December 18, 2008
Review of The Faithful Spy
The Faithful Spy: A Novel by Alex Berenson
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
OK. I picked this up at the airport. Was looking for a light airplane read, spy thriller. I got a great thriller and a very engaging read, but not exactly light. You could read it that way if you don't read the newspapers. This one is literally "ripped from the headlines". About a CIA agent under cover with jihadi Islamic extremists trying to prevent the next big attack. We all know it is coming. We all know there are sleepers in the US. This book, although fiction, is a credible and very plausible potential path. The Islamist are not irrational crazies. They are people, deeply hurt, intelligent, just misguided. These people are out there. They won't go away if you sit down and have tea with them. Obama should read this.
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Review of Robert B. Parker, Now & Then
Now and Then by Robert B. Parker My review
rating: 4 of 5 starsRead this on a couple plane rides over the last month. Very good Spencer Novel if you know that detective from Robert Parker. Good vacation read.
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trying good Reads instead of AllConsuming. I don’t like it as much. It doesn’t robopost. You have to cut an paste. Lame. But more books and way more traffic.
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October 2, 2008
Read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny by Robin Sharma
My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
Read on the recommendation of a friend. Pretty fluffy sometimes condescending writing. The author is trying too hard to be "mystical". The basic concepts are pretty solid zen stuff. I liked it. But wouldn't recommend it or read it again.
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February 20, 2008
Review of 50 great walks in Florida
My mother's newly published book was recenty reviewed by the Ocala Star Banner where she worked for many years.
Look for my review soon.
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September 5, 2007
Books on Blackberry
I subscribed to Secret Agent from Joseph Conrad by email from DailyLit. I don't like the e-mail interspersed with the other work ones. I want to save a couple segments and read when I have a couple minutes of downtime. Humm what device is with me then? My bberry. How about subscribing RSS and reading through Viigo? Done. I just subscribed to JD Rockefeller's biography on rss. It was a pain because the dailylit URL is like 100 characters long, but I guess I could have done the subscription on the bbry browser and use the cut and paste function. Instead in subscribed on the PC and hand typed in the URL. But it works. Who needs a special reader? I now have books on Blackberry.
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February 21, 2006
Reading list on Energy
I often get asked what books have been influential in forming my thinking around energy. Especially how someone with a software or technology background can begin to get a handle on some of the macro issues. I am not sure that I have found all the best sources yet and I am SURE I haven't read them in the right order, but for the person just starting out I would recommend you read the following books in the following order:
The Bottomless Well, by Peter Huber and Mark Mills. This is two silicon valley guys talking primarilly about the electrification of everything hand how digital has replaced analogue in many more places than the computer. Lots of familiar language for a tech person to understand the three different energy markets (electricity, direct heat, transportation) and the options in each. After this one I was glad that silicon will eventually make cars solid state, lighter and better, but I realized that this won't happen in my lifetime and for now we are stuck with oil in our transportation system and no option. Huber and Mills definitely have an agenda.
Sleeping with the Devil, by Robert Baer. Robert Baer was CIA station chief in the mid east forever. His story was the basis of the movie Syriana (which I highly recommend). This will scare the **** out of you. When you realize that with less resources and coordination it took to bring down the twin towers, the world oil supply could be crippled for a decade, you should be affraid, very affraid. Baer also goes into how corrupt the Saudi royal family is and how tightly our fate is tied to theirs. Baer definitely has a POV and an agenda.
Energy at the CrossRoads, by Vaclav Smil. Haven't finished this one yet, but after being shocked by the theatrics of the first two (and rightly so), Smil's academic "just the facts" approach can be read without the heart racing too much. But I wouldn't start here, because you won't understand the enormity of the problem without the graphic excesses of the above.
Twilight in the Desert, by Matthew Simmons. More graphic excesses. Simmons is probably the hottest head screaming about "peak oil". The fact that oil is running out. I don't know that I agree with his immediate and dire predictions and he is definitely on the most radical side of "the sky is falling" argument, but it is good to get the worst case scenario out of the way. I am still looking for the best case scenario laid out in a clear an convincing manner. To date I have only found "don't worry about it" guys. That is not an answer.
more to come.
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December 24, 2005
Review: The Last Good Kiss (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Two weeks ago Finn and I went up to Snoqualmie Pass for a little innertubing in the snow. We had so much fun we decided to stay the night. At the gas station they had a bin of old paperbacks. I picked up The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
While some may call it pulp and formulaic, I call it fun and entertaining. Lots of seedy bars are visited and some ghost of 60s San Francisco are dredged up as well. Large calibre guns, porno movie producers, beer drinking dogs, dive bars, washed up writers, and a road trip all rolled into one. What more could you ask for? I give this a 4 out of 5.
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Review: The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes
I have devoured The Alienist
This may just be a case of crossed expectations. I was expecting the Alienist and was not prepared for the stiff upper lip of an English detective story. Sort of like the shock I had picking up Flush by Carl Hiaasen after reading his other thrilling works. A total let down. I didn't labor through Flush, but I did labor through The Italian Secretary much to my dismay and waste of time. I am not a fan of high brow english "literature" and the prentiousness of it all. The faux royalty and round about language is all too obtuse for my taste. The only interesting part of this book which I am sure there is some factual background to are the parts where Holmes and Watson use their study of the human body size, movement, and muscle structure to determine identity. There are many reveals in the plot where they go back and note something insightful about a previous encounter that I didn't notice while reading it. Makes me want to be more observant to mannerisms, facial expression, posture and body build during my conversations.
Overall, I wouldn't want anyone but a committed zealot of english detective fiction to bother with The Italian Secretary. Certainly not any fan of Caleb Carr's prior work. I rate it a 1 of 5.
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November 23, 2005
Thomas Merton: Opening the Bible
Caution, if even the thought of any sort of religion or faith gives you the creeps, stop reading now.
