The Spirit of Native America: Beauty and Mysticism in American Indian Art

Book Description

Art and religion are two words that have no equivalents in languages spoken by Native Americans. Yet these intensely spiritual people created objects for everyday use that are unsurpassed for sheer beauty, originality, and craftsmanship. The Spirit of Native America explains this apparent contradiction in language as rich in symbolism as the art itself. Stunning full-color photography augments the text, yielding a new perspective on this often misunderstood facet of Native American culture.

The spirit of native America : beauty and mysticism in American Indian art / by Anna Lee Walters ; designed and produced by McQuiston & Partners

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The spirit of native America : beauty and mysticism in American Indian art / by Anna Lee Walters ; designed and produced by McQuiston & Partners
Anna Lee (1946-) Walters
Manufacturer: San Francisco : Chronicle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VZH0VG

Customer Reviews:

Smutfest.......2007-01-16

Basically, as the review below says, this book feature beautiful models being very rude with a variety of dildos and vibrators.

Some of the shots are lovely, some pornographic. It's not a book to leave out on the coffee table, but one for a private collection. (If it is on your coffee table please invite me round.)

Models with dildoes.......2005-11-04

If you need a photo essay of beautiful models masturbating with dildoes, then this is your book. Some quite strange-looking dildoes too. This little tome could have been really so much better. In the introduction, the photographer notes that he only asked the models to be "insolent and indecent" in their poses. His instruction was indeed heeded. My own taste in photographic figure studies is "artistic nudes" who reflect some class, so this one goes back to Amazon. To each their own.

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The lady of stainless raiment,
Mathilde Eiker
Manufacturer: Doubleday, Doran and company, inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006AKFUY

Book Description

Violent, strange saga spanning four continents and four generations. Araki's ideas are stretched increasingly thin, but there is still plenty of action and new concepts to sustain the interest of demanding Shounen Jump readers. Each part of Jojo can be read more or less independently, and has its own atmosphere and storytelling/art style.

Customer Reviews:

a very pleasant surprise!.......2006-04-24

I was never interested in this manga because the title gave me the impression that it was a hyper series meant for kids. A friend loaned me the first volume recently and I felt obligated to give it a try. I was very pleasantly surprised!

Initially, I was a little skeptical. The idea of the Joestar family whose duty it is to stand against the evil vampire Dios seemed a big formulaic and contrived, not to mention lame. Also, I wasn't too into the Western setting. Noblemen riding around in carriages just doesn't appeal to my imagination.. In addition, I couldn't get used to the art, which is extremely unique; the men are ridiculously huge (really tall, with huge shoulders and chests), and the women are very full-bodied and curvy. I found the design unappealing and awkward. I wasn't too fond of the main character's outfit, either; it's all black, with chains that don't have any purpose and what appears to be an extra belt. Even now that I've been won over and love the story, I still don't like his cap.

Despite my misgivings, I was enjoying the story by page 22. The action scenes are a lot of fun and the story is definitely compelling. I even started enjoying the art. The concept behind the characters' supernatural abilities is pretty original, and the abilities that each individual has are well thought out. By the end of the volume, I was very ready to read more, and the story has grown on me a lot since then.

The characters, especially the main character and his grandfather, are larger than life. In a way, that's good, but it also means that they're hard to relate to. Also, there's some grossness and gore; in one scene, a woman possessed by a parasite suddenly jabs a pen deep into a student's eye. However, as long as you like hardcore action stories with supernatural elements including vampires and super powers and don't mind the gore, this is an excellent choice.

It's about time!.......2006-01-26

When I first discovered JoJo 7 years ago, the only way I could get the whole (pictoral) story of the manga was buying the Mandarin version - since I could not locate the Japanese version anywhere.

But now, Hirohiko Araki's 1987 classic has finally arrived, thanks to the wonderful folks at Viz.

Since most U.S. JoJo fans are familiar only with the 3rd generation of the series (through either the Capcom videogame or the anime distributed by Super Techno Arts), Viz naturally began with it.

