I purchased a copy of "John Adams" by David McCullough at a local grocery store a couple months ago and finally finished it this last week. The book was first released in 2001 but, since then, the HBO television network has produced an award-winning mini-series based on the book and a repackaged reissue of the book was released..

I was very intrigued by John Adams after reading about him in the Joseph Ellis history narrative "Founding Brothers." What intrigued me most was his steadfast relationship with his wife Abigail and his on-again, off-again friendship with Thomas Jefferson.

"John Adams" peels away another layer and reveals an incredible amount of detail about the man and his roles in the early years of our country.

What impressed me most in the book was how relatively "solid" Adams was in his beliefs and his philosophies. Around the time he was elected the second president of the United States, there was a great amount of fervor within those involved in politics them to rally around political parties. Adams' political philosophy probably made him more of a federalist than a republican, but he refused to affiliate with either of the predominant movements at that time. This made him both popular and unpopular with both parties, but gave him a tremendous amount of freedom as president to do what he felt was right. Reading about this demonstrated to me just how counterproductive a two-party system can be, especially for executive-branch candidates.

So much of Adams' political beliefs are needed today. He was a frugal, sensible man who didn't see politics and public service as a life of celebrity or extravagance. He never felt he was above anyone else as was demonstrated by his pitching in to help fight fires when they broke out while he was in office. It's amazing to me to imagine the president of the United States standing in a chain line passing buckets of water down so that a burning building could be extinguished. Today it would be called a "publicity event" or some such nonsense.

When I finished the last chapter of the book, which covered Adams' death and the services and recognition paid to him afterward, I couldn't help but cry for a couple of minutes. After reading the book, which contains hundreds of excerpts of letters and speeches from Adams, I felt I had made some progress toward knowing the man. While I knew from the beginning he had died almost 200 years ago, reaching that part of the book and realizing everything he had done, said, and influenced in the 89 years of his life hit me like a pile of bricks. We owe a large debt of gratitude to this man.

In related news, the HBO miniseries (which I have not seen) is coming out on DVD this Tuesday, June 10, 2008. You can get it from Amazon.com.

Tonight, I finished reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer, the bestselling author of the Twilight saga of young adult vampire novels. The Host is Meyer's first foray into "adult" fiction and I hope this is just a sign of many things to come. I really enjoyed this book a lot.

Why is The Host categorized as "adult" fiction? What makes it different than the other Meyer books? Well, the themes are more mature, that's for sure. The romance is amped up a couple notches, but I think any 16 year-old would be fine reading it.

A large portion of the story takes place in a complex of underground caves which I thought was a bit of a cop-out from a writing standpoint. Putting the characters into such a limited set of scenery conveniently eliminated a lot of potentially complex variables in the story. Meyer makes an effort to make up for it, though, by defining her characters with abundant detail. The dialogue between the characters was so natural to me, I often found myself laughing out loud as I read because it was so amazing to me how believable the characters were.

Could The Host turn into another series of novels for Meyer? I wouldn't complain, but I kind of hope she doesn't limit herself to it.

The basic premise of the book is that Earth has been invaded by an alien race that embeds itself into the human body as a parasite. The humans that once controlled those bodies are seemingly shut off. The story begins as a young woman named Melanie -- an "uninfected"human rebel who has been hiding from the aliens -- is captured and is implanted with a "soul" (one of the parasite aliens) named Wanderer.

Melanie isn't about to just fade away like humans are supposed to. She makes life for Wanderer challenging and... interesting, but it's Melanie's memories that form the basis for changes in Wanderer's outlook on humanity, love, and life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way Meyer plays the alien Wanderer as a way of looking through a fresh lens at humans in various circumstances. There were multiple times, as I was reading, I was impressed by the genius of that.

It's available in hardcover wherever your favorite novels are sold.

Another book I read recently is "A Train To Potevka" written by Mike Ramsdell, a native Utahn.

Ramsdell spent many years working in Military Intelligence (MI) and with his mastery of the German and Russian languages, was involved in missions behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s.

This book, Ramsdell's first, is classified as fiction, but it's clear from reading that it is, at a minimum, based on real events. The stories take place shortly before the collapse of the Communist government in the former Soviet Union. Ramsdell was involved in a mission to capture a member of the Russian mafia for being involved in fraudulent activities surrounding the construction of the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

Just as the mission was getting close to finishing, the team's security is compromised. Ramsdell sends his two other operatives home while he "cleans up" and prepares to leave as well. He is intercepted by a mafia hit man and must find a way to escape and get out of the city to a safehouse in the town of Potevka.

