Persuasion, by Jane Austen, originally published posthumously in 1818, audiobook, 2001, read by Flo Gibson, Recorded Books, LLC, Prince Frederick, MD I guess I just didn’t get this book. To me it was a redefinition of the word, “dithering.” The heroine, Ann Elliott, is in love with a naval officer, Captain Wentworth, and wants to marry him. Unfortunately, a family friend intervenes and puts the kibosh on the marriage. She encounters Captain Wentworth seven years later and, after many chapters of not much happening, he expresses his love of her again. They become happily engaged. End of story. This book doesn’t seem to create the same level of tension between two would-be lovers that Pride and Prejudice does.  I suspect that Jane Austen was failing in her later years to come up with something fresh and original. I don’t feel that she accomplished that in this, her last, novel.
Pursuit of Honor
by Vince Flynn, 2009, Simon & Shuster Audio, Read by George Guidall I would like to be able to say that I liked this book, but when two days went by after I finished listening to it, I couldn’t remember a single thing about it except for one especially weak chapter. In this particular chapter, the hero of the book, Mitch Rapp, is testifying in a hearing by the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the effectiveness of torture. The chairman of the committee is portrayed as a real dolt and when she challenges Rapp on his views regarding torture, he counters by charging that she is hypocritical because she supports abortion. Come on, Vince Flynn! Is this the best that Rapp can come up with? This was an incredibly weak performance on the part of our so-called hero. Other than that one passage, the whole book is one big mystery to me as to what it was about. Given that it created such a lasting impression for me, I guess I can’t say too much positive about it.
Killing Lincoln
by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, 2011, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, New York
This is an attempt to make history exciting as it gets the reader inside of the heads of the individuals involved. It succeeds as entertainment but doesn’t add much to a story that’s already been told many times before. If you like light reading and don’t know much about history, this is a great book for you. Personally, as I put down the book, I felt disappointed that it didn’t provide something more.
Honor Bound, Terror on the F Train
Honor Bound, Terror on the F Train, by Steven R. Roberts, 2012, Rouge River Press, Dearborn, MI
This book is a story about a terrorist plot to blow up subway trains and a black Vietnam veteran, retired from the CIA, who is asked to go on a mission to thwart the plot. The fact that he has terminal cancer plays into his decision to accept this, his final mission.
The book has its good moments. The possibility of terror attacks on our subway system is realistic and the book has an unusual plot twist.
I also feel that the book has some weak points. I found that the physical action described in the passages toward the end of the book was a bit of a stretch for me and I thought that all the dialogue between the hero and villain was somewhat overdone. It reminded me a lot of the dialogue that Dan Brown inserts into some of the action scenes in his novels. This technique apparently is intended to make the reader believe just how evil the villain is, but, for me, it just bogs down the action. (An exception to this situation is the Hannibal Lecter movies where his dialogue really does send chills down my spine.)
The book is fairly well-written but there are some editing errors that occasionally detract from the work. Overall, the book is a pretty good read and is entertaining.
Marco Island Nullification Resolution
A few days ago the Marco Island City Council, an assembly of the brightest constitutional scholars in the nation, decided to pass a resolution that would nullify any action that would, in effect, dilute the Second Amendment rights of its citizens to bear arms. Prior to that action, Lee County Sheriff, Mike Scott, had indicated that he would not enforce any law that would restrict gun rights as he believes it would be against the Second Amendment. There apparently are plans at an upcoming meeting of the Collier County Commissioners to vote on the same resolution as the one the Marco Island Council passed.
It seems that in the history of the United States nullification efforts have never been successful and have often led to dire consequences. One of the first acts of nullification, Shay’s Rebellion, occurred in 1786 and 1787 protesting taxes levied by the State of Massachusetts. Although this act of nullification was, in fact, against the State of Massachusetts rather than the federal government (the federal government had no standing army available to suppress it at the time), it resulted in the suppression of the rebellion by the state militia and the eventual execution of 18 individuals involved in the rebellion.
In 1832 the State of South Carolina declared that the tariffs imposed by the federal government in 1828 were unconstitutional and would not be enforced. Only a compromise on the tariff issue engineered by Henry Clay avoided federal troops being sent to South Carolina by President Andrew Jackson. The compromise, however, only had the effect of postponing the Civil War by three decades (effectively “kicking the can down the road”).
