Tara Ross

While on my train trip across the states, I had an opportunity to read Social Media Mastery: 75 Tips to Help you Expand your Reach, Build your Platform, and Establish your Online Authority (Daily Actions)* by Tara Ross. This was an enjoyable little book well suited for small business owners and beginners to social media. Over the course of 19 chapters, she not only introduced common topics such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube but also included topics not commonly discussed such as Academia.edu, Reddit, and Scribd. I appreciated the glimpse into these seldom discussed applications. Read more… (mais)

Thomas Jefferson's opinion that the First Amendment erected an unbreachable wall between religion and government has triumphed so thoroughly that few Americans realize that other Founding Fathers held different views. The most notable of those forgotten dissenters was our first President. George Washington firmly opposed preferential treatment for any religious denomination, but he was equally firm in his belief that faith in divine Providence was essential to any free and humane polity.

About half of this book analyzes what Washington said and wrote about religion, starting from his youth and continuing through his leadership in the War for Independence and his subsequent years in the nation's highest office. The second half quotes extensively from his writings.

Because Washington was so lionized by his contemporaries, the modern tendency is to "cut him down to size". Under God demonstrates, if nothing else, how serious a mistake that is. Our American pater patriae was a clear thinker and compelling writer. It is doubtless too late to substitute his vision for Jefferson's, but we would do well to consider it and to be aware that our country's foundations do not rest on simple secularism.… (mais)

This book examines the history and function of the Electoral College, the mechanism by which the President of the United States is chosen. The author provides a rationale for retaining this indirect method of choosing the President--emphasizing the federal nature of the United States government and the stability provided by the two party system. The book occasionally suffers from the conservative bias of the author (who admits from the start her support for George Bush). Overall, a good survey of the case for retaining the Electoral College.… (mais)