Kentucky's Domain of Power, Greed and Corruption Review

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Kentucky's Domain of Power, Greed and Corruption ReviewMs. Ellison's book is an interesting one, from the sheer fact that it tries to tackle head-on Kentucky's past, exposing the scandals, corruption and deceit which has occurred during the course of more than 100 years. It is true that quite a few of the issues and information Boles brings up have not generally been reported in the [relatively vast] literature which has been published on the most successful college basketball program in history. It also no doubt took courage for Ellison to examine more recent events and to force the powers that be to divulge this information.
However, despite the courage and despite the years she spent researching and writing the book, it doesn't make it an extremely reliable one, nor one which should be considered objective. Ellison's tone and assumptions about distant people and their motivations strain any credibility the book might otherwise deserve. According to her, anyone and everyone who was ever associated with UK athletics automatically joins the "good old boys," a undefined and apparently timeless network of morally corrupt people she refers to throughout the text who, according to her, do nothing but drink, gamble, swear and spend their time trying to cheat and swindle money from the University, break amateur regulations and otherwise undermine academic progress at the University.
One example is her characterization of John J. Tigert, who was a distinguished graduate of Vanderbilt, a Rhodes Scholar, chair of Philosophy at UK, Commissioner of Education for the Harding and Coolidge administrations, President of the University of Florida where he played the key role in expanding the university while strengthening the academics and research and also helped plan India's system of higher education. Despite these seemingly impressive academic credentials, Ellison lumps him in as just another of the "good old boys." Tigert assumed athletic director and coaching responsibilities in the teens for the UK men's basketball team (and later women's basketball team) when the head coach abruptly quit.
This type of characterization of those associated with UK athletics is repeated time and again in the book. In lieu of facts, she often intersperses her own personal commentary and assumptions. Items such as "I suspect ..." or "I've always felt..." are randomly interspersed throughout the text. That's not to say that the criticism Ellison dishes out isn't on-target or deserved, I'm sure a lot of it is, however Ellison is apparently not objective enough to discern either way and unwilling to back up her assertions with hard facts. Her penchant for casting everything related to those associated with UK in a negative manner makes it virtually impossible for the reader to determine what is valid and what is not, and ultimately to take much of it seriously.
Her broad characterizations don't just pertain to individuals, but is used to broadly sweep events also. Her characterization of the development of Kentucky sporting life up until the late 1800's is "With no Indians to be chased, Kentuckians looked for another avenue of action and a way to settle their arguments." Ellison also fails to put the athletics program into proper perspective. While today it is a multi-million dollar enterprise, that was certainly not always the case. More often than not, the early sports teams played to a handful of spectators, little to no media coverage, a shoe-string budget and no scholarships. I would liken it to "club" status at Universities today. Yet Ellison's portrayal of people associated with UK athletics as being in some sort of grand scheme to become outrageously wealthy and powerful through UK athletics, whether it appears realistic for the time or not. Whether she's discussing the 1990's or the 1890's, it's of little consequence in Ellison's portrayal of sports at Kentucky as a powerful negative force.
In terms of accuracy and knowledge of the subject, Ellison often misses in a lot of places and exposes her own shaky knowledge of the topics at hand. For example, she claims Central University was in Richmond in 1913, when the university had moved to Danville the decade previous. She boldly claims that UK's all-time record is incorrect, because she 'discovered' that UK had an exhibition game which wasn't counted. Any casual fan knows that exhibition games aren't counted in all-time results. She apparently didn't realize that Helms titles prior to the early 1940's were awarded retroactively etc.
Her characterization of the 1913 Arson Scandal is a complete mess. In typical fashion, she paints the situation in the worst possible light, glossing over many key details and freely interspersing her own prejudices into the motivations and habits of the main characters, all of whom are long since deceased. Instead of trying to understand why people may have acted the way they did given the circumstances, Ellison assumes the worst about people she couldn't possibly have known and then moves on to throw mud on the next person.
Perhaps more revealing is that much of what Ellison discusses in the early part of her book was covered much more thoroughly and more objectively by Gregory Kent Stanley, who received a PhD in history from UK (the very same program Ellison was in) and published "Before Big Blue" many years before Ellison's book came out. Only with the aid of Stanley's book can much of Ellison's casual, slanted and spotty portrayal of early events make any sense. Amazingly, Stanley's book isn't mentioned once in Ellison's extensive references or bibliography.
Given the poor job Ellison did concerning the early years of UK, one has to wonder how valid her portrayal of later years are. Which is a shame, since as mentioned, a lot of the more recent information and situations detailed in the book are simply not found anywhere else to date.Kentucky's Domain of Power, Greed and Corruption OverviewReferring to college athletics as amateur sports is as archaic as footballs flying wedge that was outlawed almost a century ago. College athletics are all about multi-million-dollar programs, billion-dollar television contracts, corporate control and cronyism. Power greed and corruption have turned the top athletic programs into money-making machines controlled as much by people outside the program as university presidents and athletics directors.Few, if any, books written about college athletics closely examine the behind the scenes deal making, how lucrative contracts are awarded and the favored few who benefit. This book reveals how and why sports decisions were made at the University of Kentucky, one of the nations top programs, how they were influenced by powerful elements who profited, sometimes by questionable legal and ethical tactics from these actions. Six years of solid academic research stands behind the facts revealed in this book.

