has devised a theory of executive power that is so thoroughly unconstitutional and so un-American that it may take years after Bush and Cheney are finally gone to fully expurge its effects from our national affairs. Here I speak of the so-called 'unitary executive' theory espoused by this White House, which holds, essentially, in the immortal words of Richard Nixon, that if the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
Sen. Reid's recollections of his life are interesting. His commentary on the state of affairs in the United States is horribly depressing, which is to say, accurate.

To quote him one more time: "January 2009, the twenty-first century truly begins."

Let's hope so.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

No One Lives Forever, by Jordan Dane

The only positive thing I can say about his book is that it is forcing me to completely re-evaluate how I buy airplane novels. I simply must change my approach. I have to read a novel on the plane, because I get fidgety otherwise, because it is often too difficult to open a laptop to work effectively, and because I don't like airplane movies (on the occasion that they are shown). But this last run of books just has me down.

Oh, about this book. The less I say the better.

Dark Matter, by Cameron Cruise

Oh my, I'm in a slump. I seem to be drawn to the "paperbacks suitable only for airplane trips where there's nothing else to read and you're desperate" section of the bookstore.

Okay, this wasn't all bad: it was readable, and I didn't have to skip over boring spots more than a couple of times.

Did I mention: a mystery that includes a very heavy dose of para-normal? Sigh.

Friday, October 3, 2008

The Scorpion's Gate, by Richard A. Clarke

Mr. Clarke is no doubt better at his day job than he is as a fiction writer. While the plot lines were plausible and the scenarios gave him an opportunity to work out some of his opinions, the writing was too mumbled to be very enjoyable. I blame this on the editor. Not a bad book, just a bumpy one. I had to skip over many pages of turgid writing to get through it. But it got me through a flight just fine...