Focus on the Fundies: radio net going to 'unfit' minister

Quite a story in the LA Times about an aging fundamentalist preacher who is preparing to surrender his extensive radio network to a protegé considered unfit due to allegations of sexual hijinks.

And in Rolling Stone, a nice piece on Rick Santorum and other "evangelicals in exile."

technorati: Chuck Smith, fundies, Mike Kestler

Sara's book launches

My friend Sara was interviewed on SFGate today, and the Chronicle also reviewed her book yesterday. Now if I hear she's appearing on "Fresh Air" I'll know the book is truly getting traction.

It's interesting what bloggers are saying (Technorati search) -- most seem to be focussing on the book's conversion theme. Even the tarot card reader identified.

technorati: Sara Miles, Take This Bread, Christian conversions

Music, quietude, rain, coffee

Yesterday evening I sang with my church choir. It sounds harmless enough but it meant standing for 100 minutes rehearsing, followed by a 20 minute break, then a concert lasting an hour and ten minutes. Exhausting. This was followed by the regular Sunday schedule of rehearsing at 9:00 a.m. this morning, followed by the service itself lasting until 12:30; but at least you get to sit down for much of that time.

I love music and singing but I'm not very good, and in addition there is a shortage of tenors so I have to sing tenor, when I'm really a baritone. That means singing in an uncomfortably high range. But I'm not complaining; I get to sing. Perhaps the listeners are complaining. The other tenor might complain about my singing, but he's paid, so he has nothing to complain about either. (Seriously, he's a very nice guy who does 80% of the heavy lifting, while I just sort of provide a little blended cover so it doesn't sound like he's singing by himself.)

For the rest of the day I hung around the house; Cris and I wrangled the files in the file cabinet a little. And I dug in the basement until I found issue 5 of Frighten the Horses so I could photocopy an article we published about the Street Patrol. Then it was off to Golden Gate Park to feed the feral cats.

All in all a peaceful weekend. I am not dead or sick, just taking a bit of a break from the media-obsessed blogging I have been doing for a few years, I guess.

Inflate, inflate!

Man, since I got my new job two weeks ago the air really went out of this blog. (Update: I just noticed that Badger recently blogged about this very phenomenon.) Let me explain. At my old job I would surf the web from time to time during the day, and post. At my new job I can't do that, not least because the company blocks access to many internet sites. So, sorry about that.

Last night I went to a book party for my friend Sara's book and took some pretty mediocre photographs. People cringe when they see me coming with a camera.

You can come to the big public party for Sara's book on Sunday.

I like TWiki

I recently left a job where we looked at several different "collaboration platforms" (in other words, wikis) before finally deciding upon TWiki. And the company I just moved to also uses it -- very extensively.

As a user I really like it. Its default styles produce good clean layout, and it isn't difficult to learn whatever proprietary markup they use. For people who don't want to learn markup, there's a WYSIWYG editing mode. I don't know what it's like to install and administer, so I'm not speaking to that at all. But as a user, I think it's great.

Got little else to say about my new job, but I sure am enjoying the 80% shorter commute!

technorati: TWiki, wikis

This is a test

Technorati Profile

Buy my friend's new book

One of my best friends, Sara Miles, has a new book out, Take This Bread, a memoir about her conversion to Christianity and starting a food pantry for poor people in one of San Francisco's richest Episcopal churches. An excerpt from the book was published on Salon Saturday (I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that this excerpt happens to mention me personally -- not that embarassed, of course, since like everyone else on the internet I am a total egotist, but that's not why I'm pushing her book; I'm pushing it because it's a great piece of writing) and has attracted over 250 letters to the editors so far.

There will be a book party this Sunday at the church where, more than five years later, the food pantry is still going strong.

