Book Review: Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

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Burning of the 'USS Philadelphia' during the raid on Tripoli

I recently returned to my first love in reading topics: history and biography. While fiction can be extremely enjoyable, especially when done well, I have always found the true, non-fiction stories of real people and events much more interesting.

That return to true history results here in my latest book review. For the first time in nearly four years, it does not involve the topic of baseball.

"Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates" was published in 2015 by Penguin Random House's 'Sentinel' imprint. 

This joint effort of Fox News host Brian Kilmeade and author Don Yeager tells the story of "the forgotten war that changed American history."

That war is what many students of U.S. history know as the 'First Barbary War', which, as the book jacket explains, "is the little known story of how a newly independent nation was challenged by four Muslim powers and what happened when America's third president decided to stand up to intimidation."

America's first four Presidents played key roles in the events leading up to and during the conflict. But George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison are largely secondary figures to the real military and diplomatic heroes and villains who took part in the action.

Following the War for Independence, the newly formed United States of America was saddled with enormous debt and had largely disbanded its military. This was particularly true in the area of naval force. 

America was protected from more established world powers of that time primarily by distance and trade agreements. It had little or no influence on the high seas.

In trying to further those trade efforts, American merchant ships would frequently come under attack in the Mediterranean Sea by the Muslim powers of North Africa. These 'Barbary States' nations practiced state-supported piracy in order to exact tribute from weaker Atlantic powers.

American ships would be raided, and their goods stolen by Muslim crews. At times, the ships and their crews would be taken and held hostage for large ransoms. 

The fledgling United States had no response other than to pay those ransoms. But this only further added to the national debt. Also, the problem wasn't being dealt with in any meaningful way. It just kept happening, with no end in sight.

The United States wasn't the only nation facing these issues. Wealthier countries with an actual naval presence in the region simply paid tribute to the Muslim leaders in order to ensure free passage of their ships.

Adams, a Federalist, and Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, were political adversaries. Those differences extended to their views on dealing with the Barbary powers. 

The second President of the United States, Adams thought it possible to continue to buy peace, as was done by other nations. Jefferson, America's third President, wanted to end that system permanently. He preferred a strong military response.

As Kilmeade and Yeager write:

"In response to events on the Barbary Coast, Jefferson, in 1801, had dispatched a small U.S. Navy squadron to the Mediterranean. For the next four years, he responded to circumstances, expanding the fleet to a much larger naval presence. In the end, thanks to the bold leadership of men like Edward Preble, James and Stephen Decatur, and William Eaton, and Presley Neville O'Bannon, military force had helped regain national honor. Even the Federalists, who liked little that Jefferson did, came to accept that the United States needed to play a military role in overseas affairs."

The book is the story of those men: Preble, the Decatur's, Eaton, and O'Bannon and many more as they battled on land and sea to help a new nation stand up for itself on the world stage. 

The United States Marine Corps played a key role in the ultimate victory. This was the war from which came the USMC hymn line "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."

Book Review: "So You Think You're A Philadelphia Phillies Fan?"

Like everyone else in Philadelphia during the year 2008, Scott Butler was completely caught up in the exploits of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball club.

The Fightin’ Phils were on their way to the club’s second of five consecutive NL East Division crowns that summer. The season would culminate in the Phillies capturing just the second World Series championship in franchise history.

Much more than Phillies trivia

With all that fanfare as a backdrop, the Penn State grad decided to get in on the blogging game. He founded the “Phils Baseball” blog at philsbaseball.com that year.

Those were heady times for a Phillies fan, and it was a joy to keep up the blog for the first few seasons. The last few? Well, as every Phillies fan knows, things have become much more of a chore.

Undeterred by the recent losing seasons, Butler has published his first book through Sports Publishing. “So You Think You’re a Philadelphia Phillies Fan?” comes along with a subtitle advertising it as “stars, stats, records, and memories for true diehards.”

In its 213 easy to read pages, Butler’s book delivers what it promises. Every summer, I look for a couple of baseball themed books that I can read on the beach, or in my backyard. I love it when I can find one relating to my hometown Phillies. This one is perfect.

