RICHARD COOKE IS TIRED OF WINNING

 

Richard Cooke is Tired of Winning 
- Book Review

One of the blessings of my life is having librarian research assistant. He’s a result-getter. He digs up books on loan from libraries in places that are not on Rand McNally maps. But his real knack is having gotten used to sense what may interest me.

In short Chuck knows what piques my interest. So, I returned after twelve days away and there I find, on my credenza the title “Tired of Winning” by Richard Cooke. Serendipity? Maybe.

Published by Black Inc. Books., (Melbourne, Australia. 2019) written  by the Australian author Richard Cooke, who is considered an expert on American culture and politics.

Cooke is an Aussie journo who's been in the game for over two decades. He's penned articles for some of the country's biggest newspapers and regularly pops up on the telly. Cooke's got a knack for breaking down Aussie and American politics, and his writing is as clear as a sunny day. He's a big believer in independent journalism and has scooped up a stack of awards for his work.  Before I was about to hand the book back I looked inside to see who is it that is tired of winning?

One essay – titled Energy Exchange, Cooke describes the summer of 1968 in Chicago. He quotes an array of journalistic print reports of what has happened. Sometimes in details… Second hand, maybe, third hand… Most reporters or all passed by now.

The gist – if you’re interested – is followed here:

Things got pretty intense in Chicago in the summer of 1968. Thousands of anti-war protesters showed up during the Democratic National Convention to make their voices heard against the Vietnam War. Things took a bad turn when the protests turned violent, and police clashed with the demonstrators. The whole thing was caught on TV, and it really shook up the country.

The violence hurt the Democratic Party, and it's thought to have played a role in Richard Nixon winning the 1968 presidential election. When I arrived in Chicago in 1976 no one remembered the summer of 1968. After the winter of 1977 a new mayor (Michael Bilandic) was in office and four years later Jane Byrne was elected becoming the first woman mayor in Chicago. She cleared the way to the next woman mayor – Carol Mosley Browne - a trail blazer - who went on later to be the first Black woman U.S. Senator from Illinois.

But  Richard Cooke is not interested in gender studies or minority studies in America.

Having done with Richard Nixon, the villain Republican, Cooke brings us to a real time villain – Donald Trump.

2017 to date is a never-ending gift that keeps giving to political journalists and the publishing houses.  The journos write, the publishers print, hard-bound books produced, and there they sell.

Never mind that Trump’s presidency was marked by four years of peace on earth. No inflation in the US.  A vaccine was produced in warped speed.  Putin didn’t dare invade Ukraine again. 

Yet the White House theatrics season was on, and still provides nutritious manna from heaven to political journos. Bob Woodward and Simon & Schuster and them-else keep on releasing political journalism fiction books.

Here Cooke re-litigates the Russian Collusion by Trump & sons. (“A Conspiracy”). Never mind that the Mueller Report evaporated into a black hole in a parallel universe. Mueller who?

Well, it’s evident that Cooke is a visiting Trump hater.

Michiko Kakutani was The New York Times famed book reviewer.   A 2017 article by The New York Times titled "38 Years on Books: The Essential Michiko Kakutani Reader" stated that she "wrote more than 4,000 book reviews" during her tenure at the newspaper. Another source - "Michiko Kakutani: The Power of Criticism" by Jennifer Schuessler, suggests that she penned "an estimated 10,000" reviews.
Richard Cooke has something against Kakutani in this essay -  “Truth Kicks the Bucket”.
You see, journalists make a living from minding other peoples’ business.  When they stop reporting facts and report their opinions about other peoples’ behaviors and beliefs, they’re gossipers for hire.

Classic example The Guardian - is a Marxist leaning British paper - described Carlos Lozada’s from the Washington Post book as, “…analyses 150 often trashy books about someone who is not known to have read a single book and hired stooges to write the 20 self-puffing volumes published in his name.”

Tired of Winning is one more volume in my “Trumpian Bibliotheca”.

MAGA - Richard Cooke - regardless of your splendid cognitive convolutions in print – is still America the great!

I remain grateful to Chuck Gillen III. He who provides me with reads and write fare of esoteric books.

Now the Tired of Winning book goes back to the public library.

 

Mandy Lender during summer time

www.mandylender.com  www.mandylender.net  www.attractome.com

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