Best Advice on Life After Baby Arrives

Book Description

Best Advice on Life after Baby Arrives presents tried-and-true, practical tips for moms, from moms. Addressing a mother's needs and issues - from how to deal with the inevitable exhaustion, to reconnecting romantically with her husband, to carving out time for herself - this book provides comfort, reassurance and inspiration to women facing the demanding first months after the baby arrives.

"I ended up having panic attacks right after I had my first baby, because I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, here I am with four kids now, and I can tell you it does get better. What you're going through isn't what things will always be like. Don't let anyone, especially yourself, make you feel guilty for doing something for yourself."

"Get up 30 minutes earlier than everyone else and make it clear to everyone in the house that this is your time."

"As long as your baby has food in her belly, clothes on her back, and is not overly wet, then that time is yours. You don't need to get in the habit of holding the baby all the time. Babies also need to learn to become independent - they need to know that someone doesn't need to hold them all the time."

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a must for the student of war

Roots of Strategy, Book 3: 3 Military Classics : Von Leeb's Defense/Von Freytag-Loringhoven's the Power of Personality in War/Erfurth's Surprise (Roots of Strategy)

Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Roots of Strategy, Book 2: 3 Military Classics (Roots of Strategy)

Roots of Strategy: The 5 Greatest Military Classics of All Time (Roots of Strategy)

Roots of Strategy Book: 4 Military Classics : The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Command of the Air, Winged Defense (Roots of Strategy)

Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian)

On Guerrilla Warfare

ASIN: 0811730603

Book Description

Von Leeb's Defense, von Freytag-Loringhoven's The Power of Personality in War, and Erfuth's Surprise.

Customer Reviews:

a must for the student of war.......2000-10-17

The roots of strategy books have been an invaluble asset in my study of military strategy. The priciples set forth in Von leebs book should be read and if not implemented, certainly used as a spring board for further deliberatiion and study. I would strongly encourage the student of warfare to aquire this book and spend much time meditating on its contents. Although the material may seem outdated and archaic when viewed superficialy, many of the foundational points hold true. The middle book is especialy relevant to todays military comanders, As J.F.C. Fuller said, the art of generalship never changes.

Book Description

The dream of the twentieth century was the construction of mass utopia. As the century closes, this dream is being left behind; the belief that industrial modernization can bring about the good society by overcoming material scarcity for all has been challenged by the disintegration of European socialism, capitalist restructuring, and ecological constraints. The larger social vision has given way to private dreams of material happiness and to political cynicism.

Developing the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept, Susan Buck-Morss attempts to come to terms with mass dreamworlds at the moment of their passing. She shows how dreamworlds became dangerous when their energy was used by the structures of power as an instrument of force against the masses. Stressing the similarities between the East and West and using the end of the Cold War as her point of departure, she examines both extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.

The book is in four parts. "Dreamworlds of Democracy" asks whether collective sovereignty can ever be democratic. "Dreamworlds of History" calls for a rethinking of revolution by political and artistic avant-gardes. "Dreamworlds of Mass Culture" explores the affinities between mass culture's socialist and capitalist forms. An "Afterward" places the book in the historical context of the author's collaboration with a group of Moscow philosophers and artists over the past two tumultuous decades. The book is an experiment in visual culture, using images as philosophy, presenting, literally, a way of seeing the past. Its pictorial narratives rescue historical data that with the end of the Cold War are threatened with oblivion and challenge common conceptions of what this century was all about.

