Some thoughts inspired by Divided By God

We have a problem in America today. That problem is that we can't decide what should be the rational basis for the laws we make. You may be confused now. After all, this is supposed to be related to the church-state issue raised in Divided By God. Well, it is, so bear with me.

One of the points that Feldman raised in that book is that historically, before we were as multicultural a nation as we are now, laws were passed without real regard for what came to be known as "minority rights". As a matter of fact, the very idea of minorities is a relatively recent invention. Whoever was the majority won defacto because nobody else was considered. For example, the laws regarding funding of Catholic schools.

Now before you say that's an obvious case of a breach of the church-state relationship, keep in mind that until fairly recently, in public schools it was normal for teachers to lead children in prayer. Also, reading from the bible was a daily event. When this kind of discrimination was brought to court, it was basically upheld by saying that the public schools (paid for by taxes levied on both Catholics and Protestants) weren't inculcating a particular religion. They were inculcating basic American values that were supposed to be common among all religions. So, by any definition, the state was funding religious education. This was something that the Founders almost surely would not have supported, that being the entire purpose of the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"). Establishment, in that case, is not synonymous with a building, as it is in modern usage (ex. "I find this to be a fine establishment for dining on a small budget.") It means that the government shall make no law that creates a church. That did, in their day, apply to the taxation of people to support churches and religions they did not believe in, something which was a common practice in the states until after the 14th amendment which gave all citizens the rights and protections of the Constitution.

So obviously, on the one hand you have the government in this case supporting the establishment of religion in "public" schools but denying that same support to Catholic schools (which of course were open to anyone who wished to pay). But at the time, that was believed, by the majority of people, to make perfect sense. Nonsectarian Protestantism was the "American way". Of course in later years other people began to take public schools to court for religious teachings (we actually have the Jehovah's Witnesses to thank for much of that). In the progressive 60's and 70's, it was finally seen as a violation of other people's rights to have to support (pay taxes for) a religion they didn't believe in.

But that doesn't change the essential balance of the laws we've written. Some are based more on the shared values of our nation, some on protecting the rights of the individual. To many, this is synonymous with the assault on the doctrine of the separation of church and state that religionists of many stripes have been waging ever since the liberal high-tide passed.

Here's a thought: unless you can win and assure that your laws will always remain the laws, by opening the door to such tyranny of the majority, you are setting yourself up to be the oppressed minority. This is because it's not possible for America not to change. It's not possible for white protestants to be the majority forever, nor anybody else for that matter. Someday the influx of immigrants from south of us will stop. Heck, 200 years in the future we may be sending people down there; who knows?

Among others, that's a reason I don't believe the idea that we can force people to live a certain way should be adopted into our laws. Now this is not to say that there is no place for values in our laws. Nor is it to say that we should basically live in anarchy and let people run around doing whatever they please. I certainly believe in a large, effective government (and in paying taxes for that government). But I think that it shouldn't reach into our personal lives.

I guess to some people, at issue is a supposed dichotomy between bringing up people to have an essential American national identity and respecting individual rights. But I don't agree that there is a dichotomy. As a matter of fact, I think we'd be teaching our kids to be good Americans simply by teaching them that they have essential, basic rights and by respecting those rights. Of course we should also have a better public education system, because how can they truly love this country if they don't know it? But anyway, I say let the Baptists be Baptists, let the Catholics be Catholics, and don't let either of them write laws based on their understandings of religion. And this has nothing to do with whether I think their interpretations are correct or not. I think the only rational course is to protect the freedom of the individual at the highest level.

It's almost certainly not what the Framers intended in setting out the Constitution. While they believed the government existed to serve the people, they also believed that at times state coercion of the people was necessary. Despite what some morons want you to believe now, most of the Framers certainly did not believe that the individual should not be taxed. If you recall, the refrain was "No taxation without representation." Not just "No taxation." And, as I noted above, the Bill of Rights (and Constitution in general) did not apply to individual citizens. They placed limitations of power on the Federal government, not State governments. The State of Virginia certainly could restrict free speech, fund churches, and take away your guns. But that just goes to show that over the years, the American citizen has demanded more and more freedom, as we have seen that the desire for freedom is paramount in all peoples. We have, in general, come to believe that individual freedom is the most basic necessity of the democracy we live in. And, over the years, because of that belief we have seen Congress and the courts expand our freedoms again and again.

