As always, Kaminer urges people to think, to get to the nub (she says of Timothy McVeigh’s closed-circuit TV execution:...
Kaminer (Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, 1999, etc.) makes a strong case for the vibrant protection of constitutional liberties, particularly when perceptions of fear have gripped the citizenry.
“People have a right to their stupidities,” jibes Kaminer as she goes about biting the ankles of those eager to curtail the expression of those stupidities as well as the right of dissent and holding unpopular opinions, our moral right to have moral preferences. In this collection of some four dozen pieces, mostly from the pages of the American Prospect, Kaminer explains her mistrust of government—the reins of power—as essential to maintaining the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. She is wary when asked by politicians to curtail the rights of others, especially at times of national unease, as in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. She suggests that we should always ask ourselves why we are assenting to the enhancement of power in individual hands—say, executive power, or, worse yet, committee—at the expense of constitutional rights to all. How will this devolution of responsibility play out in the long run? “Censorship campaigns often begin with a drive to protect children (or women), but they rarely end there,” she says of the movement to curb popular entertainments. She sticks close to our civil liberties and rights, striving for a sense of balance (“For freedom’s sake, we all have to tolerate being vilified, embarrassed, or harassed, but freedom will survive if we acknowledge a right not to be terrorized”) in often tricky terrain like virtual child pornography or the legal difference between the advocacy of unpopular ideas or acts and the incitement of them.
As always, Kaminer urges people to think, to get to the nub (she says of Timothy McVeigh’s closed-circuit TV execution: “Public viewing of executions is less important than public scrutiny of capital cases”), to refuse to be treated like children by a government of power seekers.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2002
ISBN: 0-8070-4411-3
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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