While portions of this philosophical book deliver odd phrasings, the author’s message involving the questioning of authority...
This second installment of a series examines symbols, means of control, and what it truly means to be human.
Book one in this philosophical series explored a number of Beyor’s (Guarded Hearts: Genesis Sabotage, 2016, etc.) “axioms” regarding artificially constructed symbols and their impact on natural humans. (One such axiom states that “our agreed symbols will take the biological creature to the knees of insanity.”) Book two further develops these themes and encourages action. Have humans been conditioned their entire lives to worship symbols and icons? Are their legal and religious systems merely constructs of control? What about the natural state of their minds? Addressing such sentiments in a series of chapters (referred to in the text as “Journals”) that range from the simply titled “Communication” to the sci-fi-sounding “The Omega Strain,” the book hashes out ideas in dense, impassioned prose. Exploring topics such as the true intentions of Jesus and the shortcomings of the educational system (“children are not being taught to think only to obey and blame”), the volume discusses many tangents, though the focus remains clear: the author’s questioning of authority and the symbols it endorses. Many statements such as “video monitor destruction and drone deaths are the new headgame war fought by the lethal watchers confederacy” and “the whole working brain interdicts the topical single sense domination as illogical” require close scrutiny. While the author’s authenticity is without question, details can be lost in such convoluted phrasings. With many lines aimed directly at the reader (for example, “You must learn to read between the lines, not on the lines. Our feelings are very real and they guide us”), the work is likely to generate critical thinking. Is it true, as the author argues, that “laws make people lazy” and slothful? Whether or not readers agree, such questions provide an opportunity to look more closely at what is taken for granted in the modern world. After all, getting past what “all the profit-driven institutions” want humans to believe “can be done, but it takes work and taking back personal will.” Even if the finer points of the author’s arguments can be murky, such a devoted conviction remains inspiring.
While portions of this philosophical book deliver odd phrasings, the author’s message involving the questioning of authority should kindle new ideas for open-minded readers.Pub Date: June 2, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 317
Publisher: eBookIt.com
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2016
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 Yorker staff 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
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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