John’s Reviews – books, movies, whatever

  • Witchbreaker by Author James Maxey

    ByJohn Brown

    I’m supposed to do this tag thing where one author tells about his or her latest project and then tags other authors to tell about theirs and so on and so on until we turn into some weird internet author borg and eat your brains out. 

    Heck with that.

    I want to simply share something cool with you instead. James Maxey (who tagged me in the borg fest) writes stories with lots of action, fun, and character that also make you think. They always start with a bang and never let up. For example, look at how GREATSHADOW, his last book, starts.

    When Infidel grabbed me by the seat of my pants and charged toward the window, I didn’t protest. Partly this was due to the speed of her action, but mostly due to my inebriation from the sacramental wine we’d stolen.

    If an opening like that isn’t going to make you want to read more, I don’t know what will. Especially when the wine was stolen from a lava-pygmy temple carved into the sheer cliff face of a volcano.  I’m not alone in my appreciation of Maxey’s writing. Orson Card wrote this glowing review of GREATSHADOW earlier this year.

    Here is the opening to Maxey’s “To The East, A Bright Star” which was published in Asimov’s.  It has one of my favorite beginnings.

    There was a shark in the kitchen. The shark wasn’t huge, maybe four feet long, gliding across the linoleum toward the refrigerator. Tony stood motionless in the knee-deep water of the dining room. The Wolfman said that the only sharks that came in this far were bull sharks, which were highly aggressive. Tony leaned forward cautiously and shut the door to the kitchen. He’d known the exact time and date of his death for most of his adult life. With only hours to go, he wasn’t about to let the shark do something ironic.  

    Which brings us to the fact that Maxey has another book out called WITCHBREAKER. That’s such a cool title I wish I could off Maxey and steal it for myself. The book has, as you have seen to the right, a fabulous cover as well. About 5000% better than the horrid thing Solaris put on GREATSHADOW.

    Maxey talks about what inspired WITCHBREAKER in this blog post, which I recommend you read in full. But just in case you’re a lazy son-of-a-gun like me, here’s the meat of the thing. WITCHBREAKER is about a woman named Sorrow. Says Maxey:

    Her father was a judge who hung his own mother after she was accused of being a witch. Sorrow rebelled by becoming a witch herself, but her hatred isn’t directed directly at her father, it’s directed at the religious and political institutions that empowered him. So, Sorrow’s life mission is to overthrow that system. She’s one woman against the world, fighting to make it a better place even though everyone she meets keeps insisting that the world isn’t so bad. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for characters locked into a lifelong battle against forces more powerful than they will ever be.

    Blast that dang Maxey and his character genius. I’m not envious at all. No, sir. Which is why I suggest you give Maxey a go. Maybe you’ll appreciate him as much as thousands of other readers do. Read the first few pages of WITCHBREAKER here with Amazon’s look inside.

  • The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

    ByJohn Brown

    After this year’s presidential election I emailed my sister, a smart, super-competent, true-blue, bleeding-heart, save the weeds and snails liberal, who volunteered to do campaign work for Hilary Clinton in Colorado during the 2008 Democratic primaries and, of course, voted loudly for Obama in this last election.

    “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “How can anyone who doesn’t have a carrot for a brain want more of the same? I don’t get it. Obama? How can so many Americans be that gullible? I’m totally baffled.”  And that puzzlement wasn’t rhetorical. I was seriously baffled.

    “Are you kidding me?” she replied. “Mitt Romney? How could anyone vote for Mitt Romney?  Talk about baffled.”  She went on a rant listing all of Romney’s supposed deeds and positions of sooper evil and stupidity. Then she questioned how anyone could support that Hitler in his Mormon clothes.

    Okay, she didn’t say “Hitler,” but she did claim he was “evil” and “despicable.” And when I think of evil, my first thought is always of folks like Mitt Romney.

    Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the Juarez drug cartel, which is responsible for hundreds of gruesome murders each year and . . . Mitt Romney. Oh, yeah. They’re like brothers. In fact, wasn’t Romney’s dad born in Mexico? And, hey, one of Romney’s sons even knows Spanish. That boy wasn’t on a church mission there. No, he was making connections with the jefe!