I am not now, nor have I ever been a right wing religious ideologue. Haven't ever read the bible from cover to cover. I do hear verses most sundays in Catholic church, but much of it passes over me. My brother gave me Thomas Merton, Opening the Bible
Why bother to read the bible? Why is it still the best selling book every year around the world? How should one read it? Like a work of fiction? What are the main challenges with reading it? What are it's questions? Why is it so hard to read? All this and more in this very thoughtful slim volume from Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton is one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Even if you have never bothered to read the bible or even slightly despised anyone who would bother, you should read Merton's little book of thoughts. At least after reading it you can go back to TV, movies and your video games with the comfort that you actually made an active decision to NOT face any of the issues that the bible deals with (basically who are you and why are you here). You can go back to all the comfortable distractions that never put any stress on your brain or soul. Me? I like hard problems to solve. I like thinking about things that I don't have the answers for. Even some things for which there may not be answers. It gets me out of bed in the morning.
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Philip Roth delivers a complete dud with "The Plot Against America"
I was traveling a couple weeks ago and looking for a political fiction book to feed both sides of my brain. This looked like just the ticket. I tend to like fiction told as an alternative to actual fact. Like "What if Kurt Cobain and Princess Diana had met and fallen in love" o rThat Other Lifetime: A Novel About Richard Nixon and Raymond Carver
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October 23, 2005
Review: Murder on the Orient Express
read this classic last weekend. After alot of modern pulp, I had a hankering for some classic pulp. If you can get over the formal English dialogue, you will find a very intriguing story that stands the test of time. Probably the most classic who done-in set exclusively in a train car stranded in a snow drift. I won't tell the end, but I didn't see any of it coming. So many interesting characters and so many complex motivations. Read it all in one sitting. If you haven't read this classic, I highly recommend it.
I rate this 4 of 5 stars.
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October 21, 2005
Review: Flush by karl hiassen
I was in Miami last week and in a book store. I love Hiaasen's prior work with all their whacky bad guys and twisted plots. He really ties into essential truths about Florida. When I saw this one on the hardback counter as his new stuff I immediately swooped it up. I didn't even read the dust jacket or the review. I should have. This is one of Hiaasen's new books aimed at the teen market. It is told from the perspective of a teen boy and his sister who are heros against their inept parents and bumbling bad guys. Hiaasen dumbed down his writing for the young masses. Expecting his other stuff I am totally underwhelmed. If you are over 15, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!
I rate this 0 of 5 stars.
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Review: Ghost Rider
I had no idea that one of the guys from the band Rush was a bit of a philospher. Well he is and has written a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance style journey on a bike book. He has always been a cyclist, but when his 18 year old daughter died suddenly and less than a year later his wife died of cancer, he was left totally empty. To fill himself or at least keep busy he set out on his BMW riding 600 miles a day. That is a LONG day on the bike, I know. Most of the text is spent on the details of the journey, rain, terain, hotels, etc. Interspersed are pieces of realization as they come. You go through the whole denial, grief, remorse and recovery stage bit by bit with him. Not an easy book to read if you are going through loss yourself. Not an easy book to read if you don't have the resources to just drop everything in your life and ride a motorcycle for two years. Because that is you will want to do after reading this book.
I rate this 2 of 5
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Review: Long Time Gone, J.A. Jance
I finished this a couple weeks ago on a plane. I like J.A. Jance because she writes about Seattle. This one is set much in central seattle around the hospitals. Your basic brooding male dective pulp. Good plane reading to get you away from the e-mail and powerpoint. Nothing exceptional, but fun to read.
I rate 3 of 5 stars.
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August 21, 2005
Book Revies: Fuels and chemicals from oilseeds: Technology and policy options (AAAS selected symposium)
Ever get a hankering for a prequel? You know it is all the rage in the movie business. Well you can get that in the book world too. Just read old books. This one is from the 1982 AAAS symposium. During the first oil crisis. A bit of back to the future. All these professors talking about the potential of crops to provide our fuels. Most of the problems they laid out have since been solved (mostly by computers and improvements in crop yield). The descriptions of basic chemistry were good though. Definitely academic as it is basically a collection of professor papers. Not for the feight of heart, but for the biodiesel geek, it doesnt' get any better!
I give it a 1 of 5 on the Tobias scale (only because no-one but me will probably ever like this book).
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Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Ok, I am a Harry Potter fan Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
. I didn't mean to be, but the first one got me hooked. I bought it in the airport and had to tell my traveling friends that I was reading it for my daughter. You know, to see if it was appropriate for her. "How old?" "Uh, three". busted. So I have read them all. And this for the new one, I did the right thing and ordered it through my local bookstore paying full retail. (Death to you who bought it at Costco!)
So I am a Potter fan. Unfortunately this one just dosen't deliver. It takes WAY too long to get going. Nothing happens till the very end. At least in the other books there is more than one conflict scene. It seems like all backstory and build up. Like 400 pages of it! Then the climax is what we all expected any way. You need to read it to complete the series, but this is my least favorite. Also probably the least accessible if you haven't read any of the others. If you are a fan, read it because you have to. If you are not yet, dont' start here, go back to the beginning.
I rate it a 2 of 5 on the Tobias scale.
Posted by Martin at 8:14 PM
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June 26, 2005
Book Review: Jonathan Kellerman: Therapy
Finished this on a plane trip back east a couple weeks ago. When my brain gets full of business books, I turn to these page turner detective novels. Well Novel is a stretch, but you know what I mean. This one was good, an easy and engaging read, but not really that memorable. Set in LA and the main culprit being a psychoparist, I was hoping to get some insight into those two worlds that I didn't have before. I didn't get anything. No new parts of LA. No new tricky things about therapy. Even though these kind of books are all fiction, one thing I like is getting some kind of glimpse inside something I don't get every day. Therapy didn't deliver that so it gets a 2 of 5 stars.
Posted by Martin at 9:21 PM
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June 25, 2005
Review: The Case For Democracy, Natan Sharansky
Just finished this book (The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
)on the plane back from NYC. Picked it upon Cam's recommendation. Overall, an excellent and very timely read, although Natan is quite long-winded to make his point. While this book is on the required reading for the entire Bush administration and while many cynics label Sharansky a right wing apologist, they clearly have not read the book nor do they understand the roots of his beliefs. Sharansky's message on the power of freedom to overcome tyranny and terror is rooted deep in his own struggle as a Soviet dissident which was largely successful in bringing freedom not only to Soviet Jews, but to all the Soviet Union. The underlying premise is so simple, many people miss it's power: ALL PEOPLES WANT FREEDOM. In a Free society, all people are free to express their views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm: what he calls the "town square test." In this way, most countries cleave clearly into two camps, societies of freedom and societies of fear. Free societies tend toward peace (although not always), fear societies NEVER seek peace, they ALWAYS require an enemy (internal or external) to maintain their rule over the people. In free societies, the rulers derive their power from the people, in fear societies, the regime (communist, dictator, strong-man, pseudo elected, etc.) exists solely for SELF PRESERVATION even when that is in opposition to the best interests of the people. In free societies if leaders to things the majority of the people don't like, they will be thrown out and new leaders brought in peacefully. In fear societies, this transition is rarely made and usually not peaceful when it is.
