... from Gotanda's earlier, better known pieces -- forget linear narrative of any kind, this is a halucinatory dream gone trippy. Saw this in NYC years ago at Manhattan Theater Club and was mighty impressed with Gotanda's use of language, the way he plays with phrases, the way he learns to work within and outside of the language box. It's entertaining, it's thought-provoking. By curtain's fall, you have to ask if you yourself are not standing on your head, trying to somehow make sense of an upside world.

DAY STANDING ON ITS HEAD is a wild ride into the psyche of a 40-something professor asking the age-old question, IS THAT ALL THERE IS? The play is highly theatrical, and, as we staged it at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre & Asian American Theatre Company, full of quirks and surprises, including a few wacky song numbers and a whirlwind of activity. The story is both poignant and pertinent, centering on the universal quest for meaning in this transient existence. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for an engaging, truly theatrical work to direct, to perform in, or to peruse with pleasure.

Part I "The Death of Common Sense"
Using several cases (see other reviews) details the harm of rationalist philosophy applied to law -- the misguided notion that laws can be made "self-executing".
Part II "The Buck Never Stops"
The abstractly laudable desire to maintain absolute impartiality creates an absolute nightmare of red tape -- the focus in this section is on Process spawned by mistrust and the bureaucratic reflex to avoid responsibility for decisions.

Part III "A Nation of Enemies"
Vocal, assertive minorities are able to control government policy-making. Rights over responsibilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the prime example here (see other reviews for details).
Part IV "Releasing Ourselves"
We must have law that allows thinking. Modern law wants to legislate away uncertainty with ever-thicker rulebooks, but uncertainty, risk, is exactly what drives various parties to work together, in the real world. Don't fear gov't authority. Don't think in extremes. Bureaucracy is the enemy of real democracy. Legislation cannot save us from ourselves. In the end, we must rely, as always, on common sense.

Note: rating lost a star because author kept using one example (Glen-Gery Brick Company) again and again, when fresh examples would have been more compelling. Also, as other reviewers have noted, the last section, on what we as citizens can concretely do to help change the situation, was vague and thin.

If this book interests you, you might also be interested in the political writings of Noam Chomsky. He has written an enormous, readable, extremely well-researched corpus of work that concerned, open-minded citizens can use to consider for themselves where they stand on various issues. If we were to hazard a label, Chomsky would be a "libertarian socialist". Try "Manufacturing Consent"... you might not look at your morning paper quite the same way.

I wouldn't agree with the categorization of this book as an "explosive manifesto" (back cover), nor would I call this "incendiary ... stimulating" (front cover). As an American who too often cringes when our country's regulatory red tape strangles expediency and constructive decision making, I'd say "The Death of Common Sense" offers some poignant anecdotes in describing today's bureaucratic morass. Beyond this, author Philip K. Howard documents well the mentality which has spawned our dependency and passivity, and how we can refocus on how democracy is supposed to function.

Mr. Howard's messages, evident throughout, are very obvious: we have substituted innovation with process, created enemies instead of cooperative societies, and squashed case-by-case reasoning under mountains of procedural law. There are so many "rights" covering every interest group that very little gets done for the benefit of the majority. "Trusting in the law" now means being wary of nearly everyone. Although sounding a bit rant-stricken at times, Mr. Howard offers up lots of food for thought ... some amazing stories. It's all pretty interesting and easy to read.

In my opinion, the last (and shortest) of the book's four parts, entitled "Releasing Ourselves," falls short of hitting on a way to get out from under suffocating law. I agree that initiative and responsibility are admirable attributes for executives in both the public and private arenas, and further, that universally applied policies that regulate the most minute procedural detail should instead have flexibility for more real-world applications. However, what happens when the most innovative of directives winds up injuring or killing someone? Will Joe Citizen give up his right (there's that word) to sue? I doubt it. And, as long as legal recourse remains the ultimate equalizer, the happy medium between "buried in the fine print" and "total judgment call" will be awfully hard to come by. Mr. Howard doesn't address this issue.

This is a very good read; however, a better balance between problem and solution would have made this book outstanding.

This is food for thought, not only for law students, lawyers and practitioners but also for the common citizen. In particular, for all those that get lost in the ill conceived red tape of mother bureaucracy, get stuck in fragmentary and nonsensical regulations. Not only the author provides enough examples of organizational lunacy, due to excess of formalism or elaborate distorsions of clear legal texts and principles, but also gives some insights about possible solutions to the problem of the excessive weight of rules and procedures so precise that no one has the chance to think for himself or find a solution to a problem applying common principles.
As Howard points out: "The sunlight of common sense shines high above us whenever principles control: What is right and reasonable, not the parsing of the legal language, dominates the discussion.With the goal shining always before us, the need for lawyers fades along with the receding legal shadows. People understand what is expected from them."
This is a provocative book written by somebody that has been a practicing lawyer as well as a teacher. These two hats permit the author to better size up the frustrations and limitations that paperwork and stupid regulations inflict upon the citizens.
It should be required reading for law students.

