The drawings of L. S. Lowry : public and private / with an introd. and notes by Mervyn Levy

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The drawings of L. S. Lowry : public and private / with an introd. and notes by Mervyn Levy
Laurence Stephen (1887-1976) Lowry
Manufacturer: London : Jupiter Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VT5HBM

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The drawings of L. S. Lowry: Public and private
Laurence Stephen Lowry
Manufacturer: Jupiter Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Drawing | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Lowry, L.S. | ( J-L ) | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0904041697

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THE DRAWINGS OF L. S. LOWRY: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

Manufacturer: Jupiter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Lowry, L.S. | ( J-L ) | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000HIL658

Book Description

Feminists have argued that the Barbie doll perpetuates unrealistic standards of feminine beauty and undermines the credibility of women. Yet, for every mother who disapproves of Barbie, there is a young daughter who adores her. Barbie has enjoyed a prosperous and important history in Western culture, but she is simply the most high-profile of a series of iconic dolls produced in the past 150 years. For the first time, this history is explored to reveal how intimately connected dolls have been to fashion and culture, from their early history right up to the present day. The prominence of haute couture in popular culture suggests that the link between fashion marketing and dolls should be an obvious one. Yet to date this connection has not been adequately interrogated. Peers' original and shrewd analysis fills a major gap in cultural studies by examining the doll's associations with concepts of femininity and fashionability.

Book Description

Sakis, the Scion and Godslayer, gets entangled in a deadly incident when an unknown ship enters Lagoonarian airspace. After uncovering explosives along with the seeds of Abomination, Sakis begins a quest to uncover the mysteries surrounding the Ancient Gods!

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful, but not greatly presented as it should be.......2006-01-22

I am a really huge fan of Yukiru Sugisaki and finally getting her new series, Lagoon Engine Einsatz, in graphic novel format is a really treat for me. The story is really deep so it gets confusing from the beginning, however, they've included "Einsatz Revealed" to explain some of the keywords in the story to make it easier to understand. Sugisaki's artwork of course in here is really beautiful and has a unique look from her other series. However, one of the most disappointing thing I found (I own the first printing) was that the lineart were very pixelated, due printing error, instead of crisp line you would commonly find in the original tanks. As an artist, it really really bothers me to have to flip through the page, especially Sugisaki's work, pixelated. I hope the error has been fixed for the other edition...But other than that, I look foward to seeing more of her L.E.Einsatz.

Customer Reviews:

Cat Secrets Revealed.......2003-04-28

This itty bitty book explains quite a few things about cat behavior! Apparently cats are very in tune with feng shui and the flow of energy in our homes. Okay, so it's really just a funny little book that's good for a little entertainment and humor. My fave bit in the book is that to keep the positive flow of energy black cats should only shed on white furniture, white cats should only shed on black furniture, and calicos can shed on everything. I have a calico, so I love that part. This is a great little book for any cat lover.

Customer Reviews:

Carreyed it with me for over a month..........1999-05-03

it was my bible. After "Truman" I was starved for information and this book was just the thing (at least up to 1995, and of course I've preordered the update). Although I hadn't known Mr. Carrey before "Truman", I felt I could really get into the spirit! All the same, I doubt it can even try to do his rather complex personality full justice. I think one way or the other he's still got everbody fooled...and a book is far too static a medium for such a hearttouchingly brilliant changeling!

The best JC information book available!!.......1998-05-27

"The Jim Carrey Scrapbook" is my favorite JC information resource!! Contained are tons of pictures, bio info, and more. It's my favorite JC information book!!!

