S. Smith

The audio is even better than the book

Revisado: 07-06-24

I am a huge Rush fan, have been for the past 40 years. So, when I heard Geddy was writing a memoir, I couldn't wait. I bought the book and got the audio version. It took me a while to finish the book and I didn't want to listen to him read it until I had. It took me almost no time to get through the audiobook.
Geddy does a great job of reading it and, as much as I enjoyed reading the book myself, listening to him was even more of a joy.
It's a great story about his life and the life of his family/. The chapter on the survival of his parents and the hands of the Nazis in Hitler's Germany is harrowing and brutal and a lesson we should all be keenly aware of now.
I loved hearing stories from the road, stories about how albums were made and stories about the relationship between three men who worked and toured together for 40 years.
Of course, there's tragedy. Lee has lost so many people in his life. From his father at a young age to his bandmate in 2020 and his mother soon after.
I really enjoyed this and can't recommend it enough. It's one that I will listen to many times.

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Whew, what a short, brutal ride

Revisado: 06-13-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I really enjoyed this story and I've already started in on the next one, Out For Blood.
There are a lot of stories about some magical, mystical artifact that falls into an unsuspecting character's hands, but this one is unapologetically brutal. As a side note, I wrote a story for a creative writing class in college about a watch that the wearer could use to stop time. Hacky? Absolutely. But, it was fun writing it anyway.
Anywho, Bad Blood is much less hacky than my short story was - filled with the angst of a girl being raised by a single mom, blaming that mom for her father leaving and the consequences (unintended or not) of her actions.
There's a fair amount of violent acts in the story and a scene or two that made me squirm a bit, but overall I really enjoyed this and am enjoying its sequel.
I suppose I should add that I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a review. Mr. Elliott was nice enough to share it with me and encouraged a review whether I liked it or not and I'm happy to report that I'm being truthful in my review as I will be for the book's sequel.

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Excellent collection of essays

Revisado: 02-05-24

Imagine that you're an historian - not a fake Dinesh D'Souza type historian - but a real one that actually does research.
You collect your quotes and your statistics from primary sources, contemporary documents, artifacts, and direct or indirect quotes from the people involved. You put all this together into an essay of a few thousand words, paring it all down so it's easily accessible to the general public.
And, what kind of criticism do you get? Basically, "nu uhn". Well, Skippy, with that well reasoned and researched response, how can I not be swayed?
You may not like the book, you may not believe the book, but until you can disprove the book, it's probably better to not post your "it's all lefty propaganda" opinion.
I found these essays fascinating - some more than others admittedly. I'll never forget that the writer of the pledge of allegiance was a member of the socialist party. Of course, the original version didn't have "under God" in it - on the story behind that, I'd highly recommend Kruse's book named "One Nation Under God". It tells the history of how religion has become such an integral part of our politics.
I also think that this should be used to teach students critical thinking. On one side, we have a Praeger U video claiming there was never a "Southern Strategy". On the other side, we have people in the Republican party talking explicitly about the Southern Strategy. A teacher could show the video, have the students read the essay and write their own papers about it - proving one side or the other. But, responses like "nu unh" are not going to be acceptable in high school, and they shouldn't be in reviews, either.

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Fun little listen

Revisado: 12-14-23

The story was good, the performance was great. Wil and Ron were great choices. An entertaining short story.

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Everyone should listen to (or read) this book.

