An intense and accessible behind-the-bench examination of the Supreme Court's surprising drift to the center. Simon (Law/New York Law School; The Antagonists, 1989, etc.) focuses on four ideological flashpointsracial discrimination, abortion, criminal procedure, and the First Amendmentto show how Chief Justice William Rehnquist has so far failed to command a consistent conservative majority on the High Court. Since 1986, Rehnquist has endeavored to find the votes to overturn pesky civil rights precedents, including but not limited to Roe v. Wade. Antonin Scalia, Byron White, and Clarence Thomas can be counted on to advance the right wing's political agenda, but none of the other Reagan/Bush appointees (Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter) has proven to be a surefire fifth vote. Using the justices' internal memoranda, letters, notes, draft opinions, and court transcripts, Simon shows how the centrist justices' votes are sometimes the product of wrenching intellectual struggles (the devout Kennedy's decision to strike public-school commencement prayer as violating church/state separation), sometimes of personal animus (O'Connor's defection from the dump-Roe camp following Scalia's nasty attack on her professional competence). The author clearly approves of the centrists' independence and is no fan of Rehnquist, who comes off as an unprincipled activist ill-suited to consensus-building, or of Scalia, who appears egomaniacal and obnoxious. But his harshest words are saved for Thomas, ``unimpressive'' and evasive at his confirmation hearings, ``the least engaged,'' ``least influential'' justice on the bench. Court watchers may find Simon's analysis too narrowfor example, his discussion of privacy interests omits a 1986 decision upholding Georgia's antisodomy statuteand other readers will be nettled by occasional sexist references to ``Sandra'' and to female attorneys' wardrobes. But this fascinating book will restore faith in the judiciary and in the men and women who wear its robes.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80293-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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