Hennessy's View

Writers are always looking for the perfect topic for a book.  But there’s a problem.

What’s important to me may not be important to you. And what you to read about, I might not care about. 

That’s why great books achieve a certain universality.  They touch on the essence of life itself, of humanity itself, of existence. 

Some say that the secret to perfectly spellbinding stories is a mixture of just three elements: sex, food, and spirit.  That’s why Elizabeth Gilbert’s Love, Eat, Pray became such a phenomenal best-seller and movie.

I might claim that sex, justice, and military is the perfect American combination for a fiction story.

But I’m not here to talk about fiction.

I’m here to talk about hard, cold reality served up by one of St. Louis’s leading conservative writers.

Are you ready for the perfect conservative book recipe?

Buy and read Bob McCarty’s Three Days in August.  Read all about the book:

U.S. Army Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart admitted to having a one-night stand with a 28-year-old German woman the night of Aug. 22, 2008. She did, too. Both knew sex was part of the plan when they left the discotheque near Stuttgart. Two months later, however, her story changed and the highly-decorated combat veteran found himself facing rape and kidnapping charges.

During court-martial proceedings one year later, Stewart faced an Army court-martial panel comprised of soldiers who had recently returned from a 16-month deployment with the Army attorney serving as Stewart’s lead prosecutor.

Despite a lack of both physical evidence and eyewitnesses to the alleged crimes, it took only three days for the panel to find Stewart guilty of numerous offenses — including aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, forcible sodomy and assault and battery — and sentence him to eight years behind bars.

Incredibly, the conviction was based almost entirely on the testimony of Stewart’s accuser, a one-time mental patient who, with the backing of the German government, refused to allow her medical records to be entered as evidence.

When several witnesses came forward during a post-trial hearing to reveal startling proof that the accuser had lied several times during the trial, their words were largely ignored by the court and Stewart remained behind bars.

Today, Stewart’s fighting for a new trial so he can shed the “sexual offender” label that will stay with him the rest of his life if justice remains out of reach.

Based on extensive interviews and never-before-published details taken from the actual Record of Trial, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight for Military Justice by Bob McCarty paints a portrait of military justice gone awry that’s certain to make your blood boil.

Coming in eBook and print versions.  Look for it at booksellers everywhere Oct. 19.

Mark the date, October 19, down on your calendar; it’s game one of the World Series, it’s the day before the next After Party at Helen Fitzgerald’s, and it’s the day Three Days in August launches. 

Popularity: 1% [?]

This week last year, I read The 5000 Year Leap.  Good book.  If you haven’t read it, do so. You might learn some interesting things. 

But don’t expect The 5000 Year Leap to change you.  Or history. It won’t. 

Now, if 70 percent of the US population read it, it might make a difference.  Or maybe not. I tend to doubt it, but that’s fodder for a different post.

When tea partiers read books like Glenn Beck’s Common Sense or The 5000 Year Leap, we’re not broadening ourselves—we’re narrowing ourselves. We’re also committing Confirmation Bias: the tendency to search for information that confirms our existing beliefs while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

In a study, psychologists were exposed to a short set of symptoms and asked to give a preliminary diagnosis.  Then, they were shown another set of symptoms for the same patients and asked to re-evaluate.  All of the psychologists stuck with their original diagnoses—only they increased their certainty of that original diagnosis. 

In other words, they believed that the additional information confirmed their original diagnoses.

The problems:

1.  The original list of symptoms were far too vague for a psychologist to confidently diagnose.

2. The second list contained information intended to contradict the original diagnosis in many cases.

Still, the trained, licensed PhDs saw in the second diagnoses only the information that confirmed their original guesses. 

When conservatives know only the information that supports their view, they tend to look like idiots when confronted with information beyond that narrow scope.  (Trust me—I’ve been the idiot.)

To avoid that embarrassing and destructive situation, learn outside of US political history.  In fact, you probably could go on a US political history diet for one year and still know more about the subject than any 100 liberals combined. 

In 2011, read some things beyond Glenn Beck’s reading list.  Here’s eight ideas to get you started:

The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

Outliers: The Story of Success

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life

The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

While some of these books might touch on politics in places, they will introduce many to new ideas that are changing the world around us. 

The intention here is to broaden and build the movement, begin with ourselves.  If the idea of reading outside your comfort zone scares you, then you need to start today. 

Popularity: 2% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]