The issue that precipitated the Civil War was the ultimate attempt at nullification: secession. Over 600,000 lives were lost over this attempt to nullify federal authority. One would think that this would have settled the issue.
In the 1950’s Arkansas attempted to nullify federal desegregation law. The result was that President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to force the admission of black students into public schools, despite Governor Orville Faubus’ attempts to block their entry into the schools.
In the 1960’s we again saw federal troops being dispatched, this time to Alabama, to enforce federal desegregation laws.
In 2012 we witnessed Texas Governor Rick Perry, in his presidential campaign, bringing up the idea of Texas seceding again from the Union. Fortunately, no one took his idea (or his campaign) seriously, so no additional federal troops had to be sent to Texas (there are already a lot of them there).
The bottom line is that it has been pretty much settled that the federal courts are supposed to rule on the constitutionality of our laws, and not the elected state legislatures, sheriffs, city councils, county commissioners, etc., who all take an oath of office to uphold the law and not render their own interpretations as to the validity of each law. The consequences of doing otherwise appear to be pretty dire in the history of our nation. Hopefully, we will not experience federal troops marching down I-75 or over the Jolly Bridge in the near future in order to restore the rule of federal law.
Perhaps a more apt term for nullification is subversion?
State of Wonder: A Novel
by Ann Patchett, Narrated by Hope Davis, 2011, Audible.com
This book is about a pharmacologist (who happens to be in a relationship with the CEO of the pharmaceutical company where she works). She is asked by her boss to go to the Amazon to find out why the research the company is funding is taking so long. A co-worker who was sent earlier has apparently died and she also wants to find out how he died and where his body was buried. She reluctantly decides to go.
What transpires in the Amazon is pretty far-fetched. The native tribe has found a bark of a tree that allows them to avoid malarial infection and become pregnant even into old age.
I attended a lecture on this book by Elaine Newton at the Naples Philharmonic. Ms. Newton gives a lecture series each year at “The Phil” and, since my wife was not feeling well, I consented to attend. She gushed over the book and its author for about 45 minutes but did not enter into any dialogue with the audience. She also mentioned that the book was a potential Pulitzer Prize award winner, but the Pulitzer committee decided to not make an award selection this year.
I failed to get very excited about this book. I found that it dragged out in several parts. The plot was very thin and predictable, and the end wasn’t very fulfilling. The stereotyped characters seemed somewhat shallow and didn’t seem to grab my interest. Ms. Newton apparently felt otherwise. The rest of the audience seemed to share her appreciation of the book, but I felt that level of praise was not quite warranted. Each to his own, I guess.Â
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
by James W. Douglass, 2010, Touchstone
I really don’t know what to say regarding this book. Mr. Douglass has done a great deal of thinking and research on the Kennedy assassination and is convinced that the CIA orchestrated it because they felt Kennedy was moving toward disarmament and the end of the Cold War. He frames his argument around some writings and predictions of Thomas Merton, a prominent Catholic priest and writer.
Douglass presents a great deal of information that he attempts to tie together as proof of his theory.  I do not profess to be very knowledgeable about the assassination or the subsequent investigations, so I am not able to refute his facts or theory. I finished the book with a great deal of skepticism, however, primarily because the author was so intent on presenting facts that supported his theory. Many of the supposed witnesses that he cites are mental cases, heroin addicts, or just other somewhat shady persons. In addition, some of the testimony is a bit hard to believe (such as the story of a C-54 cargo plane that left Andrews Air Force base in Maryland, flew to Dallas, landed in the Trinity River basin, and picked up an alleged Oswald double after the assassination. Another story is about an alleged plan to assassinate Kennedy in Chicago in early November. Only the cancellation of this trip apparently saved Kennedy at that time. The question that popped into my mind was whether the President would have been travelling in an open car on an expressway in Chicago in November?
In addition to my doubts about some of the information presented, the organization of the book was an absolute mess. Rather than constructing the argument chronologically, the author randomly jumps around, making the entire story much harder to follow than it needed to be. He also repeats information time after time, supposedly to prove his point.
There is a lot of information in this book that was new to me and, for that reason, it was worthwhile. It would have been a much better book if it had been written from a more objective point of view and if it had been organized much better.