This brings me to my point: the one thing we Americans believe in above all else is freedom. Nothing makes us more American than that. The freedom to believe what we want, say what we want, read what we want, shoot guns if we want and everything that follows. That is our American value. And that is why freedom should be the prime rationale for every law we make and every action the government takes. Everything can be expressed in terms of conflicting freedoms. Take, for example, murder. Surely the freedom of life is your most basic one; so fundamental that it doesn't need to be stated anywhere. Murder is the absolute negation of all your rights. Therefore, no one has the right to murder anyone, as it represents the supreme abrogation of another's rights. Also consider traffic regulation. You can't speed, you can't run red lights, and you can't cross three lanes of traffic because you're endangering others and threatening to injure or kill them. You have no right to do that. It's not about government having rights. The government doesn't have rights to regulate you; regulating citizens is a job the government has as a proxy of everyone. Not everyone can be a policeman or fireman. You can't stand there 24 hours a day 365 days a year enforcing speed limits. That's why there's a government; they do it for us.

As far as separation of church and state, I absolutely have the right not to fund religions. In that rationale, I might say that any individual has the right not to fund anything they don't agree with. But religion, in my view, is not a function of the state, whereas police, firemen, libraries, and soldiers are. This is because regardless of my beliefs, if I'm being robbed a cop will help me out. If my house is on fire, the firemen will come. And whatever my religion, I can get a book at the library. I guess churches can do that sort of thing too, by making religion a non-element in the services they give, but then, why would they?

Christians sometimes make the argument that funding public schools forces their kids to learn teachings that are not in keeping with their religion, and therefore violates their right to worship as they please. They are "violated" by such teachings as evolution, sex education, and the idea that gay people are normal. Well, I can understand that. If your religion actually says that science isn't, well, true, then teaching kids scientific fact can violate your religion. And for that I would almost say that people should be able to take their kids out of public school and have their tax money applied to private schools.

But then again, the greatest common bond most Americans will probably ever share will be their public schools. A lot of times, they're flawed. But contrary to movies (that damn liberal Hollywood), my multicultural public institutions were great places to interact with people of all races, colors, and cultures. And we did. I had white friends, black friends, Hispanic friends and Asian friends. Teaching kids to be part of the democracy is one of the prime functions of public education, and that, in terms of what's valuable to the state, is more important than assuring that kids receive religious education on the state's time. For it is the state's time, that time of childhood to forge Americans, not Catholics or Baptists or Lutherans or Mormons. Let the religions be concerned with that. That's what you have Saturday and Sunday for and weeknight services (what, you didn't know that some churches do?). If the state has the responsibility to teach us anything, it is the value and responsibility of being an American and being part of the democratic process. And despite my wishes to be inclusive, I say to you that if you don't wish to be part of the democratic process, you may go somewhere where you will not be.

Now I've actually been working on this a few days and I wish to wrap it up, so let me start to end, and if it ends too quickly, sorry. And if this has been too long, sorry. But screw you, it's my blog.

What I want to suggest is this: that we regard every individual, and every group of individuals as having a "sphere" of rights. Now these rights don't need to be defined; we shall assume that in every case of doubt, everyone has every right. If I haven't mentioned it before, let me mention it now: Madison, among others, argued against the Bill of Rights being adopted because he didn't want it thought that the only rights that existed were those enumerated in the document. He thought, as all the Framers did, that the rights of people were unlimited. The reason a Bill of Rights was included goes beyond the scope of my writing, but suffice it to say that a number of folks still wanted their rights specifically protected. So let's say you have this sphere of unlimited rights. Well, everyone does. Right away you can see what the problem is. People's sphere's are going to run into each other. At issue is what happens when these spheres interact. Well, both spheres should be preserved to equal measure. In the example I used before, you can't murder someone because that completely negates their freedom. But if the issues is that you want to shoot things, well, you should have the right to shoot things, as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's personal sphere.

