Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. This is the only book that gives a true picture of the character of John Wooden and the influence of his assistant, Jerry Norman, whose contributions Wooden  ignored and tried to bury.

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. The players tell their stories in their own words.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information. Also available on Kindle.

Raise Hell: The Life And Times Of Molly Ivins (7/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 91 minutes

Molly Ivins was a vitriolic political columnist as far to the left as she could get. I would love to see an unbiased documentary about her. She was a good writer and had a sense of humor. But this is not that documentary. When doing a documentary about someone as controversial as Molly, a good producer will present the pro and the con.

This film is full of pro, but there ain’t a whiff of con.

Interviewed are ideologues like Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Rachel Maddow, and Paul Begala, all of whom have the same point of view. Appearing far more often than she should is the President of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, who is responsible for the slaughter of 328,348 babies inside (and outside?) of the womb just in one year, 2015-16. Since Richards was President for 12 years, from 2006-2018, if we assume a steady rate of abortions, she was responsible for approximately 3,940,176 babies who were killed in the womb.

One of Molly’s editors does admit that “She was willingly cruel to the people she was making fun of.” She was too much even for New York Times Editor Abe Rosenthal, who fired her; maybe because she created the term “cluster pluck” which Abe thought offended the sensitive ears of readers of the Times (unlike Abe, I think it’s terrific!).

However, Molly saw through George Bush II, constantly warning against him. Unfortunately, what she wrote was largely ignored because of her recognized bias. And that’s too bad because what she wrote about him was true. Bush was a bust as President. He had control of The White House and Congress for six years but did nothing about the border problem; at the time, I was stunned that he gave it the back of his hand. And that’s not to mention his inaction on the subprime mortgage problem that he could have stopped, the stupid war he got us into, and destroying the balanced budget (which actually produced a surplus for a couple of years) he inherited from Clinton/Gingrich (another target of Ivins’ ire).

But this film is so fawning and full of leading questions it can make one gag. Typical is one question posed to her, “There is some thought that, God help us, the next President of the United States might be the current governor of Texas. Since we know so little about the man I was hoping that you could fill us in.”

One of the faults of the film is that if it identifies some talking head once, that’s all it does, so the viewer is left to wonder who the blazes that is when they return later in the film.

The film received its funding from Jonathan Logan Foundation, whose self-serving “purpose” is defined as “The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation supports nonprofits that advance social justice.” Yeah, sure. Jonathan Logan is a huge Democrat donor, tens of thousands of dollars to people like Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, etc. The “social justice” purpose is whatever comes out of democrat talking points.

She was not all bad or good. In addition to calling out the truth about the second George Bush, she admirably and bravely faced her death with equanimity and humor. She’s not important enough, but maybe someday someone will make a real documentary about Molly and tell the pros and the cons. I give this a 7/10 because it is entertaining, in spite of its bias.