This is a great book, especially for a first-time author. It ends up being both a love story and a spiritual story. For readers who are LDS, they will be especially touched by the spiritual side of the story. All readers will likely be captivated by the nitty-gritty details of Ramsdell's writing as he describes degrading conditions in the Siberian provinces of the former Soviet Union near the fall of Communism.

You can purchase this book from Amazon.com.

I've come down with a cold this last week. I took Thursday off work to try to rest and get better, but I don't think it really helped. I still feel like I've got a pool cue ball lodged at the top of my throat and it's not a very pleasant feeling.

Yesterday, this somewhat painful and uncomfortable sensation in my throat begat the beginnings of a scratchy cough and I knew (actually, my wife knew) once I tried to lay down in bed and go to sleep, that scratchy cough would become a pesky inhibitor to sleep.

Sure enough, when I tried to lay down and go to sleep last night, the itchy throat kicked in and I was overcome with a compelling need to cough.

Knowing I had to do something about this in order to sleep, I threw some clothes on and drove over to the neighborhood Smith's grocery store in search for some sugar free (because I'm diabetic) cough drops. I quickly found a couple flavors and headed in the direction of the self-checkout station. On my way, I passed their selection of books for sale and I decided to see what they had. I was pleasantly surprised to see they had Glenn Beck's book in stock. It's only been in stock one other time before that I can remember looking. After looking through the hardcover books, I decided to do a quick pass through the paperbacks to see if there was anything interesting. That's when I found "The Blue Zone" by Andrew Gross. I had heard Gross talking about his new book "A Dark Tide" on the radio and thought I might like this book.

That was between 1:30 and 2:00 in the morning.

I decided to let the cough drops work their magic for a little while before I attempted to sleep again, so I started reading "The Blue Zone." I ended up reading about 150 pages of the book before climbing back in bed (fell to sleep without any problems at all). Then, I read some more this morning, and then finished it tonight- about 22 hours after purchasing it.

I think it goes without saying that it's an easy read.

The story is also an easy one to get into. Kate Raab is the central character in the story and is a graduate student doing some kind of research in genetic biology in the New York City area. Her father is a respected and well known trader of gold and other jewelry commodities.

The story begins with Kate's father being arrested for being involved in a money laundering scheme that was connected to Colombian drug cartels, a charge he firmly denied any knowledge of.

As the government explains the evidence they have against him, they also explain they can work a deal wherein he and his family get witness protection in exchange for his testimony against other people higher up in this scheme. After much deliberation, he decides to go ahead and take the deal. While it seemed he really didn't know what his clients were actually doing with the gold he was selling to them, he knew enough about the transactions and the people involved for the government to build a strong case.

Kate is 23 years-old, about to get married, and working on groundbreaking research in her field. When offered the opportunity to flee into the witness protection program, she declines despite knowing it will be very difficult for her to maintain communication with her family once they go into the program.

Several months later, government authorities go to Kate with news that her father has disappeared and they believe he may be involved in a murder and that her life may be in danger. From here, it seems Kate's whole world gets turned upside down as she tries to figure out why her father was charged in the first place, why he's gone into "the blue zone" (a phrase used for someone in witness protection who has gone missing), and who these people are that he was allegedly involved with and testifying against.

Gross's writing style seems very contemporary and somewhat formulaic. While he does a good job of building suspense and mystery, I can't say he did it completely convincingly. There were a couple times, albeit rare, when I saw something coming that was intended to draw a big gasp of shock from the reader.

In the story, Kate is an insulin-dependent diabetic and was diagnosed just a few years prior to the events in the book. That's interesting to me because I am also a type-1 diabetic and have only been for seven years or so. Gross's handling of the diabetes was a little weak. I think he could have done his research better on the symptoms of high blood sugar and low blood sugar because I didn't buy everything he said about Kate's condition throughout the story.

Twice in the story, a character receives a surprise call on their cell phone. In each case, the character is shocked to hear the voice on the other end of the call because they assumed the call was from someone else. This bothered me because it's a cell phone! Come on! Every cell phone has Caller ID and if it wasn't whoever they thought it was, they would at least see that the number was different or that the Caller ID information was being blocked. I mean, who answers their cell phone blindly anymore and says, "Hey, honey"?!

That being said, this guy is a good storyteller. I'll probably get his next book when it goes to paperback because the premise is interesting.