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JIM CARREY SCRAPBOOK
SCOTT (EDT)/ SIEGEL, BARBARA (EDT) SIEGEL
Manufacturer: CAROL PUBLISHING GROUP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KV6HIS

Book Description

An aesthetic, historical, and theoretical study of four scores, Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement is a groundbreaking and imaginative treatment of the important yet neglected topic of Russian opera in the Silver Age. Spanning the gap between the supernatural Russian music of the nineteenth century and the compositions of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, this exceptionally insightful and well-researched book explores how Russian symbolist poets interpreted opera and prompted operatic innovation. Simon Morrison shows how these works, though stylistically and technically different, reveal the extent to which the operatic representation of the miraculous can be translated into its enactment.
Morrison treats these largely unstudied pieces by canonical composers: Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, Rimsky-Korsakov's Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya, Scriabin's unfinished Mysterium, and Prokofiev's Fiery Angel. The chapters, revisionist studies of these composers and scores, address separate aspects of Symbolist poetics, discussing such topics as literary and musical decadence, pagan-Christian syncretism, theurgy, and life creation, or the portrayal of art in life. The appendix offers the first complete English-language translation of Scriabin's libretto for the Preparatory Act.
Providing valuable insight into both the Symbolist enterprise and Russian musicology, this book casts new light on opera's evolving, ambiguous place in fin de siècle culture.

Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement.(Book Review): An article from: The Modern Language Review

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Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement.(Book Review): An article from: The Modern Language Review
Helen Galbraith
Manufacturer: Modern Humanities Research Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Modern Language Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association on July 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1225 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement.(Book Review)
Author: Helen Galbraith
Publication: The Modern Language Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2004
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
Volume: 99 Issue: 3 Page: 849(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Crash is back and better than ever with nearly thirty minigames at his little orange fingertips that you?re going to need help with. Crash Bash: Prima's Official Strategy Guide returns with your favorite Crash sidekicks to deliver everything you?ll need to make it in their world. You wanna win? Better not crash the party without Prima. The guide gives you:

Winning strategies for all twenty-two challenges
Helpful hints for Gem and Crystal challenges
Detailed tips for defeating all four Boss Characters
Secret Bonus challenges
Explanation of all objectives, rules, controls, special items, and parameters

Customer Reviews:

Toxic Barrels.......2006-01-03

When you are playing Toxic Dash don't hurry!Player 3 will usually ram into the first,inside toxic barrel.

Not Helpful.......2001-06-24

This guide is very good in finding the trophies, gems, and crystals. But, it has NO help on how to get Gold Relics or Platinum Relics. And the Relics are the hardest to achive.

Descriptive, Graphic, and Helpful.......2001-01-07

The strategy guide for Crash Bash is often helpful, but lacks hints for some important parts. This book mainly tells how the game works, but spends a lot of time giving hints. It focuses on general play, and often omits tips for gems and crystals. If you're well on your way and just want a backup, you shouldn't get it; you're probably using most of the strategies already. I recommend getting this mainly if you're stuck on several parts and you're desperate.

great book.......2000-12-28

if you are having problems with the game get this book

Crash Bash W/Stickers for Toys (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

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Crash Bash W/Stickers for Toys (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)
Prima
Manufacturer: Prima Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Video & Electronic Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Video Games | Games & Strategy Guides | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0761533192

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Easy to read packed with examples

Larry King is wrong

Larry King is right!

Kind of fluffy...

Masterful : The Art of War redux

How To Win Any Argument: Without Raising Your Voice, Losing Your Cool, Or Coming To Blows
Robert Mayer
Manufacturer: Career Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Communications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Human Resources & Personnel Management | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Interpersonal Relations | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
General | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic

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How to Spot a Liar: Why People Don't Tell the Truth And How You Can Catch Them

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How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday

ASIN: 1564148106

Book Description

Are you anticipating an argument with your boss when you ask for a raise?

Are you expecting trouble from a supplier, contractor, landlord or subordinate?

Are you the parent of an argumentative teen or a teen with an argumentative parent?

The art of the argument—the pro's game of knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Winning arguments without raising your voice, losing your cool, or coming to blows. Without bulldozing and browbeating the other guy. Without offending or embarrassing anyone, including yourself.

Winning arguments with confidence, grace and ease.