Butler breaks his book down into four sections. At the start of each, he poses a set of trivia questions. With each section, the questions get increasingly more difficult.

But then during the ensuing chapter he doesn’t simply answer each of the questions. Instead, Butler gives you the stories behind those answers.

Book Review: The Impossible Dream 1967 Red Sox

For younger fans of the Boston Red Sox, and Major League Baseball in general for that matter, this might be hard to believe. But for a long stretch of my lifetime, those Bosox were considered to be jinxed at best, chokers at worst.

The Red Sox have captured three recent World Series crowns in 2004, 2007, and in 2013. They have reached the postseason four other times as well in this century. They are considered one of the leading AL contenders once again this season.

But from 1908 until 2004, just short of a full century, the Red Sox could not manage to win a single World Series championship. In fact, during that stretch, the Sox captured just two American League Pennants.

The first of those came in 1946, when Ted Williams and company were edged out by the Saint Louis Cardinals thanks famously to the “Mad Dash” of Enos Slaughter in Game Seven.

I began following baseball in 1971, and distinctly recall rooting for Boston in the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. One of the attractions for me to the Red Sox cause was that lengthy frustration, attributed to the “Curse of the Bambino” by more superstitious fans.

Famed Boston baseball historian Herb Crehan has a fairly new book out, published by Summer Game Books last year. The book is based on the other AL Pennant won by the Red Sox during that 95-year stretch.

“The Impossible Dream 1967 Red Sox: Birth of Red Sox Nation“, was released in 2016, written by Crehan. His bostonbaseballhistory.com website is the definitive stop for all things Red Sox. The book includes a forward by pitcher Jim Lonborg, who played a pivotal role for Boston in that 1967 season.

Book Review: "Ahead of the Curve" by Brian Kenny

This book review resumes my series on baseball books during the 2017 season. Previous reviews can be accessed by clicking on that "label" below this piece.

There is no book that I have read in recent years that I can more highly recommend than “Ahead of the Curve” by Brian Kenny.

Kenny is a 2003 Emmy Award winner who was named as the 2004 Media Personality of the Year by Sports Illustrated. He is now well-known by baseball fans as a studio host for the MLB Network. In addition, Kenny is respected as a boxing analyst and broadcaster.

A longtime ESPN anchor and analyst, Kenny left in 2011 for the television stint with the then two-year old MLB Network. He also hosts ‘The Brian Kenny” show weekdays on NBC Sports Radio.

With his new TV gig, Kenny also joined former player Harold Reynolds on the ‘MLB Now‘ program. The show is highlighted by Kenny espousing modern “Sabermetric” statistical analysis of America’s Pastime.

Those Sabermetric views make up the centerpiece of “Ahead of the Curve“, which comes with an “Inside the Baseball Revolution” sub-title.

Book Review: "God Almighty Hisself: the Life and Legacy of Dick Allen"

Perhaps the single most controversial figure in the 133-season history of the Philadelphia Phillies franchise is the subject of a new book "God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen" by Villanova University law professor Mitchell Nathanson.

This is not a clumsy tome hastily thrown together to make a quick buck by giving fans some light summer reading.

Instead, Nathanson has produced a legitimate, first-class biography that tells the story of the 1960's superstar who made a somewhat triumphant return in the mid-70's to the city that once spurned him.

Allen was born and raised in and around Wampum, Pennsylvania, a one-square mile borough in Lawrence County on the western edge of the Commonwealth that can be found approximately 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and just 10 miles from the PA-Ohio border.

Though the town was overwhelmingly white in population and he was being raised in the racially charged America of the 1950's, Allen experienced few overt problems thanks largely to his athletic abilities.

He and brothers Hank and Ronnie became basketball stars at Wampum High School, leading the team to championships while each became All-State players.

Allen became a professional baseball player rather than a pro hoops star simply because America's pastime paid more, and Allen looked to provide a better life for himself and his family

Book Review: "The Fightin' Phillies: 100 Years of Philadelphia Baseball"

The next in my book reviews feature specifically deals with the Philadelphia Phillies and the 133-year history of the ball club.