Sharansky spends allot of time making his point by recounting how the Soviet Union was brought down through the Helsinki accords and how the Israel/Palestine conflict is NOT being resolved because the Oslo accords take fundamentally the wrong approach. Natan effectively makes the case that accommodation of strongmen who repress the freedoms of their people NEVER works to curtail the ambitions of a fear society, although that is usually the first tool in the State Department's belt. There is a deeply embedded assumption in the State Department that accommodation of a strong-man that "we can work with " is better than allowing the messy process of democracy to happen with unknown results. That is why America has coddled dictators for so long. Bush is changing that. And that is a good thing for the world and the people ruled by those dictators. detente was a policy of appeasement of the Soviet Union. It only allowed them a breather from outside pressure to get stronger on their internal controls. We didn't change anything by empowering the dictator. Only when in Helsinki we tied our support of the regime to their internal treatment of their OWN PEOPLE was the regime forced into a policy of Glasnost (openness) that eventually exposed the emperor as having no clothes.
Sharansky puts forward a pretty compelling case for how the whole dissent thing can (and has in the the Soviet Union and across the former communist world) allowed fear societies to transform to free societies. In a society of fear there are three kinds of people: True believers, doublethinkers and dissidents. The true believers are the hard core ones who started the regime and maybe really believed in its goals at the outset. But in every regime (religious, communist, etc.) which tries to impose it's will on the people (even if it came to power through a "popular uprising") and does not tolerate dissent, they will have to resort to ever more draconian methods of controlling the people over time. So the cost of dissent goes up. The level of open public dissent can be measured directly by the cost of open public dissent. Under Stalin and Sadam, the price of ANY dissent was DEATH. The media and all public institutions are controlled by the regime, so information flow is limited. From the outside it can look like there is no dissent. So are the people really happy? Should democracies ignore what is happening because there is no clear sign of dissent? Where does the dissent go when the price is very high? Into the doublethinkers. These are the VAST majority of a fear society who publicly tow the regime's line, but privately want freedom. Under Sadam when reporters did "man on the street" interviews they never got any complaints. Neither did you get those under the Taliban or former Soviet Union. I bet if you did such interviews in North Korea today you wouldn't find much dissent. The price is too high. The people are expressing double think. The cost of dissent in the most extreme fear societies CAN be brought down by external pressure. The Helsinki accords forced the Soviets to stop killing dissidents and merely imprison them on trumped up charges in show trials. International organizations monitored the dissidents and reported on their treatment. The spotlight was on. More people dissented. More cruelty was exposed, more freedom of expression resulted (supported by outside) since what the regime wanted (western legitimacy, technology transfer, support) was tied to their treatment of their dissidents. In this scenario, the doublethinkers, the VAST majority of the people, sit on the sidelines until it seems safe to choose a side. They invariably choose the side of freedom, usually the dissidents. Down goes the Soviet Union.
Now Sharansky is not a Bush apologists, because I bet he would not approve of the military tactics of causing regime change in Iraq, although I know he agrees with the goal which is a free Iraq society that respects all human rights. Only societies that respect the rights of their own people can be expected to respect the rights of their neighbors. This leads to the Palestinian problem. The Oslo accords basically say make the despot, unellected Arafat powerful and you will have peace. It is detente all over again. Yet Arafat has used his power not to help the Palestinian people, but to build a society of fear and hate. The PLO media daily call for "a million martyrs" against Israel, the schools teach that Israel has no right to exist, the PLO controls all the money and aide coming in and only funnels it to those that agree with it, dissent is not allowed. Sharansky argues that a policy which tied support for the Palestinian state with the ending of their culture of fear and hate would actually lead to peace. I tend to agree. Israel is the external enemy that the PLO regime has used as the excuse for their repressive command and control tactics. When Arafat died, he personally was a BILLIONAIRE while his people live in squalid camps. He built a strong-man regime that feed hate and terror against the US and Israel. This will not be dismantled over night. Yet I have got to believe that the majority of Palestinians under Arafat were doublethinkers. They couldn't be true believers wanting to live in the poverty imposed by a terrorist only interested in self-preservation. It will be interesting to see where it goes now.
Here are my favorite quotes from the book. They mostly ring true to me. How bout you?
It is one thing to topple the Taliban and Sadam and install new strongmen in their place. It is quite another to replace those brutal tyrannies with free societies. For this, there are fewer precedents. (which is exactly why it is hard, but the only road to true peace)
Naturally, those who think that terror is largely unrelated to nondemocratic rule will not be convinced that the War on Terror can be won with the advance of liberal democratic values. They might argue instead of waging war on poverty or redressing the grievances that ostensibly drive terrorist to commit their savagery. (sound like a political party in America? This is simply wrong. Non-democratic rulers (of countries or Al Queda) fermenting hate against external enemies are the cause of terror and they must be dealt with directly)
Freedom House reports "Recent history shows that Islam is not inherently incompatible with democratic values. Indeed, if we take into account the large Muslim populations of such countries as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and the Islamic population of North America and Western Europe, the majority of the world's Muslims live under democratically constituted governments."
Only when the basic institutions that protect a free society are firmly in place - such as a free press, the rule of law, independent courts, political parties - can free elections be held. (hey don't expect elections a couple months after toppling a despot to be true freedom).
..to stay in power, nondemocratic leaders invariably build and maintain fear societies.
Dictators do not depend on their people; their people depend on them.
nondemocratic regimes stay in power by controlling their populations. This control invariably requires an increasing amount of repression. To justify this repression and maintain internal stability, external enemies must be manufactured. The result is that while the mechanics of democracy make democracies inherently peaceful, the mechanics of tyranny make nondemocracies inherently belligerent.