If you're ready, Bob Mayer will show you how in a light, humorous, page-turning read filled with personal and celebrity anecdotes and riveting tidbits. What is the book's secret? "It's martial. It's mental judo. Where you use the other guy's energy to win. It's mind-set. It's charisma." That's how the New York Times describes Bob Mayer's winning methodology.

Customer Reviews:

Easy to read packed with examples.......2007-06-10

Instead of boring the reader with a myriad of empty theories, the author packed this book with a ton of real-life examples that serve as a cornerstone to the underlying message. The examples make it a very easy read and the message gets out fast.

The only negative aspect of this book (that doesn't affect the material) is the amateurish presentation of the text. The layout should be better and not remind us of basic Word documents.

Larry King is wrong.......2007-05-27

Don't waste your money, don't waste your time, dont't waste your brain: this book is not worth buying, is not worth having, is not worth reading.

Larry King is right!.......2007-04-17

Larry King is right. This is a great book which really opens your mind on the behavior of people in business situations and in personal life. At times, the writing lost my attention but overall, I recommend this book for everyone to read.
Dealing with your kids, people at work, the boardroom, customers, neighbors, etc... this book opens your eyes and ears to a new way of thinking.
Great book Robert!

Kind of fluffy..........2006-11-26

He touches on some important and valid concepts, but the organization is poor and areas where I wanted more information I had to look up in google. If he had references in his book it would have been better and I would have probably given it a higher score. He touches on concepts from influence and persuasion, psychology, social psychology and argumentation theory, but doesn't get detailed enough to make an impression that will stick. And his recommendation from Larry King is a blatant 'appeal to authority' taking the inappropriate path of influence described by the 'elaboration-likelihood model' of persuasion. Considering we all sought and purchased this book would mean we have more than a superficial interest in it and the other elaboration likelihood path would have been more appropriate.

Masterful : The Art of War redux.......2006-11-01

We have all had quarrels with friends and enemies -- especially relatives. Bob Mayer has astutely and amusingly provided a guide to winning without making your antagonist an enemy. In fact, following Mayer's scenarios, whether it be in the workplace or a good old-fashioned row waiting to happen the minute you walk in the door, you can triumph by disarming the other person, your kid, or the bullying boss. You will learn how to keep your cool and smile your way to victory and persuade your personal demon to use the meat cleaver on the side of beef rather than you. This is fun, easy to read and filled with life lessons and wisdom. Bravo!

Book Description

Featuring Michael Chabon ¥ Kathryn Harrison ¥ Matt Bai ¥ Martha McPhee ¥ Susan Straight ¥ Ayelet Waldman ¥ Colin Harrison ¥ Amy Bloom ¥ Peter Richmond ¥ Jonathan Goldstein ¥ Anthony Giardina ¥ Dani Shapiro ¥ Darcey Steinke ¥ Ta-Nehisi Coates ¥ Sarah Jenkins ¥ Barbara Jones ¥ Tom Junod

In-laws are the inescapable consequence of marriage. Whether they're kind or malevolent, respectful or intrusive, they're unavoidable. The relationship can be traumatic, rewarding, maddening, and hilarious-sometimes all at once. Now, Ilena Silverman brings together a collection of talented, insightful writers who plumb their own experiences for unexpected wisdom about this prickly and often misunderstood relationship.

Customer Reviews:

Great stories- ignore stupid title- this is great writing.......2006-03-10

What a terrific compilation. Great writing, great stories. Moving, touching, teaching stories. Thank you to these authors who shared their lives, their thoughts and feelings.

Only thing I didn't like is the title. Can't believe they couldn't come up with a better one to capture the essence of this book, these people's stories.

