Category: Government Studies
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Books You Won’t Be Needing this Christmas
Which books are you boycotting? So many to choose from… Stick it to them, I say!
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Free Gift for Joining NRA. Or Not.
The crazies at NRA can’t, but I can do better than a black and yellow duffel bag. Club Patchworks—free paperback with every subscription!
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Foreign Service, Under Covers
DC-area writers, consider stopping by the American Foreign Service Association for this year’s book market featuring a talk on writing and publishing from 25-year veteran literary agent and editor Deborah Grosvenor. Two dozen Foreign Service-affiliated authors will also be there with their latest work. Find out what publishers are looking for when it comes to writing…
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The Annapolis Bookstore
A short block from Maryland’s historic State House, down a white brick street narrow with specialty shops, The Annapolis Bookstore is exactly what a bookstore ought to be: jammed with literature, old and new, on shelves that climb from creaking wood floor to high plaster ceiling. Close with the antiquated must of well-turned pages, yet…
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Dear Pepe,
The ugliness caught up with you. Charlottesville rebuked your kind in August. This week, the entire Commonwealth did. I’m not one to gloat, Pepe. I like democracy. I like the free flow of ideas and the First Amendment. I even like torches — especially when carried before the White House to celebrate suffrage for African…
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Mental Deviants & Gun Nuts
A dozen years ago when I worked in Saudi Arabia, the government had a habit of referring to domestic terrorists as ‘deranged’ and calling them ‘mental deviants.’ We mocked the Saudis mercilessly for it. The Royals were denying reality. They failed to acknowledge and confront the extremist forces at loose in the Kingdom, extremist views…
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Walden in Africa & Other Diplomatic Readings
Among the 53 titles compiled in this Month’s Foreign Service Journal is Dan Whitman’s Answer Coming Soon. Whatever else it provides to those who read it, Answer undeniably will provide this: a reflection on the power of books. The power is especially profound for those who spend their lives in places where electricity can be spotty…
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Prophetic—
Patchworks is sadly a timely tale of national character and individual insight, juxtaposing individual lives and Second Amendment rights. One reads this engaging, often amusing, and ultimately disturbing account in light of an advancing history of public massacres involving firearms. WorldView Magazine’s Peter Van Deekle reviews Patchworks at Peace Corps Worldwide. Excerpts: B.A. East brings…
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Remarks at Indie Author Day
My new novel is the quintessential Washington, DC book. At the climax to Patchworks, hundreds of federal workers stream from their offices, urged on by the sound of a screaming alarm. They gather on a grassy knoll near the National Mall, some of them leaning on one another, some of them sobbing, others in stony,…
Ben East Books 