Viewpoints - Facts & Fiction

These are a few books that I believe are worth reading; both non-fiction and fiction:

The Dream and The Nightmare – The Legacy of The 60’s - Author Myron Magnet This one is a must read!
Consuming Kids - Susan Lind
In Defense of Elitism - William A. Henry Another must read
American Dynasty - Another must read for active Republicans and Democrats
At a Tender Age – Violent Youth and Criminal Justice - Eric Hoffer
Good To Great - Jim Collins
Brain Washed - Ben Shapiro
Give Me a Break - Lewis M. Feldstein & John Stossel
The Rise of the Vulcans - James Mann
The Great Unraveling - Paul Krugman
Any Place I Hang My Hat - Susan Isaacs
Standing In The Rainbow - Fannie Flagg
The Quiet Game - Greg Isles
Sick Puppy and Skinny Dipping - Carl Hiaasen
Dirty (Drug Epidemic) - Meredith Maran
Good Faith - Jan Smiley
Quantons - Maeve Binckley
In The Moon of Red Ponies - James Lee Burke
Better Together - Robert B. Putnam
Also most of the books by Tony Hillerman, with settings in the Four Corners, an area I love to visit and read about.

Send me some titles of books you think I might like based on this list of my preferences.


I will dwell on a book I just finished called “Avenger” by Fredrick Forsyth. Forsyth is best known as the author of “The Day of the Jackal”. (The above listed writers have also written more than one book worth reading). Forsyth mixes mostly fact with fiction. I will quote from the Avenger some non-fiction statements. He refers to the way much of the Third World and their far left wing sycophants are looking at The United States. Forsyth writes “Your country is in constant reproach. It is rich to their poor, strong to their weak, vigorous to their idle, enterprising to their reactionaries, ingenious to their bewildered, can do to their sit-and-wait, thrusting to their timid. Demagogues rise to shout “Everything the Americans have, they stole from you”. “They roar in rage and that rage becomes hatred; hatred needs a target. The working class of the third world does not hate you; it is the pseudo intellectuals. (You seldom hear of intellectuals blowing themselves up, usually it’s the poor and ignorant or fanatics). If they ever forgive you, they must indict themselves. So far, their hatred lacks weaponry. One day they will acquire that weaponry. Then you (or your siblings) will have to fight or die. Not in tens but in tens of thousands”. (Probably millions if those who would kill us figure out a way to launch biological attacks on us).

We are in Iraq, certainly a Third World country and we will stay until Iraqi democracy can reasonably control the terrorists, no, not freedom fighters, but terrorists who would kill any one us if given the opportunity.

We are in foreign lands because there are more reasons to be there than not.
We can today be attacked by many means from anyplace by any group; even be attacked by terrorists from within. We have shown the entire world that no one is safe from terrorists and we ourselves in our entire history have never been safe from terrorism. We fought our own Revolution and Civil War; there are millions of our own people who today do not feel safe from terrorism in the very communities in which they live. Our prisons are filled with many terrorists from within our own borders. We have more people protecting us in just the State of Illinois than we have protecting the entire country of Iraq. Most Iraq people want democracy and they voted in much larger percentages than we do in this country. We have democracy which we mistakenly take for granted. If religious frictions do not lead to a civil war in Iraq similar to our own, Iraqis will have a democracy of their own choosing rather than dictatorship and enslavement.

We made and make serious mistakes everyday and serious mistakes have been made in our foreign policy not only by this administration but by previous administrations. Look at the mistakes we make every day, 42,000 people are killed each year, (16,000 alcohol related) without leaving the U.S.A., in just automobile accidents alone, all mistakes. (Accidents are usually called mistakes, and more than a million people each year are injured and millions left grieving by these mistakes). Why don’t the bleeding liberals who hate and look for someone to blame, concentrate on cutting these accidental deaths to say, 20,000? After all, those who are killed accidentally, injured, mentally damaged by abuse, murdered, take their own lives, are in serious depression, all these are grieved as much as the small number, comparatively, that are killed and injured in our defense. I call those serving our country with loyalty and risking their well-being; heroes. I call someone who kills or injures due to overuse of alcohol; drunks.

Anyway, reading enlightens, but as a mountain has many sides, so do viewpoints.
Good books, with many viewpoints, are better than watching the Cubs or almost any sitcom!!