No one alive today is more qualified to dig through that history and present it to the fans than the man who has been around to see more of it first-hand than anyone else, the former head of the Phillies' public relations team, Larry 'the Baron' Shenk.

In his second book on the team, "The Fightin' Phillies: 100 Years of Philadelphia Baseball from the Whiz Kids to the Misfits", Shenk delivers by presenting story after story that will hold the interest of any true Phils fan.

Shenk has been a Phillies fan since his youth in the early 1950's, when Baseball Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts were leading the club in the post-Whiz Kids years.

He first applied for a public relations job with the team in the same year that I was born, 1961, and eventually landed that position a couple of years later. We'll explore more of Shenk's background in a separate interview piece here at TBOH coming soon.

"The Fightin' Phillies" is broken down into eight sections, with a foreword written by Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen in which the former player briefly covers his own career in the game

Book Review: "Diehards: Why Fans Care So Much About Sports"

If you are a baseball fan like me, you enjoy all aspects of the game. Not just the more analytical, statistics-based evaluations of recent years, or the classic excitement of a dramatic game, series, or season, but the whole enchilada.

The history of the game and the background stories of the players and other individuals involved fascinate me. 

The best resource to obtain information of this type can often be a well-written book on a particular subject.

All of the reading that I have done over decades following the game finally led me to this idea for the introduction of a "book reviews" series, with coverage of both the Phillies in particular and baseball in general.

In moving forward with the series, I will mostly focus on material written about the Fightin' Phils specifically. But if something influences me enough while only barely touching on the team, will highlight those as well.

I wanted to begin the series with something that  included the Phillies, but also would be of interest to the wider audience of baseball fans. I believe that I may have stumbled upon the perfect choice.

As a big fan of the team and the game in the passionate sports town of Philly, the aspect of fandom itself has always fascinated me. This led to my interest in introducing you to the 2015 book "Diehards: Why Fans Care So Much About Sports" by Chip Scarinzi.

Chip is one of us, a self-described "lifelong, diehard Philadelphia Phillies fan" who grew up in New Jersey

Book Review: "Killing Jesus"

A few months ago, I finished reading Bill O'Reilly's outstanding work "Killing Lincoln" about the assassination of the 16th President of the United States and the events surrounding and leading up to that event.

The book was so well written and informative that it inspired me to purchase for my Kindle his other two similar books: "Killing Kennedy", about the assassination of our 35th President of the US, and "Killing Jesus", about the events surrounding our Lord's death.

I held off actually reading "Killing Jesus" until this time of year, the time surrounding those actual events. Today is Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Tomorrow is Good Friday, when he was nailed to a cross and died for our sins. And then, of course, Sunday is Easter, when he rose again.

But O'Reilly does the subject a most honorable turn. Despite his own Roman Catholic upbringing, and that of his co-writer, Martin Dugard, he does not approach the matter of Jesus' death, and all of the events leading up to that event, from a religious or spiritual standpoint. Instead, as with Lincoln and Kennedy, he takes a purely historical look at the events.

O'Reilly and Dugard have taken the telling of these types of important events, the untimely murder of the most important figures in history, and made them completely accessible at every level. They do this with an almost conversational tone to the story-telling, mixing in the necessary known and verifiable facts with other discernible information based on the times of the events.

The end result, in "Killing Jesus" (and "Killing Lincoln", for that matter) is a book that is well written, easily understood, and that stands on it's own as an important new resource for anyone that has any interest in the topic. And who can say that they have any interest in human history without being interested in Jesus?

Baseball America's Prospect Handbook

Today in my mailbox the yellow package arrived from the folks at Baseball America. Contained inside was their annual Prospect Handbook product, the Bible for following baseball prospects.

Published annually, the Prospect Handbook contains the Top 30 prospects for each organization in Major League Baseball as evaluated by the staff of Baseball America.

The book contains a full page spread on the #1 prospect in each organization, shows a thumbnail photo of each of the top 10 prospects, with a bio and brief scouting report on every one of the 30 listed.