Appropriately so, this story was where Araki first introduced what would become the signature of JoJo - The Stand. In a unique way of illustrating psychic battles of ego and will, each of the heroes and villains' powers are personified in the (often humanoid) form of a Stand - usually reflecting their own inner nature.

Yet even with their incredible talents, the heroes still use their wits to apply their abilties in clever ways to defeat their opponents.

Like Super Techno Arts's anime translation, Viz's translation remains faithful to that of Capcom's videogame. Araki is particularly fond of naming his characters after Western music icons. Thus, to avoid copyright infringement, names were slightly altered.

Nevertheless, U.S. JoJo fans can rejoice now that this long underappreciated classic has, almost 20 years later, finally made it to our shores.

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Grandpa Knows Best but No One Ever Listens: Hilarious Helpful Hints for Grandpas
Mary McBride , and Veronica McBride
Manufacturer: Brothers Grinn Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0962760145

Amazon.com

Perhaps it's better to read about talking with Harry Smith than it was to actually talk with him; given the choice, most of us might prefer our Smith-viewing from a safe distance. Famous for assembling the brilliant, idiosyncratic Anthology of American Folk Music, Smith was an avant-garde filmmaker and painter, occultist, anthropologist, alchemist, compulsive collector of music, books, textiles, paper airplanes, and string figures--in short, the original interdisciplinary scholar, all without benefit of formal training or degree. He was also a notoriously difficult person. Brilliant, irascible, perpetually drunk or high, he hit up every acquaintance for money, borrowed movie cameras then pawned them, bragged about spending grant money on heroin. According to his own account, he first tried peyote just outside the trailer court of legendary hillbilly singer Sara Carter, then proceeded to make the understandably perplexed Carter identify which of her quilt designs resembled which of her songs.

Smith wasn't an easy interview. He browbeat his interviewers, eluded their questions, then announced he was on speed and therefore not to be trusted. ("Smith: Would you like me to read your fortune? Gary Kenton: Later. HS: It's bad. GK: Now, talk to me a little bit about... HS: It's bad.") But his was a mind of the most unusual sort, capable of forging connections between the most esoteric and far-flung subjects. Ukrainian Easter eggs, Kiowa chants, Oz, Aboriginal bark paintings, the Kaballah, Levi-Strauss, Thelonious Monk, surrealism--seemingly no field was outside his range of expertise. Over the years, Smith destroyed many of his creations and, in the end, denigrated the others, including the hugely influential Anthology. Perhaps it was his life itself that became his greatest work. As preserved in these interviews, it's the final and most enduring tall tale from the greatest intellectual trickster of his time. --Mary Park

Book Description

Cultural Studies. This collection of interviews spans Harry Smith's long and influential life in American arts and letters. They cover a quarter-century, touching on the full range of Smith's activity as a groundbreaking experimental filmmaker, obsessive collector, folk music anthologist, visionary painter, student of Native American lore, anthropologist, cosmographer, alchemist, hermetic scholar, occultist, autodidact, classic American eccentric, and all-around explorer of the possibilities of human consciousness and creativity. Jordan Belson writes, "THINK OF THE SELF SPEAKING is the next best thing to being with Harry himself-perhaps better, certainly safer. The interviews are remarkably similar to his collage films. A brilliant mind unhinged." Includes an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.

Customer Reviews:

Buried treasure.......2000-05-21

My attention was returned to this book by Amazon's "Buried Treasure" link. I tend to treasure it as such and strongly recommend it remain buried. If you would enjoy succumbing to the rantings of a decrepid, self-bombed, relentless little thief, then this book may be for you.

conversations with eclectic wise man.......1999-10-01

Wild amazing mind of Harry Smith, poet, archivalist, anthropogist, shaman, revealed in sudden bursts of illuminating starfall. Read these interviews and dance with a firebreath world. Planets spin and we spin with them. Great.

Book Description

Sing My Way Home explores the ascendance of American roots rock and its signature artists, past and present. The book traces the movement's antecedents and profiles the visionary singer-songwriters and musicians who, over the past three decades, have made it an extraordinary, thriving genre. Every chapter includes a playlist to guide readers in downloading and building their own "mix tapes." This is a book that will transform novice fans into experts and enrich their understanding of great singer-songwriters and performers.