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Keep Safe: 101 Ways to Enhance Your Safety and Protect Your Family Review

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Keep Safe: 101 Ways to Enhance Your Safety and Protect Your Family ReviewThe unfortunate thing about "common sense is that it's so common it is often taken for granted. That is precisely what this book will prevent. I don't know how many times it happened but as I read this book I found myself repeatedly saying to myself, "What a great idea!" The suggestions in this book are current, realistic, and easy to apply. Things like having your child carry one of your business cards on his or her person, or getting to know by name the bus driver who takes your child to school each day. They are simple, plain, and the kinds of things that will prevent the sort of tragedy that results in one saying "If I'd only done this..." Beyond that, the suggestions are not the kinds of things that will keep you locked behind closed doors. There's nothing paranoid here. Just common sense. "Keep Safe" is well written and easy to read. It has clearly been well researched by two authors who have spent their careers in the field of public safety. Having been in the law enforcement field for eleven years myself, I recommend "Keep Safe" to anyone who wants to live more safely, and thus more fully, in a dangerous world.Keep Safe: 101 Ways to Enhance Your Safety and Protect Your Family OverviewThis potentially lifesaving guide explains how to avoid crimes and dangerous situations through forethought and planning. The authors offer easy-to-implement suggestions from public safety experts, law enforcement officers, and security specialists for protecting family, home, car, and office.

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Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan Review