    Sonia Montoya-Cadena, the one who ran a human trafficking ring in Denver exploiting young girls for sex and . . . Mitt Romney. Yeah, Romney’s just like that. If he could run slave brothels, he’d do it in a minute to make a buck. In fact, doesn’t Bain Capital own a couple of slave brothels in Greenland?

    I wanted to unload. I was prepared to destroy her with fiery analysis of the first order.

    Thundering analysis.

    Mountain crushing logic.

    She was so freaking blind.

    Except,

    She had never actually considered what I had to say in any of my previous emails. It never mattered how powerfully vast my brilliant logic was. She’d demonstrated wax ear time and again. All of my intellectual might never made a dent in her liberal force field. I brought blood and thunder, and it always seemed to bounce off her like bullets made of styrofoam.

    Nevertheless! Clinton? Obama? Save the gerbils?

    I made a comment that sent Smart Sister into DEFCON 5. Foolish me. Eventually, her liberal ire cooled and she decided to order comrade Putin to stand down and not push the big red button.

    Meanwhile, I started to think.

    I noted that if things didn’t change, the Republicans wouldn’t be winning the presidency any time soon. If they couldn’t beat Obama when the economy was in the tank, then there really was no hope. Which meant we are going to end up like Greece, with continuing inflation (which is not only an intentional, government-led annual pay cut on the disgustingly rich, filthy rich, and annoyingly rich, but also on the middle class, poor, destitute, and various and sundry hoboes everywhere), huge debt, stupid taxes, ridiculous health care, Soviet-style redistribution, blah, blah, blah.

    I asked myself, like all Republicans did, what could we conservatives do differently? Follow Obama’s example and improve our operations to get the vote out? Build up a conservative La Raza? Do the right thing with the children of illegals? Get someone willing to land more blows on the opposition (Romney could have decimated Obama in debates two and three, but he didn’t; he totally failed to define his opponent).

    Maybe it was in the messaging. Maybe what we needed to do was develop something that actually changed minds.

    At this point a faint ding sounded in the distance in my mind. A small light bulb suddenly flipped on and illuminated a dark cubby of my mind.

    Hadn’t I just read about studies showing how a soap opera in Mexico, a radio play in Tanzania, and sitcoms in America actually changed viewer attitudes and behaviors about literacy, HIV, and abortion? Didn’t I already know about the power of concrete and vivid storytelling? Not sermon-telling, but storytelling.

    Why, yes. Yes, I did.

    Had I not witnessed the use of storytelling on U.S. television for, what, fifteen years by those wanting to build sympathy for homosexuals? (A good thing, even if I disagree with some of the gay agenda.) And the cheapening of sex by others? (A bad thing.) And the clearly conscious promotion of many other attitudes and beliefs via various media programs?

    I determined there was something to this.

    If people were going to vote for fiscal responsibility in Washington, something like this was going to have to be done. It wasn’t going to happen in flame wars.

    About this same time I was browsing through the recent Radio West programs. I saw one called “The Righteous Mind.”  It was an interview of Jonathon Haidt about his new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

    Hey, wasn’t that addressing my question?

    The program blurb states: “Monday, our guest is the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose latest book sets out to explain the root causes of the divisions in our society. At the heart of his argument is the idea that the human mind is designed to “do” morality. But when we separate into tribes – say political affiliations or religious denominations – we focus on different moral foundations. Haidt joins us to explain why he says we need the insights of liberals and conservatives to flourish as a nation.”

    I listened. And loved the program.

    Haidt shared a number of deliciously insightful things about how our mind works and how we choose our affiliations. He shared so many insights that I immediately requested his book at my library. The library ordered a copy for their collection. I, of course, was first in line to read it. I just finished the book.

    It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year.

    Haidt explains why my sister and I were both baffled by people who voted for the opposition candidate. He explains how human morality works. How our reason does not lead us to make the judgments we do, but instead more often acts like a lawyer to justify our positions to others.