Love or hate your in-laws, doesn't matter- this book is for you.
It might make you call up your mother-in-law! :)

Even if you don't have in-laws...BUY THIS BOOK!.......2006-01-07

I picked up this anthology yesterday and I was unable to stop until Tom Junod's last sentence. Those final words "...of becoming something like her son" read a little smeary because I was crying, for the tenth or eleventh time, not even stopping to wipe the tears away. I can't begin to tell you how captivating, moving, illuminating--all those blurb words that seem so inadequate-this book was. I felt as if I had been invited to a dinner party where the host suggested a parlor game that at first seems frivolous, but as each guest tells their story, grows increasingly poignant, serious and epic. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

I Married My Mother-in-law And Other Tales of In-laws We Can't Live With - And Can't Live Without

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I Married My Mother-in-law And Other Tales of In-laws We Can't Live With - And Can't Live Without
Ilena Silverman
Manufacturer: Riverhead Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J182XM

Product Description

Trafalgar, the most famous and most strategically significant victory in the age of sail, was not an isolated event. Rather it was the culmination of a campaign that began as soon as war was resumed in May 1803 and aimed ultimately at the invasion of Great Britain. To this end Napoleon attempted by ruse and elaborately disguised manoeuvres to bring his scattered and blockaded squadrons together for long enough to give him command of the Channel, which he fondly believed was all that was necessary to ensure a successful landing. Therefore, this period becomes a perfect demonstration of the workings of seapower and reveals that, however great a strategic genius on land, Napoleon never really grasped the principles of British maritime defense, gleaned as it was from over two hundred years experience. This is not to say that the invasion threat was treated lightly, although some of the rumored devices belong to the world of science fiction on the other hand the anti-invasion operations included the first use of such futuristic weapons as torpedoes and rockets. Little of the naval warfare of this period is not in some way connected with the main campaign, and this volume is devoted to the great wars of 1793-1815, charts all the major naval events of 1803 to 1805, including Americas first full-bloodied naval war, with the Barbary States.

The Campaign of Trafalgar 1803-1805 (Charham Pictorial Histories series)

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The Campaign of Trafalgar 1803-1805 (Charham Pictorial Histories series)
Robert Gardiner
Manufacturer: Chatham Publishing London 1997
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R4RD68

Amazon.com

Acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley spins a different yarn in Workin' on the Chain Gang, imploring citizens to solve the social, economic, racial, and political crimes of late-20th-century civilization. Mosley takes aim at the average American's feelings of disempowerment and--while he is quick to point out the role race plays--he also states: "The problem facing Americans today does not originate from racial conflict. The problem is the enslavement of a whole nation to the rather small and insignificant goals of the few who own (or control) almost everything." Mosley covers a lot of ground--from Plato's Republic to his own bid for the presidency--but through it all, his faith rests in the individual to change the world through changing his or her own world; he cites as an example his creative powers as a writer to turn fiction into reality. Mosley calls for us to "recognize some of the restraints placed on us by the organization of labor and popular culture, then to see, from a calm place, that there might be a world in our hearts that we would like to realize, first by speaking out, then by shouting out, and finally by action." --Eugene Holley Jr.

Book Description

A passionate examination of the social and economic injustices that continue to shackle the American people

Praise for Workin’ on the Chain Gang:

“. . . bracing and provocative. . . .”

—Publishers Weekly

“. . . clear-sighted . . . Mosley offers chain-breaking ideas. . . .”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“[A] thoroughly potent dismantling of Yanqui capitalism, the media, and the entertainment business, and at the same time a celebration of rebellion, truth as a tool for emancipation, and much else besides. . . .”

—Toronto Globe and Mail

“Workin’ on the Chain Gang excels at expressing feelings of ennui that transcend race. . . . beautiful language and penetrating insights into the necessity of confronting the past.”

—Washington Post

“Mosley eloquently examines what liberation from consumer capitalism might look like. . . . readers receptive to a progressive critique of the religion of the market will value Mosley’s creative contribution.”

—Booklist

Walter Mosley’s most recent essay collection is Life Out of Context, published in 2006. He is the best-selling author of the science fiction novel Blue Light, five critically acclaimed mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins, the blues novel RL’s Dream, a finalist for the NAACP Award in Fiction, and winner of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Literary Award. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in New York.