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Where's the Beast?.......2004-03-24

Having been raised in the ideological wasteland of 20th century America, I found this book an interesting read. It could be seen as a vindication of Chomskii's idea that the Cold War was a fake, in which the 2 sides's respective leaders colluded to pick the pockets of their respective peoples in order to finance the buildup of huge military machines which could be used to suck the blood of the 3rd world. My main disappointment, aside from ocassional annoying forays into psuedo-intellectual gibberish (especially the Soviet "nomenklatura" variety,), was the author's failure to inquire into the cause of the socialistic failure, apparenty assuming the fact that the leaders of neither side actually had any interest in the welfare of their people was sufficient explanation. It seems more likely to me that the collapse of social welfare is an inevitable result of the global population-explosion (i.e. as the population increases & the competition for Earth's resources intensifies & grows increasingly vicious, things are bound to deteriorate). Considering that the Wise Men of yore warned us of this problem long ago (i.e. population-explosion becoming the "Beast of Armagedon" & threatening to drag us to our doom with it's 4 Horsemen of Famine, Plague, War, & Avarice when we had finished the job of replenishing the Earth), it's hard to understand why the global intelligensia don't get it. Perhaps the "dumbing-down of America" has taken it's toll on the rest of the world, as well.

Daddy Stalin and Warbucks: Friends 'Til the End.......2001-09-21

Buck-Morss's tale of the sputtering, guttering end of the modern Fordist disciplinary project both in the U.S.A and in the Soviet Union is a stunner. Most compelling are the historical insights -- told with particular elegance through the comparison of patriotic and advertising images -- that show how similar both projects really were! Some of the historical tidbits stick in the mind never to be dislodged: Daddy Stalin asking Henry Ford to come build him a factory to make tractors in the middle of the Depression. Lenin's admiration for Frederick Taylor. Amazing how the salvation for both communists and capitalists was the same industrial regime, the same worker's paradise of factory labor!

The second half of the book, a kind of diary of cross-cultural US/Soviet cultural exchanges prior to and after the Berlin Wall, is interesting but less intellectually energizing. Still, there is a great deal of wit in Ms. Buck-Morss's observation that Western Marxist critics such as Frederick Jameson (who attended some of the same seminars with Soviet intellectuals that Buck-Morss did) seem less willing to give up on the socialist dreamscape than their Soviet counterparts.

A great companion read is Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's "Empire" which really has an interesting take on the near simultaneous end of Fordism and the disciplinary state in both the U.S. and Soviet Union. They suggest it was the "multitude" or proletariat in both nations who rebelled against the industrial factory/modern project and destabilized both, an argument which runs counter to the usual top-down explanations for the rise of postmodern economics.

Interesting how we're told these days that the Soviets, now suffering in the hot bath of capitalism, are nostalgic for the certainty of the Daddy Stalin years. Perhaps their nostalgia is not so different than Baby Boomer Americans' nostalgia for the lost innocence of the early 50s/60s, the Golden Age of American economic hegemony, before the New Deal project finally collapsed. Now that the veil has dropped it seems we had a lot more in common with "them"(us) than we ever thought we did. And still do!

The Betrayal of History.......2001-02-25

'Dreamworld and Catastrophe' is a cry of anguish disguised as the interdisciplinary analyses of a (neo-)Marxist scholar. It is a fragmentary and tortured reaction to the betrayal of history, in the best of Walter Benjamin's tradition, consciously emulated in this tome by this leading authority on the Frankfurt School. It is painful to wade through the convolutions of denial, intellectualization and projection that constitute the first part ('Democracy' - the political framework). The next two sections ('History' and 'Mass Culture')are a joyride of erudition and an intellectual tour de force. The last part - a dry chronicle of the comings and goings of the author's milieu amidst the disintegration of the USSR and the emergence of Russia - is anti-climactic. The opus in its entirety does not fuflil the blurb's somewhat hubristic promise: 'This book offers a revaluation of the twentieth century'. Sam Vaknin, author of 'After the Rain - How the West Lost the East'

Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. (book review): An article from: Labour/Le Travail

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Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. (book review): An article from: Labour/Le Travail
Andrew Wernick
Manufacturer: Canadian Committee on Labour History
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Labour/Le Travail, published by Canadian Committee on Labour History on September 22, 2001. The length of the article is 1376 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: Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. (book review)
Author: Andrew Wernick
Publication: Labour/Le Travail (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2001
Publisher: Canadian Committee on Labour History
Page: 336(4)

Article Type: Book Review

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Dreamworld and Catastrophe The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West