Now I really don't have the time or inclination to elucidate much further, but I'm assuming that you can reasonably see where this is going. The government would only have laws regarding where people's spheres of freedom overlap or intersect, and those laws would exist to maintain an equal balance of freedom between the parties. This would result in much the same country as we have today. Speed limits would still be there, for the aforementioned reasons. Laws against drugs might have to change unless we have some reason to believe that self-annihilation harms others (which it does by the way, if only because public tax money has to be spent on picking you up when you're dead). And of course there's the question of whether you can voluntarily abdicate your rights. And of course, if you could, then what would constitute such abdication? My system, as you see, is not necessarily simpler than our present system. But I do think it's fairer.

For issues that occur between individuals, most of us are already of the opinion that it's none of our business. Except of course, when what they do offends you. We used to have laws banning inter-racial marriage. That was struck down, eventually, but the idea that you can regulate person to person relationships hasn't been. Gay marriage, again. I don't see why the state has any business regulating the personal matters of any two people save to assure that neither of them is infringing on the other's rights. I mean, if I wanted to give someone the legal rights to me that they would have in marriage without marrying them, why shouldn't I have that power? And what difference does it make whether sex is involved or not? How about polygamy? In what way does it involve the state? Why does the state have any compelling interest in multiple marriages? As approached from the viewpoint of individual rights, I think it's absurd.

You know, I'm a married man. One man, one woman. Just like God intended, as some would say. And I'm not interested in quitting, or getting more wives (or an additional husband!). I don't want to use drugs; I barely drink caffeine and never alcohol. But if other people do these things, I don't see it as an infringement of my rights and freedoms. And if it's not infringing my rights and freedoms, why should I have any right to limit them?

Divided By God: America's Church-State Problem (And What We Should Do About It) by Noah Feldman

The title of this book is a bit misleading. Or perhaps more than a bit. It's not really about the solutions to the problem, but rather a long exposition on the historical basis of the problem, including a detailed legal history and examination of the issue and its changes over the years. The solutions he proposes amount to about a paragraph's worth of words. Don't get me wrong, that's not really a bad thing, especially since it seems like neither side likes the approach he takes. More on that later.

More than anything else, I think the best reason to read this book is the history it gives of the entire church-state issue. Many people on either side have some interpretation to give of what the Framers meant when they wrote Freedom of Religion into the Constitution, variously informing us that the Framers intended either the enshrining of Christianity in our government or that the Framers meant that government shouldn't even recognize religion or accord it any special status. Feldman debunks both popular views by going back to the pre-Constitutional writings of Madison and Jefferson, arguably two of the most influential men involved in the actual writing of the Constitution. What he discovers (or rather, uncovers from the layers of history that have been put on top), is that "freedom of religion" is meant to protect the individual from the tyranny of a state religion. Many people probably don't connect the wording of that amendment with the fact that in most countries established at the time (all European ones), the church and state were inseperably intertwined. The choice was either Protestant or Catholic, and for the commoner, their religion was that of their ruler. At the time, religion wasn't seen as the threat, it was the government! So the Framers wrote two parts to eliminate that problem; the government could not establish a state church, and the government could not prohibit other churches.

Now how that turned into the situation of today is not in the purview of a simple book review, but it provides the substance of the majority of the rest of the book. And it's a fascinating story, including information about how Protestants used the separation clause to keep from funding Catholic schools (while forcing Catholics to fund Protestant-oriented public schools). And of how it was seen as acceptable to fund religious charity organizations, such as Catholic orphanages. There's also the story of why polygamy ended up being illegal, which of course deals with why government governs marriages at all.

One of the things I learned from this book that I hadn't really seen discussed before was how in the past, the argument really came down to what kind of values people wanted inculcated in American children. The people who espoused religion in school weren't necessarily pushing it because they believed we needed religion in schools, but because they wanted schools to teach the children values, and their values came from their religion. Of course you can see the problem with that immediately, but at one time, the Protestant majority of this country had no problem marginalizing everyone else (and many of them still don't have a problem with that).