Philip K. Howard's The Collapse of the Common Good is largely a political treatise - one that makes no attempt to achieve an objective analysis of the subject at hand - the development of America's "culture of whiners". By "culture of whiners" I refer to the preponderance of legal cases in America and in Canada in which the plaintiff is someone whose own lack of common sense has led into a situation in which they find themselves unhappy. The reader can heap into this purposefully vague category the assorted idiots who burn themselves with coffee, get themselves fired through ignorance or sloth, fail to achieve what they believe to be their due or who injure themselves doing what no intelligent person would consider. In essence Howard's book decries the culture of "its not my fault" that has developed in most western democratic countries since the cultural morass of the decade of the sixties. As Howard is quick to point out, as society has embraced this "it's not my fault" mentality its members have searched for someone else to blame - that someone is usually someone with money - and to punish through the misuse of the courts.

Admittedly I'm on line with this thinking. In reading this book however even I couldn't countenance Howard's writing. Howard has a definite point in arguing that the judiciary is being forced to exceed its constitutional mandate in assigning fault in the absence of common sense. The problem with this book is that Howard largely eschews analysis in favour of rhetoric as he preaches to the converted. Arguing based on largely anecdotal evidence, Howard's increasingly shrill authorial voice not only undermines the importance of his message but serves to alienate even the most sympathetic reader. Strictly from an analytical point of view, the argument within The Collapse of the Common Good is even less palatable to the objective reader. Howard repeatedly focuses on the symptoms of the problems which he rails against without attempting to discern a cause. In short, Howard contents himself with flogging the dead horse of "political correctness" while ignoring the deeper question of from whence it came.

To the casual reader, reading The Collapse of the Common Good - How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines our Freedom would be like listening to Paul Harvey if he had too many beers. Even a sympathetic reader is bound to be alienated by its shrill, repetitive tone and superficial content. Howard's book is not for the faint of heart nor left of centre, instead like Mao's little red book it is best in the hands of committed idealogues, to be waved a rallies and misquoted at length.

Aside from what I considered to be a weak title, everything else about the book was superlative and highly thought-provoking. It is obvious when when people were spreading the gospel of individual rights through our society, no one stopped to realize that the random and haphazard exercise of one person's individual rights often ran in direct contradiction to society's rights as a whole. As Mr. Howard says about juries for example: They are not thinking about the effect of their decision on society; they are merely thinking about the two litigants whose case they have been asked to decide. The problems created by this phenomenon are particularly evident when it comes to puntive damages. When plaintiff's lawyers urge jurors to "teach this company a lesson for their [supposedly] heinous conduct" the jurors can respond by blithely awarding tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages, and go to bed at night feeling that they have "served" society by their actions. And of course the great irony is that they have accomplished the exact opposite result. I don't know how much of an effect Mr. Howard's book will have. While it may not be readily apparent, the interest groups that have no interest whatsoever in adopting his suggestions--e.g. the American Bar Association, unions of all stripes and colors, libertarians (ironically) and even Congress to some extent--will act to make sure that the status quo remains the status quo. Nevertheless, I would be delighted to see all of America take his message to heart.

This book is much more than just a call for tort reform. Anyone can say that our society has become overly litigious but Howard goes a step beyond. The Lost art of Drawing the Line presents the full picture of what is wrong with our legal system, how it got that way and what we can do to fix it.

Howard traces the roots of our current legal problems back to the late 19th Century when the political spoils system was replaced with an impartial legal and bureaucratic approach. By replacing politics with a system of rules it was hoped that governmental dealings would be fairer. As anyone who has ever had to deal, or much worse work, with the stifling bureaucracy that grew out of this movement knows it is clear that somewhere along the way fairness went too far.

Howard uncovers the paradox of how our quest for individual rights has actually resulted in a diminution of our freedom. True, we can still do what ever we want by ourselves but we must walk on eggshells when dealing in groups, afraid to offend lest someone take us to court. Howard bravely goes one step further and examines the detrimental effects that the law has had on race relations. He notes that the ticking bomb of the race card has created a minefield of fear and bitterness in the modern workplace.

Whether intentional or not, The Lost Art of Drawing the Line serves as an excellent companion book to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. By getting to the core of why coming together to work for the common good has become such a risky proposition The Lost Art of Drawing the Line answers the question of why one would choose to bowl alone.

The book is not all doom and gloom. We still have a government of the people. And, as Howard proposes, if as a nation we are able to gather the national will to fix our system, no government can get in our way.

Read this book. And then recommend it to your friends.

The Cheerleader in Chief of Clinton is able to effectively transmit all of that exceptional charisma and excitement right into this book! All of what he wrote sounded so genuine and interesting that I could hardly put it down! I hope he writes another book because I'll be the first one to buy it!

This man should be impeached for his sheer banality. I'm not even sure that a real person wrote this book--it reads more like something written by a computer with one of those auto-writing programs. Come to think of it, is Al Gore even a real person? Has anyone ever seen him do something like eat or drink in public, or is he just some sort of incorporeal, babbling hologram?

This is a fascinating look at how Vice-President Gore has worked to reduce the size of the federal government. It is easy to read and is very substantive. This book is a must read for every American!