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Dreamworld and Catastrophe The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West
Susan Buck-Morris
Manufacturer: MiT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000X66JXS

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Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West
Susan Buck-Morss
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQL9OG

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Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West
Susan Buck_Morss
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OR3GEG

Book Description

Ecological assessments have been conducted for decades; however, many who use ecological assessments fail to carry them out effectively. With a goal of introducing science into the decision-making process, 60 individuals representing government, industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations from different countries participated in a SETAC Pellston Workshop to address the relationship between ecological assessment and ecological risk assessment and their roles in aquatic resources. A result of that workshop, this book presents guidelines for effectively conducting and communicating ecological assessments. Through successful integration of economic, social, and behavioral perspectives and approaches, ecological assessments can ultimately produce sound decisions to protect and manage our aquatic resources.

Customer Reviews:

Beutiful, Glorious.......2007-05-14

My review will be quite simple, this book is... marvelous, magnificent, beautiful, brilliant, painful, poetic, and glorious. Read it!!!!!!!!

Cuba Libre!.......2007-04-07

Anyone can put the their life on paper, but few such endeavors are worth reading. A fine memoir must come alive, must breathe, must sweat, must bleed, must become flesh and blood and acquire a `life` beyond that of its creator. A memoir worth reading (more than once) must become a Frankenstein. Reinaldo Arenas` supremely moving and magical autobiographical journey has become just that, a freakish, terrifying and stunningly gorgeous creation that will carry the memory of its creator well into the future. If Arenas had never written anything else, `Before Night Falls` would have been enough to rocket its author into the pantheon of literary greats.

When I first devoured this book more than ten years ago, it gripped me like some nagging fever. I just couldn`t put it down, nor put its collection of macabre images and revealing epiphanies out of mind. Coming back to it once again, I was amazed that its power and pathos can still hold the reader spellbound. And what exactly is the secret of its magic? The answer lays with Arenas`s unflinching desire to lay himself bare before the reader, completely shorn of the disingenuous veils through which we all like to see ourselves and be seen by others. Arenas makes no such attempt to airbrush his forty-seven years of life into a pretty portrait for posterity. Instead, he gives us what was and nothing more.

But was, was truly a life lived to the full. As full as possible within the Island prison of Fidel Castro. When the first page begins with little Reinaldo expelling a painful and ferocious stomach worm (the result of too much dirt eating!), the die is cast. Page after page, Arenas documents his impoverished upbringing within the wilds of Eastern Cuba. With his stark and matter-of-fact diction, Arenas shades nothing. Yet, through the very simplicity of his language, the images of his magical youth do achieve something of that overused phenomenon within Latin American letters, `magical realism.` Whether describing his lonely and forsaken mother, superstitous grandmother or lecherous grandfather, Arenas` tiny familial world comes alive like that of a Marquez novel. And everpresent throughout are the forces of nature, the rich, luxurious island fauna, the extremes of rain and sun and especially, the powerful and mysterious Caribbean. Throughout his life, the sea remained a mythic and revered instrument of freedom for Arenas, always enticing and prodding him to abandon his island prison, which he eventually did in 1980 with the Mariel exodus.

And in a book where the forces of nature play a central role, sexuality is omnipresent. Arenas` homosexuality was central to who he was as a man and as a writer, and he lived a life many would deem promiscuous at the very least. With seering intensity and unmatched candor, Arenas catalogues his sexual history like few have done before. From the group encounters with his childhood playmates (even a few animals) to the legions of encounters and partners in adulthood, Arenas leaves no stone unturned in documenting the importance of sex in his life. Yet, Arenas` lusty descriptions of his extraordinary erotic life are neither strictly prurient nor solely for voyeuristic thrill. Instead, one feels the palpable, if albeit transitory, joy that the erotic held for Arenas. While some parts of the book will be hard going for the puritan, the arm-chair psychotherapist will have a field day constructing theories as to the source of Arenas` grandiose appetites. Yet, Arenas` makes no excuses nor explanations for his behavior, rather he documents what was, without blinders, without shame.

