Tag Archives: rabbi

Joe Romm’s Resistance Reading

by ShellaHandy2073 Posted on May 7, 2017

Mother Jones

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We asked a range of authors, artists, and poets to name books that bring solace or understanding in this age of rancor. Two dozen or so responded. Here are picks from the climate change expert, editor, and blogger extraordinaire Joe Romm.

Latest book: Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know
Also known for: Founding and editing of ClimateProgress.org
Reading recommendations: As a blogger, I am drawn toward collections of short essays. The last time this country was so divided, the greatest orator and writer ever elected president repeatedly shared his thoughts on what the country needed to do to preserve liberty. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, edited by Roy Basler and Carl Sandburg, is one of the best collections. It includes classics like the Gettysburg Address alongside lesser-known gems like “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” in which a 28-year-old Lincoln explains the danger to the Republic of a demagogue just like Trump.

A Collection of Essays, by George Orwell: Orwell is so relevant today, 67 years after his death, that he was, as of late, ranked as Amazon’s No. 1 author in both “classics” and “contemporary” literature and fiction! He is also the greatest essayist of the last century, and few essays speak better to our alternative-facts president than 1946’s “Politics and the English Language,” in which Orwell explains why “in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.”

Brave New World Revisited, by Aldous Huxley: Brave New World, published in 1932, envisioned a dystopian future for humanity. In 1956, Huxley published a series of essays on the topic that are as relevant today as Orwell’s, with titles like “Propaganda in a democratic society” and “Subconscious persuasion.” A particular must-read is Huxley’s 1949 letter to Orwell about which of their dystopias would turn out to be more prescient.
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So far in this series: Daniel Alarcón, Kwame Alexander, Margaret Atwood, W. Kamau Bell, Ana Castillo, Jeff Chang, T Cooper, Michael Eric Dyson, Dave Eggers, Reza Farazmand, William Gibson, Piper Kerman, Phil Klay, Alex Kotlowitz, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Jack Moline, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Peggy Orenstein, Wendy C. Ortiz, Darryl Pinckney, Joe Romm, Karen Russell, George Saunders, Tracy K. Smith, Ayelet Waldman, Gene Luen Yang. (New posts daily.)

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Joe Romm’s Resistance Reading

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William Gibson’s Resistance Reading

by BerniecWhittle Posted on May 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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We asked a range of authors and creative types to recommend books that bring solace and/or understanding in this age of cultural and political rancor. More than two dozen responded. Here are selections from the pioneering science-fiction novelist William Gibson.

Latest book: The Peripheral
Also known for: Neuromancer
Reading recommendations: Essential reading for the era of Trump: Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, by Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew. At 784 pages, a literal encyclopedia of the workings of rumor, fear, and the madness of crowds. As the back cover has it, “This Encyclopedia is an authoritative reference on a broad range of topics: collective behavior, deviance, social and perceptual psychology, sociology, history, folklore, religious studies, political science, social anthropology, gender studies, critical thinking, and mental health. Never before have so many sources been brought together on the mesmerizing topic of collective behavior.”

The election of Donald Trump is best understood in terms of collective behavior. Familiarity with the weird and terrifying things we’ve done before, as a species, is essential to understanding what many of us, driven by fear and uncertainty, are doing now. Baffled by Trump’s popularity (such as it is)? Read Evans and Bartholomew on lycanthropy and laughing epidemics. Seriously.

Illustration by Allegra Lockstadt
Master photo by Michael O’Shea
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So far in this series: Daniel Alarcón, Kwame Alexander, Margaret Atwood, W. Kamau Bell, Jeff Chang, T Cooper, Michael Eric Dyson, Dave Eggers, Reza Farazmand, William Gibson, Piper Kerman, Phil Klay, Alex Kotlowitz, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Jack Moline, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Peggy Orenstein, Wendy C. Ortiz, Darryl Pinckney, Karen Russell, George Saunders, Tracy K. Smith, Ayelet Waldman, Gene Luen Yang. (New posts daily.)

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William Gibson’s Resistance Reading

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Phil Klay’s Resistance Reading

by ShawneeDycus Posted on April 25, 2017

Mother Jones

Courtesy of Phil Klay

We asked a range of authors, artists, and poets to name books that bring solace or understanding in this age of rancor. Two dozen or so responded. Here are picks from author Phil Klay, who served in Iraq prior to landing on the New York Times bestseller list for his riveting fictional stories of war and the experience of coming home.

