Carol Heimowitz’s Wall Street Journal spotlighted 10 books on work, from Tocqueville to Mills, as Brian Lamb opened C-SPAN’s Washington Journal call-in. Eddie (Democrat) linked the Super Bowl halftime show’s inclusivity—featuring non-English speakers—to "white America’s decline," while Senator Bill Haggerty (Fox News) framed ICE threats (1,300% rise in death threats) as left-wing extremism. Mark (Independent) dismissed political messaging, calling it pure entertainment, but Sylvia (Republican) boycotted Batbunny for lyrics she deemed sexist, praising Turning Point’s religiously tinged "transformation" narrative. The debate underscored how cultural moments and legislative battles—like Friday’s midnight DHS funding deadline—polarize public discourse along partisan lines. [Automatically generated summary]
It began with Benjamin Franklin, who couldn't stop working or writing about work throughout his 84-year-long life.
Carol Heimowitz has been associated with the Wall Street Journal since she got her master's degree in journalism at Columbia University.
Other books she featured in this article about work include Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Dale Carnegie, and C. Wright Mills, plus others.
We wanted to know how she chose these 10 books about work, and so we had a chat.
unidentified
A new interview with journalist and writer Carol Heimowitz about her Wall Street Journal article.
These 10 books changed the way Americans thought about work.
Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Eddie in New York City, Democrat, you're on the air, Eddie.
Eddie, are you there?
unidentified
Yeah, I'm here.
I'm here.
Okay.
Like I said, like I said, I mean, you know, it was interesting.
And I mean, you know, like I said, it showed for the first time.
It showed the people that were marginalized performing at the Super Bowl.
And it was, I guess, I guess for the first time in history, we saw people that did not speak English perform for the first time for a bunch of millions of Americans.
And like I said, I mean, that whole thing with the whole thing with what they were trying to promote with that separate stuff there, the Super Bowl, that's you're looking at the decline of white America.
All right.
And like I said, the world now, the world now is moving into a different direction.
I think Democrats are going to have a very hard time shutting the government down just so they can perpetuate the kind of chaos that's going on in Minneapolis.
Look, there's a reason why ICE does not want to have their badges and their names on their uniforms.
There's a reason why they're masking because threats have risen 1,300%, death threats against ICE agents.
They're being doxxed.
The left has gone completely overboard, and they're threatening the safety and security of our agents so that they cannot do their job.
This is something we need to look at very, you know, very carefully.
The request that we should put ICE agents in harm's way is absolutely intolerable.
And again, the Democrats need to get serious.
If they do shut the government down, it's not going to have an impact.
As you said, you discussed this earlier.
It's going to impact the Coast Guard.
It's going to impact TSA.
It's going to impact FEMA in our state.
You know, we've had massive ice storms.
Let's shut that down.
Is that the argument that the Democrats want to make?
Friday at midnight.
We'll find out.
I don't think the American public are going to believe this is the right path to follow.
So what I wanted to say is that I have a Spanish background.
So my husband and I, we made the decision of not watching the half-crime show because we have heard the lyrics from the songs of Batbunny, and we definitely don't think that they're appropriate.
They are degrading to women.
So I don't agree to the message in his music, and I don't follow him.
So that's one of the things that, you know, brought us to watch the other show, Turning Point.
And actually, I felt most.
It was a message, from my point of view, was a message of transformation.
You know, how he got the message from Jesus to, you know, switch from being Kid Rock to his real name.