Like in Kundera`s Czechoslovakia, Arenas` Cuba was/is a place of profound spiritual, emotional and physical suffering. A place where the `state` forced its way into every perimeter of human existence. Sexual expression, along with artistic expression, was the only way of asserting any individual autonomy. But even this was/is controlled and oppressed by the all-compassing arms of Castro`s revolutionary state. Arenas suffered persecution and torture for both his uncompromising sexual autonomy and for his individual artistic voice. Branded a `degenerate` and `counter-revolutionary,` Arenas paid a heavy price for his refusal to conform. Some of `Before Night Falls` most endearing and moving passages involve Arenas` internment in the infamous `El Morro` concentration camp.

While the constant references to the Cuban literary milieu and its inhabitants can confuse the reader (who informed on who!), they never wholly detract from the fluidity of the narrative nor from the power of the voice locked within. `Before Night Falls` is like a boulder rolling down a steep cliff. With each page, it only gains in intensity and ferocity.

With Arenas`decision to end his richly lived and endured years, `Before Night Falls` comes to an abrupt stop. But not end, for this is truly an unfinished work. Arenas` spirit stays with the reader long after the last word is digested, feverishly waiting for his country to catch up with him.

Arenas` last words say it best, `Cuba will be free. I already am.`

A life of rebellion at the intersection of sex and literature.......2007-02-20

Many readers may have a difficult time getting past the first third of Reinaldo Arenas's memoir. Its opening chapters describe both the author's sexual awakening and his unorthodox (to say the least) adventures at the beaches and in the bushes and even in public restrooms in Cuba before and after the rise of Castro. "In spite of everything, youth in the sixties managed to conspire, not against the regime but in favor of life." He regales his readers both unashamedly and unreservedly with his exploits, and the more homogeneous audience members may be repelled by his homo-heterodoxy.

Yet these tales are an integral part of Arenas's message: in a totalitarian society, everything is an act of rebellion--even sex, which is often subversive and furtive and (in spite of any regime's puritanical attempt to control it) always available. For Arenas, his sexual prowess is of a piece with his literary expression, and his brave and headstrong need to write often overlap with his desire to be a gay man in a society that doesn't want homosexuals--or writers--to exist. The bulk of the book, dealing with his life as a writer, as a rebel, as a fugitive, as a prisoner, and as an exile, is identical in tone and spirit to the early passages about his libidinous youth.

His stubbornness is awe-inspiring. We read about the many times Arenas's manuscripts, often hidden in the roof or left with friends, were discovered and destroyed. Nevertheless, he would shirk off the dangers and re-create them from memory. The novels he managed to smuggle out of the country resulted in a slim international celebrity that made him a pariah of the government yet immunized him from becoming simply a political prisoner. After his arrest, he confessed to "ideological weaknesses," but his public trial was for sexual offences. "By convicting me of a common crime, they would avoid an international scandal," and the court condemned him as "a counterrevolutionary and an immoral person [who] should be sentenced for corruption of minors." (It is almost beside the point that the two swarthy "victims," both of whom recanted their testimony at the trial out of embarrassment, were hardly minors.) All of Arenas's battles were fought at the intersection of sex and literature.

Arenas has little good to say about the Batista era, but his recollections are a bracing and much-needed rebuttal to those who make apologies for the Castro regime. He reserves his bitterness especially for fellow writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alejo Carpentier who have helped prop up Castro with an aura of respectability. He reminds us that Carpentier wrote his best work (in exile) before 1959 but became part of a group of writers who "once they embraced the new dictatorship, never wrote anything worthwhile again."

