Russell's Thoughts

The Supreme Court by Chief Justice William Rehnquist

William Hubbs Rehnquist was sworn in as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court on January 7, 1972. Nominated to the Court by President Nixon, Rehnquist went on to become Chief Justice on September 26, 1986 following the retirement of Warren Berger. The next year, Rehnquist published the first edition of his history of the Court. In 2001, he released a substantially revised and expanded version of The Supreme Court to further improve our understanding of what he calls “the least understood of the three branches” of government. This new book offers the reader an amazing glimpse into the inner workings of the Court, the major epochs of its history, and its influence on our nation.

Drive By Reviews

There are several books that I am actively reading at this time.  They are A Conflict of Visions (again), Basic Economics (again in revised version), and Affirmative Action Around the World all three by Thomas Sowell,  God's Politics by Jim Wallis, Scalia Dissents by Kevin Ring, and The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel.  In selecting books to read, it is often helpful to read reviews by others who have read those under consideration.  Such reviews needn't necessarily be positive, but they should at least demonstrate a familiarity with the topic either because of or prior to the reading, deference and generosity toward the author, and the general sagacity and wit of an intelligent and honorable human being.  Some of those who write reviews of conservative books in such places as Amazon.com exhibit none of these characteristics.  It is almost as if there are Leftist web gangs who troll for conservative titles and then slam what they find with "reviews" that demonstrate fantastic stupidity, complete ignorance of the topic, and personal insipidity.  These "reviewers" clearly do not read the books and have an utter disdain for the authors and their ideas.  One "review" of Thomas Sowell's new book, Affirmative Action Around the World, An Empirical Study demonstrates this phenomenon very effectively.  After giving the book one star—presumably because he could not give it a zero—an anonymous "reader" had the following to say about it:

Two Books, Two Movies

Jane Austen enjoyed a quite productive, though all too brief, career as a novelist in the early nineteenth century. She wrote six major works: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Persuasion (1817 published posthumously), and Northanger Abbey (1818 published posthumously). All six have been produced, at one time or another, into some film adaptation. A comparison of the movies to the books is an unavoidable exercise though I suspect that moviemakers would prefer it otherwise. One assumes that the intended audience of movies adapted from books is not the readers of the books themselves but a much more general audience. That being the case, a certain amount of theatrical license is certainly understandable. What is not understandable—or even acceptable to my mind—is the practice of eviscerating a fine story for the purpose of injecting Hollywood's favorite themes of hatred for Western Civilization and obsession for sexual content. By way of analyzing this tendency, I would like to discuss the two movies that have been made from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park.

Friday Night Lights

One wonders what is meant by the term "based on a true story" when used of a movie until one sees a movie the true story of which is known and personal. Very curious, conflicting, and powerful sensations were produced in me by the movie Friday Night Lights. This is a movie that is based upon the obsessive football program at the high school from which I graduated in 1981, Odessa Permian High School of Odessa Texas. More specifically, it depicts the 1988 quest for a Texas 5A football state championship that fell short in the semi-finals by a loss to Dallas Carter high school in a hard fought game.

My Favorite Movies

You can tell a lot about a person by the movies that he loves. Here is a list of some of my favorites for your analysis.

• The Sound of Music (My all time favorite.)
• The Passion of the Christ
• Gone with the Wind
• The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)
• We Were Soldiers
• The Patriot
• Moby Dick (with Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab)
• Master and Commander—The Far Side of the World
• Pirates of the Caribbean—The Curse of the Black Pearl
• The Quiet Man
• Rio Lobo
• Mary Poppins
• The Civil War (documentary miniseries by Ken Burns)
• Anne of Green Gables (parts I and II) (with Megan Follows as Anne)
• Emma
• Pride and Prejudice (BBC miniseries)
• Sense and Sensibility
• Gettysburg
• McClintock
• My Fair Lady

Note: It would be impossible for me to put these in any order of preference except to assert that The Sound of Music has always been my favorite movie since I was a young child.