by Zach Wahls with Bruce Littlefield ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012
A sincere first effort that aims to chip away at stereotypes surrounding same-sex parents.
With the assistance of Littlefield (co-author: The Truth Advantage: The 7 Keys to a Happy and Fulfilling Life, 2011, etc.), Wahls writes about growing up as the son of gay parents in the heartland.
In January 2011, the author, then a student at the University of Iowa, testified before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee as they considered a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In a short speech, Wahls talked about being raised by two lesbians and how his childhood was no different than those of children raised by heterosexual couples. The speech was aimed at dismantling the myth that kids are damaged by having gay parents, and it was effective: The YouTube video of the speech was viewed more than 18 million times, and Wahls appeared on national TV talk shows, including The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Here the author expands on his speech, discussing the values that his parents helped to instill in him, naming chapters after aspects of the Boy Scout law: “Trustworthy,” “Courteous,” “Reverent.” (Wahls takes pride in his scouting experience, repeatedly mentioning that he is an Eagle Scout, but he disagrees with the Boy Scouts of America’s official policy banning gays from leadership positions.) Some of the author’s stories are quite moving—particularly those addressing his mother Terry’s multiple sclerosis—but many of Wahls’ epiphanies are unsurprising: “We are more alike than we are different”; “hate has no hope of ever erasing hate”; etc. The book works best when there's more levity amidst the earnestness, as when the author humorously answers questions he’s asked most frequently (e.g., “Which one of your moms is the man?”). Few minds will be changed by this book—it seems unlikely that a homophobe would read something titled My Two Moms—but Wahls’ heart is in the right place.
A sincere first effort that aims to chip away at stereotypes surrounding same-sex parents.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-592-40713-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Bari Weiss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 1974
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
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