Anyway, those are just some of the topics covered in this book. He really gives you an in-depth treatment. The history and historical background to current events that he provides are invaluable, and definitely the most succinct and balanced treatment you'll probably be able to find. Where he goes a little wrong though, is in boiling the debate down to two camps, the "legal secularists" and the "values evangelicals". Essentially a legal secularist is one who wishes to see any and all religious thought banished from the realm of political debate. That is, a Christian shouldn't be allowed to bring their Christian values into any debate (so they have to argue abortion or "under God" in the Pledge based on something else). A values evangelical would be one who thinks that our government and laws should be based on common, shared values. Not that his names are wrong, or that such parties don't exist, but they are by far the minority of people.

I don't think most people who believe religion has no place in government believe that because they think values have no place in government. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's not true. We all have some kind of values we want in place. It's just that for some of us, it's important not to have values written in to law that by their very nature discriminate against people who don't share those values. On the other hand, according to Feldman, the values evangelicals believe that we can write values into law without being exclusive. This supposedly can be seen in the fact that Christians and Jews (and perhaps other religions too) can come together on moral stances such as the death penalty and gay marriage. Theoretically it's not because they want to enforce their beliefs on us, but rather because they want to preserve the national character that they see as historically having shaped this nation into what it is today.

Obviously we can see some problems with these characterizations right away. As I said about the legal secularists, it's not that these people don't want values, it's that they don't think we ought to be deciding how other people live. And for a good many values evangelicals, that's exactly what they want. I think Feldman's simplifications are a little too abstract. There are certainly people exactly like he describes them, but that's not the majority of people. I've read others say that those two viewpoints represent the extreme end of spectrum, but I don't think that's true either. I think those are more side-branches than extremists, because both points of view are entirely too rational for extremists.

At the end of the book, Feldman gives an ending with a solution that seems like he only realized he needed to fulfill the second part of the book's title at the last minute. Seriously, it's just a few pages long, and in it he basically says to give the values evangelicals the symbols of religion that they want but to end any kind of funding of private schools (by school vouchers) and that in any debate over issues, the legal secularists shouldn't exclude values evangelicals' religious rationale, but rather only argue on the merits of any proposed law using logic and expect to win.

Really, it's not much longer than that. While I have criticism for the proposed solution itself, I'll save that for later and merely say for now that the ending is just too short to do any good even if he did have a good point.

As for writing style, Feldman isn't boring, but still not as lively as Michael Pollan. More non-fiction authors need to take cues from him! He does make the history that he writes about interesting, and by making it relevant to other well-known aspects of history, he succeeds in bringing it from the abstract to the real. Furthermore, he delves into some history that is very important but little talked about: what people think it means to be American, and our reasons for making laws the way we do. If more people knew that stuff, I'm sure they'd be less puzzled by our politics today.

Anyway, good book but far from being perfect. This is a great history book and does succeed admirably in continuing the story into the present day, but only in general terms. While he talks about the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, he only mentions them as part of the general movement towards fundamentalism, and not how they have specifically interacted with politics in the last twenty years. As a short study, this book is fine, but it could definitely have been the beginning of a much larger work that I'm sure would be highly valuable. The end, as I said before, really isn't worth much. Overall, I still say read it because it's not that long, but be prepared to get no more than a pretty good history lesson.

All the Beautiful Sinners by Stephen Graham Jones

Now this is an amazing book. I don't like murder mysteries or crime novels, or psycho-dramas, or thrillers, but I liked this book, which definitely falls under one of those genres. In short, it's about people trying to catch a serial killer. In reality, it's two stories that cross each other's paths.

Jim Doe is a Blackfeet Indian from Texas, a Sheriff's Deputy at the beginning of the book. After the Sheriff, his friend and mentor, is killed by an Indian who's passing through, he goes on the trail of the killer. He feels guilty because he should have taken the call, but he was spending time with a girl who reminded him of his dead sister.

In the other story, FBI agents are on the trail of a killer who leaves behind the bodies of adults who are altered to look like children. That is, their legs and arms are shortened. They are also painted white and put up on scaffolds like the Indians used to do.