A new feature with the 2012 edition is the inclusion of both a scouting numerical "grade" and a "risk factor" for each evaluated prospect.

The scouting grade will reflect the state of the player's current physical skills. The risk factor will show whether that player is more likely at this stage of his career to maximize those skills and to reach his potential.

The scouting grade is based on the traditional baseball 20-80 'OFP' (Overall Future Potential) formula in which players are rated on their power, hitting ability, arm, base running/speed, and fielding ability.

The highest ranked players, those in the 75-80 range of the scale, are impact talents that can change the face of an organization. Most prospects will fall into the 50-55 range. You will rarely see players at a 30-35 or lower level make it into the book.

The risk factor was developed by the folks at Baseball America, and includes ratings of "Safe", "Low", "Medium", "High" and "Extreme" that will reflect their opinion as to how likely it is that a player with a certain skill set is to maximize his potential and translate those skills to the big league level.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

A good household will inevitably include within it an area for a good library, a book shelf, table books, or some combination of these. And in every single one of those homes the one indispensable 'must-have' book is a good, readable copy of the Bible, the very Word of God.

In every Catholic household, and in fact in any home that wishes to explore an even deeper study and understanding of the Bible and the teachings of the Church, there is one more book that is also important to own. That book is the official "Catechism of the Catholic Church", which has now been available for more than a decade.

On September 8th, 1997, Pope John Paul II promulgated changes to the 2nd Official English Edition of the book in order that it might conform to changes made to the Latin version on that same date. In the end, what currently stands is intended to be a 'universal catechism', one to be used as a resource or reference point for all other such efforts within the Christian Church at large.

The modern Catholic Catechism is in John Paul II's own words "a full, complete exposition of Catholic doctrine, enabling everyone to know what the Church professes, celebrates, lives, and prays in her daily life."

In 1985, the Catholic Bishops recommended that the effort should be made, particularly with the many changes to Church practices in the decades since Vatican II, to explain more fully, clearly, and substantively the Church official teachings on the many and varied topics for which it is responsible.

Book Review: "Capitalism: A Love Story"

Michael Moore is a maker of documentary films for liberal values and anti-American causes, and his latest titled "Capitalism: A Love Story" is going to be no exception.

In this film, slated to be released in early Fall, Moore will attempt to portray capitalism as the root cause of the American and global financial meltdowns over the past couple of years, calling it "the biggest swindle in American history."

Let's give credit where it is due, Moore is good at his craft. He knows how to push all the right buttons, slice all the right video clips, edit all the right sound bytes, and basically tell a story in the way that his political views and values want that story told. You need a propaganda documentary made? Michael Moore is your man.

This is all well and good as long as you understand going into the theatre that this is what you will be paying your money to see: propaganda. One side of a story, told from a slanted view, through a tinted lens.

The fact is that greedy corporate tycoons and misguided politicians, flawed human beings, have been the problem, not our capitalist economic system.

Now if what you really want is the truth of the matter, explained in depth, with examples and in complete historical and political context, then what you want to do is pick up a copy of a book called "How Capitalism Saved America" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

In reading this enjoyable and educational book you will find out why DiLorenzo says "Free-market capitalism, based on private property and peaceful exchange, is the source of civilization and human progress."

Ann Coulter is Guilty as Charged

For over a decade now, conservative writer Ann Coulter has been directing her sharp wit and keen mind as well as her biting sense of humor at everything that liberals hold dear.

Coulter has emerged as the single most articulate and beloved voice of the far right in American politics, and the honesty and clarity of her works has gained her fans across the vast conservative Republican populace.

Her latest book titled "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America" generally covers just what it says in that title.

"Guilty" speaks of the 'victim mentality' prevalent in all liberal quarters, and that has been particularly embraced by the Democratic Party over the past few decades.

The libs and the Dems take segments of society who feel they have been victimized by the American culture and government, embrace them, and tell them that they, the Democrats, will take care of all of their problems. They care about the 'victims', and will make sure that these 'lowly' have a 'voice' if elected.