Read Sara's other articles on Salon:
- Habeas Corpus and the Bush administration's attacks on it
- How bans on gay marriage affect children
- Bush's wiretapping frenzy
- Rome's latest witch hunt for gays

technorati: Take This Bread, Sara Miles, Episcopalians, food pantries

End of the Haggard era: 'Overseers' give report

The committee of "overseers" of Ted Haggard's church -- a group of evangelical pastor-CEOs hired to hash out the hypocrite's exit from their ranks and "restore" him to blessed (though secular) heterosexuality -- today gave a report to Haggard's former congregation. Among the interesting revelations:

• They found "numerous individuals who reported to us firsthand
  knowledge of everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships."
• The three-year relationship with gay prostitute Mike Jones was only the "culmination" of this "pattern of behavior."
• They consider Jones' outing of Haggard not a betrayal but "a matter of grace" that allowed Haggard's perfidy to be exposed. It was "not only warranted, but also merciful to him and to the church.
• Haggard's "enormous personality" is the main reason he had to leave not only his own church but, apparently, the whole state.
• The church "will continue to support Haggard and his family through 2007." (It should be noted that the sale of the very large Haggard mansion, which was his property, should net over a million dollars, and it will be much cheaper to live where he said he would move to, Iowa or Missouri, so Haggard was hardly in need of this golden parachute.) They also paid for the three weeks of "counseling" that Haggard bragged had been equal to three years of therapy.
• Their "investigation is not complete;" indeed, they say they are still tracking down "rumors."

What fun for them. There's something of the Puritanical zeal of Kenneth Starr in these overseers. I think their whole thing has developed into some kind of parable for the evangelicals. What happened to Haggard -- disgrace and magnanimous forgiveness -- is, no doubt, what they hoped to do to Bill Clinton.

Here's the main story from the local paper on the scene at Haggard's former church. Among the added details is that Haggard's former salary was $130,000 and that this amount is roughly equal to the cash La Familie Haggard will receive as "support," called by some commentators hush money or a payoff.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, fundamentalists

Unfortunately, making good records is even harder than having a nervous breakdown in public

She was also said to be mumbling incoherently, but who isn't these days?

technorati: Britney Spears

Boehner: Iraqi insurgents are just like puppies

If we leave now, they'll just follow us home.

That's Rep. John Boehner, who is something important in the House Republican leadership -- they're not in power now and they can't do anything, so who cares -- speaking on the non-binding resolution to oppose President Bush's troop escalation.

See, what you do, Boehner, is bring along a little ground beef, and when you see an insurgent, throw it on the ground and wait til he starts eating it. Then while he's distracted, run away.

technorati: Iraq war, Boehner, puppies

Every party needs a pooper

Headline says it all: Nader says he may run in 2008, especially if Hillary gets nomination.

What is wrong with this man? His first run in 2000 may have ushered in the Bush II era, but it may have been excused as quixotic but sincere. When he ran in 2004, much more ineffectually (but with the same result), it was embarrassing -- it was like your grandpa insisting he could still handle playing shortstop, when you knew he could hardly bend over. Now as we rev up for 2008, Nader's threat -- it can only be called that -- to run seems simply insane. Whatever credibility he once had has been squandered in these idiotic bids for attention.

You also have to wonder about the people who work for him. What could they be thinking? It's like the worst kind of enabling.

technorati: Ralph Nader, 2008 presidential election, TOTHER

Indian film stars demonstrate as farmers cook in road

In continuing demonstrations over a water rights lawsuit, local (not Bollywood) film industry folks in the Indian state of Karnataka -- where Bangalore is located -- took over the city's streets. Outside town, farmers also blocked roads, in one case cooking food in the middle of the road. What all this has to do with water rights, I have no idea.

technorati: Cauvery, Bangalore, demonstrations

New job, and I'm already planning for my vacation

I started a new job today, but as usual I will do very little blogging about work. I usually take care to blog very little about my day jobs. And in this new one, I'll probably do even less, as they have a strict internet policy. You can access the internet, but if you do it too much, you get some kind of warning. The little web surfing I did today already hit some kind of limit, so most of my posting will be in the early mornings, the evenings, or occasionally at noon from whatever nearby wireless hotspot I can find.

The other thing I did today, coincidentally, was buy a ticket to go to Bangalore in April. I've been holding off on this for nearly a year, but I'm finally ready to go. (I was going to go this month, between jobs, but Cris had some knee surgery and I stuck around to give her a hand.)

Also coincidentally, there was a general strike (or "bandh") in Bangalore today, and when one call center tried to keep going with a skeleton staff, it was attacked by zealous strike enforcers. The strike was, ostensibly, a protest over the verdict in a long-running dispute over which state in India is entitled to the waters of a River Cauvery. But like most political actions, it seems like it had more to do with the exercise of political power and control, as state and local authorities -- presumably the ones to whom the stoppage was addressed -- have nothing to do with allocating the water, which is a national decision.

