The New Inquisition or Crashing the Gate

The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges

Author: James LaRu

How can you become an effective advocate for intellectual freedom and patron privacy while maintaining a positive relationship with diverse elements of your community? Drawing on his experience as library director, this author advocates assuming a proactive role in every library function, from collection building to community outreach. This approach helps you understand the people who challenge library materials--as individuals and as members of various groups--turning enemies into allies, and building an intellectual, freedom-friendly community. You'll learn what materials get challenged and why and how you can effectively respond to challenges while meeting diverse community needs. Here are stories from the frontlines, practical guidelines on policies and procedures as well as common-sense tips on how to maintain your cool while dealing with specific groups or individuals--all presented with common sense and humor. If you have been struggling with challenges and wonder how you can uphold your ideals while dealing with harsh realities, this is the book you have been waiting for.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: The Blue Line     xi
The Need for and Purpose of This Book     xiii
Scope and Audience     xiii
Background: A Historical Perspective     1
History of Censorship: The Burning of Books     1
Definitions     3
The Constitution and the First Amendment: Foundations of Intellectual Freedom     5
The Library Bill of Rights     15
But What about the Children?     19
Obscenity     20
Religion and Libraries     27
Big 16     28
Madonna     30
Focus on the Family     34
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints     44
The Difference between FOF and the Mormons     49
Reading with the Enemy     50
Generations     57
Types and Life Cycles     59
Public Education: A Profile     61
Focus on the Family: Redefining the Mission     65
Anything Goes?     67
Responding to Challenges     71
Who Are They?     71
The Initial Response     74
The Written Responses: Letters     80
When the Issue Doesn't Die     84
Beyond the Basics: Taking It to the Street     89
The Pyramid Model     89
Geographic Information Systems     94
Becoming a Player     95
The Rubber Chicken Circuit     99
Public Speaking and Writing     99
Using Your Reputation     100
Newspaper Columns     101
Other Media     103
Politics     104
Professional Activity     107
Conclusion: The Fourth Turning?     109
Kid Stuff     109
I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag...     109
Tancredo and Immigration     113
There Is Always a New, a Next Inquisition     115
Appendix     117
Letters     117
Columns     144
References and Resources     149
Reference List     149
Intellectual Freedom Resources     150
Index     153

Look this: Implementing Lean Software Development or Mr China

Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics

Author: Jerome Armstrong

Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America.

This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.

Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement—of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors—that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed.

A must-read book for anyone with an interest in the future of American democracy. "

About the Authors:
Jerome Armstrong, a pioneer of the political blogosphere, founded one of the first political blogs, MyDD.com, in 2001. The person behind the netroots strategy that used blogs and meetups for Howard Dean's campaign, Jerome works as an internet strategist for advocacy organizations and political campaigns. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Markos Moulitsas Zъniga served in the U.S. Army for three years and later earned two bachelors degrees from Northern Illinois University and a law degree from Boston University. After moving to California to work in the tech industry, Markos started DailyKos.com in May 2002. His blog has had a meteoric rise and now gets more than a million unique visitors each day, making it one of the most popular blogs in the nation. Markos lives in Berkeley, California.

Simon Rosenberg is president and founder of the New Democrat Network, a national membership organization that promotes strategies to modernize progressive politics. Before founding NDN, Rosenberg was a key member of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. He and his family live in Washington DC.

The New York Times - Peter Beinart

Armstrong and Moulitsas may well be right that the next great partisan transformation will be theirs. In Crashing the Gate they have written an insightful guide to how the Democratic Party can retake power. Now all they need to do is figure out why it deserves to.