What the liberal Dems never mention, of course, is that the vast majority of these 'victims' have created or exacerbated their own situations. The 'culture' or 'government' or 'the man' or 'the system' had absolutely nothing to do with it.

America's Secular Challenge

At Christmastime we are supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and the majority of Americans will be doing just that.

But there is a relatively small yet growing segment of our population that does not realize, or does not care, that it was the values taught by Him which formed the basis of our very national existence.

These 'secularists', 'humanists', 'atheists' and others want any references to Jesus Christ, God, or anything else religious kept out of the public sphere.

They certainly feel that displays of religion on public property should be considered not only inappropriate, but illegal, even during a specifically religious holiday time such as Christmas or Easter.

They especially and more vociferously fight against such displays or references when it comes to Christian religious holidays, knowing full well that most Americans self-identify as Christians.

They rail against the fact that America itself was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and feel that if they can knock off the big boy they essentially win victory over all organized religion. It is the challenge of normal, everyday, faithful, God-loving Americans to stand up against these groups and individuals.

That is the message of a new book by Herbert London titled "America's Secular Challenge" from Encounter Books.

A Gift From the Middle Ages

He didn't quite live to the age of 50, but in his somewhat shortened lifetime, Thomas Aquinas would prove to be the greatest of the men who came collectively to be known as the 'Scholastics'.

This succession of men included Saint Anselm, who posited that God's existence was largely provable in the very definition of Him as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived.'

It included Peter Abelard, a teacher who gathered a list of apparent contradictions in Church teaching and the Bible. He then set his students to the task of resolving them, saying to them "By raising questions we begin to enquire, and by enquiring we attain the truth, and, as the Truth in fact said: 'Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.'"

It included Peter Lombard, who may have been a student of Abelard, and whose work 'Sentences' became, next to the Bible, the central textbook of theology for five hundred years, from the late 12th thru the 17th centuries. This systematic exposition of Catholic faith looked to combine reliance on Church authority with the employment of reason in order to explain theological points.

The work done in this 'Age of Scholasticism' is explored in more detail in an excellent recent book by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. called 'How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization'. Woods speaks of the Scholastics, who emerged during the period of history that we know as the 'Middle Ages', as educated men.

A Better Country

In September of 2002, with the first anniversary remembrances of the 9/11 attacks taking place across the country, and with America obviously preparing to go to war to thwart another such attack, Arthur Borden began to notice some disturbing reactions coming from his Democratic Party, even among his own friends and colleagues. 

These reactions and the totality of the circumstances involving 9/11 and it's various related issues led Borden to study the issues more closely and led him to realize that he was now living "..in an America which is not the country where I went to college, served in a good war, and enrolled in law school.." 

The result of his studies is the book "A Better Country: Why America Was Right to Confront Iraq" released this year as a soft cover by Hamilton Books. 

In it's short number of pages (67 plus a handful of indices), Borden makes a compelling argument that not only was President George W. Bush right in going into Iraq and deposing it's despotic leader Saddam Hussein, but that this move was vital. 

Winning the Future With Real Change

Some of the biggest influences on me in recent years have been the ideas and writings of Newt Gingrich. The man is simply the single most eloquent spokesperson for the Conservative cause since Ronald Reagan himself.

In fact, blasphemy acknowledged, he may actually be an even stronger advocate for the cause. Three of his books, "To Renew America" (1995), "Winning the Future", and now "Real Change" (2008) are absolute must-reads. This is particularly so with "Real Change", just released this year and much more updated in scope and time.

Gingrich is a college history professor, historian and novelist who has written outstanding works of living-history fiction on both the Civil War and Pearl Harbor as well.

In the concept of 'living history', you take known historical events and people and 'adjust' the facts/results to show 'what might have happened' had certain things gone a different way.

In the real world, Gingrich was first elected to Congress from Georgia back in 1978.

Gingrich was then re-elected 10 times, and eventually became the architect of the 'Republican Revolution', which saw the Republican Party take control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. This happened largely to an effort called the 'Contract With America' created by Gingrich himself.