    As soon as he explained that I saw how I had done that time and time again. For example, in this election cycle I blamed Obama for the economy. In the Bill Clinton re-election I vigorously argued that the President doesn’t have any effect on the economy and is lying if he takes credit for it. I’m not saying that Obama didn’t do things that might have hampered the recovery, but how did I know his actions exacerbated our problems? What evidence did I really have?

    Haidt explains that there are six basic moral bases then points out which ones drive liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, and how we can use that knowledge to disagree more constructively. He provides strong insights into how our reason and intuitions and judgments work, the evolutionary function of our morality, and how our wiring for group affiliation affects it.

    I didn’t agree with some of his conclusions. He sometimes takes his points too far. For example, he seems to suggest that people in cities are pre-disposed to be liberal. And that’s why they live there. Um, no. That’s not why they live there. They live in cities because that’s where the jobs are. The agricultural revolution made sure of that, remember? In his effort to explain the smaller biological basis of our beliefs, he also downplays the larger effect our families and groups have. But despite these excesses, he shares so many fresh and exciting ideas that they don’t matter. And he shares them all in such a fun and clear way that I couldn’t help but stay up late a number of nights reading this book.

    Do you know how much I wanted to trash Obama to my sister?  That Soviet-style central planner.  That drunken sailor spender.  That choom wagon pot head.

    And yet, you and I also know that will never work. I now know better why. Because of Haidt, I think I see a better way. I certainly see how I have done exactly what drives me mad about those who have drunk the opposition candidate’s Kool-aide. I see that I have my own conservative force field that deflects liberal bullets (and perhaps even blinds me to the truth sometimes). And why I need to watch my reason, that cunning lawyer part of my brain, as well as my intuition.

    Haidt, a liberal, has given me, a conservative, a great gift. I intend to use it. If you are interested in the two taboo topics of politics or religion, if you enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink or the Heath brother’s Made to Stick, if you want to find a better way to influence than flame wars (as fun as they can sometimes be), then I think you will enjoy the wonders Haidt shares in his fine book.

    Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to the Radio West program http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/righteous-mind for a taste of what awaits you.

  • |

    No Apology

    ByJohn Brown

    The Book

    Political TV ads can be fun. And annoying.

    Debates can be fun. And maddening.

    You can indeed learn things about the candidates from watching the ads and debates. But fifteen and thirty second snippets of information really don’t give you the full picture. And sometimes they actually hide the facts, producing nothing more than informational smog.

    Recently, I decided I wanted to really know what Mitt Romney thought.  What he was about.  What he hopes to accomplish if he wins the presidency. If Mitt was someone in my neighborhood, I’d go visit the man, and we’d have a chat.

    I’d ask him about his ideas and past. I’d ask him to give me examples. Because of the nature of the issues at stake and the number of them, I imagine our chat would probably last a few hours.  It might stretch over a number of evenings.

    Of course, I’d want time to consider our chat and determine where I did and didn’t agree with him. I’d want to hear what others thought. And I’d want to look into his history, his successes and failures.

    But the first step would be to go to the man himself and hear him out.

    I hate it when people put words in my mouth. I’m sure Romney, or anyone else running, hates that same thing. If I were running, I’d would hope folks would take the time to hear me out. They may ultimately disagree with me on many or a few things. But I’d hope, as they are gathering information, that they would take the time to actually go to the source and listen to what I myself had to say.

    Unfortunately, I can’t walk around the corner and knock on Mitt’s door. But he did write a book that was published in 2010, and it’s probably the next best thing to talking to Romney at his kitchen table. The book is called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.

    I’ll admit I thought it was going to be a dry guide book explaining his position on every hot political issue. It’s not a guide book.  In fact, he leaves a number of topics out. Nor was it dry.

    I also suspected it might be a scathing attack piece on the Obama administration. It’s not that either.  Not even close. He does criticize some things where he and Obama differ, but he also commends him on a few things. Either way, Obama is a very small part of the book.

    So what IS this book?

    Romney states its purpose in the introduction: it’s “about what I believe should be our primary national objective: to keep America strong and to preserve its place as the world’s leading nation” and “the course I believe we must take to strengthen the nation in order to remain prosperous, secure, and free” (2). It’s about his ideas on how to make sure America does not falter as so many nations have, but remains wealthy, happy, and productive.