Library Journal

Armstrong (MyDD.com) and Zuniga (DailyKos.com), both popular liberal political bloggers, offer a critique of Democrats and lay out their strategy to save the party and win back control of government at all levels. They present a blistering attack on the Republican Party's ideological constituencies-the theocons, neocons, corporate cons, etc.-and the policies of the Bush administration, but they move quickly to a lengthy critique of the Democratic Party, which they describe, borrowing from Howard Dean, as a collection of single-issue interest groups (e.g., pro-choice, environmental, big labor, and gun control advocates) unwilling to make concessions for the greater good: the success of the party. The authors also note outdated old-boy systems of raising money, outmoded campaign strategies, and a lack of technological sophistication. The Democrats must nurture places where new ideas germinate, such as the world of the blog. Their plan strikes this reader as na ve, considering that Dean didn't win a single primary and that the Republicans have successfully mobilized large numbers of people in support of their candidates. Moreover, they assume that their progressive ideas are, in fact, what the masses subscribe to. While the book may spark some interest among blog readers and writers, its wider appeal will be limited. Recommended for larger public libraries and academic libraries with comprehensive holdings on campaigns and elections. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Reinventing Public Health or Liberty and Power

Reinventing Public Health: Policies and Practices for a Healthy Nation

Author: Lu Ann Aday

Reinventing Public Health offers guidance for translating the growing body of research on the fundamental social, economic, and ecological determinants of health into innovative programs and policies to improve the health of populations.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Ross M. Mullner, PhD, MPH (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Description: This book reconceptualizes the field of public health. It presents a bold new public policy orientation to improve the health of the population of the United States, and to reduce the nation's health disparities. The book also discusses the initiatives taken by several other nations, particularly Canada, to redress social inequities.
Purpose: According to the editor: "The book introduces a framework for identifying, arraying, and evaluating the evidence regarding the fundamental social, economic, and ecological determinants of population health and health disparities; explores the role of related development policies in influencing these fundamental determinants; and suggests alternative models of more health-centered policy and program design incorporating a consideration of the fundamental determinants of health."
Audience: This book is written for graduate students in public health, public policy, medical sociology, and political science. The editor, Lu Ann Aday, is a nationally known, highly respected professor and scholar from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.
Features: The book consists of seven chapters. Each of the chapters is well crafted and flows nicely into the next with little overlap. A large name and subject index concludes the book.
Assessment: This is a very refreshing new look at public health. Unlike many textbooks in public health which basically repeat what has been said many times before, this book looks at public health from a new and original perspective. It is well organized, well written, and well researched. I highly recommend it!

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody

Table of Contents:

1	Analytic framework	1
2	Fundamental determinants of population health	35
3	Sustainable development	65
4	Human development	106
5	Economic development	183
6	Community development and public health	237
7	Toward a healthy (re)public	285

See also: Chicago or Once in a Lifetime Trips

Liberty and Power: A Dialogue on Religion and U. S. Foreign Policy in an Unjust World

Author: J Bryan Hehir

What role should religion play in shaping and implementing U.S. foreign policy?

The dominant attitude over the last half century on the subject of religion and international relations was expressed well by Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's secretary of state: "Moral Talk was fine preaching for the Final Day of Judgment, but it was not a view I would entertain as a public servant." Was Acheson right?

How a nation "commits itself to freedom" has long been at the heart of debates about foreign aid, economic sanctions, and military intervention. Moral and faith traditions have much to say about what is required to achieve this end. And after September 11, no one can doubt the importance of religious beliefs in influencing relations among peoples and nations.

The contributors to this volume come at the issue from very different perspectives and offer exceptional and unexpected insights on a question now at the forefront of American foreign policy.

Author Description:
J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and was formerly the president and CEO of Catholic Charities U.S.A.

Michael Walzer is a leading American political theorist and a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He is the author of several books, including Just and Unjust Wars.

Louise Richardson serves as the executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and is an expert in international terrorism and defense policy.

Shibley Telhami is Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of numerous books, including the national bestseller The Stakes (Westview).

Charles Krauthammer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist at the Washington Post. He contributes frequently to Time Magazine, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and The National Interest.

James M. Lindsay is vice president and director of studies of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Chair. He was previously deputy director and senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. His books include Agenda for the Nation (Brookings 2003) and Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense (Brookings 2001). In 1996-97, Lindsay was director for global issues and multilateral affairs on the National Security Council staff.