If you like suspenseful thrillers where the protagonist is thrown into a situation they don't understand and they have to work against all odds to find their way out, you'll probably enjoy The Blue Zone.

I keep meaning to post some reviews of some of the books I've been reading, but it seems like I never do. So, to placate myself, I'm doing some quickie-reviews of a stack.

"An Inconvenient Book" By Glenn Beck

Oh, you were really surprised when you came across this book review, weren't you? Yeah, I'm a big Glenn Beck fan. Proof of just how nuts I am about Glenn Beck: I wrote a Perl script to convert the live streams on the Glenn Beck Insider site (which include bumper music and other types of material not fit for the "podcast" MP3s) into MP3 or Ogg files I can listen to when I want. Yeah. I'm a fan... a geeky fan.

Okay, so about this book... It is very, very good. In my opinion, this is how all conservative pundits and talk radio jocks should write their books. While a significant chunk of the book is about hot political issues like illegal immigration and global warming, there are chapters about less political topics... like going to the video store or tipping service staff. It's a pretty well-rounded capture of what goes on in the mind of the third-most listened-to talk radio host in all of America.

The layout of the book is also impressive: Every page is printed in 4-color process and the text is accompanied by charts, graphs, and humorous drawings/pictures that go along with the topic at hand. The designers also gave each page a seemingly unique watermark, or background, that gives it a well-handled, worn look- like maybe you've spilled a cup of coffee, or in the case of Glenn, a can of Coke Zero, on it, by accident.

From my perspective, as a rabid fan of Glenn's, I found the book a bit lacking in detail. That is, aside from the packaging of the book itself, there really wasn't much new here for me, content-wise, that I hadn't already read on Glenn's site, heard on his radio program, seen on his television program, or experienced myself at one of his stage shows. But... hey... I'm the exception here. If you've had some exposure to Glenn Beck or none at all, this book is an excellent way to jump in and find out what he's about.

Want to buy the book? Head over to Amazon and get it. It may be hard to find at your smaller local bookstore as it has been one of the top New York Times bestsellers since its release in November of 2007.

"The Real America" By Glenn Beck

Stop laughing, already. So, when I ordered something like six copies of "An Inconvenient Book," I went ahead and bought a copy of Glenn's previous book, "The Real America," which was written before I became turned on... uhm... exposed to Glenn (2003).

I enjoyed "The Real America" more than "An Inconvenient Book" because it's more about values and contains more personal history from Glenn about his battle to overcome alcoholism, his conversion to a member of the LDS church, meeting his now-wife Tania, and finding success in the world of talk radio.

There were parts of "The Real America" that made me put the book down and say "Wow," to myself.

A recurring topic with Glenn is "pivot points" -- significant events in a person's life at which things change. Glenn characterizes these moments as so memorable you can remember the song that was playing on the radio, or the pattern on the wallpaper in the room. This book gives you a unique insight into Glenn's personal pivot points and how he has been able to use these to make himself into a better person.

So, a little less humor and a lot more heart.

Buy it at Amazon.

"Twilight" By Stephenie Meyer

If you know anything about the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer, you know they're found in the "teen, fantasy" section and they're hugely popular among teens and young adults... especially girls.

How I came to read this book is quite interesting. I was searching Amazon for books on the development environment Eclipse so I could become more proficient with it at work when I ran across a link to the book "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer. It is the third book in the Twilight series. I couldn't tell what it was about, exactly, but a little digging told me that Meyer was a graduate of Brigham Young University, currently lived in Phoenix, AZ, and the series was about a young girl's relationship with a vampire.

I found that interesting, but I know vampire fantasy novels are almost a dime a dozen, right? I mean, Ann Rice popularized the genre quite a bit with the goth culture over the last twenty years and then you've got the popularity of films like The Lost Boys, the Blade series, and the television shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. Sure, it would seem there's plenty of interest in vampires, especially for young readers.

I didn't buy any of Stephenie's books at that time. I just ordered my Java and Eclipse IDE books and went along my merry way. Then, a couple days later, I was chatting online with my friend Jennie and she asked me, point-blank, if I had read the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer. No, I replied, and before I could tell her it was interesting she asked because I just recently ran across the books online, she started yelling at me (as much as a person can yell in an instant messaging session) that I HAD to read them, they were absolutely awesome, etc., etc.

