Barack Obama

Who Was…. Part two

Who Was..... by various

November 9, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Yes, I have mentioned the Who Is/Who Was series before, but I have several of the titles and could not let good reads go to waste! This time: Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.? and Who Was Barack Obama? and Who Was Amelia Earhart? and Who Was Charles Darwin are the “newest” ones devoured. Of course, pairing Martin Luther King, Jr. and Obama is natural. Two men of color who broke racial barriers. But why pair Earhart and Darwin, too? Earhart broke down barriers, too, though for women and helped bring aviation to the public. And Darwin changed the worlds […]

11/9/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:422 |

Two books so close as to be indistinguishable

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide; and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness by Carol Anderson and Michelle Alexander

June 13, 2017 by ingres77 1 Comment

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger. – Lee Atwater, 1981 I wrapped up […]

6/13/2017 ingres77's CBR9 Review No:47 |

Plenty of explosions, but not as many sweeping camera angles.

13 Hours by Mitchell Zuckoff

August 11, 2016 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

Bravely etched into the opening chapter of this book is the proclamation that the harrowing account of the attack in Benghazi will not include a rundown of the crimes, real or imagined, of the Obama administration. This is not a political book. And thank Christ for that. Don’t get me wrong, I love history, and I see politics as history experienced unclouded by the mists of time. I enjoy reading about political machinations, and try to view the world through various partisan lenses. But there are issues that are so warped by their political implications and the grandstanding and brinkmanship […]

8/11/2016 ingres77's CBR8 Review No:67 |

To stare into the abyss and see a vacant soul

Objective Troy: A Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the Drone by Scott Shane

July 26, 2016 by ingres77 3 Comments

Objective Troy (2015) Not previously reviewed for CBR. On September 30, 2011, the US assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn in Al Jawf, Yemen. Both men were American citizens, though only Awlaki had been targeted by the US government. Two weeks later, Awlaki’s 16-year old son, Abdulraman al-Awlaki, was also killed in a drone strike in Yemen, though he wasn’t specifically targeted. He, Awlaki, came to national prominence as a “moderate voice” of Islam following the devastation of 9/11, giving numerous interviews to the media; though he had attained some renown in the Muslim community for producing English language recordings […]

7/26/2016 ingres77's CBR8 Review No:61 |

Meg on A Tidy Little MysteryHugh Fraser played the part of Colonel Hastings in the BBC Poirot series. He's my favorite narrator.
teresaelectro on I just wanted to do my job.This book is on my TBR list, but sounds like a library situation and not an instabuy. Thanks for the review!
narfna on A Tidy Little MysteryYou're welcome!
Ellesfena on A Tidy Little MysteryYes, I think it may have been abridged as well. Thanks for the narrator recs, I’ll look for them on the next one!
narfna on I know it means he’s not working on Winds of WinterFun trivia: https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/140682-confirmed-brienne-confirmed-descendant-of-dunk/