One of those stories led me to another story on the same website: Hindu groups too preoccupied to protest Valentine's Day. It seems that right-wing Hindu parties commonly stage protests against the holiday "because it was a Western phenomenon which destroyed Indian culture." How strange.

technorati: Cauvery, Bangalore,, Valentine's Day, call centers

Posting lite

Hi there. I'll be posting on a lite basis for a few days as I get the hang of a new job. I'm happy because my commute has been reduced from 30 to 6 miles one way. Also more money. And I'm working for a friend, yo.

It's all material

Casting around for a subject for your next novel set in the near future? Look no farther than this BBC News article: Wifeless future for China's men:

"There are more than a hundred men aged between 18 to 40 who are unmarried in our village," he says. "Nearby villages are all like us. How can we get married? I don't know what to do or where to start finding a wife. I'm stuck -- unless God can help me."

The brothers eat lunch by themselves.

Outside the village shop, men and teenagers hang about.

They keep an eye on the main road -- in case any eligible women wander by. But the road is empty.

In years to come, for the single men of China, things will only get worse.

technorati: China, results of gender selection, writers ideas

Cat in the garden

Just for the heck of it, here's the cat in our garden a few days ago. The flowers had just started to appear the week before.

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- It Depends edition

It's going to be hard -- very hard -- to top the whole psycho astronaut love triangle story. That has got to be in the finals for Bad Behavior story of the year. But we'll try.

A Colorado Springs TV station has revealed that Ted Haggard's former church is paying him to shut up about his indiscretions with a male prostitute and everything else (courtesy Street Prophets). The "agreement" also calls for Haggard to leave town. This explains his announcement earlier in the week that he would be relocating to Iowa or Missouri.

Take my advice, Ted. Pick Missouri. The people there are stupider, and they'll definitely buy your online "psychology" degree.

A teacher in Brooklyn pocketed $6000 for home-schooling a student who was dead.

High schoolers in California are fighting short-tempered teachers by posting videos of their blow-ups on YouTube.

Finally, conservatives attacked presidential candidate John Edwards for hiring irreverent, scatalogical blogger Amanda Marcotte. Edwards said he disagreed with some of Marcotte's more hard-edged posts of the past, but wasn't firing her. An example quoted by the conservatives:

On the crucifixion, Miss Marcotte says this:"The paradox was this.How can anybody look at the figure of Christ on the cross and think that's anything but a condemnation of torture? For the thinking person, it clearly is. But for the fundamentalist, that image creates anxiety about death and makes them cling to their hierarchical values even more."

Hmm, provocative but hardly off the wall. What about this:

Some of her ramblings on Pandagon, like this example on Catholics and the Plan B pill, "Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You'd have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology." are truly disgusting. In another instance, she glibly remarks that religious conservatives should "keep your nose of out of our britches, our beds and our families."

Okay, the bit about God's come is pretty much over the top. But is the quote that immediately follows it equal in some way? Seems like the conservatives don't really have their shit together on this one. Stay tuned.

And finally, guess who's sponsoring the premiere of the musical "Urinetown" in Omaha, Neb.? The Urogology Center of Omaha, which will serve "dessert -- something yellow -- in specimen cups."

technorati: amandamarcotte, JohnEdwards, tedhaggard

Haggard's hooker doubts '100% heterosexual' claim

Mike Jones, the rent boy who exposed Ted Haggard and recently visited Haggard's former church, said he doubts Haggard's claim that he emerged from a counseling program "completely heterosexual." Quoth Jones:

Give me a break. He's been performing oral sex on me for three years. You don't change that in three weeks.... I know him well enough by now, and you know what he's doing when those letters come out? He's playing the sympathy card. He's saying, 'Please feel sorry for me.'

Jones went on to display some of the insight into human psychology that Haggard claims he wants to learn: "Until he's honest with himself, he'll never be happy."