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Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan ReviewOr, in Jake Adelstein's case, it doesn't -- thankfully, because American readers now finally have access to a book that chronicles the real Japan, free of stereotypes and even more well-rounded and nuanced as any of the 'foreigner abroad' books we are accustomed to reading from Americans who head off to the more culturally-familiar terrain of Europe.
Full disclosure: I lived in Tokyo for parts of early 80s before finally leaving in 1985, before Adelstein arrived to study at Sophia University. Like him, I began my journalistic career there, although it was as a copy editor at the English-language Japan Times rather than as a reporter for a Japanese daily. Even in 1985, being a 'gaijin' (foreigner) and a female would have put paid to any such plans, even if my decidedly unfluent Japanese hadn't. Adelstein, however, benefited from the passage of time, his language skills and his gender and landed a job at the Yomiuri newspaper, one of the country's largest. Automatically an unusual person in Japan's extraordinarily homogenous society (at the time I lived there, at least, there was no space on a driver's license for hair or eye color -- because it was assumed that all would be the same...), Adelstein ended up covering another kind group of misfits in Japan: the country's yakuza, or organized criminals.
It's a fascinating world, part of Japanese popular culture as much as the Mafia is here, and yet virtually unrecognized outside of the country. Along with writing about the yakuza, Adelstein does a fabulous job of raising the curtain on the lives of ordinary Japanese, finally debunking all the stereotypes. Japanese men gawk at the pictures in Madonna's "Sex"; the male reporters openly read porn magazines in the workspace. Social life revolves around getting drunk; the job of a police reporter like Adelstein includes paying evening calls to the homes of his detective friends. Adelstein shows how phenomena like the hostess clubs are fueled by "alienation, boredom and loneliness."
That said, this is a very uneven book. The first half, in particular, seems to be the story of a foreigner who gets himself a job at a Japanese newspaper, thinks to himself, "wow, this is cool and different and maybe I'll write a book about it, too, because not many people have done what I've done." The glimpse behind the scenes of a Japanese newspaper were interesting enough, but after a while the long paragraphs, one after another, of people talking became wearying. So did Adelstein's self-congratulatory air: Getting words of praise from a colleague is "a good feeling"; another story is "a nice little scoop", or "our investigative reporting had the gratifying result of spurring the Saitama police into arresting the people responsible for the bank failure." Yawn. And I could have done without the insights into his sex life, as when he leaves his 'girlfriend' hanging on in the love hotel room they have rented by the hour in order to deal with an editor. "Honorable me, I knew I owed her. So I turned my beeper off for the first time in months." At times, he sounds almost smug.
And yet, just as I was about to give up on the book, it took off and turned into an extraordinary chronicle, revealing in the process an entirely different narrator, someone passionate and thoughtful enough about the world he sees around him to be willing to stand up and be counted. He becomes the nail that sticks up and must be hammered down, in the Japanese saying used of people who place their independent thoughts above smooth social relationships. And the people who wanted to do the hammering were Japan's yakuza, as Adelstein's beat takes him into an investigation of sexual slavery and abuse in Japan's hostess bars, 'soaplands' and brothels. What had been almost flippant before (see Jake Adelstein as a male host!) becomes deadly serious, and I ended up reading late into the night to discover what happened, just as I would have done with a great thriller. The catch, of course, is that the crimes and abuses committed by the yakuza, for which the police are unable or unwilling to prosecute them, were and remain real. Adelstein points out the difficulty of prosecuting human trafficking offenses in a country where the victims are promptly deported -- and then the police and law enforcement officials point out that they have no complaining witnesses! He points to the impact of the casual racism and sexism on law enforcement, from attitudes to Koreans of Japanese descent to the women who arrive in Japan to work as hostesses. And ultimately, he puts his life on the line -- literally -- in an effort to expose some of these abuses.
The heroes of Adelstein's book come from across the board -- this is not smart gaijin hero versus thick-witted racist Japanese, or evil Yakuza versus courageous journalists. Some of the most poignant and heartfelt parts of this ultimately very moving book are those devoted to one of his closest friends, a Japanese police detective, and to an Australian bar girl who becomes a friend of sorts. And ultimately Adelstein sheds that self-satisfied foreigner abroad persona, recognizing that his all-too-human failures as a person and a reporter meant that "I'd endangered every person I cared about, liked, loved, or simply knew. (They had become) potential leverage for (the yakuza target of his investigations) who had no qualms about using people like cannon fodder." It's a cry from the heart, and the story of Adelstein's investigations and efforts to get his worked published make this book a 'must read'.
I'd like to think that the Japanese fascination with what other nations think about them would mean that this book will be translated into Japanese and have a wide audience there. Given the difficulty Adelstein had in finding a Japanese publisher for his journalistic scoops about the yakuza's worst crimes, I'm not sure it will happen. Moreover, the home truths that Adelstein tells -- from a position inside Japanese society, not from the usual gaijin perspective of having one foot in Tokyo's expat community -- about everything from the ugly realities underlying the hostess bar culture and the treatment of a female fellow reporter and friend at the Yomiuri, to the horrors of human trafficking, may prove hard for them to digest. In any event, it's a fascinating read that I'd recommend to anyone with an interest in Japan or thinking of going to live or work there.
A few other recommendations: For more insight into the dysfunctional part of Japanese society (if not the criminal element), try Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (Vintage Departures) or Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan. Some dark comedy and brilliant film-making comes from Juzo Itami, who, it appears, may have been murdered by yakuza rather than committing suicide. Many probably are familiar with Tampopo; just as good, IMO, is A Taxing Woman; the sequel, A Taxing Woman's Return, is still available only on VHS. Both are great and hilarious examples of a crusading tax inspector battling her own bureaucracy and the criminal elements who happen to be evading their taxes. I can't recommend either film strongly enough.
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan Overview

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We Have Your Husband: One Woman's Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico (Berkley True Crime) Review