Within a couple days, I had a copy of "Twilight" in my hands, compliments of Jennie. She actually wanted Christine to read the book (because Christine's a girl, you see) and included a short note inside instructing Christine to go to Stephenie Meyers' website after she finished Twilight and "read Edward's version of Chapter One, but don't do it until you've finished the book!"

Christine wasn't really that interested. So, after a week or so, I decided to take a peek and started reading the book. Within minutes, the surface of my hands became like Gorilla Glue and my face grew blinders on each side of my eyes so that I could see only the pages of Twilight and nothing else.

It's a good book. It draws you in.

The story tells of Isabel (Bella) Swan, a junior in high school who moves to the Pacific northwest to live with her father in a small rural town. While attending high school there, she meets Edward Cullen, the member of a somewhat peculiar, but beautiful family. Bella eventually learns that Edward is a vampire, as is his entire (adopted) family.

Meyers creates her own breed of vampire and picks and chooses what characteristics to borrow from popular vampire lore. Meyers' vampires have no aversion to crosses or holy water; They don't die when exposed to sunlight (but they are affected by sunlight, which is why the Cullen family has settled in a small town in an area that gets very little direct sunlight); They can't (usually) control your thoughts.

That being said, vampires in Meyers' books are very dangerous. The Cullens are a rare group that have chosen to exercise self-control over their blood lust in order to coexist with humans, but they are the exception and not the rule. Meyers' vampires are effectively immortal and have superhuman strength (and speed).

Twilight is a gripping tale of suspense, mystery, teen drama, romance, and a little horror. It's not gory, but it's not sanitized either. I wouldn't recommend the books for anyone under the age of 12.

Incidentally, a film based on the book is currently in production.

Buy your copy today at Amazon dot com!

"New Moon" By Stephenie Meyer

Once you've read Twilight, you just have to read the second book in the series, "New Moon" because you're dying to find out what happens to Bella Swan. I didn't bother waiting to get Jennie's copy of book number 2. I just went out and bought it.

"New Moon" picks up a few months after the events at the end of "Twilight." Things are going pretty well for Bella and Edward, but then Edward mysteriously leaves and tells Bella to, in short, find another boyfriend.

The bulk of the book then follows Bella as she mind-numbingly tries to cope with the loss of her loved one and begins spending time with Jacob Black, a young Native American who is more of a friend of the family than a love interest (although, he doesn't quite see it that way). Bella doesn't admit it, but she's really using Jacob to exercise new masochistic impulses she has been developing since Edward left.

Good book, but nowhere near as good as "Twilight." If that was the end of the series, I'd say don't bother reading it, but it's not the end of the series. You have to read "New Moon" to understand what happens in "Eclipse," so, it's worth it.

Buy it, where else? A-Ma-Zon!

"Eclipse" By Stephenie Meyer

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

And now, we get to "Eclipse." I bought it at a Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles because that's where I was when I finished the second book.

The third book in the series makes up for the slowness of "New Moon" and, in my opinion, rises above both of the preceding novels to be the best of the crop.

Bella Swan, constantly occupied with becoming a vampire herself so that she can have immortality (and immortal love with Edward) finds herself caught between Edward (who obviously has come back), the affection of Jacob Black, the Cullen family, the less friendly non-human-coexisting vampires, and a pack of werewolves that exist to do one thing: eradicate vampires.

Oh, and she's also trying to finish and graduate from high school.

Yeah. Lots more action in this one. And, we learn more about what these vampires can and can't do, the history of the werewolves, the excruciating process someone goes through being "transformed" into a vampire, and some great history on the Cullens.

I thought this was going to be the end of the series because of the way the book ends, but book number 4 is coming to bookstores Fall 2008.

Get "Eclipse" at Amazon.com.

I've been reading the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The title of the book is guaranteed to set people off, one way or another and for this reason, Goldberg seems to spend a extraordinary amount of effort defending his premises and explaining that he's not saying that today's liberals are anti-semetic, genocidal maniacs. What he does say, and says very well, is that history's most common tales of fascism, such as Adolf Hilter and Benito Mussolini, were largely influenced by progressive thought--the same progressive thought that rules the Democratic party and liberal politics today.

In a July 2007 debate, Hillary Clinton responded to the question of whether she would refer to herself as a "liberal."

"You know, ['liberal'] is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual.

"Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head and it's been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.

"I prefer the word 'progressive,' which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.

"I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family.

"So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that's the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics."

