A belated Happy Father's Day

I'd wanted to mention the many, many books I got last week for Father's Day yet thought I'd save for Sunday after I sent the boy back South. However, I got in a lather over both David Brooks, working off the "work" of Reverend Al Sharpton, and Alabama Policy Institute's Gary Palmer bringing their right wing "thinking" to our admittedly burdened education efforts. It seemed acceptable to wait until today to share my haul.

The bride sent me The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington from David Sirota, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Professor Jared Diamond, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power by Slate's Fred Kaplan, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age by Larry M. Bartels, and finally The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America by Ronald Brownstein.

While waiting at SEA-TAC, I found, and couldn't help but purchase, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Emory Professor Drew Westen. The boy even brought me The Last Lecture by Professor Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow.

I'll now have plenty to read and then ponder over this summer. I'm sure these pages will be influenced by these books. Thanks! John Gunn