Trevor Noah, best known as the host of The Daily Show, opened the 33rd edition of the Miami Book Fair with a surprisingly somber appearance Sunday evening that included almost no direct comment on the shocking and bruising results of the recent U.S. presidential election. Yet his anecdotes and observations of growing up during the last years of South African apartheid held … [Read more...]
‘Blood at the Root’: Ethnic cleansing comes to the South
One of the most shameful pieces of American history involves the post Civil War decades, when thousands of blacks were lynched for perceived misdeeds. Blood at the Root relates the ugly history of Forsyth County, Ga., where hateful whites decided in 1912 to drive out every remaining black resident under the threat of arson, lynching and gunfire. More than 1,000 terrified … [Read more...]
2016-17 Season Preview: Books
If you want to see Trevor Noah, or Alan Cumming, or any of the celebrities at this year’s star-studded Miami Book Fair International, now is the time to make your plans and get your tickets. Because they are going fast. Really though, Hollywood and literary glitterati notwithstanding, the biggest star at the fair is sure to be Bernie Sanders. In post-election mode, Sanders … [Read more...]
Harrowing ‘Girl Walks Out of a Bar’ could help other addicts
Lisa Smith has written a chilling account of her life as a New York lawyer addicted to alcohol and cocaine. Smith got an early start. By age 8 she was sneaking sips of alcohol at parties hosted by her parents. By 13 she hung around “almost exclusively” with drinking kids, and by 15 she was binge drinking while also trying pot and cocaine. “By 18, I was a straight-A … [Read more...]
Toni Tennille: On life with, and without, the Captain
By Dale King Vocalist, actress and now author Toni Tennille knows a lot about love, such things as muskrat love and love that will keep us together, about touching your lover the way you want them to touch you and about doing loving things to paramours one more time. Alabama-born Cathryn Antoinette Tennille and husband, Daryl Dragon, the captain’s hat-wearing, usually … [Read more...]
Survey of global prison practices illuminating, if short on solutions
Baz Dreisinger is an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the City University of New York, where she founded the Prison-to-College Pipeline program. In this new book, she recounts her travels to nine nations to examine their prison systems and compare them with U.S. incarceration practices. Dreisinger joins a growing chorus of U.S. leaders who … [Read more...]
‘Evicted’: A numbing look at the nexus of housing and poverty
Matthew Desmond was in college when he learned that a bank had taken his boyhood home, forcing his parents to move. “I remember being deeply sad and embarrassed,” he writes. He began building houses with Habitat for Humanity, while studying poverty and visiting homeless people. In 2008 he moved into a trailer park in a poor Milwaukee neighborhood to learn more about landlords, … [Read more...]
‘Evicted’: A numbing look at the nexus of housing and poverty
Matthew Desmond was in college when he learned that a bank had taken his boyhood home, forcing his parents to move. “I remember being deeply sad and embarrassed,” he writes. He began building houses with Habitat for Humanity, while studying poverty and visiting homeless people. In 2008 he moved into a trailer park in a poor Milwaukee neighborhood to learn more about … [Read more...]
Prosecutor Martinez tells book fest about Arias trial
Juan Martinez signing his book at the Palm Beach Book Festival. (Photo by Dale King) By Dale King Maricopa County, Ariz., Prosecutor Juan Martinez is a diminutive man with a hint of gray in his closely coiffed hair. He seems comfortable in a dark suit and tie, or in shirtsleeves, speaking to a crowd, where he displays his vast knowledge of criminal law and talks of his … [Read more...]
Comic Carlin’s daughter to discuss growing up with George
By Dale King The last time a famed Carlin family member walked a stage at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach was 2002. The performer was George Carlin, by that time a bearded, white-haired comic legend still packed with the pith, fire and vinegar that had driven him to skewer popular and unpopular causes throughout his 40-year career. He continued … [Read more...]