At the time of this debate, I was reading The Forgotten Man by Amnity Schlaes which provides a new look at the political forces at play before and during the 1930s when the United States was enduring The Great Depression. What Schlaes reveals--and what many people don't know--is that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies were formed with the help of a team of progressive advisors and cabinet members who had varying degrees of infatuation and admiration for Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini and the forms of government they were managing and/or advocating.

Schlaes offers that the policies of the Roosevelt administration were a significant input into why the Great Depression lasted for the entire decade of the 1930s while other industrialized nations around the world suffered an economic hit in 1929 and then recovered relatively quickly.

I mention this because, thanks in part to my friend Glenn Beck, I recently came across a number of platform statements and congressional records belonging to presidential candidate (and current frontrunner) Barack Obama that suggest he is ready to (blindly?) take us right into a repeat of the 1930s.

National work programs

The Roosevelt administration, in the interest of stimulating the economy and helping the large number of unemployed, created a number of government work plans including the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program for young men, 17 years old or older. The CCC put these men to work in camps on various projects around the country such as clearing out dead wood in forests and building bridges, walkways, and roads, and other construction projects, usually in rural or undeveloped settings.

Last week, Barack Obama announced to Wisconsin auto industry workers that, as president, he would propose over $200 billion in programs to create new government jobs. The bulk of this spending would go to create a workforce of "green-collar workers" that would tackle environmental issues like finding new forms of enviro-friendly fuels. Other jobs would go to infrastructure projects such as highways and bridges.

While I agree that good hard work is good for the mind and soul and would benefit individuals who would otherwise be unemployed and potentially idle, I can't help but be concerned that Sen. Obama hasn't studied his history. Quite frankly, it doesn't seem like many on the left have studied their history because these types of programs are becoming quite a popular topic of discussion among liberals. If we know we're going into a period that may be like the 1930s, why would we do the same things that prolonged the suffering and the stagnation then?

The less-fortunate

Many Americans believe we have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate around the world. Liberals believe this should be a function of the federal government. Conservatives, on the other hand, would prefer this be done by private organizations and charities. One of the reasons conservatives feel this way is because the charitable feeling is completely lost when your money is forcefully taken from you by the federal goverment in the form of taxes and fees, no matter how good the intentions are. Plus, there is the issue of how efficiently those funds will be handled.

Senator Obama, along with fellow senators Chuck Hagel and Maria Cantwell, have sponsored legislation known as the "Global Poverty Act" which passed the Senate Foreign Relations committee this last week. If passed, this legislation would require that the federal government provide a small percentage of the economic GDP as financial aid for countries where people live in poverty. The US would not send this money directly to the people or their governments. Instead, we would give that money to the United Nations to administer the funds.

Again, when will people learn?! Our government created a formal "War On Poverty" after World War II and spent plenty of money on programs to help the poor improve their station in life. Did anyone actually rise out of poverty? Not according to statistics. Because of this and because the government continued to rise the poverty level to include less and less poor households, those who qualified for assistance under these programs grew.

1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech titled "A Time For Choosing". In it, he addresses the inefficiency of the government's welfare programs.

"We are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead."

He also talks about the overall ineffectiveness of cutting checks to those "in-need:"

"If government planning and welfare had the answer and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? ... But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater."

Again, haven't we learned anything from our past mistakes? Why can't our political leaders learn what works and employ those techniques instead of playing the same old card again and again?

What works for poverty, unemployment, etc.? Not free handouts.

The LDS Church here in Utah has its own welfare programs which are available to anyone, regardless of church affiliation. These programs are not handouts. Instead. they are structured, compassionate programs that encourage the recipients to "give in" to receive. Meals, clothing, and other assistance are available to those in need and, in turn, the recipients are asked to give of their time and effort to help provide the same services to others. This is a perfect example of why private charitable organizations are much better equipped to deal with these kinds of problems than the bureaucratic nightmare of the federal government.

Obama's legislation states that it is all part of an international agreement to help combat poverty. This means that all participating countries will be taking a portion of their national revenue and giving it to the United Nations for distribution to poor areas. Two alarm bells go off when I ponder this: Global redistribution of wealth, a socialist policy tenet, and international taxation by the United Nations! When will the madness stop?

The United Nations is supposed to help keep the peace in sensitive areas of the world and it can't even do that well. Why would anyone think this organization would be effective and act responsibly in an effort to combat poverty? Oil for food, anyone? Do progressives, liberals, and socialists simply lack the ability to learn?!

