Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Book 20

I have mentioned before that I enjoy lists of books, specifically award winners and finalists. So when I was looking for potential nonfiction reads, I discovered the NBCC Awards site. From that, I found book 20, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer and an NBCC award finalist for 2008. This is a book that took me a while to read, but I finished while I was on paternity leave in May.

Dark Side was a good inside look at the upper echelons of the government during the battle to reconcile torture with the Constitution. At least that's my take on it. It was at times difficult to read, especially looking at the tortured logic, so to speak, of the legal opinions Vice President Cheney's people provided to differentiate between enhanced interrogation and torture. My mind still boggles over the fact that this stuff went on in an official capacity. I was glad to see there were several members of the administration that opposed the whole thing.

But long term, what really troubles me is the expansion, under a Republican administration that nominally believed in limited Federal government, of the executive power. Cheney pushed to circumvent the long standing checks and balances that are a foundation of our government, and did so by spreading fear of a potential future terrorist attack. The author effectively describes a shadow legal system that secretly came into existence for this War on Terror. One that valued the supposed short term benefits of "enhanced interrogation" over the long term troubles it was sure to cause the country. And all this with no concrete proof that the system provided any useful benefit that the country wouldn't have obtained through more traditional methods.

The book is recommended for anyone interested in America's reaction to 9/11. I would be interested in an updated edition, one that describes the effects and changes over the last few years. But as a description of what took place under the Bush administration, this one can't be beat.

Monday, October 1, 2012

September List

Media consumption for September:

Books:
34. The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison
35. The Fuzzy Papers, by H. Beam Piper

Movies:
50. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
51. John Carter
52. C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
53. Outsourced
54. This Means War
55. Super 8
56. Boston Bruins: Stanley Cup 2011 Champions
57. Skyline

A little light in the books department, but both of those were classic Sci-Fi  omnibus editions, so if I broke it out it would actually be 5 books. And at least I blew past the 50 movie mark.