Reviews and Comments

Geekpriest is about the adventures of a unexpected priest from a rural town in the Netherlands. He tells the story of how he grew up a Catholic, and even most people in his Catholic school thought the church teachings where dumb, he wanted to become a comic book artist, but was drawn to the priesthood, against his parents' wishes.

He wrote a hand coded website about the rumors surrounding " Star Wars The Phantom Menace" even though his bishop didn't think it was something a good priest should be doing. Along the way he was able to make references to the Catholic faith seen in the Star Wars universe, and unbeknownst to himself later when attending a Star Wars release received reports from multiple people that he had led them (back) to the Church.

He shared his exercise podcasting, starting a podcasting network, blogs, all while struggling with the needs of his parish. I was most touched by this part. While in the 21st century most all of us now see our priests are fallen human than same as us, it's still a mystery that to too many looks like a super easy job they only work a few days a week. I was flabbergasted at his experience having to fight with the members of his parish council for the right to use the approved liturgical texts. I know Holland is known for some of the most disbelieving believers, home of the infamous "atheist priest" of the Dutch Reformed Church who "believers in a God that does not exist" but to see such inside the Catholic Church is still mind shattering to me. And he shares his struggles with mental health, and his recovery journey, related to him not meeting up to his own standards of what he should be as a "super priest."

After seeing the poverty in Uganda, he changed his lifestyle, stopped eating junk food, became a marathon runner and gave more to the global poor.

If you are a Catholic, a protestant, an unbeliever, a Star Wars fan, a runner, someone concerned about mental health or a podcaster, I recommend this book

About all I can say is, "WOW!"

Never before have I got less than half-way through an audio book and said to myself "I have got to get a dead tree version of this for future reference"

I got this from a used book sale at the local library and based on the title I had a completely different idea of what this book was about. What I got was a deep edifying look at life as a disciple of Christ in the 21st century.

I "had" to stop reading this several times because it was very challenging that it "made" me feel like I'm not a very good Christian.

I ended up with 4.5 rather than 5 stars because I think he may have gone off the rails at the end with his discussion of the life after death

What is Property is a difficult book to rate. From a production standpoint this may well be the best non-fiction audiobook I've listened to. Certainly the best with footnotes. I don't know how to describe it, but it wasn't annoying. James Gilles was amazing.[return][return]As far as the work itself it was a mixed bag. P-J.P. I felt made many good points. I personally was surprised by how much a self-described anarchist quoted scripture and Church history in his argument that property is an artificial establishment of the State used to control the working class. [return][return]However he seemed to have a few complete misses in his arguments. He acted as though property is like matter, not being able to be created or destroyed. While we know the attagem"buy land they aren't making any more of it," even private property is more than land. He also acts as though all value is a a zero-sum game, completely ignoring the subjective value of goods and services that results from not everyone thinking the same things are important to them. I don't think these points necessarily disprove his theory but their absence is apparent. Maybe they weren't known in the mid-19th century?[return][return]Prodouhn is also pretty full of himself acting as though his thought experiments are truly scientific and anyone who disagree is an idiot. This issue gets worse in the second memoir were he tries to conteract his ditractors. On top of that he starts in the second going on about how the monarch needs to be the leader of the French radical Party against the bourgeoisie. I always thought anarcho-monarchisn was a joke, I'm still not convinced it's not. [return][return]I had hoped he'd get more into the history of WHY the idea that mixing one's labor with land, or occupying land, had come to be how property was determined, but not much there, lots of went that idea is bull, whith which I agree.

Ready Player One is one of the greatest books I ever read. As such the sequel is likely disappoint. Cline's writing is still spellbinding and leads one wanting to turn the page. The sequel claims to start only a few days after the end of the previous, but so much of the world has changed, like Artimus now hating Z.

Cline tries to get the magic of Haladay's contest again in the quest for the siren's soul. But while Holiday's contest took years to complete, Anarch gives our protagonist only hours to get it done. The number of times that the characters feel free to joke and guess the outcome of an invent doesn't seem believable at a time they also are fighting for the survival of much of the human race with less than 12 hours to complete it.

That being said the story is still very good, and the "continue" section (e.g. epilogue) gives a great hop for the atheist as to a chance for eternal life. I try not to get my self-righteous Christian hat on.

Regardless I highly recommend this, but only after you've read the first, and feel free to skip the movie.

Big Bill Haywood was raised in Salt Lake City, because that's where his family was forced to deboard the train headed to the California Gold Rush as they realized his younger brother wasn't with them. His father passed not long after getting established in Utah. Bill had to be the man of the house since a young age. He has his first strike when he was 11 years old after her mother lent him out to a distant uncle for farm work, and the uncle wouldn't even give him a water break. By the time he is 15 he's out of school and working as a miner full time. Living in the bunk house with everyone else.

He's introducted to the ideals of socialism by an old member of the Knights of Labor and clings to it for the rest of his life.

What I found most surprising is how firmly Haywood is convienced their is no God while everyone close to him has such faith. His wife is a believer in Christian Science, his mother an Episcopalian, in whose church Haywood is confirmed only because his mom knowns no other way to legally get his name changed so that he can pay honor to his late father without a religious ceremony, and he indicates he had seen Bringham Young in the temple, so he must have spent some time in the LDS Church without actually admitting such.

Joining the Western Federation of Miners not long after he starts in his chosen profession they are able to levy for stronger involvement in many mines. Though his description of a bull pen I learned really what the boss class can do.