I can't really go further than that without giving away some of the plot. But then, I can't explain it very well anyway. By god, that was one of the most confusing books, I've ever read. I mean, he uses metaphorical statements sometimes as descriptions of events, so it's hard to tell what's really happening and what's not. Like, did Jim Doe actually see the old man who seemed to disappear behind his car, or was that just what Jim was thinking? I don't know. Mildred read this book before I did, and she had just as much trouble, so it's not just my literal-mindedness. But I really don't think that detracts from the book. It's strange and interesting, and Steven Graham Jones is a writer. Not all writers are "writer" writers, they just use words to build the structure. With Jones, like with Thomas Wolfe and other, more poetic-minded writers, the writing is a work of art in itself. It's hard to describe though, like any art is hard to describe. I mean, saying that Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" is a painting of a field of sunflowers does it no justice, and it's just as hard to describe writing like Jones uses.

As for the story, even if you hate crime novels like I do, this book will satisfy you. It's not about the crimes, nor is it some cat-and-mouse game like other such novels are. There's not the formulaic "FBI agent reliving battle with the one who got away" structure here. To be sure, the killer is referencing something in the past, but it's not what anyone thinks. They're not sure why he ever does what he does, and they have extreme difficulty figuring out a pattern for him. But the author doesn't really let you into anybody's mind, so you don't understand him either. You get to see the past, and you see some of everyone's motivations, but there's no internal dialogue to explain what's going on with anyone.

It's kind of long (I think over 450 pages, but around there anyway), but I never got tired of reading this book. It was extremely compelling. Of course, I was kind of interested since he's a Native American (Blackfeet) author, and there's not that many of those around. Also, he's a Texan author. He lives around Lubbock and teaches at Texas Tech. All of which, you understand, compels my interest.

But once I got started, that's not what kept me reading; Jones is simply a great writer. I guess it's kind of like reading a dream. The sheer strangess of it keeps your attention, but the beauty of its shape would anyway. I just can't recommend this book enough. Give it a try, because even if in the end you don't understand it, it'll still have been worth it.

"By Any Means Necessary" by William Burrows

At the beginning of his book "By Any Means Necessary: America's Secret Air War in the Cold War", William E. Burrows quotes the famous scientist and "father" of the atomic bomb Dr. Edward Teller, who said in an interview with the NY Times in 1999 "The cold war had the distinction of not costing any lives." This of course could not be further from the truth. The cold war in fact cost many lives, both in the proxy wars that the United States and the Soviet Union fought that killed millions, but also in shadowy battles between the superpowers themselves, on dark street corners, on tense borders, under the oceans, and as Burrows writes about, in the dark and hostile skies.

From the period immediately following the end of World War II, to the gradual supremacy of the orbiting satellite, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a protracted, frequently tense, and often deadly, struggle to collect intelligence on Soviet air defense capabilities (for the U.S.) or resist efforts to collect such intelligence (for the Soviets.) The United States deemed the collection of such intelligence vital. From about 1946 to the early 1960's, before the era of the nuclear-tipped missile, the sole means by which the United States could deliver an atomic weapon on a target in the Soviet Union was by long-range bomber. To do so required that the bombers be able to penetrate Soviet air defenses. And to do that, it was vitally important that the United States have up to date intelligence on Soviet air defenses; on Soviet air defense technology (radar systems, missile systems, etc.), on the layout of forces arrayed to defend Soviet air space, on the exact locations of potential targets, and the overall ability of the Soviet forces to respond to the incursion of U.S. aircraft. And as we learn in the book, until the development and deployment of such aircraft as the U-2 and the SR-71, the United States military and intelligence agenices relied on a stop-gap system of converted and redesigned WWII or Korean War era bombers, cargo transporters and combat aircraft to provide such intelligence. Unfortunately such a system, and the critical importance of obtaining such intelligence, made for extremely hazardous conditions for the men whose job it was to man these aircraft.

Where Burrows' book is most enjoyable is the way in which he recounts some of the individual reconaissance missions that these men carried out. In reading about their missions, we can almost imagine ourselves, sitting in the belly of a loud, slow and terribly vulnerable converted bomber, crammed full of electronic devices to collect radio and radar signals, but otherwise completely unarmed against more agile enemies that would seek to shoot it down. We imagine that bomber, suspended 36,000 feet in the air, driving hard over military targets deep in Russia, attempting to get the badly needed intelligence before Soviet fighters catch up to it and blast it from the sky. Most of the time these missions suceeded. Many times they did not. It was not uncommon for planes to simply disappear after suddenly aborted cries for help, their crews never to be seen or heard again, the men either killed outright or taken captive by Soviet, Chinese or North Korean forces, never to return to the United States. It was also not uncommon for these planes to return home, shot up and badly damaged, but their crews alive and unharmed. As often as these missions were routine, or even boring in some instances, they could just as suddenly turn violent and deadly.