Twenty years later, the KGB has disappeared, the Soviet Union has disintegrated, global communism has collapsed, over one million Jews have left the big prison called the USSR, and hundreds of millions of people are free. One would think that no more proof was needed of the power of freedom to change the world. Just as they were wrong a generation ago about Russia, and two generations ago about Japan and Germany, the skeptics are wrong today.
The formula that triggered democratic revolution in the Soviet Union had three components: People inside who yearned to be free, leaders outside who believed they could be, and policies that linked the free world's relations with the USSR to the Soviet regime's treatment of its own people
...the extent of dissent in a society...is largely a function of price.
...only by ending the Palestinians' fear society will it be possible to end Palestinian suffering.
We must also not wait for the support of international organizations. Many of the countries that wield influence in these organizations are nondemocratic regimes. Surely, we cannot rely on those who deny freedom to their own people to support efforts to expand freedom around the world.
Just as the institution of slavery has been all but wiped off the face of the earth, so too can government tyranny become a thing of the past.
Summary: A compelling look at a very current issue. This IS about world peace. Peace only comes through freedom. If you look at what has happened in the former communist countries, you know that it can happen in the mid east. I rate this 4 of 5 only because it is a bit long-winded to get the point across. But the point and perspective is one everyone would do well to understand.
Posted by Martin at 9:07 PM
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April 30, 2005
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
Just finished The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English (Pure Gold Classics)
. It took three months to read. Pretty old english. I was intrigued when I read that for hundreds of years it has been the #2 seller in England just behind the Bible. While I link to Amazon to buy it here, I bought it at a second hand bookstore for $.50. You can too and I recommend that.
To grossly oversimplify the book, it is the story of a spiritual pilgrim, "Christian", as he progresses from initial knowledge of God, all the way through various trials and tribulations into the "Kingdom of heaven". Somewhat a long parable for the faith journey. Throughout the literal and metaphorical journey Christian meets with obstacles roughly out of the bible. The edition that I read had extensive footnotes that lead you to the passage that relates to what is going on in the journey. The cool thing is that the whole story of a faith journey is told without any of the traditional biblical lingo. No Peter, Paul and Mary. No Romans or Jews. These are replaced with characters named for themselves. Like Pliable, Obstinate, the Evangelist, Worldly Wiseman, Mr. Legality, Hypocrisy, Faithful, Wanton, Talkative, By-ends and Friends, and Mr. Money-Love. Christian leaves the "City of Destruction" to overcome obstacles including the Slough of Despond, House Beautiful, The Valley of Humiliation, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair and Doubting Castle. You get a completely different perspective on the faith journey, any faith.
While the book was written to help readers understand the faith journey, I saw many parallels to the technology start-up process. In many ways it is a journey of faith. Many times I have met Obstinate, the Evangelist, Mr. Legality, Wanton, Talkative and Mr. Money-Love. More than once I have been in (and seen companies go through) the Slough of Despond, House Beautiful, The Valley of Humiliation, Vanity Fair and Doubting Castle. If they are lucky, they reach the Celestial Gates and the Promised Land. Most do not. Most get drawn off the path at some point. The technology start-up process requires a similar measure of faith, determination and eye-on-the-ballness that a spiritual journey requires. I would recommend this book to anyone contemplating either journey.
I rate this a 5 out of 5 stars.
Posted by Martin at 10:45 AM
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March 25, 2005
Just finished How Psychotherapy Heals
Just finished How Psychotherapy Heals by Chessick. It seems like mental illness has creeped into many of my friends and family's life lately. I have always been a bit skeptical about psychotherapy as a "soft science". While there is quite a bit of research behind how and to treat mental illnesses both chemically and through talk therapy, I have always been skeptical of the talk therapy part. It seems like there are so many factors that can influence the disease and the symptoms can manifest themselves in so many different ways that it seemed just talking about your childhood couldn't do much. But Chessick changed all that for me. (wow, google is great, here is the guy's whole address and e-mail Richard D. Chessick, M.D., Ph.D., 9400 Drake Avenue, Evanston, IL 60203-1106, U.S.A., r-chessick@northwestern.edu).
The book is written for psychotherapy students so you have to slog through quite a bit of jargon, but here are the salient points:
1. You are today are result of all your past experiences, especially the formative emotional years of 13-18.
2. Most depression and mental illness can be traced to some form of transference neurosis. Basically the living the present in terms of the past (rather than maturing emotionally).
"The basic definition of transference is given by Fenichel (1945). "The patient misunderstands the present in terms of the past; and then instead of remembering the past, he strives, without recognizing the nature of his action, to relive the past and to live it more satisfactorily than he did in his childhood. He "transfers" the past attitudes to the present."
3. The psychotherapy process goal it to identify the specifics of a patient's transference neurosis that is causing the current negative effects. By bringing it to the surface of the patient's consciousness (out of the darkness), there a high likeliehood of getting the patient past it and to integrate the knowledge and change behavior.
"any procedure that works by undoing resistances and interpreting transferences may be called psychoanalysis.."
"A certain time lag takes place from the time the therapist begins interpreting resistances and conflicts to the time they are "assimilated," that is, made use of by the patient in changing himself or his situation."
"...THE crutial factor in psychotherapy is the experience by the patient of the difference in reaction of the therapist from the reaction of the parents."
So the process has been a bit de-mystified for me. I heard on NPR yesterday that China has around 50M people with some form of mental illness. Society has such a stigma on it that most aren't getting treatment. With today's combination of psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, there is a 95% success rate with your average depression. Untreated depression is estimated to cost over $30B to the US each year. It is time we realized that depression is an illness that is treatable just like any other and it is not "all in your mind". Typically the patient can't just "buck up".
On the book review scale, I rate this a 4 of 5. If you are interested in the process it is a must read. If you have friends or family battling with depression it is a very informative read that will give you more perspective.