Customer Reviews:

No Objectivity.......2005-07-17

this book is called voices of the new american roots rock you
would never guess thats the title by reading the book. the authors give chapters to their favorite artists while ignoring
the large majority of artists that fit in this category-a chapter on
delaney and bonnie and of course,their personal hero,gram parsons.The authors portray parsons as this larger than life artist who founded the whole americana genre.But like,Chris Hillman,a bandmate of Parsons has said on many occassions.gram parson wrote a couple great songs,some good ones
but building him up to this great songwriter and performer is
ridiculous. And Hillman continues by saying that Gene Clark of the byrds was a much better songwriter and has not received anywhere
near tha accolates that parsons has.

The authors then list a top 100 of americanan root based albuns-of course
parsons and his band the flying burrito brothers dominate the top 20 while great amercana artists like johnny cash,nancy griffith,jim white,uncle tupelo,gene clark,the buffalo springfield,emmy lou harris,and many others have either one or
no albums on their top 100 list.

The authors bias clearly comes into play when someone like rodney crowell has
two albums in the top 30,kris Kristofferson,delaney and bonnie and lucinda williams all get the top album and star treatment.

A very subjective book with no objectivity whatever-pass on this one

Keeps the magic while demystifying the mystery.......2004-12-04

This book tells a story that needs telling, uncovering an era in modern music surrounded in mythology and rumor. From the first essay about the Zimmerman brothers' trip to the fateful Altemont Speedway concert in 1969 to the concluding essay about the demise of the music industry, this compelling book uncovers an unexplored segment of American music.

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New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles, Volume 24 (NY Times)
Will Shortz
Manufacturer: Random House Puzzles & Games
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crosswords | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles Volume 29 : 50 Sunday puzzles from the pages of The New York Times (New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles)

ASIN: 0812936477
Release Date: 2005-03-08

Book Description

Presenting the first volume of Times Sunday puzzles from current editor Will Shortz. Celebrating his fifth year as The New York Times crossword editor, Shortz continues to delight fans with his blend of culture, wit and wordplay.

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HR Management

Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage with OLC card
Raymond Andrew Noe , John R. Hollenbeck , Barry Gerhart , and Patrick M. Wright
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Managing the Dynamics of Change: The Fastest Path to Creating an Engaged and Productive Workplace

The Human Side of Enterprise, Annotated Edition

ASIN: 0073131946

Book Description

As competitors strive to win the war for talent, effective human resource management is necessary to gain true competitive advantage in the marketplace. Three challenges companies face are sustainability, technology, and globalization. Human Resource Management 5th Edition brings these challenges to life by highlighting real-world examples pertaining to these issues and relating it to the concepts within the chapter. This best-selling McGraw-Hill/Irwin Human Resource Management title provides students with the technical background needed to be a knowledgeable consumer of human resource (HR) products and services, to manage HR effectively, or to be a successful HR professional. While clearly strategic in nature, the text also emphasizes how managers can more effectively acquire, develop, compensate, and manage the internal and external environment that relates to the management of human resources.

Customer Reviews:

HR Management.......2005-10-17

The book was brand new and in excellent condition. I received it quickly. I would order from this seller again in the future!

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Excellent historical novel

Definitely not the movie...but still a good read.

Mountain man

It ain't the movie

Jeremiah Johnson was a wimp!

Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson (Midland Book)
Raymond W. Thorp , and Robert Bunker
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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Mountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West

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The Mountain Men: The Dramatic History and Lore of the First Frontiersmen

ASIN: 0253203120

Customer Reviews:

Excellent historical novel.......2007-07-23

The author has put together from varying pieces of history the story of a true mountain man whose legend is grown to larger than life. The early west was a brutal and harsh environment, not the romantic scenes that are painted in most novels. This is a good glimpse into the reality of the time and the people who shaped the country as we know it today.

