Entertaining, sometimes-insightful political philippics, although they lack timeliness and depth.
An assemblage of spirited opinions from a political blog.
Mento offers a collection of posts that he previously published from 2005 to 2012 on Thieves in the Temple, a “political action weblog.” They cover a broad range of topics, including the Iraq War, the failings of the media, the 2008 housing crisis, and environmental protection. Each entry is just a single paragraph in length and focuses only on one issue, resulting in a litany of quick-witted reactions rather than lengthy disquisitions. The author unabashedly identifies himself as a purveyor of liberal values—both on practical and moral grounds—but he directs his criticisms at both sides of the aisle, as he’s more committed to a thoughtful liberalism than to any particular party. For example, there’s no shortage of scathing judgments of Barack Obama’s policies, both as a senator and as president. And although Mento generally avoids grand philosophical issues, he permeates the book with discussion of what the essences of liberalism and conservatism really are. Some of the most intellectually engaging discussions revolve around the definition of an authentically conservative creed; for example, he argues that a true conservative would embrace economic protectionism rather than internationally free markets: “And wouldn’t a real conservative think of a ‘global economy’ as a near-synonym for ‘foreign entanglements?’ ” Mento writes with acerbic flair and has a talent for distilling complex issues into quickly digestible parts. Also, he combines the comic with the serious seamlessly—just about every post is studded with sarcastic irony. However, there are limitations that are inherent to the book’s format: one-paragraph discussions are rarely deep and have a tendency to devolve into platitudes. Further, because Mento’s discussions usually targeted news of the moment, much of the book feels dated. The signature virtue of a blog is its responsiveness to current events, so it seems odd to immortalize such ephemeral reflections in print.
Entertaining, sometimes-insightful political philippics, although they lack timeliness and depth.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Blunt Instruments
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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