Snap! Jones also said that Haggard's communiques just gave him more material for the book he's writing: "Every time he opens his mouth, I have to add another chapter."

technorati: Ted Haggard, Mike Jones, New Life Church

Quick deal for psycho astronaut book

An author of true crime books, Diane Fanning, got a deal for a book about the astronaut who snapped:

Novelist and true crime author Diane Fanning tackles the bizarre case of Lisa Nowak, the astronaut accused of attempting to murder a fellow astronaut's girlfriend because of her obession with her colleague, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's.

Courtesy Publisher's Marketplace. Here's a good piece with a lot of background on Nowak, in case you can't wait for the book.

technorati: dianefanning, lisanowak, astronaut

New Blogger

Finally got pushed to the "new Blogger," and I'm also going to add labels. So kudos to The RubeTube for advice on how to make the printout of labels smaller.

technorati: blogger

Feminist action in Bangalore

The Blank Noise Project is a non-violent action group in Bangalore and other Indian cities combatting the prominent crime of sexual harrassment -- or "Eve teasing" as it is sometimes called there. The harrassment comes in many forms, but staring and groping on the street is the subject of many common complaints.

I've mentioned this group before, but I think it's worth another shout-out, because of the very striking photographs accompanying their posting about their latest action.

technorati: blanknoiseproject, feministgroups, nonviolence

I'm tired, tired of playing the game

I'm really tired, so I'm just going to throw these up here.

Courtesy Violet Blue (best post title of the day!): Haggard pronounced 'completely heterosexual' (best use of ironic quotes in a headline!) which points to an original Denver Post story with a slightly less cogent headline.

My new favorite blog is SpyChips, about the insidious threat of RFID.

The threat of more civil unrest in Bangalore has led: "several buildings with glass facades sported the red and yellow 'Kannada flags' besides hastily procured pictures and printouts of Kannada poets and the late thespian Rajkumar" -- the latter personage a local hero. So did you get that? The buildings are trying to keep people from throwing rocks at them by posting images they think the rioters will honor!

Speaking of Bangalore, I think I pissed off a co-worker today. He was saying that when he went to Bangalore a few weeks ago, when coincidentally there was another episode of rioting, "half the city was blacked out." I said, "So how did you know something was wrong?" He totally didn't get it.

Excellent wrapup on Moominite T(h)reat

Before they slip into the collective unconscious until they are briefly resurrected by MTV on a show called "I Love The 00's... 2007!" here is an excellent wrapup (courtesy Boston Metroblog) on the little blinky advertising signs that threw the Boston Police Dept. (if not the city itself) into a panic last week.

Among the revelations are a detailed description of the open-source origin of the devices as tools for underground graffitistas, their co-optation by marketers, the recruitment of the hapless pair of Bostonians who were paid $300 each to put them up, and how the marketing firm ordered them to place the devices in "Train stations, over passes (sic), hip and trendy areas..." But best of all:

Is there now any doubt that advertising has become the vandalism of the Fortune 500? Each week it becomes more clear in the media that advertising is using illegal methods, yet the fines and arrests remain disproportionately on graffiti writers and activists. We hope more people will see the hypocrisy of arresting, jailing, and fining individual expression of people like BORF, countless street artists, RNC protesters, and cyclists from critical mass, when there has still been zero jail time for CEOs of advertising and marketing firms that knowingly and repeatedly break the law promoting corporate products.

Mooninites, marketing, co-optation

As Haggards flee Colorado, locals say good riddance

After being scooped by a local TV station, the Colorado Springs Gazette ran their story on Ted Haggard's decision to leave Colorado Springs. There's little new in the story, but just read the comments! The the usual spipes from haters and bigots are one thing, but the hostility from Colorado Springs people saying "Get lost" is overwhelming.

Ted Haggard, Colorado Springs

Keeping up with the Haggards

Hmm, and I was just wondering what Ted Haggard was up to, now that he has graduated from rehab and is back in Colorado Springs. The answer is, he is booking out of there to pursue "a degree in psychology." Let's wish him well, and hope his studies give him a little better understanding of the field than he obviously does now, since in his statement he mentioned that his rehab program was "a three-week psychological intensive that gave us three years worth of analysis and treatment."

Man, that's some program! If they all worked that well, I know plenty of psychologists who would be out of a job. Perhaps for that reason, Haggard anticipates some openings in the field. Or maybe he has some other career in mind for him and his wife:

We are both planning on getting our masters in Psychology so we can work together serving others the rest of our lives. Since we are taking our classes on-line, we can live anywhere that's affordable. Then we'll travel to location for short in-class requirements.