Definitely not the movie...but still a good read........2006-10-27

If you've watched "Jeremiah Johnson" and enjoyed it, then you should take some time and read the book that spawned the movie. But be forewarned, the movie takes a few liberties here and there and if (that's a big if) the book is generally true, then the chronology of many things in the movie aren't correct. You could say that the movie is like a radio-friendly death metal song...a little missing here and there but you get the overall picture. I loved the movie and I admit the authors of the book seem to stretch the truth a little, but it's still a good read. I can only laugh at the politically incorrect accusations made in other reviews. Things were a lot different back then on both sides of the fence and I really don't think many mountain men nor American Indians went around feeling warm and fuzzy about their fair and balanced treatment of all of mankind. In fact, if you read other historical accounts of this period, you will find that the relationship between trapper and most American Indian tribes was most likely more honorable than the realtionship that the tribes would have with Indian agents, missionaries, and other traders (look up germ warfare). In fact, Christian missionaries were more deadly to the tribes and their culture than many of the so-called politically incorrect mountain men. The big-screen version of Johnson would most likely cower if he met the book version of Johnson. Overall, a good read.

Mountain man.......2006-03-19

I was amazed with the story of this man. Thorp was careful to research the book, but this resulted in a dry read. The book "Mountain Man" was a much more interesting read but did not reveal the true nature of Johnson. Thorp did. I have lived in these mountains and plains for 40 years and that made the book very interesting. I have been to many of the places in the book. Worth reading.

It ain't the movie.......2005-08-09

This is an unusual book with lots of interesting stories but probably requires a specialty audience. The writing style is very different from your standard novel. It is a collection of stories taken down from people who were with John Johnson and then arranged basically in as cronological an order as possible or arranged by topic. For someone who is mountainman buff or is otherwise familiar with the historic time period, it is a great insight into the life and hardships of these men and women. One of the characteristics of many westerners was the art of understatement and that shows up in the retelling of these stories and so reading between the lines is helpful. As a history teacher, I enjoyed the book. If you are looking for a romantic extention of the movie "Jeramiah Johnson," this ain't it.

Jeremiah Johnson was a wimp!.......2005-08-02

The movie "Jeremiah Johnson" found some of its inspiration and history in the true life adventures of John "Liver-Eatin'" Johnston. As tough as Jeremiah was, he can barely hold a candle to the tough mountain man who ate the livers of his vanquished foes.

The feats of survival, tracking, and hunting boggle the mind. While the authors draw from oral history (and perhaps have been taken in with some broad embellishments), the remarkable vengeance Johnston extracts from the Crow tribe for the death of his wife and unborn child is staggering. The Crows, troubled by Johnston's relentless vengeance, dispatch 20 warriors on a mission to find and kill the tribe's nemesis. Over a period that spanned over a decade the solitary Crows fall to Johnston. He killed them all.

This is not a book for the politically correct...the book originally appeared in the 1940s. Don't expect to confront descriptions of other races that include hyphens.

For those who have read the Dan O'Brien books, THE CONTRACT SURGEON and THE INDIAN AGENT, there is a reference to Valentine T. McGillycuddy. For fans of the HBO Original Series DEADWOOD, "Colorado" Charlie Utter warrants several mentions.

An interesting read for those who harbor any admiration for the real pioneers.

Crow Killer The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson

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Crow Killer The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson
Robert W. & Bunker, Robert Thorp
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000Q2W79O

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Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson
Raymond W., and Robert Bunker. Thorp
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000P18Z74

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Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson
Robert Bunker Raymond W. Thorp
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQ568Q

Dapiek Absaroka, the Killer of Crows: The saga of John Johnson also known as Liver Eating Johnson and his one man war against the Crow Indians

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Dapiek Absaroka, the Killer of Crows: The saga of John Johnson also known as Liver Eating Johnson and his one man war against the Crow Indians
Randall Thayer
Manufacturer: Caliber Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006P4WN0

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Helpful for my project of re-educating myself.

True intellectuals will love this!