But Burrows' book isn't simply a recitation of individual stories of tragedy and heroism. He also surveys the entire data gathering effort from inception to the present day, helping us to understand why U.S. leaders and military commanders would push their men to take such awful risks in the face of gnawing worry as to Soviet capabilities to launch a nuclear strike. He describes for us how the program began on a shoe-string, sometimes with instruments carried by hand into the planes by the crews that would man them, and how it eventually culminates in the development of the SR-71 (not one of which was lost to enemy action) and satellites that roam far above the Earth.

Burrows is not without his own opinions however. And one theme that dominates this book is what in many instances has amounted to a betrayal of the men who served their country by going on these dangerous missions. Without question, the surveillance operations that the United States carried out against it's cold war enemies put it in an awkward position. On the one hand, airmen and intelligence operatives were being asked to take tremendous risks to "ferret" out Soviet capabilities, and many were lost or taken into captivity as a result. On the other hand, the fact these operations were supposed to be conducted in secret, and that the loss of any aircraft was a propoganda opportunity for the enemy, led U.S. leaders to in most instances simply flat-out deny that such surveillance was taking place. Whether a plane was shot down over international waters or deep in enemy territory, the story was always the same; they were engaged in routine "weather monitoring" or scientific research, or the aircraft was blown into enemy territory by bad weather, or pilot error. This was the story told to the public, and to the families of the men who died or were taken captive on these missions. This meant there was the potential for embarassment if any of the men in the mission turned up alive, or their bodies were recovered such that the true cause of their death could be discovered. As a result, U.S. military commanders and political leaders frequently found it convenient to not push the issue of recovering the bodies of the dead pilots or crews, or even the return of those taken captive. Burrows recounts several credible stories of pilots and intelligence personnel who managed to survive the shooting down of their aircraft only to be taken captive by Soviet, Chinese or North Korean forces. In only a few high profile instances such as with Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union, where the capture was trumpeted for propoganda purposes, did the United States seek the return of the captured personnel. Otherwise, they were quite simply forgotten, even as reports emerged that these men were put on trial and imprisoned in their captors country, or executed. Certainly, the question of what to do with men who were captured, or whose bodies were recovered by the enemy, was a difficult one, and it can be argued that these men went into their missions knowing what they signed on for. But what cannot be excused are the lies that were frequently told to the family members of the men who were captured or died executing these missions, lies told even long after the purpose for the lies had faded away. In one particularly galling portion of the book, Burrows recounts for us the commission set up in the early 90's to investigate and cooperate with the new Russian government in determining the fate of many of these men. Once it became clear that it benefitted both sides to simply let the matter drop, both sides backed away from their efforts, and U.S. military commanders continued to feed misinformation and outright lies to the families of the men who were lost. Burrows' sense of outrage over this treatment comes through clearly in the book, and he points out to the reader that there were many times when such secrecy seemed not to serve national security or the interests of the United States, but rather the interests of U.S. military personnel and leaders who didn't want their past mistakes brought to the light of day.

Overall, "By Any Means Necessary" is an excellent book that greatly illuminates a portion of the cold war that was anything but cold. Like the soldiers who fought our enemies on the ground, on and the sea and in the air during the cold war, these men also fought a war of their own, though a "shadow" war whose casualties could not be known or mourned. They served with distinction and with honor, all the moreso for their sacrifices they made in secret, without the public adulation they also deserved, and Burrows does a fine job of bringing their heroic efforts to the light of day after so many decades of secrecy.

The Bully of Bentonville by Anthony Bianco

This was definitely an interesting book. It was partly a history of the Wal-Mart company, partly a history of Sam Walton and family, and partly an analysis (and critique) of Wal-Mart's business practices. Bianco does a good job of covering as many aspects of the company as he can, but not in depth. This is both an advantage in that it keeps the text flowing and a disadvantage in that I felt he cut some subjects short that I wanted to read more about.