Clyde Taylor is Professor of Africana Studies at NYU’s Gallatin School and author of The Mask of Art: Breaking the Aesthetic Contract—Film and Literature.

Customer Reviews:

The chains of capitalism.......2007-08-04

WORKIN' ON THE CHAIN GANG: Shaking off the Dead Hand of History by Walter
Mosley takes a look at the chains that bind citizens of the United States.
Money, and producing more of it, is what is driving the country these days.
Even what we see on television is more about what sells rather than what is
true. The entire nation is pushing against the injustice brought about by
the few who own and control everything. While Blacks have long fought
against this type of injustice, now it is everyone's battle. Making money
has become global and therefore the need to pay attention to the
needs of the workers and unions are long dead. He ends on a note of hope,
using his platform for the presidency to show what must happen for America
to survive these chains.

WORKIN' ON THE CHAIN GANG is a very enlightening book and says what so many
of us are thinking. It certainly takes courage to make this public in
today's age of fear, retribution and loss of Constitutional protections.
Mosley has penned a book that every thinking citizen in the United States,
indeed the world, should read. It explains so much that we wonder about but
can't articulate.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Thought Provoking.......2001-10-15

When Walter Mosley wrote this essay, he intended it to make people think about the way things are, and the way things can change. However this book was not a one-sided rant, nor is just for African-Americans. This issues addressed in this essay, ranging from capitalism in America to voter apathy, reveal some profound insights and proposes soulutions to the problems brought forth. To many people this book will be an eye-opener; it certainly was for me. While I might not agree with the degree of some of Mr. Mosley's assertions, I recommend this book highly for anyone trying to gain a different perspective of the United States than what you see in the news or read in the paper.

Down with Capitalism!.......2001-10-02

ýWe [the working class] are marginalized by the profit of capitalism. We are footnotes to Citibank and the Mobil Oil Corporation and Chiquita Brands International (once know as the United Fruit Company).ý --Walter Mosely

Because I have read and advocated the analysis, ideas, and visions of Jesus, Karl Marx, Fedel Castro, Dorothy Day, Kwame Nkrumah, Rosa Luxanburg, and Mother Jones, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, and Paulo Friere, and many others, I didnýt find much new in this work by Walter Mosley. However, it was refreshing to see a fiction writer with skill, talent, and insight, attempt to give a piece of his mind in an honest, direct way.

Iým not sure how people who are fans of Mosleyýs best selling fictional works will read this, his first non-fiction book. But I would suggest that despite its brevity and lack of development, this book would make a great book club discussion. Itýs packed with enough insight and ideas for contemporary political thought that it might indeed lead readers to ponder life beyond their American Dream homes, automobiles, household gadgets, and Kodak moments.

Mosely makes sharp criticism of an American capitalist society which essentially puts profits before people and consumption before real needs. Thus, while people starve and receive medical care in this the richest country in the world, 5% of the population holds at least half the wealth in the country. There are people in this country who make say $5000 an hour when they go to work, while the rest of the population gets by on two-family incomes, over-time hours, and two-jobs salaries. And this says nothing about the poorest parts of the world where a bar of soap and toothpaste are luxury items.

As Mosely reminds us, ýWe know how much money every armed bandit has stolen from banks but almost nothing about how much the banks have stolen from us. We are told, during the commercial, how much some piece of clothing costs, but the returning anchor refrains from telling us what economic havoc we have caused in the third world by paying slave wages to local workers to make the price attractive [and profitable].ý

Mosely attempts to give his view of an ideal system that would replace capitalism. But here he falls short. He regrets the doesnýt ýknow the exact steps that need to be taken to free us from our entanglements.ý Heýs not even sure itýs possible. But when tries to say that ýeveryone has a right to a living wage, a right to competent medical care, and a share in the natural resources that the nation either owns or creates,ý he sounds to me, as I understand it, like heýs a calling for a socialist system--though he dismisses early on in his book Marxism and communism as failed ideologies. Thatýs too bad. For I think if he had put more thought into a socialist transformation of society, he could have provided his readers with more to think about.

