Robinson’s concise guide to preventing employment discrimination lawsuits suggests developing business practices that accord with the Christian faith.
Robinson’s compact guide has two big goals: provide employers with practical steps to reduce their exposure to discrimination lawsuits and explain how those steps naturally follow Christian tenets. Robinson—who draws on his experiences as a practitioner-in-residence at the University of New Haven and his work as a labor lawyer—also examines the most common types of discrimination lawsuits, as well as how to increase the likelihood that the employer will win such cases in court. The book focuses on several major categories of discrimination: race, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability and religion; it also covers sexual harassment suits. Robinson briefly explains the laws that govern each type of discrimination case, and he provides practical advice employers can use to ensure they’re hiring, promoting, demoting and firing within the limits of the law. He describes how many of these actions—such as promoting workers according to their skills or providing reasonable accommodations for disabled employees—are actually mentioned in the Bible. As a “faith-based” guide for employers, the link between U.S. employment law and Christian teachings are key to the book’s premise: An employer that follows his or her Christian principles first will be well-served when it comes to meeting the requirements of secular employment discrimination law. Less helpful is the advice given to members of protected groups to avoid becoming victims of discrimination, which is not only not Bible-based, but also tends to boil down to counseling that they “be less” a member of the group in question. Although the sections addressing employees are well-intentioned, the guide provides much more thorough advice to employers, especially those who are Christian.
Clearly explains how Christian employers can stay within the bounds of the law while also meeting the requirements of their faith.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-1449770631
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: BODY, MIND & SPIRIT
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BOOK REVIEW
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Categories: BODY, MIND & SPIRIT | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
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BOOK REVIEW
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.
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The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2020
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