    I finished the book yesterday. I found it interesting, personable, sometimes surprising, and insightful.

    I found Mitt Romney to be a man self-deprecating humor.  He’s also a thinking man, one who likes to look at data to see what it shows. It’s clear he’s a man who does NOT think he knows everything or has a monopoly on every good idea, but he’s also a man who demands evidence.  I also saw a man who is kind.  He doesn’t talk much about his 14 years of service as a lay minister in his church in this book, but you can see how those years changed him as he discusses helping the unemployed, out-of-wedlock births, and single-parent families.  Finally, I saw a man who loves, LOVES, America and is convinced she can remain the hope of the earth, but only if we do things that foster our strength.

    This book outlines what he thinks those things are.

    The book is written in a conversational and easy style with many examples from his personal experience, studies, and history. Romney’s record of accomplishments demonstrates his skills and hard work ethic. This book explains to what end he would apply that skill and work.

    If you’re planning on voting this November for the president of the United States, I think you’ll find this book very useful.  You may end up agreeing with many things he says. You may end up disagreeing with him on many points. But before you can do either, you need to understand what Romney’s position actually is.  And the first step in doing so is to fully hear the man out, in his own words, from his own lips.

    As a result, whether you end up deciding he’s your candidate or not, you WILL come away with important insights into the issues discussed.

    What’s Next

    I want you to know that I do not worship George, Ben, Tom, Adam or any of the other guys who formed our constitution and started this nation.

    They put their lives and fortunes on the line for what they believed in. And I am immensely grateful for what they did.  I enjoy tremendous freedoms because of their courage, determination, and sacrifice. Those guys, by-and-large, rock!

    But I do NOT believe that their words are scripture nor that their ideas are sacrosanct—merely to be accepted and not to be considered and questioned and disagreed with.

    Even so, these guys were gutsy and brilliant. They attempted something everyone thought would fail.  Something that HAD failed every time it had been attempted in their recorded history. But they pulled it off and changed the world.

    These guys believed in the common man. They believed that the educated common man was the best person to hold the reins of government. Thomas Jefferson thought up a rhyme to make the idea easy to remember.  He said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

    I can’t argue with that.

    Of course, we’re not going to become experts on every policy issue. But we certainly can become informed on the broad principles and issues. And we can certainly become informed about the candidates.

    Because I found No Apology so useful, over the next few days I’m going to summarize Romney’s main points, chapter by chapter, here. I’ll also point out interesting ideas and facts he shares as well as share any questions, quibbles, or disagreements I have.

    I hope you find it useful. More importantly, I hope you read the book and join in the conversation.

  • 1491, 1493, and Greek Gods

    ByJohn Brown

    New Revelations About America

    A common idea taught about the Indians (and, yes, it appears when you can’t simply refer to their tribe, most prefer that term to “American Indian,” especially those in South and Central America) is that they lived in such harmony with the land, that they trod so lightly upon it, that the landscape showed hardly any sign of their passing. This is, after all, what we were shown in Disney’s Pocahontas and James Cameron’s more recent Avatar, isn’t it?  

    Many of us were also brought up to believe that there really weren’t that many Indians around anyway.  They were subsistence societies. There certainly were no cities comparable to those in Europe at the time. And especially not in places like the Amazon or Boliva.

    We were taught that the Indians traveled here by walking to America across the Bering Strait land bridge that stretched from Russia to Alaska during the ice age around 10,000 BC. When they arrived, the proceeded to eat a tremendous amount of meat, killing off all the mega fauna like mammoths.

    We were taught other things. But it appears that many of these things have recently been shown to be false. Sometimes dramatically so.

    For example, the Indians transformed their landscapes, tens of thousands of square miles of it, very often through burning, but also through other ingenious ways.

    There were far more Indians in 1491 than most folks know. Recent research suggests that Central Mexico was the most densely populated place on earth at the time, “with more than twice as many people per square mile than China or India.” The total population of the Americas in 1491, by some estimates, was between 90-112 million people, meaning that MORE people lived in the Americas than in Europe.