Arenas begins his book with "The End," a chapter summarizing his final struggle with AIDS and acknowledging the irony that after the "thousand adversities" he suffered in Cuba, "the only escape for me was death." The paradox of Arena's life is that he finally escaped his homeland, only to die in a decade by his own hand in a dingy New York City apartment. Repression, imprisonment, and torture couldn't destroy him in a land that liberty forgot, but the fight ended once he reached the land of the free.

it aint pretty.......2007-01-11

No pretty prose passages, no magical realism, no lovable eccentrics. Thank God. This isn't Marquez or Allende. This is true life, sonny Jim, dirty, brutal, hilarious, dark and unrepentant. This is a great book filled with creations, copulations, imprisonments, escapes, knife fights, love affairs and a deep, deep love of a rich beautiful Cuba that one day Arenas hopes will be free from tyranny.

Arenas hates what Castro and his cronies did to him and the island. He shows us the secret police, the prisoners, the informers, the labor camps all in intense and sometimes horrifying detail. He levels his wrath at deluded pro Castroites in the United States and Latin America and doesnt hold back from accusing fellow writers (including Marquez, Carpentier and Paz) of being stooges of the Castro brothers.

I personally could have done without the AIDS conspiracy theories and the copious beastiality, but that doesnt detract from a terrific book.

real people with dirt on their feet.......2006-09-02

If you're sick of cute little stories that follow some godforsaken formula, you might get some juices flowing with this book. I can count on my fingers all the books I've read that resulted in what I would call "an experience." This is one of them.

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Before Night Falls : A Memoir
Dolores M. Koch Reinaldo Arenas
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ0LNS

Antes que anochezca, una cinta basada en las memorias de Reinaldo Arenas.(TT: Before Night Falls, a film based on the memoirs of Reinaldo Arenas.)(Reseña): An article from: Proceso

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Antes que anochezca, una cinta basada en las memorias de Reinaldo Arenas.(TT: Before Night Falls, a film based on the memoirs of Reinaldo Arenas.)(Reseña): An article from: Proceso
Marcelo Raimon
Manufacturer: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on October 29, 2000. The length of the article is 1841 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: Antes que anochezca, una cinta basada en las memorias de Reinaldo Arenas.(TT: Before Night Falls, a film based on the memoirs of Reinaldo Arenas.)(ReseÃ±a)
Author: Marcelo Raimon
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 29, 2000
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Page: 85

Article Type: ReseÃ±a

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Before Night Falls: A Memoir
Reinaldo Arenas
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics) 2000
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WON6UU

Customer Reviews:

Good stuff.......2002-01-17

An intriguing book. Rather too detailed (but don't give up -- it's full of good stuff). A good reference for managers on how to run a business by maintaining excellent rapport with one's employees (Marcus Woolf style) and an excellent example of professional ethics (again, Marcus Woolf style towards his moles). Some amazing ideas by the East German intelligence, e.g.Romeo agents, are described.

A riveting,intelligent portrait of a cold war spy.......1999-02-13

Having travelled to East Berlin during the 50's and 60's, I thought this book would be of some interest. I was not prepared to be as thoroughly enthralled by this account of the East German secret police and its deputy minister, Markus Wolf, as I was. It was an unexpected find! Colitt obviously knows his subject and has created a spellbinding historical account.

A riveting,intelligent portrait of a cold war spy.......1999-02-13

Spy Master: The Real-Life Karla, His Moles, & the East German Secret Police

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Spy Master: The Real-Life Karla, His Moles, & the East German Secret Police

Manufacturer: Diane Pub.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0788162810

Product Description

Author John Le Carre created the wily chief of Soviet intelligence known as Karla. This character was likely modeled on the enigmatic East German Markus Wolf, the most successful Communist spymaster of the Cold War. When the Nazis rose to power, Markus & his family fled Germany for the Soviet Union, where he received his first lessons in clandestine activity from the Comintern. At the end of World War II he returned to the ruins of Berlin, where he hoped to be part of a new Socialist Utopia. Recruited by the Soviet-backed secret police, he quickly moved up the ladder until he had become the most powerful arbiter of secrets in all Germany.