The Debasement of the Intellect

At first thought this was a serious book, not made-up nonsense

Machinations of the Godless

Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas
Daniel J. Flynn
Manufacturer: Crown Forum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1400053552
Release Date: 2004-09-21

Book Description

Why do well-educated antiwar activists call the president of the United States “the new Hitler” and argue that the U.S. government orchestrated the September 11 attacks?

Why does Al Gore believe that cars pose “a mortal threat to the security of every nation”?

Why does the Princeton professor known as the father of the animal rights movement object to humans eating animals but not to humans having sex with them—and why does PETA defend that position?

In other words, why do smart people fall for stupid ideas?

The answer, Daniel J. Flynn reveals in Intellectual Morons, is ideology. Flynn, the author of Why the Left Hates America, shows how people can be so blinded to reality by the causes they serve that they espouse bizarre, sometimes ridiculous, and often dangerous positions. The most influential social movements have spawned ideologues who do not care whether an idea is good or bad, true or false, but only whether it can serve their cause.

It is startling how many Americans—and particularly how many media, academic, and political elites—fall for bad ideas. The trouble is, their lies become institutionalized as truth, and we all suffer as a result.

In Intellectual Morons, Flynn reveals:

•How rabid anti-Americans simply parrot the delusional claims of a few gurus

•How the environmental movement, spawned by a “scientist” whose doomsday predictions are almost always wrong, has bred fanaticism, stupidity, and dishonesty

•How the hero of the animal rights crowd is a crank who promotes infanticide and euthanasia

•How a scientific fraud—and pervert—launched the sexual revolution

•How abortion rights activists ignore (or cover up) the fact that their matron saint advocated eugenics and concentration camps

•How our universities have become hothouses of leftist ideology

•How historians and journalists have airbrushed history to turn a racial separatist into a civil rights icon

Filled with jaw-dropping lapses in common sense from even our most celebrated opinion leaders, Intellectual Morons is a welcome reality check for the glaring excesses of today’s political and cultural debates.

"This is a sophisticated pile driver of a book, guiding us through the wiles of great luminaries of the netherworld. And such liveliness in the writing, and such erudition. I was quite fascinated by Intellectual Morons."—William F. Buckley, Jr.

"Intellectual Morons is exceptionally aptly named. The thought of all that brainpower going down the intellectual drain is sad, but Daniel Flynn's description of it is hilariously on point. This is must reading."—G. Gordon Liddy

"Intellectual Morons is a delight—a wonderful intellectual history of the past hundred years. Flynn ably describes the purveyors of the bad ideas that have undermined our free society."—Burton W. Folsom, Jr., professor of history, Hillsdale College

"A famous bit of folk wisdom says, 'You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.' Some of the crackpot notions now fashionable in academic circles, as here documented by Daniel Flynn, suggest that saying is an understatement. If you want to know how crazy, and scairy, intellectual morons can get, you have to read this book."—M. Stanton Evans, author of The Theme Is Freedom, contributing editor to Human Events

Download Description

Why do well-educated antiwar activists call the president of the United States "the new Hitler" and argue that the U.S. government orchestrated the September 11 attacks?

Why does Al Gore believe that cars pose "a mortal threat to the security of every nation"?

Why does the Princeton professor known as the father of the animal rights movement object to humans eating animals but not to humans having sex with them—and why does PETA defend that position?

In other words, why do smart people fall for stupid ideas?The answer, Daniel J. Flynn reveals in Intellectual Morons, is ideology. Flynn, the author of Why the Left Hates America, shows how people can be so blinded to reality by the causes they serve that they espouse bizarre, sometimes ridiculous, and often dangerous positions. The most influential social movements have spawned ideologues who do not care whether an idea is good or bad, true or false, but only whether it can serve their cause.

It is startling how many Americans—and particularly how many media, academic, and political elites—fall for bad ideas. The trouble is, their lies become institutionalized as truth, and we all suffer as a result. In Intellectual Morons, Flynn reveals:

How rabid anti-Americans simply parrot the delusional claims of a few gurus
How the environmental movement, spawned by a "scientist" whose doomsday predictions are almost always wrong, has bred fanaticism, stupidity, and dishonesty
How the hero of the animal rights crowd is a crank who promotes infanticide and euthanasia
How a scientific fraud-and pervert-launched the sexual revolution
How abortion rights activists ignore (or cover up) the fact that their matron saint advocated eugenics and concentration camps
How our universities have become hothouses of leftist ideology
How historians and journalists have airbrushed history to turn a racial separatist into a civil rights icon

Filled with jaw-dropping lapses in common sense from even our most celebrated opinion leaders, Intellectual Morons is a welcome reality check for the glaring excesses of today's political and cultural debates.