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We Have Your Husband: One Woman's Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico (Berkley True Crime) ReviewI am an American expatriate living in Mexico with a tendency towards the investigation of information relative to my situation.
A TV interview with Jayne Garcia Valseca in which she discussed her book We Have Your Husband: One Woman's Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico was enough on topic for me to put on my KINDLE.
I started reading the book with no expectations. Pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Within a few pages I found myself riveted to the story. If a page turning tale was not enough, Jayne Garcia Valseca began a flow of new information on the workings of the Mexican underworld and those who would try to counter them, she introduced me to some new Spanish vocabulary and to priceless Mexican idioms. The author provided good insight into the lives and behavior of Mexican Nationals as well as those of the expatriate community. The biggest surprise was Jayne Garcia Valseca's writing ability, I am impressed.
The story is more than an adventure; it is an example of tenacity prevailing in the face of hopelessness.
I give We Have Your Husband: One Woman's Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico five stars plus with a recommendation to readers of Mexico topics, adventure stories, self-help and personal development books and fine literature.
Great read.
We Have Your Husband: One Woman's Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico (Berkley True Crime) Overview

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Play Dirty: A Novel Review

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Play Dirty: A Novel ReviewI have been a fan of Sandra Brown for years. Her writing style is always brilliant and amazes me. The stories she creates are so intense and deeply detailed, I am always surprised.
While I don't fault the writing, I just didn't' find myself liking the characters of Griff and Laura. Griff Burkett was a star of the Dallas Cowboys who tossed it all away by getting caught up in gambling and wound up loosing not just his job and reputation but went to prison for five years. Laura Speakman is devoted to her husband Foster, and was driving when they were in a horrific auto accident. She basically runs the company and has given up everything else in order to care for him. He has lost feeling from the waist down. Foster wants an heir. To avoid negative publicity he has convinced Laura to have a baby his way. He wants her to conceive the natural way with his a chosen substitute - Griff. The fact that Griff agreed to this made his character more appalling, and the fact that Laura also agreed, made her character equally not likeable.
I didn't feel any chemistry or real emotion between Griff and Laura. It felt very forced.
I hope her next book is better.
Play Dirty: A Novel Overview#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown is back with a gripping story of obsession and its deadly consequences. After five long years in federal prison, Griff Burkett is a free man. But the disgraced Cowboys quarterback can never return to life as he knew it before he was caught cheating. In a place where football is practically a religion, Griff committed a cardinal sin, and no one is forgiving. Foster Speakman, owner and CEO of SunSouth Airlines, and his wife, Laura, are a golden couple. Successful and wealthy, they lived a charmed life before fate cruelly intervened and denied them the one thing they wanted most -- a child. It's said that money can't buy everything. But it can buy a disgraced football player fresh out of prison and out of prospects. The job Griff agrees to do for the Speakmans demands secrecy. But he soon finds himself once again in the spotlight of suspicion. An unsolved murder comes back to haunt him in the form of his nemesis, Stanley Rodarte, who has made Griff's destruction his life's mission. While safeguarding his new enterprise, Griff must also protect those around him, especially Laura Speakman, from Rodarte's ruthlessness. Griff stands to gain the highest payoff he could ever imagine, but cashing in on it will require him to forfeit his only chance for redemption...and love. Griff is now playing a high-stakes game, and at the final whistle, one player will be dead. Play Dirty is Sandra Brown's wildest ride yet, with hairpin turns of plot all along the way. The clock is ticking down on a fallen football star, who lost everything because of the way he played the game. Now his future -- his life -- hinges on one last play.

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Sudoku from an Old Newspaper Review

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Sudoku from an Old Newspaper ReviewIt's a true masterpiece of storytelling: natural union of the old-school precision and subtle but poisonous present-day vapours. If you are an expert in literature, you will notice that Cortazarian atmosphere of uncertainty, Nabokovian touch of magical linking and Hemingwaian laconic definition. If you are not an expert... you will just enjoy this rapidly pacing plot with relentless suspense and underhand development of human characters and relations.
And yes, it's about sudoku game and blind sweepstakes, about old gentleman giving fish names to young swimmers, about fatal tranquillity and mistakes of cardiac rhythm.Sudoku from an Old Newspaper OverviewSudoku is a story of unusual love, intense competition, and untimely death. All this still has a place in our lives. The start of a criminal plot could be any insignificant detail. It could even be a sudoku puzzle from an old newspaper.

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