Ah... an on-line Master's in Psychology. Okay. Finally, he explains:

For the last three months, I've not been communicative because I've been paralyzed by shame.

And here I thought it was because he was on lock-down. That just shows how much I know.

More information, of a kind, about the process Haggard went through is here. And for a generic treatment of the psychological condition that has become almost synonymous with Haggard's name, consider this blogger's essay:

Hypocrisy is a traditional American value, which is why liberals are opposed to it. Although my father smoked and drank, he always made it clear that smoking and drinking were wrong and that he had higher standards for me. I can still feel the sting of his slap when I pointed out that he smoked after he caught me with a cigarette. I have passed on these very same values to my own children. When my kids catch me sneaking a cigarette or smell alcohol on my breath, I repeat the words my father said to me, which his father said to him, "Do what Daddy says, not what Daddy does." And someday my children will instill these same values in their children.

I think he's kidding.

Staying abreast of the world of legal stimulants

If coffee is like mother's milk to you, you should be happy about a new trend in the Seattle area: drive-in coffee booths staffed by busty chicks in their underwear. Finally somone has managed to capture the allure of Taiwan's betel nut girls -- who sit in glassy roadside booths or storefronts dispensing the legal recreational stimulant -- to American culture. (I'm not the first person to draw this comparison.)

It's Ambiguity Sunday™!

In Nepal, government bureaucrats agreed to classify a transexual's gender as both. According to the story, there is a tiny but recognizable minority of transexuals in Nepal.

Is Barry Bonds signed for the 2007 season yet? It is not possible to say either way.

A cosmopolitan Muslim scholar is either a "Muslim Martin Luther," an advocate for Black Power in Europe, or an anti-Semite who is laying the foundations for an anti-Western jihad. (Come to think of it, Martin Luther was also anti-Semitic.)

We are the champions, we are the champions

Even if you care nothing for football, this strange little feature about the shirts and hats prepared for championship teams has charm. Its main revelation is that "Super Bowl Winner" gear is prepared for the players and coaches on both teams in the big game, and the stuff with the losers' name on it is carefully hidden away, trucked to a charity warehouse, and flown to a remote African village where it is given away to people who have never heard of either football or eBay.

There's something obsessive about the lengths to which they have organized something as trivial as presenting "Super Bowl Winner" gear to the winning team. It reminds me of a New Yorker story I read many years ago, about the cutting down of a hardwood forest in the Amazon. Every detail of the political, social, economic, ecological and cultural circumstances of how the forest came to be cut down and sawn up into lumber was meticulously documented -- who profited, what happened to the indiginous people who used to live in the forest, and so on. At the very end of the story, the journalist wrote about what actually became of the wood itself. It changed hands many times as it was bought by jobbers and wholesalers and exporters and so on. Finally most of it made its way to Hong Kong and Japan. By the time it actually ended its journey at a lumber yard in Tokyo, all its value had somehow been extracted, and it wound up, not as the raw material for an executive's desk or the rich wood for a musical instrument, but as scrap lumber, hastily slapped into place on the walls of a construction elevator at a skyscraper building site, protecting the metal of the elevator from workmen's tools. The "losing" Super Bowl shirts follow the reverse path, from first world to fifth world, but their obscure fate strikes me as somehow similar.

Focus on the Fundies™: catching up on Santorum

What of Rick Santorum, namesake of the frothy mess that symbolizes the defeat of the Republican Guard in the November elections? Most people are dimly aware that he joined a conservative think tank, but here's The World magazine -- an "independent" conservative Christian magazine -- with the details on Santorum's redoubt:

Santorum announced a new position at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), where he will direct a new program on "America's Enemies." As a senior fellow at EPPC, Santorum joins Roman Catholic theologian and author George Weigel, National Review contributor Stanley Kurtz, and current president M. Edward Whelan III, a former Justice Department official and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. At EPPC Santorum plans to raise public awareness about emerging national security threats: "Islamic fascists" in Iran, he said, communists in North Korea, socialists in Venezuela, radical leftists in Russia.