Posted by Martin at 10:47 AM
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Blink, a timely read
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Ok, so everyone else is reading Blink too, but there is a good reason. It is an interesting, and timely book. Tipping Point was one of the incentives for me to invest in Cloudmark who is applying smart mob technology to the spam problem. Blink is about thin slicing. Making decisions in an instant. Some call it instinct. Many people think instinct is just nature and it can't be developed or learned. Wrongo. Every input you have goes into your ability to have good instinct. If you spend alot of time thinking about internet security (as I do), hopefully your instinct on seeing a new company will be better than someone who doesn't spend alot of time thinking about it. Gladwell doesn't just use business examples to talk about things in the blink of an eye. He leans on John Gottman's ability to thin slice marriages, a professional gambler's ability to "feel the deck", the Implicit Association Test, and Ekman and Friesen's Facial Action Coding System for reading people's faces. The facial stuff is the most interesting to me. The fact that trained researchers can watch tapes of people with the dialog off and tell if they are lying, nervous, telling the truth, etc. My favorite part was when he described Clinton's face. It is the "I got my hand in the cookie jar, but you will love me anyway" face. EXACTLY. He had many things stuck in places they shouldn't have been, but had such a friendly happy face that most people (not me) forgave him. Amazing what you can do with a face. When we realize that, there are two ways to make it actionable. First, you could be more aware of your own facial contortions and try to manage them. On the flip side, you can pay more attention to your reactions to other people's facial expressions. Do you react in the predicted way when Clinton smiles? Is he manipulating your reaction and feelings at a very deep level? What do actors do? They act and get the audience to have feelings and reactions. Be ware of how you are being sold.
So I liked Blink. It was a good read and had a few tidbits that will stay with me. Not sure there will be alot of daily actionable items out of it though. Therefore I give it a 4 of 5 stars. Worth your time, but not necessary.
Posted by Martin at 9:31 AM
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March 8, 2005
Soul Surfer is a must read for every surfer
So two weeks ago I was stuck in the hotel room waiting out the storms in LA. When the skies originally opened up I decided to try to wait it out due to the concerns about water quality as all the waste washed down to the beach. So I picked up a surf book for inspiration:
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. In a funny way it was inspiration. Yea it is the story of a young professional surfer who gets her arm bitten off by a shark, but there is a happy ending. As I read I remembered the fact that in dirty water (what we had in LA) sharks can't see so they bite first and chew second. A wet suited black leg looks allot like a seal. That was not comforting and Alex thought I was morbid for reading about a surf shark attack while waiting to surf. But the real story is about overcoming fear. About passion and following your calling. About the overwhelming, sometimes irrational pull of the waves and the ocean (which most surfers can attest to). It would be very rational for a person who had their arm bitten off my a shark surfing to never go in the ocean again. It is very unusual (and somewhat irrational) for that same person to go back in. What strength does it take to overcome something like that? The positive force must be stronger than the negative force. So Bethany Hamilton learned to paddle with one arm. Learned to push herself up into a standing position by putting one hand in the center of the board instead of one on each side. She learned to balance and turn with only one arm (try that). Her courage and strength is world class. Yet she is still just a teenager who is a bit bemused at all the attention. She really just wants to hang out with her friends and family and surf. But the agents keep calling. And she attends to them out of a sense of duty. Hey, the shark could have killed her.
That is the second very affirming part of this book. Sometimes it takes facing death to really appreciate life. Bethany faced death in the jaws of a 22 foot shark (which they caught luckily). She passed out from massive blood loss. She still has phantom pain in her arm that is no longer there. Every day is a gift. Everyone can use a little reminding about the value of a day. This book delivers it in the honest words that only a teenager could say.
I rate this a 5 of 5. A required reading for every surfer. And anyone who wants to be reminded that the world is not all crass commercialism. There are real true heros worthy of respect still out there.
Posted by Martin at 10:31 AM
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The Pleasure of My Company was not a pleasure
Just finished Steve Martin's new book, The Pleasure of My Company:
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Short review: Self involved insipid tripe.
Longer review: I have been a long time Steve Martin fan. I remember listening to Lets Get Small
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on my Sony Cassette walkman as I delivered papers in highschool. Watching Steve on Saturday Night live as a "wild and crazy guy" was a rare treat when the parents stayed out late. The first of his novel's I read was Shop Girl
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. I am confident enough in my masculinity to say that I liked the book. It was a good beach read. Nice and light and breazy. So a couple of weeks ago on my way to LA I picked up his new one expecting something similar. What I got was an obsessive rambling disorganized diatribe of useless banter with no point. I bailed out after about 60 pages and never even finished it. Don't waste your time. Come on Steve, give us another one.
One of five on the Martin scale.
Posted by Martin at 10:08 AM
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February 25, 2005
Cosmopolis, a BAD novel by Don DeLillo
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Have been traveling allot lately (thus the light postings). I was in Portland three weeks ago and met my brother for coffee at Powells. Powells is literally a candy store for the book owner. Sprawling now over more than one square city block, you are handed a map to the sections when you walk in. Just on my way through the technical section to the coffee shop, I picked up five books. Unfortunately I should have figured out from the $5.98 sales price on Cosmopolis (regularly $13.00) that something was fishy. Even though it was in the "staff recommendations" section. I keep forgetting that many times what the staff of a bookstore like Powells likes is somewhat like what indie film fanatics like in movies. Quirky, off beat tomes that appeal to a very limited audience.
That is Cosmopolis in spades. I don't know the person who recommended it, but I bet he/she only wears black, lives in shared housing with other tortured souls and fancies themselves "alternative". I like many alternative things. Many times the best ideas come from the fringes. In Cosmopolis's case though, only dull insipid self serving slop is served up though. I made it to page 89 before giving up for a total lack of interest. Completely uninteresting characters, poor structure, and no obvious point. By half way through a "novel" (a stretch at 200 pages paperback) you should at least CARE what the hell happens to the characters. The depth of my apathy was so deep that I almost left the book in the hotel this morning. But then I thought the world deserved to know how pathetic this drivel was. If my sacrifice of a couple hours can save even one soul the torture (and lost money) of this waste of natural resources then I might get back some of the karma this thing sucked away.
The Martin Tobias rating of 1-5, this gets a ZERO. Run away.