Gingrich became the Speaker of the House, leading numerous Republican challenges to President Bill Clinton's liberal Democratic agenda during the 1990's. He was named by Time magazine as the Person of the Year in 1995.

The Philosophic Problem of Moral Disagreement

There is little doubt that there is disagreement on many moral issues among individuals and groups of people. This includes nations and political parties within nations.

In the book “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil”, Russ Shafer-Landau puts forth that despite these disagreements, there is subjective morality.

In examining my own personal belief system, I find that he and I are in agreement on that issue. There is indeed subjective morality, despite the existence of moral disagreements among intelligent, educated people.

The 'Argument from Moral Disagreement' basically states that if two open-minded, intelligent persons continually disagree about an issue, then there must be no objective truth to that issue.

The basic philosophic problem is the falsity of the premise itself - that simple informed disagreement equates to a lack of basic truth.

Shafer-Landau’s book “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” gives an example from the physical sciences: in areas such as physics, chemistry, and geology, scientists may frequently disagree on some basic premise.

Yet those scientists remain committed to their being an objective truth to the issue being studied and disagreed upon. If this is so for non-moral areas, such as the physical sciences, why should it not be so for ethics?

Also, in it’s 'Synopsis of the Major Arguments' section, the book points out that ethics is related to philosophy: “ethical disagreement is a species of philosophical disagreement.”

Although there is disagreement in philosophy, this does not mean there is no objective truth to questions such as those regarding free will, good and evil, and even the very existence of God.

Truth, and the Truthful Truth-tellers Who Tell It

Former Saturday Night Live funnyman Al Franken has in recent years taken his comedic and writing talents to the task of pushing his typically Hollywood-styled ultra-liberal political agenda with his own radio program on the disastrously failed liberal Air America radio network.

He has also penned his liberal thinking in a pair of poor-selling books: “Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” and the recently released followup “The Truth”.

Judging by the titles, these might seem to be topics worthy of the effort. Only problem is that in “Lies”, Franken tells many himself, both of omission and commission, and in “Truth”, he tells very little of it.

Instead, Franken chooses to slant particular stories and comments of his targets, almost exclusively President Bush and his Republican allies, to suit his desired result. Great examples are highlighted at the website frankenlies.com.

For instance, in attacking Fox News pundit and my 2005 website American of the Year Bill O’Reilly in “Lies”, Franken claims that O’Reilly lies when he continually makes statements of being proud to have been raised in Levittown, Long Island, New York. Franken states that O’Reilly is not from Levittown, but from the “affluent suburb of Westbury”, which he further states as being “several miles apart” from Levittown.

O’Reilly, always the actual purveyor of truth, responded on his own Fox program “The O’Reilly Factor” in April of 2004 by showing his parents actual deed from the home, in which his mother still lived, clearly showing the Levittown designation.

When Franken brought on to his radio program a Hofstra professor and Levittown expert, Barbara Kelly, he was told there was no lie to uncover, that O’Reilly had indeed grown up in Levittown.

Truth – 1, Franken – 0

The fact is, this is a small matter, but it highlights a theme that runs throughout both of the books.

Help! Mom!

While reading through the latest edition of the Washington Times Weekly Edition, I came across a small article on a new book by Katharine DeBrecht titled "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!". 

The avowed conservative mother of three wrote the book as an answer to "the liberal agenda that's being thrown at our kids from the left". 

The book tells the story of two young brothers who are trying to run a lemonade stand, while liberal politicians make things difficult on them by taxing their profits, restricting the amount of sugar they can use in their drinks, and by requiring that they also serve broccoli. 

The boys are also legally harassed for placing a picture of Jesus Christ on their stand. 

The boys overcome in a happy ending thanks to the "traditional family values like self-reliance, hard work, charity and family". 

The book has been a big seller thus far, and it's popularity is growing by the day. The writer now is planning the second in what may be a series of "Help! Mom!" books. The next tentatively titled "Help! Mom! Hollywood Is In My Hamper!" 

What a tremendous sense of humor this woman has, and what a great service she is providing. You can get the book through Amazon at this link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0976726904/104-6224142-3682338?v=glance