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Guests | December 7, 2009

The Cornucopia of Home Science

1 comment By Theodore Gray

Reading old books of science experiments for children, it's easy to become nostalgic for the days when you could buy jugs of sulfur and mercury at... Continue »

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1. 
   $20.96 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

   Theodore Gray

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jes, June 13, 2006

As Americans, we want to see ourselves as the good guys?the defenders of freedom, democracy, and justice around the world. Yet here we are, creating a patchwork quilt of confusing and Byzantine laws, that make it impossible for millions of our own citizens to participate fully.

In Conned, journalist Sasha Abramsky exposes our country's dark underbelly and lets us see these disenfranchised Americans as real people, some of whose crimes are pitifully minor--being in the wrong place at the wrong time, sitting in the car when a friend committed a criminal act, or possessing a couple of joints. There are examples of youthful indiscretions or accidents similar to those committed by our first Family (vehicular manslaughter, substance abuse, forged prescriptions) which can result in a lifetime of disenfranchisement if one has the bad luck to be born to a poor family in the wrong state.

When Abramsky interviews someone who did commit a serious crime and has served his or her time and paid the fines, he questions whether preventing them from voting for the rest of their lives does us a favor or disservice. The stories range from the wistful, to the angry, to the resigned who simply don?t believe anything can possibly change for them.

This is a book about class and racial injustice as much as anything else. We may have eliminated slavery and Jim Crow laws on the surface, but Abramsky clearly spells out how the rule of law conspires to keep many of our citizens in a permanent underclass. It is no longer fashionable to use the N-word or to publicly make racist statements, but the continued failure to update these restrictions prevent many from turning their lives around or achieving their potential.

The bottom line--if we want the disaffected to transform and become productive members of society, they need to have some "skin in the game." What is the point of young Americans dying to bring freedom to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, when we systematically deny those fundamental rights to those here at home?

It is impossible to read this book and not feel deep sadness and outrage. I told a friend about the book who expressed surprise that convicted felons wanted to vote. An hour later, she brought up the subject to me, ?I?ve never even thought of this as something to consider.? Without a book like Conned, I suspect most people never will.

J.E. Schwartz, Author, Doublethink: A Tale of Unintended Consequences

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