Instead, he suggest that readers contemplate their visions for a better world. But I bet when people do that, it will simply sound more like individualistic, capitalist visions of society. Itýs not that we shouldnýt contemplate our own visions, but I suggest that itýs not that we, as Mosely suggest, need to make a list of ýwhat it is that you deserve for a lifetime of labor,ý but that we need to involve ourselves in a process of political education. We need political reading groups in our places of worship, our colleges, communities, and places of employment. As we politically educate ourselves, we can begin to ask ourselves what could I do with other in an organized manner to work for what I think is just and right.

This political education process could begin with Mosely work.

putting the chains back on.......2001-08-28

This short, but overlong, book, which (God help us) comes from something called the Library of Contemporary Thought, offers pulp fiction writer Walter Mosley the opportunity to share his opinion on how to reform America culture and politics. Sadly, he proceeds to embarrass himself utterly. The chain gang of the title is his completely inapt metaphor for modern economic life. Imagine the disdain with which folks like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, and other genuine heroes of the fight for civil rights for blacks would greet Mosely's bizarre assertion that we are all enslaved in modern America : Everywhere I look I see chains, from the planned obsolescence that binds us to an endless line of ever more useless machines to captivating television shows about nothing to the value of the dollar bills insecurely nestled at the bottom of my pocket. For hundreds of years, Africans (an estimated 10 million) were captured, chained and sold; taken by force to America in the festering bowels of transport ships; sold again and enslaved by white masters; denied all rights and freedoms; forced to work from cradle to grave; beaten; raped; murdered; their families split apart on a whim. This entire system is a stinking blot upon the nation's honor, one which whites had a chance to expunge with the bloodshed and destruction of the Civil War, but which was immediately replenished when frightened and embittered Southerners, with the willing acquiescence of their Northern countrymen, imposed a system of apartheid on the newly freed black population. This time, the outrage of Jim Crow persisted until blacks themselves, in an awe inspiring display of moral and physical courage, used peaceful civil disobedience to shame white America into finally giving them the equal rights they'd long been promised. How can anyone compare this legacy of genuine and horrifying oppression to such trivial matters as overconsumption of appliances and watching too much Seinfeld ? Mosley actually has the temerity at one point to say that : "There is an echo of Jim Crow in the HMO..." One needn't love HMOs to recognize the difference between a mostly successful effort to provide cheap health care, on the one hand, and, on the other, the systematic and official enforcement of political and economic discrimination against an entire segment of the population based solely on the color of their skin. The effort to equate the two is so absurd as not to deserve to be taken seriously. Equally unserious is Mosely's prescription for what should be done to free us from the bondage of capitalism : (1) Take a self-imposed break from electronic media (though for some reason print media is allowed) (2) Tell the truth once a day. (3) Make a list of the things you demand from the system. Please... By the time he gets to his presidential platform you're unsure whether the whole book isn't just an elaborate hoax. Here's what he proposes : educate children; take care of the aged; pay doctors' medical malpractice premiums; educate more doctors and nurses; either legalize drugs or stop their importation into the country; have a conference on capital punishment; create rights to a living wage, health care, and an equal share in the Gross Domestic Product; and enter into international agreements to assure the same to all foreign workers too. As a candidate he would be some kind of weird melding of Bill Clinton, proposing only programs that everyone supports, and Lenin, reintroducing socialism. What's most surprising, or maybe not, about all of this, is that the radical egalitarianism that he envisions would essentially return him, and the rest of us, to the plantation. He calls it utopian, but at every step his politics requires that the freedom of some be curtailed in order to benefit others. In his great autobiography, Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington talks about the terror with which many newly freed blacks faced the prospect of freedom, after the Civil War. A people who had been completely, though involuntarily, dependent on the largesse of their masters was suddenly thrust out into the world and told to fend for themselves. How could this not have been frightening ? And, indeed, freedom, in the words of the old 60s slogan, isn't free. It requires that each of us take responsibility for ourselves and inevitably some will do better than others. But it is deeply discouraging that, some 150 years later--after a 20th Century in which his ideas were already tested and found to lead not to Utopia but to the Gulag--at least one of their descendants is no more prepared to leave the plantation than they were. There's a scene at the end of the movie version of Devil in a Blue Dress that is one of the most ineffably poignant in all of film. Ezekiel Rawlins (Denzel Washington) is standing in the street in front of his house, just looking around his middle class neighborhood. The viewer is achingly aware that where the scene depicts nuclear families, homeowners, workers, a people whose great achievement is to have survived all that the white man tried doing to them and to have built this community in the face of those odds, in just a few short years that was all destroyed by the presumably well-intentioned replacement of the ideal of self-reliance by a system of Big Government paternalism. You can't help but wonder if that community might have continued to thrive if they'd simply been left to themselves, rather than being submitted to the Great Society. What a high price was paid when freedom, however challenging, was replaced by security. Apparently, Mosley believes it's worth paying again. I beg to differ. GRADE : F