Posted by Martin at 4:25 PM
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January 14, 2005
Finished A Conflict of Visions, a MUST read
Finished reading before the election. I have thought about it every day since. Rarely does a book provoke real introspection and thought. The subtitle is "Ideological Origins of Political Struggles" and that is not even the half of it. What Sowell describes is the essential duality of man. We are the top of the food chain, the strongest on the planet, yet what makes us different from the other creatures is our ability to think and feel. We are two genders, man and woman. Strength and caring. Sowell lays out the case that our political ideological conflicts are very much related to our family and social structure and our fundamental assumptions about the nature of human beings. He also points out that we can waver from time to time. At times some things are more important than others. Sowell also makes the case that visions about humanity and the nature of man are MUCH more powerful political forces than specific policies. We saw this in spades in the last election. The facts didn't matter as much as the visions of the state of the world and the nature of people in it. If you believed the world is a dangerous place with bad people in it, you probably voted for a strong leader (bush). If you believed the world was basically a good place and it was America's mis-steps that made it dangerous and that if we just sat down and had tea with everyone it would be alright, you probably voted for Kerry. Here are some choice quotes:
There are two dominant visions of human nature: Constrained (Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton) and Unconstrained (william Goodwin, Robespierre).
Social visions differ in their basic conceptions of the nature of man. The capacities and limitations of man are implicitly seen in radically different terms by those whose explicit philosophical, political, or social theories are built on different visions. Man's moral and mental natures are seen so differently that their respective concepts of knowledge and of institutions necessarily differ as well.
The Constrained (American):
Instead of regarding man's nature as something that could or should be changed, Smith attempted to determine how the moral and social benefits desired could be produced in the most efficient way, within that constraint. One of the hallmarks of the constrained vision is that it deals in trade-offs rather than solutions.
The unconstrained (French):
Goodwin regarded the intention to benefit others as being "of the essence of virtue," and virtue in turn as being the road to human happiness. His was the unconstrained vision of human nature, in which man was capable of directly feeling other people's needs as more important than his own, and therefore of consistently acting impartially, even when his own interests or those of his family were involved. Unlike Smith, who regarded human selfishness as a given, Godwin regarded it as being promoted by the very system of rewards used to cope with it. The real goal was the long-run development of a higher sense of social duty. The "hope of reward" and "fear of punishment" were, in Godwin's vision, "wrong in themselves". Given the unconstrained possibilities of man and nature, poverty or other sources of dissatisfaction could only be a result of evil intentions or blindness to solutions readily achievable by changing existing institutions.
More:
The two great revolutions in the eighteenth century - in France and in America - can be viewed as applications of these differing visions... The underlying premises of the French revolution more clearly reflected the unconstrained vision of man which prevailed among its leaders. The intellectual foundations of the American Revolution were more mixed,... Also including as a dominant influence on the Constitution, the classic constrained vision of man expressed in The Federalist Papers. Where Robespierre sought a solution, Hamilton a trade-off. The Constitution of the United States, with its elaborate checks and balances, clearly reflected the view that no one was ever to be completely trusted with power. This was in sharp contrast to the French Revolution, which gave sweeping powers, including the power of life and death, to all those who spoke in the name of "the people", expressing the Rousseauean "general will".
Which do you believe? Does it make sense why the French were against Iraq? Does it make sense that Kerry wanted a "world test" for foreign policy? Why this scared the Republicans so much?
Required reading.
Posted by Martin at 11:48 AM
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November 17, 2004
Review: The Deviant's Advantage
A couple months ago, my friend George Zachary gave me:
The subtitle is "How fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets". While I generally like these kind of books that give lots of examples how small ideas became mainstream (the core of entrepreneuralism), this one falls short. It re-hashes some scenarios I had already read other places. It has too much of the pithy "think out of the box" talk. Not specific enough. I would give this business book a pass. I rate it 1 of 5. Don't bother.
Posted by Martin at 1:59 PM
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Review: Don't think of an elephant
Just finished .
Yes, I read the leftist too. George Lakoff is one of those liberal conspiracy theorists that subscribe to the whacky belief that somehow the "right wing" has hoodwinked an entire nation into electing a Republican majority with an agenda in total opposition to the real interests of the country. Similar to Thomas Frank. While Frank comes across as just so many sour grapes, Lakoff actually has a more interesting approach to the standard "the commies have brainwashed us" argument. Lakoff is a linguist. He studies framing. He correctly notices that the Republicans have done a much better job than the Democrats at investing in think-tanks and long term "strategic" projects that frame debates with terms favorable to them. Here is an example: "Tax relief" is much more popular today than "tax reform". What is the connotation? Relief connotes some form of malady, oppression, something wrong that needs fixing. Everyone wants "relief" from the ills that afflict us. Put "tax" in front of it and taxes become the malady for which we need relief. Whenever the Democrats debate "tax relief" they are arguing a frame that favors the Republicans. The presumption is that we need relief from the tax malady. Lakoff (with no minor amount of self-interest) correctly points out that taxes do have a positive frame. Taxes pay for the infrastructure that built the country, roads, public libraries, courts, justice systems, prisons, education, public health. I don't mind taxes per se. I voted for an increase in the sales tax here in Washington to fund education. I don't want my children to grow up with dummies around them. There are valid things the government does. If the Democrats would frame taxes as part of our responsibility as citizens and essential for a civil society, they may have a better chance. The problem is that when you start off in the "relief" frame, you are behind. The Republicans are arguing a value and the Democrats are arguing facts. Values trump facts every time.
Lakoff also highlights the differences in world view between liberals and conservatives. He calls them "nurturant values" and "strict father values". This dichotomy is similar to the "unconstrained" and "constrained" world visions described in A Conflict of Visions (review coming).
Here is Lakoff's (short) description of the "strict father" view of the world:
The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels god, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good.
What is needed in this kind of world is a strong, strict father who can:
- Protect the family in the dangerous world,
- Support the family in the difficult world, and
- Teach his children right from wrong.
What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. The rationale behind physical punishment is this: When children do something wrong, if they are physically disciplined they learn not to do it again. That means that they will develop internal discipline to keep themselves from doing wrong, so that in the future they will be obedient and act morally. Without such punishment, the world will go to hell. There will be no morality.
Such internal discipline has a secondary effect. It is what is required for success in the difficult, competitive world. That is, if people are disciplined and pursue their self-interest in this land of opportunity, they will become prosperous and self-reliant.
In this model there is also a definition of what it means to become a good person. A good person - a moral person - is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, do what is right and not do what is wrong, and to purse her self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant. A good child grows up to be like that. A bad child is one who does not learn discipline, does not function morally, does not do what is right, and therefore is not disciplined enough to become prosperous. She cannot take care of herself and thus becomes dependent.
When the good children are mature, they either have learned discipline and can prosper, or have failed to learn it. From this point on the strict father is not to meddle in their lives. This translates politically into no government meddling.