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit
by Barry Estabrook, 2012, Andrew McMeel Publishing
Barry Estabrook does a good job of outlining what has happened to the tomato in Florida over the last few decades. It was particularly interesting because we live so close to the heart of Tomatoland and I didn’t have a lot of the information that the author provided.
The books seems divided into two separate themes: first, the conditions under which the workers live and work and, second, how the tomato evolved into a hard, tasteless fruit and the current efforts to fix the problem. The author does a pretty good job with each of these topics, but it makes the book a little disjointed.
There was a lot of information in this book that I didn’t know and I found it to be extremely readable. By the end of the book, however, I think I had had enough of tomatoes.
Note: This is the first book I have read using a Kindle Touch device. It was a pretty good experience, especially since I could make the text bigger. I put it in landscape mode so that I could have bigger text and still have a decent number of words on a line.  It created a bit more page turning, but that was okay. 
My idea to decrease head injuries in the NFL
I wrote this letter in October to Commissioner Goodell thinking that I might have an idea here that’s at least worth discussing. Each week, when I tune into an NFL game on TV, I continue to see players crashing into each other with helmet-to-helmet contact. It seems to be getting worse. So far I have had no response from Commissioner Goodell. I attribute that to maybe he didn’t think the idea was a good one, or perhaps he just doesn’t answer his mail. Anyway, I am sharing it on my blog.
October 21, 2012
Dear Commissioner Goodell,
Each week I tune into an NFL game and, while I am watching, I am still seeing major head-to-head collisions and it seems that the issue of head injuries and how to prevent them isn’t getting resolved, despite the best efforts of the NFL owners and officials. I have come to the conclusion that there is an obvious flaw in logic of helmet design, the fact that all of the padding in the helmets is on the INSIDE.
Recall that back in the early days of football there were leather helmets that were SOFT on the OUTSIDE. Since those early days, head protection has evolved to the point where the helmet has become a lethal weapon, primarily because of the hardness of the outside of this gear. When two hard-surfaced objects collide, the laws of physics that Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated suggest that the shock of the collision will be fairly substantial (equal and opposite reaction and all that sort of stuff).
So, I keep thinking, why not add a layer of soft padding, say an inch or so, on the outside of the helmets? I would think the impact of any blows between two helmets would be substantially reduced. The cost to implement this change also seems to me to be manageable (maybe use old bicycle tires), given the degree of injuries it could potentially reduce.
I don’t think this change would necessarily make football players look like the Michelin tire guy, and I think it would substantially help protect the players. This idea has been rattling around in my head for some time now (I don’t have any head protection myself, you know) and every time I mention it to someone, they ask if I have shared it with anyone who can implement it. Up to this time I have had to admit that the answer to this question has been “noâ€. After sending this letter, I can finally answer, “Yes I haveâ€.
Please let me know what you think of this idea and any factors you feel would prohibit its implementation.
Yours truly,
Larry Wilson
A fan
The Cat’s Table
by Michael Ondaatje, 2011, Audiobook read by the author, Random House Audio
The setting of this story is intriguing … three boys pretty much on their own on a steamer from Ceylon to England. They encounter some pretty unusual characters and quite a lot of shipboard excitement. But the story is more about the impact of such an experience on one of them and how it affected him as he became an adult.
The author narrates the story and, unlike some other attempts when the author reads his own work, the tone and pace are very much in keeping with the story. I liked his voice and phrasing.
On the downside, however, the book seems to wander a bit and never really get to the issue. While he tells a nice story, it didn’t get ever create the level of impact that the book was meant to impart. He had an experience, he grew up, he remembers the experience, and it stays in his thoughts a lot. That seems to be about it.
Also, because the entire book is narrated in the third person (other than a long letter from an Italian lady in the last part of the book), I didn’t seem to get really good feel for any of the other characters on board the ship. Perhaps this is due to its being an audiobook versus a printed version. For some reason, I keep wanting to compare it to Simon Vance;s reading of Charles Dickens’ work with the all  of his characters and their individual voices and dialogue in their own words. You won’t get this here as you will hear the same very quiet voice of the narrator describing his experiences. I think it’s well done, but when I recall how much I enjoyed Vance’s reading of Dickens, I just don’t appreciate it as much.