The Issues Remain And That Is Sad.......2001-07-10

What is even worse is that we must be reminded of these social issues that have become ingrained in this Country's psyche. This essay by Mr. Walter Mosley is not a one-dimensional discussion on race; rather it encompasses all of the citizens of our Country and what we accept actively or passively.

He touches on several topics in this brief work ranging from the selective history we continue to believe and teach, to obsessions with the absurd and worthless that consumes billions of dollars. He specifically cited the time and money spent on the coverage of O.J. Simpson, and Monica Lewinsky as examples. He challenges readers to turn off the television for three weeks to live outside of the sitcom, arena sports, and the for profit network news. Why? So that people have the time to think about what is truly important to them, and for many to realize the system that they are a part of has little concern for them, ever.

He also touched on privatized for profit prisons. This should not be a cause for debate for anyone who thinks about the topic for a moment. What decisions have been made when a prison needs to be profitable? What does a prison become when it is a business like any other that must have a positive bottom line from its operations? What incentive is there to minimize incarceration and its causes when those that are imprisoned have become a source of profit?

And then there is the apathy that is the cause of a minority of eligible voters that bother to vote. Less than half of those who can, choose from two candidates from the same parties election after election. These candidates resemble about 5% of the Country they wish to lead. They are wealthy, well educated, white, male, and have the ability to raise tens of millions of dollars in their pursuit of power. As this last Presidential Election showed, neither candidate could have cared less what was required of them to gain the office they sought for themselves. Winning was never about those voters they say they want to represent, just the fulfillment of their own selfish wishes. We heard that every vote should count, and then both candidates wanted to specify which were to be counted. One candidate who wished to be Commander in Chief thought nothing of trying to and successfully eliminating the votes of actively serving members of the armed forces.

None of these issues are new and that is what should concern all of us. This Country continues to be polarized by essentially two groups, possible three with the advent of almost 300 multi billionaires in the United States. There is nothing wrong with the creation of wealth, what matters is how it is made and how it is used when in the control of one individual. The irony of one of the super rich is that while at the same time accumulating wealth by means that allegedly were illegal, the same person has personally funded the largest charitable foundation on the planet.

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This digital document is an article from Sojourners, published by Sojourners on November 1, 2000. The length of the article is 783 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: WHEN PROFIT IS THE DRIVER.(Review) (book review)
Author: Jo Ann Heydron
Publication: Sojourners (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2000
Publisher: Sojourners
Volume: 29 Issue: 6 Page: 57

Article Type: Book Review

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Workin' on the Chain Gang (Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History)

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Workin' on the Chain Gang (Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History)
Walter Mosley
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OVF1F4

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