Spymaster : the real-life Karla, his moles, and the East German secret police / Leslie Colitt

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Spymaster : the real-life Karla, his moles, and the East German secret police / Leslie Colitt
Leslie Colitt
Manufacturer: Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VZP7K2

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Spymaster: The Real-Life "Karla," His Moles, and the East German Secret Police
Leslie Colitt
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OON8Q0

Book Description

From Rage to Responsibility: Black Conservative Jesse Lee Peterson and America Today is a no-holds- barred analysis of contemporary liberalism and the havoc it is wreaking in American culture. From race to abortion, to feminism, immigration and education, the ideas and public policies produced by the Left are hindering self-government and damaging lives, say Peterson and Stetson.

Through the prism of Jesse Lee Peterson's fascinating life experience and his history of grassroots community work on the streets of riot-torn south-central Los Angeles, Peterson and Stetson examine the violations of common sense and sound thinking that the civil rights establishment and its amen chorus of liberal lobbies constantly perpetrate against the American public. Peterson and Stetson point the way out of the statist mentality steadily overtaking our public life, advocating a new culture of self-responsibility and moral renewal able to resuscitate the sagging spirits of an American public accustomed to looking everywhere but within themselves for the solutions to their personal and political problems.

Customer Reviews:

A Very Great Man.......2006-10-21

Jesse Lee Peterson is the epitome of bravery and greatness. He is one of the few people who's truly color blind. He also recognizes that today's racism is more residual than prevalent. He confronts the true issues haunting the black community and it's NOT institutional racism from whites. It's a propensity toward crime (blacks are 13% of population yet commit more than 40% of ALL crimes), very high illegitimacy (nearly 80%!!of all black babies are born out of wedlock), sexual promiscuity/immorality (HIV/AIDS is not only rampant in Africa, it's growing exponentially among American blacks), sale and use of illegal drugs, and a lack of education (more than half are high school dropouts). Also at issue is the black rap culture which denigrates women, encourages violence, and further degrades society. In summary, the black community is plagued by an overwhelming moral malaise. All races and creeds should support Rev. Peterson in his cause. There's a victim mentality which is routinely perpetrated on blacks by so called leaders. This mentality breeds hate and despair. We all want the black community to succeed. But we need more George Washington Carvers, Frederick Douglass', Harriet Tubmans, Booker T. Washingtons AND Jesse Lee Petersons- and fewer Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons.

A Self-made Man Speaks Out.......2006-03-12

Peterson is a self-made man and obviously is, and should be, proud of it. He is so proud of it in fact that he sees himself as the living paragon of black bootstrap success; the model that all blacks should strive for and emulate. Its the tired old "if I can do it, anyone can do it" model of black American success.

There is of course a lot to be said for this model; and it certainly does no harm to promote it as a template for black male success -- especially these days when there are so few models except for rich whiney athletes, hustlers, drug pushers and rap stars. However, like the liberals he criticizes so mercilessly, Peterson is also guilty of not being able to see beyond the idiosyncarcies of his own experience.

Terms like "systemic" and "structural" racism obviously have no place in his reasoning nor any real meaning to him. He would of course dismiss the idea that black Americans are not the worst off in this culture. Yet, it is true. Arguably, Native Americans are not just worse off, but are much worse off than blacks. They do not live cramped in the inner city ghettoes, rife with crime, drugs, and illigitmacy, and arguably are the most assimilated of all of America's minority groups, yet they are much, much worse off than blacks. How does Mr. Peterson begin to explain this phenomenon in terms of his bootstrap success model?

Surely he will use whatever cultural characteristics Native Americans have and exhibit, against them; that is, he will continue explaining away their problems by blaming their character. If so, then we can move on to poor white people, who in various pockets of America, are also as bad off, if not worse off than most blacks, and incredibly these very hard working high moral and religious people have all of the advantages of being members of the superior white race. Again, one would presume that Mr. peterson would have to find some clever way of attributing negroid behavior and character to them, and claim IT to be responsible for their lack of "bootstrapped" success.

I believe the poor, all poor, not just the black poor, must share some of the responsibility for their plight. Yet, there are indeed larger forces in play in our society which are determinative in many, if not most instances. And for that reason alone there must be an end put to these "blame the victim" testimonials masquerading as social theory and explanation.