Lakoff describes the nurturant parent world view as gender neutral:
Both parents are equally responsible for raising the children. The assumption is that children are born good and can be made better. The world can be made a better place, and our job is to work on that. The parents' job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nuturers of others.
What does nuturance mean? It means two things: Empathy and responsibility. If you have a child, you have to know what every cry means. You have to know when the child is hungry, when he needs a diaper change, when he is having nightmares. And you have responsibility - you have to take care of this child. Since you cannot take care of someone else if you are not taking care of yourself, you have to take care of yourself enough to be able to take care of the child.
In addition, all sorts of other values immediately follow from empathy and responsibility. Think about it.
First, if you empathize with your child, you will provide protection. This comes into politics in many ways. What do you protect your child from ? Crime and drugs, certainly. You also protect your child from cars without seat belts, from smoking, from poisonous additives in food. So progressive politics focuses on environmental protection, worker protection, consumer protection, and protection from disease. These are the things that progressives want the government to protect their citizens from. But there are also terrorist attacks, which liberals and progressives have not been very good at talking about in terms of protection.
In the last chapter, Lakoff takes a stab at some framing the Democrats could use to move the debate to their territory. He also begs for investment in think tanks that will push the agenda (not surprisingly his own). I actually agree with some of the "progressive" values he frames, but disagree with far more. I don't believe the primary job of the government is wealth re-distribution and picking up the slack for those who don't feel like it. Lakoff does and believes his "reframed" issues can convince the rest of us. I doubt it.
See your politics here? The book is a quick read and worth it for a quick review of your own politics. Lakoff spends too much time promoting his much weightier tome though, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Despite the obvious cross-selling, this one delivers enough unique value for the quick read that it is.
Overall, I would rate this a 2 of 5. Content is low. Concept is high. Thought provoking factor is above average. Conclusions are wrong and wishful thinking.
Posted by Martin at 1:52 PM
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Review: The Way of the Heart
About two months ago I picket up
Have been contemplating the role of silence in everyday life (we don't get enough). This little booklet (i find out after buying it) is actually written for priests and pastors as a guide to help explain to their flock the role of solitude, silence and prayer in connecting to the "other side". Henri J. M. Nouwen (author of lots of stuff) draws on the experiences and teachings of the "Desert Fathers and Mothers of the fourth century". His goal was to see if they had anything to teach us in the 21st century about. They do. Some useful passages:
"In our chatty world, in which the word has lost its power to communicate, silence helps us to keep our mind and heart anchored in the future world and allows us to speak from there a creative and re-creative word to the present world."
"The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart." - a practice of many paths. Basically use prayer (or mantra) to disengage your mind from the present and reach the heart (god).
"a word or sentence repeated frequently can help us to concentrate, to move to the center, to create an inner stillness and thus to listen to the voice of God."
"Our compulsive, wordy, and mind-oriented world has a firm grip on us, and we need a very strong and persistent discipline not to be squeezed to death by it. By their solitude, silence, and unceasing prayer the Desert Fathers show us the way."
This little journal is not very useful to someone not already on a journey. And may be a little inaccessible to non-ministers. But it is very insightful reading. And enlightening of a Fourth Century group of people I had never heard of before. I always like learning new stuff.
I rate this a 3 of 5.
Posted by Martin at 10:37 AM
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amazon associates back up
two hour outage. Not bad. But I am glad my business doesn't depend on them.
Posted by Martin at 10:22 AM
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Amazon Associates site down
ouch. I want to write a review on a book, but can't get to the amazon associates site.
https://associates.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/reports/main.html
get the
Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET /gp/associates/network/reports/main.html.
Reason: Error reading from remote server
with firefox and
a 404 error with IE.
One of the risks of building your business on another person's platform... oops.
Posted by Martin at 9:33 AM
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November 1, 2004
Review of Road Work
I love Mark Bowden and was very excited for this compilation of articles to come out. Unfortunately it disappoints. Only the first couple on foreign affairs are good. The earlier stuff and all the sports stuff is totally uninteresting. Don't bother with this one. I give it a 2 of 5.
Posted by Martin at 4:03 PM
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October 20, 2004
Review: "Inside the Kingdom" by Carmen Bin Laden
Can you tell I just got back from a week of traveling? Two eight hour flights, two nine and a half hour flights, two hour and a half flights. Alot of reading.
On the way back from Bombay to Amsterdam I finished Sleeping With The Devil, and just had to read more about how the Saudi's worked and what was at stake. Carmen Bin Laden's book is first and foremost a book by a mother about her personal struggles as a foreigner in a conservative religious state and her efforts to escape with her children. As you read it, you can hear her lawyers telling her to be nice to the husband because the divorce is not final. I am giving the book next to Alex to read. A couple of things really jumped out at me:
- Saudi Arabia is still run by the aging sons of the original king who united the vast wasteland of desert under fundamentalist teachings of a seventeenth century cleric who founded the Wahhabi movement.
- Wahhabi is the most fundamental interpretation of Islam and is applied in part because Saudi Arabia is "keeper" of the two holiest sites in the faith, Mecca and Medina.
- All wealthy Saudi's live two totally opposite lives. One inside strict Saudi Arabia, and another over seas where all the pent-up desires overflow with a vengeance.
- The Saudi royal family was terrified to see what happened to the Shah of Iran and immediately started placating the Wahhabi with money and power to prevent a repeat.
- bin Laden family members were most likely complicit in the fundamentalist take-over of Mecca since company trucks were used to get the fighters in there and the bin Laden organization had the only detailed maps of the place.
- The family clan unit (all the sons and daughters of one powerful father) is an ironclad bond when faced with threats from outsiders. By virtue of this, despite public statements, the bin Laden family has NOT disowned Osama.
- Osama bin Laden is an overwhelming hero in Saudi Arabia. If an election were held today, he would probably win.
- Saudi family life (at the high end) is totally disfunctional in a western sense. The sexes have separate houses. Men can be married to up to four wives at once and any number over a life time. To divorce a woman a man must simply recite "I divorce thee" three times and it is done. A woman has virtually no rights at all. Children are raised almost exclusively by servants. The appearance of devotion to religion is more important than anything else.
- While Carmen and her husband kept the equivalent of $50,000 around the house for "emergencies", her husband's office was a bare wooden desk with bare walls except for a picture of his father and the king.