Never again! He lost his eye in a mining accident. By the time he was in his 30s his Fellow Workers elected him the Secretary-Treasurer of the WFM. I was surprised that after this he never went back to manual labor again. While there he set off the IWW one Big Union for all industries. The first convention in Chicago sounds like a heck of an adventure.

I was surprised, but probably shouldn't have been, that by the end of that first year of the IWW there were two different groups claiming to be the only legitmate union. In-fighting and sidetrackign since the beginning. Haywood is accused of murder, which he claims is is only because he organized well.

My "favorite" legal troupe here was the little girl who was shot by a police officer and Haywood and two additional organizers are tried as responsible for the murder because the girl wouldn't have been on the picket line to be shot if they hadn't called a Strike.

After reading his autobiography I am only further convinced that there needs to be a movie of which he is the primary subject. I still think the one scene with Haywood was the best of the 80s masterpiece "Reds"

If this had been the only book on libertarianism I had ever read, I would probably have become an authoritarian. I'm aware that academics often use words differently than us normies do, but the idea that there is a school of "ethics" that includes allowing one's own baby to starve to death is unfathomable. [return][return]Clearly by the 1980s Rothbard was already well on his journey right-ward from the leftist activists had the pleasure of working with in the 1960s Peace & Liberty Party and the author of radical works like "Man economy & State." He spends the whole book looking at his basis for an economic and "legal" system in a libertarian society and expanding upon those for various parts of life and society. However, he just accepts his own basis as fact and doesn't even seem to attempt to argue why that should be a basis of any thought, let alone libertarianism. This is particularly true in the first section of property ownership. There is no explanation why mixing one's labor with unowned property automatically makes it the private property of the laborer. There is no question as to the idea that an individual can be private property, even to himself, while also claiming that slavery, even so-called voluntary slavery, is unethical. There is absolutely no explanation why inheritance is considered an ethical transfer of private property rights, but a promise to do so is not. (There are plenty of reasons he says why a promise is not, but I see that as little difference than inheritance). There was a whole chapter on the transfer of land titles and the problem of tracking such back to its rightful owner, yet there was 0 reference to the obvious cases of this such as European colonialization into Australia, Africa, & the Americas. An incredible western European centric viewpoint, particularly when you consider Rothbard was an American Jew. [return][return]One thing he did do right was right in the introduction he made it clear that nothing contained within would be able to challenge Marxists ideals, including the labor-theory-of-value, as the ideas are so far apart, they can't even be compared properly. [return][return]I've been a Libertarian for over 20 years, and no argument against liberty written by a statist has come nearly close to making me question my belief in libertarianism as this one of the American libertarian right.

It was not particularly well written, Williams is a solider not an author, but the story was great. I had never heard it before, and I think its a story that needs to be told. Somone should really make a movie of they Vetran who returns to his medium sized hometown from an intregrated Army to a segregated community. The NAACP had given up on Monroe, there was nothing that could be gained, but Robert voted against disallution and they make him chair. He also gets a charter from the NRA to teach other blacks how to defend themselves. They fought back against the KKK and got them out of town, but the national papers made no mention though they were all over some Natives doing the same a few weeks later. He opposed the initian of force, but would insist on self-defense. Often just having a gun was enough to get the cops to actually do something before it went south. Got worse when the Freedom riders came to town, diversity of tactics, but it was an excuse to beat the blacks and their allies. He saved a white family, and then the cops claimed he tried to kill them, and he is forced to leave town. [return][return]I first heard of this through libertarian/patriot circles. Now that I've read it, I'm not sure which side they were on, if they were showing an example of why everyone needs gun rights, or if it was a warning against empowering blacks leading to communism. There certainly is leftist undertones, which may upset some readers, but its real, and that's what matters.

This audiobook is another prequel in the Stainless Steel Rat series. The story takes place prior to the original "Stainless Steel Rat" book. [return][return]I liked it less than the other books in the series. Primarily that is due to storyline consistencies. Our protagonist, the stainless steel rat Jim DeGrease is caught trying to rob the intergalactic mint. In order to avoid the immediate death sentence required from Mint World the league intervenes so that the planetary authorities think they have killed Jim and in place of his death he is given a 30 day position where he has to complete a mission for the league. [return][return]This is inconsistent with the first book which acts as though Jim is barely even familiar with the existence of the league, let alone had worked for them previously. [return][return]Other than that it is standard intergalactic fun, he recruits a number of military musicians to pose as the galaxy's newest pop hit group so that they quickly become internationally famous so that when they eventually are brought up on intergalactic drug smuggling charges they can be well loved when they arrive the prison planet, and then the search for the all important alien artifact really begin. Complete with cult leaders, gender separated societies, super intelligent robot dogs, and a brief love affiar with his guitarist.

RIDICULOUS! But that's OK. [return][return]For centuries man has thought he was alone in the universe. Until today, when aliens found us. Not just one species but like 100s, and they all look really gross, testicles and squishy and stuff. And because they think WE look gross, with our crunchy self, rhey ave declared war on the entire human race and they must be eliminated. [return][return]Slippery Jim of course saves the day, this time he dresses like an ugly dinosaur that the aliens think is a super hot female alien.

This audio book was OK. Even though nearly a decade had passed between the publishing of this work and when Harrison wrote the original Stainless Steel Rat this sequel suffers from the same that is so common in quickly released movie sequels. Namely it is the exact same story just put in a different location. [return][return]Jim and Angelina got married since the last time. Angelina has much more left in her mind than the previous work would have lead us to believe. They decided to go rouge and return to crime. Crime didn't pay and woops really it was all for the secret core. OMG a world of people is trying to take over another planet, that's impossible. Oh wait robots, but maybe not.