A wide-ranging, ultimately hopeful book that has much to offer readers interested in government and politics, whether they...
This meticulously researched debut treatise explains where and how the United States has gone wrong and posits a new vision of the government to help fix it.
Harrington is convinced that America is going down the wrong path. Should the pattern hold, he says, the United States will default on its debt by 2021, which will be disastrous. But he also firmly believes that there are answers and that they’re achievable. What he proposes, however, is both radical and fairly shocking: to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. His book is huge in scope, covering the mindsets of the framers of the Constitution; the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and John Locke; and ideas on how health care ought to work, among other things. But no particular piece seems out of place, and overall, the book avoids an overly alarmist tone. Harrington’s legal training allows him to expediently unpack the intricacies of government language. However, his former career as a businessman shines, both in his proposed structure for the executive branch, which imagines the president as a CEO with four COOs and no veto power, and in his unmistakable hubris in singlehandedly conceiving a plan to save the nation. He does a good job of explicating jargon and terminology, but he introduces so many abbreviations—such as GDP, CBO, OMB and XXX—that a list of definitions would have been useful. The text is thoroughly annotated, and the endnotes include complete citations for all references, although there’s no separate bibliography nor are there access dates for online sources. Although the book is successfully nonpartisan, Harrington can’t quite keep himself out of the story, as evidenced by sentences such as “I would prefer to avoid such a difficult transition.” He also troublingly lapses into historical fiction when setting the scene for the signing of the Constitution.
A wide-ranging, ultimately hopeful book that has much to offer readers interested in government and politics, whether they agree with its conclusions or not.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991583157
Page Count: 574
Publisher: Fort Point Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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