Customer Reviews:

Helpful for my project of re-educating myself........2007-09-14

A number of years ago, I spent 1-1/2 years working as a volunteer on the McGovern campaign. Over the years, my life experience has slowly nudged me more and more to the right. It has been a long (and continuing) journey for me to gradually own my ignorance and misprogramming. This book deals with major nontruths which have shaped widely-held views of the world, much to the detriment of our culture, our educational institutions, our families, and our communities.

This book really was a painful read for me, but it helps me to understand how it is that I and so many others got programmed to believe much of what we came to believe.

True intellectuals will love this!.......2007-09-13

Do you ever feel like you are Sunday School when talking to your leftist friends, only Christianity is replaced with some other whacky beliefs? Then this book is for you!

Most of the ideologues portrayed in the book are on the left, with some notable exceptions from the right (e.g. Ayn Rand). Thus, some of the negative reviewers criticize the author just on the basis of being on the wrong side of the aisle. Pretty much the attitude the author describes in one of his chapters, whereby the left thinkers promote tolerance - but only towards leftist ideas. Funny how most of the 1-star reviewers here seem to exactly fit the mold of the intellectual morons and their blind followers.

In any case, this book is for all of us true intellectuals who are irritated by the radical environmentalists, feminists, and other all the other "-ists." They wouldn't be such an annoyance if they didn't have this aura of intellect around them. People like Ehrlich can be wrong time and time again, their ideas, however, live on in academic circles, not because they are good ideas but because they fit the party-line of anti-capitalism that's so prevalent among so-called intellectuals. By the way, to address the criticism of some other reviewers, contrast that to Rush Limbaugh, another good candidate for an ideologue. At least his books are not required readings at colleges around the country!

The book is such a nice read because it very eloquently shows what I already knew: that the same people who ridicule the Christian right as backwards, themselves follow an anti-free-thinking cult that has abandoned reason in favor of ideology. A real page-turner, nicely written with a lot of wit and sarcasm.

The Debasement of the Intellect.......2007-06-16

Daniel Flynn is a conservative campus speaker, author, and television guest commentator who relentlessly reminds Americans that the greatest threat to America comes from our own Left. In WHY THE LEFT HATES AMERICA, he outlines the historical background of the Frankfurt School that led to Marxism making its initial inroads into the American political and educational arena. And now in INTELLECTUAL MORONS, he picks up a thread that he left partially unraveled from his first book. Flynn sees the "big picture" of the entire spectrum of the Left Democratic Party as being variations of the gender, race, and class dichotomy of classic Marxist thought. Even though Marxism went out of business big time with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, its adherents were too deeply entrenched in its tenets to so easily surrender an adherence to a system that began as political, but soon enough morphed into non-political areas that Flynn labels as "Communism, environmentalism, animal rights, sexual anarchism, feminism, postmodernism, relativism, deconstructionism," (Page 2) all of which he sees as being championed by those who still carry forth the banner of Marx even if under a slightly modified manner.