I actually thought that this was going to be a more anti Wal-Mart book than it turned out to be (I mean, look at the title). However, I thought that all in all it mostly just presented a very factual, balanced account of Wal-Mart. For example, when he discussed the economic cost/benefit analysis of having a Wal-Mart in the community, he quotes from three different studies of the phenomenon (one of which, he tells us later, was conducted by a pro free-market economist).

Unless you've read about Wal-Mart extensively before, I would say that this makes for a very good introduction, especially if you're looking for a book that discusses it in terms of pros vs. cons. Some of the subjects discussed are Wal-Marts low wages, anti-unionism, depressing prices (and the profits of manufacturers), market saturation, "manifest destiny", and their corporate culture.

(Edit: The following part of this review was originally written at the same time as the former half, but due to Blogspot error was lost. I had to rewrite it, so that's why it wasn't complete until now.)

Whether you're pro Wal-Mart or not, this book does a good job of demonstrating exactly how much influence Wal-Mart has over our economy. I forget exactly, but there's a statistic that Wal-Mart is something like 5% of the economy by itself. That's monstrous (in the sense of hugeness and power). To think that 1 of every 20 dollars is spent at Wal-Mart! That's why their business practices and employee wages matter so much. They didn't start the trade deficit with China, but they certainly grew it.

Even so, the book goes into great detail about how that's not Sam Walton's vision of Wal-Mart. Remember the "Made in America" campaign? That was Walton. Basically, right after his death they tore down all those banners and signs and increased their trade with China.

The tendency is to see Wal-Mart as a monolithic behemoth that cannot be fought and beaten, but the truth is that it's defeating itself. The business model it pursues so fiercely is unsustainable at the level to which it has grown itself. Wal-Mart has been performing less than stellarly these past few years. Unfortunately, the book doesn't go further into that topic, which, as I pointed out earlier, is one of the main flaws.

In all, it's generally a good read because the topic is so interesting, but the language is just very plain and nothing special. Non-fiction can be written using more poetic language than that, but Bianco doesn't write that way. I suppose he figures the attractiveness of the information itself is what keeps you reading, and there's no need to expend effort on the actual language of the book (but Michael Pollan proves that the writing can push a book's quality up a level). It was also too short (because he didn't explore certain themes deeply enough), but if it had been much longer, the writing probably would have made it boring. But definitely worth reading overall. Not only because of what it tells you about Wal-Mart, but about how America has changed in the last 40 years. That's not a topic he explicitly covers, but is definitely implicit in the subject matter. So read it!

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Going Postal was the first book by Terry Pratchett I've ever read. It's set in his Discworld, and as an introduction I actually felt that I wasn't missing much by not knowing all about the Discworld before-hand. Pratchett is obviously well-known and much-read, as there are 34 books in his Discworld series. That's pretty amazing.

As far as writing goes, though, I can see why people like him so much. I mean, I did too. He's funny, but the story is never just a punchline. I mean, it was a good story with solid, well-developed characters that you couldn't help liking (or not, as the case may be). The plot was interesting, but this was no thriller and there was hardly a plot twist to be seen. You could practically see the end coming from a quarter of the way through the book. But all that was alright, since it was thoroughly entertaining anyway (and hey, if you can watch TV, you can deal with completely transparent plots).

What I found most interesting about the book though, was its subtext. On the surface, the book was about one man's struggles to re-establish the postal service in Ankh-Morpork after years of dereliction and decay. But as Wikipedia says:

Going Postal, as a Discworld novel, is filled with references and parodies — here the references include GNU, crackers (specifically, phreakers), AT&T, and The Smoking Gun. A critique of libertarianism is also a theme in the book, dovetailing with an extended parody of Atlas Shrugged and more generally the works of Ayn Rand.

As usual, comedic satire is the best way to illustrate the flaws in others' arguments. It's too difficult to explain, but part of the story is the postal service's competition with the much faster "clacks" communication system. The difference is the postal service is a government function whereas the clacks is privately owned. It's not a direct parallel, but it's a parody of what happens when there is a complete lack of government oversight, and actually it makes a compelling argument. I think it's great that Pratchett can write a fun, good story, but also work satire and social commentary into it. In short, good work.