    Finally, it appears that the Indians were here twenty to thirty thousand years ago. They were here when Europe north of Paris was still uninhabitable and mostly covered by glaciers!

    Charles Mann describes these and a number of other fascinating findings in his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. He relays the information in such an engaging style that I found myself picking the book up at every chance. When I was finished, I wanted more.

    Luckily, in 1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created Mann continues his history lesson. Except instead of focusing on the surprising things we’ve learned about the Indians in the last two decades, he focuses on the surprising impacts, both biological and financial, of linking the Western and Eastern hemispheres together. It’s the biggest event in the world, Mann suggests, since the dinosaurs died. Mann suggests that Columbus didn’t discover a new world–his voyage created one.

    The first part of the book examines the effect of the exchanges across the Atlantic (microbes  and tobacco). The next part focuses on the effect of the exchanges across the Pacific (silk, corn, and pirates). The third part shows the role of the exchange in the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions (potatoes, guano, and rubber).  The final part examines the consequences of the huge shift in populations caused by the Atlantic slave trade (Maroons, mixed-marriages, and freedom). As with 1492, the insights are both surprising and fascinating.

    If you like history, if you liked Guns, Germs, & Steel, then I think you will love these two books.

    EDIT: I just ran across a fabulous Doug Fabrizio Radio West interview with Charles Mann about 1493 called  The World Columbus Created.  Listen and enjoy!

    Divine Yogurt

    For years eating a serving of sweetened yogurt was like eating a box of Milk Duds (20 grams of sugar) or a Milky Way candy bar (35 grams of sugar). Yes, the sweetened yogurts have that much sugar. The only way to avoid eating literally like a kid in a candy store was to purchase plain yogurt and add some fruit or a squirt of honey. And, no, I will not consider eating yogurt sweetened with Splenda or Nutrasweet.  Artificial sweeteners make me gag. As far as I’m concerned, they are abominations that ruin the taste of everything they touch.

    So for many years I enjoyed my mix of plain yogurt and various add-ins. However, to my joy, I recently discovered a sweetened yogurt with only 15 grams of sugar (about as much as you find in a large banana) that tastes divine. It’s sweetened with real sugar and honey. And the mouth feel is sooooooo smooth. I’m sure this is because, unlike all the other yogurt manufacturers, these guys realized that, duh, fat actually makes things taste good and isn’t the  evil thing we’ve made it out to be. In just two bites it became my favorite sweetened yogurt. It’s called The Greek Gods Traditional Greek Yogurt. I’ve found another version—the vanilla honey—that only has 5 grams of sugar.

    Be aware that despite its name, this yogurt does NOT have the high protein content of other Greek style yogurts such as Brown Cow Greek Yogurt with 23 grams. Furthermore, not all the flavors have the low sugar content. Their blueberry and strawberry flavors, for example, have 35 grams. So check the labels first, and then treat yourself to yogurt that will have you savoring every bite.

    When I eat yogurt, it will still mostly be the plain Greek style with mixers. But when I want a special treat, you know I’ll be getting some from The Greek Gods.

    EDIT: 9/6/12 I now feel like Jerry Seinfeld in the episode when they found out the fat free frozen yogurt really wasn’t fat free. All the other yogurts I was looking at had serving sizes of 1 cup. The Greek Gods folks thought 1/2 a cup was the right size. That means that this super amazing low sugar yogurt had 30 grams of sugar per serving! It’s like eating a Snickers! I’m so disillusioned. Alas.

  • Spider-man, Dark Knight, Downton, and Brave

    ByJohn Brown

    The Amazing Spider-man

    The Amazing Spider-man is one of the most enjoyable superhero movies I’ve seen in the last ten, heck, fifteen years.  It rocks.

    Is it as good as any in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series? Yes, but it never becomes dark.  And in many ways I think it might be better.

    How about Iron Man? Oh, yeah.  Not as witty, but just as funny.