Flynn notes a definite cross-linking among them all. Those who champion one are very likely to support any of the others. To these leaders-supporters, he suggests that intentions count far more than outcomes. It does not matter if any ideology proves disastrously wrong; what counts is the fervor that each brings to the cause. And the fervor, of course, is based on a selective manipulation of fact to fit an equally selective manipulation of reality. Flynn begins with Herbert Marcuse, a German immigrant who began modern Leftist thought by insisting that toleration from the Left was to be balanced by intolerance toward the right. It is no surprise that Flynn begins with Marcuse, the man who popularized the now all-pervasive notion that Western civilization was instrumental in leading toward the victim ideology that constitutes the core curriculums of our colleges. His following chapters deal with how sexuality became distorted with Kinsey; how environmentalism under Ehrlich morphed into the belief that global warming is the New Armageddon; how animal rights under Peter Singer now trump human rights; how the clear fraud of the third world claims of Rigoberta Menchu even now is hidden from those who do not wish to see it; and how history under Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky "proves" that the United States was born in racism and grows in racism. Flynn does not omit feminism or literary theory to escape his claims that deliberate intellectual blindness is but the first step on the slippery slope to an intellectual depravity of thought that he terms moronic. And what of the so-called "smart" people who follow such beliefs even against all evidence? Flynn suggests that there is hope for a massive turnaround for those who wish to turn the United States into a clone of France. The trick he notes is for conservatives to eternally drag the lies and distortions of the Left into the disinfectant of the sun and let the newest generation see that the emperor truly has no clothes. This will be a long struggle but the future of this country is worth it.

At first thought this was a serious book, not made-up nonsense.......2007-05-12

I picked up this book from the library without noticing the endorsement from G. Gordon Liddy on the back. That should give you a clue about how "right on" this book is.

Machinations of the Godless.......2007-01-20

Dan Flynn's "Intellectual Morons" is stunning corroboration of Psalm 14 which begins, "The fool says in his heart, `There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good." The corroboration is even more profound when you consider that the Hebrew word translated into the English word "fool" connotes not just bad judgment, but moral deficiency.

In this easy-to-read, densely cited work, Flynn chronicles several intellectually vapid, morally destructive concepts and their purveyors who are still held in high esteem by the atheistic and the functionally atheistic intellectual and cultural elite (functionally atheistic being defined as those who may believe in God but never allow that belief to alter their worldview.) He decisively proves how deluded these people are by demonstrating how they reject facts that refute their beliefs. When an admirer of Alfred Kinsey is confronted with several recent studies suggesting that only two percent of the population is homosexual, as opposed to Kinsey's estimated ten percent, the admirer's response is that the other studies demonstrate "how they are equally wrong, not that Kinsey was." Flynn astutely summarizes, "When fact and theory clash, the ideologue chooses theory. To the true believer, ideology is truth."

The ideologically deluded will not only ignore facts that refute them, but will fabricate "facts" to further the Cause. Flynn quotes Stanford professor Stephen Schneider talking about raising environmental consciousness: "Scientists should consider stretching the truth to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... [W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

Another characteristic of the ideologically deluded is their refusal to debate their ideas. To them, their view isn't merely a subjective preference but objective fact. Opponents are seen as disseminators of falsehoods motivated by malevolent intent. Therefore, instead of engaging in debate, they resort to character assassination and intellectual snobbery. Opposing ideas are not worth debating because they are intellectually inferior. So prevalent is this characteristic of false ideas, that an observer can determine the falsehood of any idea by whether its supporters exhibit it - such as proponents of evolution, man-made global warming and liberalism in general.

Flynn may want to consider rewriting chapter 7 about the run-up to the Iraq invasion since many of the "facts" he uses to illustrate ideological blindness on the part of Straussians in the defense department have since been proven false. Joe Wilson has been proven to be a complete fraud, British intelligence to this day stands by it's assertion that Hussein tried to procure yellow-cake uranium (from evidence besides the forged letter,) WMDs WERE found in Iraq, and the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda has been conclusively proven (though probably not with respect to 9/11.) It is also clear that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism that allowed terrorists to train within its borders. According to the Bush Doctrine, we treat these countries the same as the terrorists themselves. That alone is reason enough to invade. I also find it a bit naïve on Flynn's part to believe that U.S. intelligence gave the American people ALL the evidence it had about Iraq and WMDs before our forces invaded. Of course, all of this new information came out AFTER the book was published in 2004, so I don't hold Flynn accountable.

In total, this is an extremely important work describing where many (if not all) of our current societal ills originated. For the uninitiated, this is a must-read, especially those about to enter college since most of the destructive ideas described in this book have their homes on university campuses across the country.

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