Latest book: Redeployment
Reading recommendations: I’ve been reading A. Scott Berg’s anthology World War I and America, a fascinating collection of essays, articles, diary entries, and speeches from 1914 to 1921. Among the riches there are several articles by W.E.B. Du Bois and James Wheldon Johnson, showing first-rate minds grappling with which political course to advocate in a world gripped by a massive war abroad while black Americans routinely faced horrific acts of domestic terrorism.

I’ve also been thinking increasingly about Teddy Roosevelt’s 1883 speech “The Duties of American Citizenship.” Though some of his positions are dated—”the ideal citizen must be the father of many healthy children”—so much of it holds up as solid, practical advice in how to go about creating political change. Roosevelt continually stresses the hard work of building up organizations and institutions as the key component of American political life. “A great many of our men in business,” he says, “rather plume themselves upon being good citizens if they even vote; yet voting is the very least of their duties.” (Sadly, he has little to say on the possibility of tweeting your way to a greater democracy.)

Few things make me happier than reading Sandra Boynton’s Muu, Bee, Así Fue to my 14-month-old son. I don’t know if there’s any direct link between that book, which is mostly an excuse to make animal noises, and our current moment of political rancor, but I’d like to believe that the process of reading to my child is slowly teaching me to be a kinder person.
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So far in this series: Kwame Alexander, Margaret Atwood, W. Kamau Bell, Jeff Chang, T Cooper, Dave Eggers, Reza Farazmand, Piper Kerman, Phil Klay, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Jack Moline, Karen Russell, Tracy K. Smith, Gene Luen Yang. (New posts daily.)

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Phil Klay’s Resistance Reading

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Does Mike Huckabee Know Where the Ark of the Covenant Is Buried?

by KeenanAltman50 Posted on May 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Harry Moskoff wouldn’t immediately strike you as the guy to discover the true location of the Ark of the Covenant, the chest that supposedly once held the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. He was born in Canada, studied jazz at Berklee College of Music, worked in IT, and started a company that specialized in copyright infringement claims when he moved to Tel Aviv 10 years ago. But in his free time, the ordained rabbi has dabbled in biblical archeology, poring over ancient texts and contemporary works, in search of any unturned stone that might help him track down the ark.

“I came up with a theory via Maimonides as to where the ark is located, which I later discussed with rabbis and archeologists in Israel,” he told the Times of Israel in 2013. “It was a Jewish Da Vinci Code type project.” His grand theory? It’s been in Jerusalem all this time, buried underneath the courtyard of the Temple of Solomon. To promote his discovery, in 2013 he made a sci-fi movie called The A.R.K. Report.

Last year, Moskoff, who describes himself as a “Jewish Indiana Jones,” published a non-fiction book, also called The A.R.K. Report, chronicling his search for this legendary artifact, and he got a boost from a higher power of a different sort—former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is now a Republican presidential candidate.

“From the days of ancient history to the modern interest created by movies like ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ there has been a dogged curiosity about the biblical ‘Ark of the Covenant,'” Huckabee wrote in a blurb. “Rabbi Harry Moskoff’s spellbinding book, ‘The Ark Report,’ takes curiosity to clarity and gives the reader an understanding of why the authenticity of the real Ark could be a game changer for the world.”

Huckabee had one good reason to endorse the Moskoff’s book—he was in it. Moskoff snagged a sit-down interview with the former governor and featured it prominently in the middle of the book. In this lengthy Q&A, Huckabee discussed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (he was against it) and claimed the Obama administration was too cowardly to confront Iran. Huckabee, a onetime Baptist minister, also weighed in on Markoff’s theory regarding the ark, noting that modern-day archeology has consistently proven that the stories of the Bible are true:

Moskoff’s’s theories go beyond the ark’s location. He claims that the CIA is “interested” in his “findings” and that the spy agency has interfered with archeological digs to prevent the discovery of biblical artifacts. Why would the spy service do this? Because the unearthing of such items, including the ark, would strengthen Israel’s claim to disputed territory.

So is a top-secret US agency conspiring to hide the Ark of the Covenant and other biblical evidence from the rest of the world for covert geopolitical motives? If elected president, will Huckabee undo this CIA cover-up and also reveal the ark and its godly power to all? In any event, we’ve seen this movie before:

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Does Mike Huckabee Know Where the Ark of the Covenant Is Buried?

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