On January 30 of last year Ralph Nader and some like-minded associates had a blast at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. But before anyone gets the wrong notion, it was a most sober toot — advocates of "whistle blowing" (exposing government or industry activity which conflicts with the public interest) assembled for a one-day Conference on Professional Responsibility. The morning session heard Nader discuss the whistle-blowing ethic (what criteria might an individual use when confronted with the question of loyalty vs. conscience?), then Senator William Proxmire on the federal employee's obligation (a draft of his pending Employee Rights and Accountability Act which would ensure due process for civil servants is appended), Robert (Up the Organization) Townsend on fingering malfeasance in the business community, and finally Prof. Arthur Miller (George Washington Law) on the legal issues (cf. the Ellsberg-Russo case). In the afternoon, nine prominent whistle blowers — Dr. Jacqueline Verrett (FDA, cyclamates), A. Ernest Fitzgerald (formerly Air Force, C-5A cost overruns), Dr. Dale Console (formerly Squibb Co., drug industry exploitation), et al. — talked about their cases, attitudes, and convictions. Most conferees agreed that, while it is unlikely the whistle-blowing process can or should be systematized, general strategies and guidelines are required (codes of ethics, bills of rights, legislation, and the like) — proposals similar to those offered in Peters and Branch's Blowing the Whistle (p. 246). To be citizen first and employee second is one of those wrenching ontological choices; the merit of this latest volume in the Nader Advocacy Library is that it sensitizes the problem and offers pragmatic encouragement.
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 1972
ISBN: 0670762253
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Grossman
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972
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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