Jessie Peterson's success is admirable on its face and he should justifiably be proud of it. But it does not explain anything but how he as one individual "lucked out." As much as we all wish it were true, his success is not a fail-safe template for U.S. success, writ large any more than the liberal welfare system was a template for raisng the poor out of poverty. These problems are just not that simple.

The point of systemic racism is that in gerenal, young white men, do not have to "luck out." For them success is a given, unless they screw up along the way; and even then they get multiple chances to correct their mistakes and move again onto the success track.

For young black men such as Peterson, the opposite is true: failure is a given unless all the stars of the universe happen to line up in the proper configuration, and even then white people must like you and you must have the right attitude, wear the righ clothes and speak properly.

Booby traps are planted everywhere -- specifically to snare you. One bad credit report, one too many traffic violations, one fist fight, one bad report card, one too many sick days, not to mention going to jail for even the most trivial reason, and your success story is over. What would be minor indiscretions for a young white, are life sentences for a black male youth.

I "lucked out" and so did Mr.Peterson, but I am willing to bet any amount of money, that as is true in my case, that in the same household as Mr. Peterson, with the same strong values and high moral codes that he seems so proud of, that very few if any of his other own siblings were able to "luck out" to success as he did.

Although there are many good aspects to this book, overall it is anti-intellectual, narrow-minded and a self-serving vehicle for morally questionable right-wing causes and propaganda. Clearly Mr. Peterson is cashing in on his radio show popularity. And even though his success story -- being an uneducated black man and yet making it in a very hostile American culture -- is one worth telling -- a little humility and less of the right-wing tripe -- would have made this a much more interesting piece.

Despite these shortcomings, I still recommend that blacks read it -- if for no other reason than to see what a narrowminded success story, and having a right-wing political pedigree and connections can do to swell the head of an uneducated black man. Two stars

Not as good as SCAM.......2004-04-21

This was not all that bad, but it is not as good as his book SCAM. This book doesn't really focus on the decietfulness of black leaders, but it does however, show the very anti-white statements that blacks make, like black authors, black entertainers, and that there are black groups that actively don't want whites to adopt black kids. Could you picture the outcry if there were a white group that tried to prevent blacks from adopting white kids? Such bigotry would never be tolerate in this politically correct culture.

I didn't like his chapter on abortion, because to me it is like capital punishment; you already have you mind set up before coming into the debate.

I did think his views on immigration were interesting. IN fact, I was kind of shocked to hear a black man speak out against illegal immigration. Peterson states taht it's already bad enough in LA and other major US cities that black males have higher unemployment rates, but add that with illegal immigrants who take their jobs. This also deters teenagers and young adults when illegal take low paying jobs, because those menial jobs are a good way to get experience, get a good work ethic and learn job skills.

It's really not that spectacular. I would say pick up his book, "SCAM: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America"

You asked for it, well here it is.......2002-12-31

This book really hit home for me. Peterson provides some fundamental reasons as to why the black community has not reached it's full potential. We are the only race that has completely politicized our culture. In return we have recieved promises and rhetoric, and yet the chasm that seperates the black community grows wider.
His assessment of our so-called leadership is also dead on. Unfortunately, many people will call him an "Uncle Tom" or self-hating black. However, one only has to honestly read the book, not from the perspective of politics, i.e. Democrats or Republicans, but from the perspective of honest self evaluation.
An excellent read.

Can't stand Jesse Jackson? You'll love Jesse Peterson!.......2002-05-06

Jesse Peterson is exactly what all Americans need to get past racial tensions created by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton....

Take care of your children, demand a quality education from the teacher's union, clean up your house and call the cops if someone is doing bad things beyond your control.

Then we'll see how much racism there really is and begin to focus on what needs to be done to correct inequities and help the needy.

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From Rage to Responsibility: Black Conservative Jesse Lee Peterson and America Today
Jesse Lee Peterson; Foreword-Dennis Prager; Contributor-Brad Stetson
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QY81IS

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