Debt

The United States government, and by association, the citizens of the United States, are between $9 and $100 TRILLION dollars in debt. I fail to see the sense of spending more than what is required to maintain bare essential services until this debt is eradicated. Social programs, earmarks, museums, assistance programs... They should all be stopped or shrunk so that some of the government's revenue can be applied toward the outstanding debt.

History tells us Thomas Jefferson had much to say about debt, both personal and national. He stated it was vital that the country not take on debt and if it did, that it should be no more debt than could be paid for in one generation.

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

As a country, we have ignored Jefferson's advice since the beginning of the 20th century and now we are witnessing the effects of years of irresponsible borrowing in our economic outlook.

And speaking of irresponsible borrowing, Barack Obama has proposed a $10 billion federal fund to help "innocent victims" caught in the subprime loan mess. Are there really innocent victims? I don't think so. When you borrow money to purchase a house, you have plenty of opportunity to learn what you're getting into, what your obligations are, etc. The lending institutions are certainly not innocent either because they have time-tested methods for determining risk when lending money. What Obama is suggesting is essentially saddling us with more national debt because of a few people's irresponsible behavior.

Fiscal discipline and revenue

Barack Obama's website says a lot about a need for fiscal discipline and responsibility. I'm glad his website says these thing, but if he really believes in these things, how are these billions upon billions of federal programs going to be funded? There will have to be greater revenue to the federal government and/or less spending on programs that are already there. Obama's honest about this, if not direct about it. If you peruse his website, you'll learn he wants to cut spending on various programs and he wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Well, only for the rich, not for the poor or middle class taxpayers.

While repealing tax cuts for the rich is a popular thing to do (because there are a lot more people who aren't rich than are), it is, by definition, not fair. I would really like someone to explain to me why it makes sense that we pay a different percentage of our assets in taxes based on the amount of assets we have. To be fair, equal, and all that, shouldn't we each pay the same percentage?

What are the economic repercussions of saddling the "rich" with more taxes? The rich are more likely to spend more than those who are less wealthy, so this would cut into their spending power. The rich are more likely to employ others than those who are less wealthy, so this cuts into their hiring power. Hello?! Tax hikes on the rich is a direct attack on important driving forces of the economy: consumer spending and employment!

I don't usually use the Fozzolog to dispense relationship advice... Well, let me think about that. When my wife and I were living with her brother and his wife as their marriage was crumbling, I guess I did say quite a bit about bad behavior in relationships then. So... let me start over: I haven't usually used the Fozzolog to dispense relationship advice since we moved out of my wife's brothers house when his marriage was crumbling. That being said, I have something to share that may or may not be of value to people who are in challenging, confusing relationship with a significant other.

Recently, a young woman I'm friends with has been talking to me about the relationship with her boyfriend. I recognized right away that she was a "needy" person in the relationship. As she talked to me about the problems she was facing, I told her about a relationship I had with a girl named Amy when I was in college. I was head over heels in love with Amy and couldn't get enough of her. Amy loved me, but she really grew uncomfortable of the constant pressure of my affection and my needs. To be blunt, I was smothering her. Then, one day, she told me she thought we should spend some time away from each other -- she needed "space."

This cliché of young love -- "I need space," was a dreadful thing for me to hear and I responded by giving her exactly what she did not want: more attention, more neediness, desperation, and more obligation to attend to me. Long, painful, ridiculous story made short: the relationship ended. I got fat, depressed, and still bear some emotional scars of the breakup today.

During the months that followed that painful split, as I tried to grapple with why a relationship that, in my mind, seemed so perfect, didn't work, I ran across a book in a bookstore titled "The Two Step." This book, more than anything else, opened my eyes to what should have been obvious, but wasn't: I was hogging the "dance" of the relationship.

This book does an excellent job of explaining how healthy relationships usually involve two people who regularly switch roles of "the seeker" and "the sought" back and forth. From there, it describes common types of dsyfunctional relationships and what can be done to make the relationship healthy. The authors use the metaphor of a dance to describe it and it works well. The book is simple to read- lots of fun drawings and simple messages. So, I found myself telling my needy friend about this book and even dug it out and scanned a couple pages from it for her. It's been about fifteen years since I purchased the book and it's still doing some good.

If you or someone you know is going through a difficult time in a relationship or having trouble getting past a failed relationship, check out this book. You can get it from Amazon.com and lots of other places, I'm sure. I noticed Amazon has some nice excerpts available you can look at to get an idea of what the inside of the book is like.