The imperative to "confront" Iran appears forcefully and frequently among Santorum's security policy objectives, a message that echoes his campaign-trail rhetoric. A series of stump speeches became the text of his Senate farewell address titled "The Gathering Storm of the 21st Century," an explicit reference to Winston Churchill's account of the path leading to World War II.

"I certainly believe that there are parallels between what is going on here and what happened in World War II," Santorum said of the threat posed by Iran. "I've talked about them. I'll continue to talk about them."

Hmm, it takes a proto-fascist to know a fascist, I'd say.

Previously:
Santorum's swan song
How the mighty have fallen: Rick Santorum
Gay aides to Dornan and Santorum were Just following orders

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- lesbian wedding edition

A very strange entry on Wired's "Table of Malcontents" blog: a man posts his dream about attending a lesbian wedding. At the end of it, his girlfriend skips off to join the lesbians, and he is sad. There's something hilariously pathetic about this. It's not the usual mayhem I post on Bad Behavior Friday™! but somehow grasps the whole spirit of imaginative stupidity that characterizes many of the crimes and fuckups.

Right, then. On to the mayhem.

I'm sure you've read of the panic in Boston over the little advertising gizmos and the dadaist approach to the press conference by the two mooks who stuck them up. In New York and all the other cities they were placed -- not by the same guys, but by others hired by an advertising agency -- people yawned. Everyone else said "God, another stupid advertisement." And there's no need even to lump all of Boston into the panicked category -- most likely it was just one hysterical person saying THERE'S A BOMB ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE BRIDGE AND IT'S GIVING ME THE FINGER!!

So my question is: What is wrong with that person?

Kudos to John Brownlee -- the same fellow who had that lesbian wedding dream -- for finding the term "infernal device" in the law the mooks are charged with breaking.

Close to home, the administration of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome has had a Very Bad Week. First it came out that the mayor's press secretary, Peter Ragone, had been posting comments defending the mayor on people's blogs using other names. The SFist blog broke the story. Then things got much worse: When it came out that the mayor himself had had an affair with his campaign manager's wife, the campaign manager quit and Newsom had to go on camera yesterday (priceless photo in the Chronic) and say sorry.

Damn San Francisco values!

Also in SF, someone discovered that the Indian Consulate improperly disposed of visa applications from thousands of people across 11 western US states. There are some great quotes there from consulate officials who really Just Don't Get It.

All right. On to the mayhem. Really.

In Seattle, a woman and her nephew are accused of kidnapping her husband in a comical, bumbling plot.

And in Kansas City, two cops were suspended after they ignored the pleas of a woman who was having a miscarriage.

In Houston, an enterprise combined money laundering, check cashing, prostitution and "modeling" all in one business. Sounds like someone has the American spirit! They just need to go to work for Halliburton.

Today's hoax: panicking bride

A popular video posted on YouTube of a bride freaking out before the ceremony and hacking off her own hair in a hotel restroom turns out to be a hoax dreamed up by two aspiring actresses (courtesy Metafilter).

Little trouble in Big Beaver

Troy, Michigan -- the Hooters City -- that might become the nickname of a Detroit suburb after the restaurant chain, fighting the town's attempt to keep it from opening a new outlet there, decided to blackmail the town by opening two branches of Hooters -- making it "the only non-resort city of its size" to have two of the diners.

Apparently the restaurant chain, distinguished (only) by its busty, scantily-clad waitresses and double-entendre name, has vowed to keep its original outlet open until the city agrees to grant the new, larger store a liquor license. But the best part of the story is the name of the district where the new outlet is located: Big Beaver.

On the fascism front

The FBI's new electronic surveillance tactic hoovers up vast loads of information about many users whenever they get a warrant for an ISP. Courtesy Mediabistro.

Dinesh D'Sousa, whose book has been called a national disgrace and who has been mocked from the New York Times to the Colbert Report, will do a three hours stretch on C-Span this Sunday, accepting calls from viewers. Times are Eastern Std. Time:

12-3 p.m. In Depth: Dinesh D'Souza, whose new book is The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 (Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385510127). The author of six other books, D'Souza is the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and was earlier the John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and worked in the Reagan White House. Viewers with questions may call during the live show or e-mail . (Re-airs Monday at 12 a.m.)