Revisado: 10-28-23

Ok, let me get the bad stuff out of the way - I disagree with others that Dan talks too fast. Heck, I listen to his podcast at 1.5 speed and don't find him hard to understand and I slowed this book down to 1.3x and it was just fine. But, I do agree with others about the actual production and the way too obvious parts where Dan had to re-record lines. It was annoying to the point of distraction at points.
As for the substance of the book, as I said in the title, everyone should read this. It's important to have a factual accounting of how modern media has, at best, propped up the lies and at the worst, promoted them. We have white nationalists talking about the "great replacement", we have people like Christopher Rufo lying about CRT and being put on college boards by Ron "a noun, a verb and 'woke'" DeSantis, we have a former president who ostensibly was in charge of producing a vaccine later denouncing and lying about the effects of it. Legacy media that relies on "both sidesisms" or just flat out support these talking points, plus new, conservative funded media and social media sites like Musk's Twitter or Zuckerberg's Facebook.
It's been said that the role of the press isn't to agree when someone says it's raining, but to go look out the window. Right now, we have a press that is afraid to do just that. If Biden says it's raining and trump says it isn't, the job of the press isn't to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and say "We'll never know whether it's raining or not". Their job is to find out whether it's raining and call out the one who was lying. Their job is to hold the powerful to account, not do glowing articles on Musk or Stephen Miller or Sara Huckabee.
Sadly, unless there's a real awakening in this country, we'll continue on this way. The rich will get richer, the American people will get more insular and bifurcated and we'll argue amongst ourselves while people like Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, the Mercers and Harlan Crow will keep chumming the waters.
Dan talks about a Deadspin video about Sinclair broadcasting's "must runs". You should search for it if you haven't seen it. John Oliver did a segment on Last Week Tonight about it as well.
As Dan points out, cowardice and avarice are the two biggest drivers in media and politics. In politics it can be seen in the GOP primary debates where everyone is running for second place and afraid to say a bad thing about trump. In places like Facebook it can be seen in their fear that taking down posts by trump or his mouthpieces that are clear violations of their TOS will cause a backlash.
Dan rightfully argues that Zuckerberg's idiotic claims of first amendment rights hold no water. The first amendment says, "Congress shall make no laws...". It doesn't say, "You have a right to post whatever you want on Facebook". Facebook is not, as far as I know, a branch of the government. Facebook takes down posts that violate its terms of service all the time. Like most things, it's the hypocrisy and double standard.
A bit of the book is dated - it was written before Elon bought Twitter. Dan should update it to include that hellhole now.
We need to be smarter consumers of media and be more critical about the things we read or hear. Ultimately, I think that's the point of this book - don't just take everything at face value, even if it reinforces your beliefs. Think critically, fact check on your own and don't fall for confirmation bias.

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What crazy times we live in

Revisado: 06-23-23

May you live in interesting times, may not be a Chinese curse, but you could have fooled me. We live in a time where people insist on believing in a mysterious person named 'Q' and its predictions despite pretty much none of them coming true. Hillary, Obama and Biden have not been arrested, there is no pedophile ring in the basement of a basementless pizza parlor in DC, earthquakes aren't freedom fighters blowing up underground tunnels while rescuing children that had been used for harvesting a drug that could be made with everyday adrenaline and JFK Jr isn't coming back from the dead (or hiding, depending on the lie du jour) to run on the presidential ticket with trump.
I guess it was enough to fool even the wife of a Supreme Court Justice who texted Mark Meadows that the Biden "crime family" was going to be arrested and sent to Gitmo right after the election. Of course, Q is the second cult for Ginni Thomas, so she can be forgiven for falling for yet another one, I suppose. The simple are easily swayed.
I think the story that stunned me the most was the woman who lost her house because the "Queen of Canada" said that you no longer have to pay your mortgage or your utility bills. Even after being foreclosed on and living in her car, she refuses to see that she's been taken for a sucker and still sends her "Queen" $200 a month. I guess when you're that deep, it's hard to see your way out.
Anyway, this is a great book that lays out the timeline of Q and the anons - that was my 80's punk band, Q and the Anons. I would have liked parts of it to be a bit more in depth, but there's a lot in a short book to digest. Will is an excellent writer and I would have liked if he had read the book himself, but the narrator was fine. Highly recommend.

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Brilliant

Revisado: 06-06-23

I throughly enjoyed it and hope Apple can do it justice. I kept wishing it were a real story - we need more female hero’s in my era. But in the end, it was real to me and I connected with so much of it. I had the best time.

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Very Enjoyable

Revisado: 07-15-21

I liked this a lot. I’ve enjoyed a number of these performances by artists - Sting, James Taylor, T. Bone Burnett and I have Yo-Yo Ma up next.
They’re short, fun looks into the artist and Sting didn’t disappoint.
I will quibble with one thing he said, I do find him a bit arrogant. But, I think everyone who has risen to the heights of their profession has at least a bit of arrogance to them.

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Such a good book.

Revisado: 06-28-21

Clint Smith has such a way with words. His use of historical facts and quotes mixes in with his poetic skills to make for a compelling read.
I spent a good deal of my formal education learning about history and still read books on the subject, still I learned a great deal. For instance, I knew Jefferson was a slave owner and knew about Sally Hemmings, but I still learned more about life at Monticello, the dichotomy of his writings like the Declaration of Independence and his Notes on the State of Virginia and the buying, selling, and disciplining of other humans.
Other places like Blandford Cemetery and Gorée Island I was unfamiliar with at all and learned a great deal about them.
What sets this book apart from other historical works is the way Dr. Smith (I believe he has earned his doctorate at this point), is that he uses his gift of prose to describe the scenery, the places and the people.

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The racists really hate this story

Revisado: 03-05-21

Cynthia should know it’s “short sighted” not “short sided” before she posts her idiocy.
For those that think it’s rewriting history, perhaps you just leaned a white washed version of it and not the truth.
Ignorance is a choice and too many people keep making that choice.
We need more voices like Burnett’s and less like the MAGA cult.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona