Recommended Reading.

Brigitte Gabriel is a Lebanese Christian who experienced first-hand the horrors of jihad and the hatred of fundamentalist Islam. She lived for seven years in a bomb shelter, dodging sniper bullets and shells just to obtain basic necessities, such as food and water.

She relates her experiences, and speaks out against Islamic terror in her book, Because They Hate. Ms. Gabriel, along with Robert Spencer and others have courageously pointed out the truth about the enemies facing the United States, and criticize the liberals and politically correct who deny or hide the truth.

Her tale of life in Lebanon during the late '70's and early '80's, as well as revelations about distortion in the media reporting of past and current conflicts in the Middle East, is a powerful one. It's an eye-opener.

Find out more about Brigitte Gabriel and her work at American Congress for Truth.

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R.I.P. Norman Mailer

American journalist and novelist Norman Mailer died of renal failure in New York City today. I'm still trying to sort my impressions about this news.

I first discovered Mailer while I was a freshman in college. I had read about The Armies of the Night in a magazine article, and being young and flushed with idealism and liberalism, I bought a copy at a second-hand bookstore and immersed myself in a world that I had only seen in The Wonder Years. Needless to say, it was a side of that world that I had never known, but I was drawn in by Mailer's unique writing style, even if I didn't fully comprehend the politics behind the narrative. I've since grown out of my youthful liberalism.


I moved on to The American Dream, a dark portrait of our country that I still haven't figured out. What mattered was that Mailer wielded words the way Monet or Picasso wielded a brush, sometimes with similarly striking results. While in Italy, I read some of Ancient Evenings. I tried to read Of a Fire on the Moon during the summer I spent reading about the space program, but the contrast with the no-nonsense technical histories stymied me and I had to put it down. Likewise, I've never been able to get very far into The Prisoner of Sex, which is a pity, because I believe that in this instance, Mailer and I are in agreement. He seems not to be a fan of the feminists (nor they of him), but alas, here his unique style defeats me.


Possibly my favorite Mailer book is Oswald's Ghost, a remarkable look into the life and mind of a killer. Rather than examine bullet theories and grassy knolls, Mailer delves into Lee Harvey Oswald's history to make the case that he did indeed kill Kennedy and acted alone.


In his historical romances about WWII, Herman Wouk writes of Churchill complimenting Rommel with the words, "Across the gulf of war, I salute a great general." Norman Mailer at once entertained me with his narratives, enthralled me with his style, and disgusted me with his politics. He probably would have been amused by that, and appreciated it. Across the gulf of ideology, I salute a great writer.


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Required Reading.

Since graduating from college, I've become more interested in politics and government. I realized that I didn't have a good idea of what our government is and where it came from. I had read the Constitution of course, and I understood the basics of how our government functions (i.e. how laws get passed), but as I entered fully into adult independence, I realized that my ideas about government had been wrong. I decided to read some books that I should have read before.

One of these is Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. This book should be required reading for all Americans, whether in high school, college, or whenever. Everyone should have a copy of this on his bookshelf. Writing in the 19th century, Tocqueville presents a vivid description of how our democracy functions, how it formed, and its strengths and weaknesses. Tocqueville's style is remarkably clear and straightforward, well within the comprehension of high school students.

This book is a revelation to me, because I can see just how far our government has strayed from its original conception. Many of the weaknesses of the republic that Tocqueville described have become prevalent, and the strengths have been eroded by well-meaning progressives. As more people look to the federal government to solve the problems of our society, they undermine the very freedom that they claim to espouse.

Read the Declaration of Independence to understand the principles of our democracy; read the constitution to understand its structure. Then read Tocqueville. You won't be disappointed.

A New Identity.

I just finished reading The Bourne Identity today. Some of you may not know (I didn't) that the movie with Matt Damon was based on a novel that was written twenty years before the movie was made. I enjoyed both the movie and the novel, but I couldn't help but notice the dramatic differences between the two which reflected the twenty-year gap.

Both agree that the main character of Jason Bourne is a super-secret agent of the US government suffering from amnesia. He is pulled from the sea by a fishing boat in the Mediterranean, riddled with bullet wounds and carrying a bank account number in his hip. His love interest is named Marie, and she helps him recover his lost identity while trying to avoid men that are trying to kill him for what he knows.

This is where the book and the movie diverge. In the movie, Bourne's antagonists are the government agency he worked for and their team of assassins. They believe Bourne has gone crazy. The boss of Treadstone even calls him a 'malfunctioning machine.' In the novel, the government agency plays a smaller part, and in the end tries to help save Bourne's life. The real antagonist is an assassin named Carlos, a terrorist trained by the Soviets.

This divergence is interesting to me, especially since the two versions are twenty years apart. In 1980, the government was not trusted, but was not generally regarded as an evil thing, and patriotism was more popular. The movie reflects the more prevalent anti-American attitude today (especially in Hollywood), where the US government is seen as wicked and secretive. If you're curious, I much prefer the novel's viewpoint.

I enjoyed the book, and would recommend both it and the movie to those who like spy thrillers. I'm planning on reading and watching the sequels. It will be interesting to see if they exhibit the same differences.