I recently finished Laura Ingraham’s latest book Power To The People and present a review of it.

Laura Ingraham is a nationally syndicated conservative talk-radio host. In Salt Lake City, she is heard on 1430 AM (KLO) from 7-10 a.m. She’s probably a second or third tier conservative host as most people don’t know who she is — they know Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and even Glenn Beck, but may have never heard of Laura Ingraham before. It wouldn’t surprise me if people thought she was “Dr. Laura” but, believe me, she and Laura Schlessinger are completely different. For one thing, Ingraham is, like, really educated and not just some physiology grad.

Some people probably confuse Laura Ingraham with Ann Coulter. There are some similarities in their “acts,” but I find Coulter to be much more vitriolic in her attacks of liberal democrats where Laura Ingraham is just entertaining.

Laura’s radio program features lots of soundbites and clips from TV news programs with witty analysis by Laura and her studio cohorts. She is also frequently joined by this or that politician or pundit to talk about the issues of the day.

One of Laura’s program’s trademarks is the opening montage of soundbites that accompany the theme music. Unlike Limbaugh’s opener (classic) or Hannity’s (*rolls eyes*), Laura’s gets changed quite frequently as she mixes it up weekly or daily with funny, idiotic, or inspiring clips of people. These montages always end with a shrill “Power to the peeeeeeople!” at the end. The screamer is a leftist human rights activist named Efia Nwangaza and the clip sounds like she’s being dragged away by security as she’s screaming.

Now you know where the title of the book comes from.

The book was an easy read, maybe too easy for me. Power To The People can be summarized as follows: Conservative talk-radio listeners should be aware of the following problems with our society. As talk-radio listeners, you have the power, collectively, to make a difference and influence action on these problems.

I fear Glenn Beck’s book coming out in November may be a similar set of recipes. We’ll see.

Laura begins by talking about the attack on the family. This was one of the more interesting chapters in the book. Laura — not married and not a parent — talks about how mainstream society looks down on large families and families in general. She discusses the value of the traditional (and natural) family model and how it must be defended. She touches on other topics that resurface later in the book, like sexualization of children and government usurping the authority of parents.

Next, illegal immigration. Who saw that coming? This section was just another dose of common sense solutions all of the talk radio world is screaming about while Washington collectively holds its fingers in its ears and says, “La la la la la.”

After that: national security. Laura talks about terror, terrorist states, and China.

Chapter four is about the courts and I thought it was the standout chapter in the book. Laura has a lot more perspective when it comes to judicial issues because she spent time working as a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas in the U.S. Supreme Court. In this chapter she uses the nomination of Harriet Miers to argue who should and should not be a judge. I learned a lot more about the judiciary and its modern issues and controversies than I expected to.

The next chapter covers smaller government, or putting the power closer to the people. Another typical dose of conservative common sense.

Then: Porn. Laura explores just how explicit news, popular culture, and society has become and what we can do to squelch it. It’s not clear what we can do about it, to really make a difference, but Laura has several ideas.

Other chapters include topics such as schools and science. It was a little embarrassing to see Laura mention Utah twice in her book as a state that’s got it right by passing a school choice voucher law. Maybe she didn’t know about the legal appeals and the referendum when she wrote about it.

Finally, Laura spends a chapter talking about her fight with breast cancer. This was a stark deviation from the rest of her book, but it definitely humanizes the author a great deal. I found that chapter quite moving.

So, all in all, it’s an okay book. I’ll give it a 6/10 for what it is, basically a political propoganda book. It’s good reading if you’re a fan of Laura Ingraham. If you’re not (and I’m kind of in between), it may or may not be your cup of tea.

Holy cow! Isn't it time for something already?!?!

Alright, I promised before I would deliver a review of the book, The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes. You can get this book from Amazon.com.

The Forgotten Man is a look at the events of the Great Depression in the United States during the 1930s from the perspective of policy. I found it to be a fascinating look into the lives and viewpoints of people who were involved in the landmark political events during this decade.

The book begins in 1927. Floods in the midwest caused widespread damage through a burgeoning heartland. Herbert Hoover -- Commerce Secretary for U.S. president Calvin Coolidge -- went to areas affected by the flooding to be of help. Hoover's presence on the scene of natural disaster like this set a new precedent of federal government involvement in disaster response.