    Sherlock Holmes?  Spiderman 2?  Yes and yes. And I don’t care what you say, Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.  He can’t bend metal with his mind, but almost. He’s certainly as much a superhero as, say, Black Widow.

    What made this Spider-man so good?

    The story tells the story of how Peter Parker becomes Spider-man.  I know, we’ve seen it before, but unlike other superhero movies, this one, like Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, actually chooses more realism and less cartoon.  There were so many unexpected real moments and details that I couldn’t help but believe.  There were Parker’s boxers hanging out when he gets beat up, his reactions when he’s trying to find his hero outfit, and the fact that he performs his derring-do while toting about a teen’s most trusted gear–a backpack and cell phone!  He fails at many things, just like a teen would in this situation, which is so refreshing–this is not yet another all-powerful superhero!  

    Like so many superhero movies, this one features another mad scientist with mad science.  It’s still the stuff of comic books after all. But what I really enjoyed were the moments of comedy, the delightful romance, and the fact that Spider-man is way more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him portrayed.  The movie kept delivering pleasant surprise after pleasant surprise.  Towards the end, it all works together to honestly earn a swell of emotion in a scene which I won’t reveal here and spoil for you.  

    Just know that if you want to see a movie full of action, drama, and fun, you’ll want to watch this one.

    The Dark Knight Rises

    I have been looking forward to the last Christopher Nolan Batman for quite some time, and The Dark Knight Rises delivers. 

    After taking the fall in the last movie for Harvey Dent, Batman/Bruce Wayne goes into reclusive retirement.  But we all know what happens when you stop minding the wheel.  A new villain shows up named Bane, and very soon Gotham is reeling.  Which means Batman needs to come back.  But Batman ain’t the Batman he used to be.

    This Batman and the recent Spider-man have taught me that I enjoy heroes that can be beaten soundly.  I like heroes that can and do lose.  They are so much more interesting than those who always seem to pull it out. 

    There’s a lot of cool action in this movie.  Batman has a cool new toy.  There are a number of well-executed plot twists.  And I think I enjoyed the slow reveal of Bane’s back story about as much or more than I have for any villain.  But I think my favorite part is at the end when Batman makes his sacrifice.  I know the movie had to end as it does, but I almost wish we didn’t have the last five minutes because it undermined that incredibly powerful note for me.  Yes, I’m being intentionally obscure to avoid spoilers.  Whether you agree with me or like the movie with the last five minutes added on (as my wife did), if you like big action flicks, you don’t want to miss this one.

    Downton Abbey season 2

    About nine months ago I reviewed Downton Abbey, a BBC miniseries that aired on PBS. The first season is set in the fictional Downton Abbey and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants. The stories take place over the time period that starts with the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 to the outbreak of the First World War on 4 August 1914.

    The main story line running through those episodes is the fact that the Crawley family must give up the estate to a distant relation because they have no male heir.  But it wasn’t just about the aristocrats.  One of the most delightful aspects of the series is that it also featured the refreshing stories of various servants. Some were funny. Some pulled at your heart strings. Some were tragic.

    Well, Downton is back with a second season that you can get on Netflix if you missed it on PBS. The events span the first world war. Some of those we met in season one go to war; some stay at the estate.  Other new folks mix in.  What’s constant is that the wonderful storytelling continues.  As a family, we enjoyed all of the characters, but I must say that Maggie Smith (who played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series) seems to get a majority of the best lines as the Dowager Countess.  We looked forward to every minute she was on the screen. 

    This is a fabulous series.  If you like Pride & Prejudice or Cranford, you will love watching the stories of Downton Abbey.

    Brave

    I’m just about out of time, but let me just say that if you’re looking for an enjoyable family movie, you need to watch Brave.  It’s set in the highlands of Scotland in the 10th century and tells the story of Princess Merida who doesn’t want to marry, even if it means war with the other clans.  To change her mother’s mind, Merida turns to a witch for a potion.  Of course, potions never go well, do they, and the kingdom and lives of those Merida loves are soon put at stake.  The movie focuses on the mother and daughter, with the father providing comic relief.  There are plenty of laffs, some parts that will put younger viewers on the edge of their seats, and a wise message for parents and children alike.