Hoover was a paradox in the Coolidge administration and joining him in the Coolidge Cabinet was Andrew Mellon who served as Secretary of the Treasury. I'd heard of Andrew Mellon before. I think we all have. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grants funding for museums, performing arts, information technology and more. I'm sure I've heard the name a gazillion times announced as a major donor responsible for various public television programming.

I think Hoover and Mellon, personify the two core attitudes about policy in the late 1920s and going into the beginning of the Great Depression. Hoover's political philosophies were exemplified by his actions. He was an engineer who seemed to delight in architecting and managing solutions to problems. As a government official, he transferred that enthusiasm onto the government and a belief the federal government should be involved in helping people with big problems.

Hoover was elected president in 1928 and inaugurated in early 1929. In office for only a few months, Hoover presided over what became known as Black Tuesday in October 1929 -- the crash of the U.S. stock market many believe set off the Great Depression.

Like Coolidge, Hoover was a Republican. Hoover retained Andrew Mellon as his Secretary of Treasury, but Mellon had different policy ideas than Hoover. He was clearly more conservative and, as a result, became an unpopular figure as the country plunged into the worst economy ever.

Hoover was, of course, superceded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 who then presided for an unprecedented 4 terms.

While Hoover was a moderate Republican who had leanings toward building a larger federal government with increased social programs, Roosevelt was a moderate Democrat who was popular among the rich business elite of the northeast.

While Hoover had smart businessmen in his camp to keep him somewhat tethered to more conservative policy, Roosevelt brought in clearly progressive and academic people to run the federal government with him. Roosevelt's cabinet used the Great Depression as an excuse to grow the government's role in people's lives. Many were fans of Joseph Stalin's rule in Russia and aspired to make the United States more like that country. This was, of course, before word got out that Stalin was slaughtering millions of people to "make things work."

The Forgotten Man traces the political, business, and personal lives of dozens of remarkable players during the 1930s. Besides the presidents and their cabinet members, outspoken religion leaders like Father Divine and business leaders like Wendell Wilkie are covered in amazing depth.

The book covers the contention between Roosevelt and the aging Supreme Court and Roosevelt's fuming animosity toward utility companies and the rich men that ran them, or pretty much any rich men at all. There were trials, witchhunts, and smear campaigns all orchestrated by the Roosevelt administration against men who had lost much of their wealth after The Crash, but still had more money than most people.

After reading this book, I think F.D.R. did a horrible job of managing the country during his first two terms in office. This book doesn't really expose much of Roosevelt's third and fourth terms, but we know Roosevelt is revered as a hero that helped The Allies win World War II. Before that, however, he seemed to have no clue how to effectively dictate healthy domestic or foreign policy.

I found out about this book after hearing about it on Glenn Beck's radio show. Glenn found this book particularly relevant today because the conditions of the financial markets today is similar to conditions prior to Black Tuesday. It is a frightening prospect to think we could see such an extreme and disasterous downturn in our economy and possibly see the country plunge into another lengthy depression. This book illustrates the best cure for a depression is not a leader that tries to bring government services to every man, woman and child, but a leader who will exercise conservative economic policy and limit federal spending.

Prior to reading this book, I really didn't know much about the political struggles of the Great Depression. All I really knew about F.D.R. was related to his wartime years. I generally believed stupid financial markets, bankers, traders, etc. were largely responsible for the Great Depression. Now... not so much.

Highly recommended reading for all Americans.

I recently finished reading the book Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis and would like to present a mini-review of it.

This isn't a new book. It's been out for quite a while and has even spawned an A & E miniseries by the same name which is available on DVD. Could be a good Christmas gift. (*hint hint*)

Without going into too much of the detail of specific historical events surrounding the Revolutionary War and the creation of the Declaration Of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Ellis's book explores the character and personality of some of the major players involved in these events.

Ellis doesn't really sugarcoat much. He tries to show the merits and flaws of each of the people he profiles in the book. Drawing from letters, journal entries, and newspaper articles written by, to, or about the people, this book shows some brutally honest aspects of the people and the times they were living in.

It was fascinating to follow the relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as they bonded closely during the first congress meetings up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which Jefferson penned after Adams recommended him.). They continued as close friends as they reprepsented colonial interests abroad in France and England. Politics divided them during Adams' presidential administration and the election of 1800. It would be many years before they re-connected via letter-writing after they both retired from public life.

The book also talks about Washington, Hammilton, Burr, and Franklin as well, but the relationship of Adams and Jefferson is what really stood out to me, maybe because it parallels the left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican battles we see in politics today. The story gives hope that, in the end, we can find common ground.