Overall, 3 of 5. Good for background on the Mid East, but short on facts and long on emotion and personal trials/tribulations. It is a bit of a tweener. Not a great emotional story, not a heavy kiss and tell factual saga. But interesting reading nonetheless.
Posted by Martin at 10:14 PM
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Review: "Sleeping with the Devil" by Robert Baer
When an ex-CIA station chief writes a book about the region he worked in for decades you better read it. This is a truly scary and terrifying read. The depth and breadth of our dependency on crude oil and the extent of Saudi control of that market is explicitly laid out. Baer also gives very detailed accounts of how and why we should all be worried about Saudi Arabia's ability to keep the oil flowing. With less than $100,000 in explosives and provisions, a coordinated car/boat bomb attack in three locations could send the world economy into a depression many times worse than The Great Depression. An attack like this would take less resources and less coordination and planning than the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center. Osama Bin Laden has already said he wants to bring down the House of Saud. He has the desire and resources to do it. It may only be a matter of time.
What I didn't realize until reading this book was how screwed up Saudi Arabia is and how totally dependent the American economy and political machine is on the country. Saudi Arabia is run by the Saud family that treats the oil money as it's own personal treasury. It was just desert with a bunch of bedouin's until 1932 when oil was discovered. They had slavery there till the 60s. With multiple wives, the King has a clan of over 15,000 princes and princesses today, growing to probably 50,000 in a decade. While the royal family has grown rich, the average Saudi has actually seen a drop in income over the last 20 years. There is not enough money from oil to feed all these mouths so corruption is rife. On one $5.5B defense deal, a prince walked away with a $900M skim off the top. A prince has the right to expropriate any property he desires for his own use. No middle class has been able to form, because any time a business starts to become successful, a prince comes along and buys it for pennies exercising his "privilege". The country is basically run by a depraved, scared band of nomadic thieves. The royal family saw what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979 and decided to cut off the fundamentalists at the pass. They started funding all manner of Wahhabi (the most backward, fundamental branch of Islam in the world) causes to encourage their attention outside the country (basically to pay them off to not overthrow the king). The Wahhabi's control the schools, mosques, religious police, and many overseas "charities" that funded Osama Bin Laden's terror training camps in Afghanistan, the Chechen muslims who killed 300 school children, the Muslim Brotherhood bent on overthrowing various middle eastern states, and countless others. The Saudi spend 50% of their GDP on defense (mostly to American defense contractors) and have never been in a war. This is ALL for defense of the monachary against their own people. And a great way to skim billions in bribes.
The Saud are the Taliban with money.
The extent of American complicity and ignorance of the true threat is astounding. Baer details the numerous times the Saudi have bailed out America. He points out the fact that every major politician has a hand in the Saudi cookie jar in one way or another. And the revolving door between politics and Saudi funded positions is astounding. The Saudi Ambassador has better access to the White House than most of the cabinet. Kissinger designed the oil for guns framework that basically recycles American petro dollars through Saudi Arabia and back into American defense companies (with a large percentage going to the princes of course). Baer details the numerous ways our CIA human intelligence is non-existent in the Arab world. We have ZERO agents in Saudi Arabia. That means we have ZERO visibility into what is really going on and how fragile the situation may be. Before the first Gulf war we has ZERO human agents in Iraq. Baer describes an incident when the CIA was trying to figure out if Sadam was moving tanks closer to Kuwait and the only intelligence they had was a phone call to a guy with binoculars in a guard post on the border. If it weren't so scary and such a colossal failure it would almost be funny.
Some truly stunning revelations from the book include:
- Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has transferred half a billion dollars to al Queda and at least $100 million to the Taliban.
- With America's complicity, the Saudis have provided aid, shelter, and material comfort to the Muslim Brotherhood.
- A single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls could bring the world's oil-addicted economies to their knees by crashing into one major Saudi oil field.
5 out of 5. Every American should read this book immediately. And go by a Prius or a biodiesel car. NOW!
Posted by Martin at 9:45 PM
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Review: "The Matrix Warrior" by Jake Horsley
Finished this book about two months ago, but just now catching up on reviews. Since I loved the basic thesis behind The Matrix that what we know as reality is just a computer program, I wanted to understand about the history behind this thesis. The Matrix Warrior does a good job at that. Horsley draws connections between the world of the movie and our own world and shows how the characters in the movie transcend the false reality the matrix imposes on humanity. Combining an in-depth examination of the film with philosophical inquiry and the teachings of Castandeda, Jake Horsley has produced in Matrix Warrior a profound yet witty analysis-and all readers need to get "unplugged." It is a VERY entertaining read if you are at all interested in the idea that there may be alternate realities.
Horsley shows how "the One" is a concept in many faiths around the world. Anyone can be "the One" with enough enlightenment. The more important thing though, is to take the path of the matrix warrior. To search for reality. To be conscious of what you are "plugged" into and consciously "unplug" from the things you don't like. Too many of coast through life taking what comes. Being "the One" in large part involves asking the right questions, seeking answers, and deciding for yourself what your reality should be. Good advice for all of us, not just fanatics of the movie series.
Posted by Martin at 8:38 PM
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Review of "Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite" by Jeffrey Lee
I have a 4 year old. My father never spent much time with us doing stuff. Only around holidays. I learned to ride a bike by falling down. This guy actually found out there is a good way to teach kids to ride in one day! And he breaks down how to teach a scared kid how to throw a ball into managable steps. A MUST have for every parent. Most of the activities are suited for 5-8 year olds though, so my daughter is still a bit young. But I keep it near the front door for reference on the outside activity days. I will let you all know how the bike riding training goes.
I rate this a 5 out of 5. Very useful, easy to read, and a good reference that I will pick up again and again.
Posted by Martin at 8:20 PM
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Review of "What's the matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank
Have been reading this on and off for the last month. Mostly off because the crap was getting quite thick. On politics, I will read all sides of the debate and make my own mind up. This book has received reviews that make it sound like a witty yet thoughtful expose of some grand conspiracy of Republicans against the "average man". Like this from the LA times:
"A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What’s the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People."
I wonder if that reviewer actually read the book or just cribbed the notes from the DNC. First of all, the book is not funny at all. It flirts with irony at times, but not funny. I guess it would be funny in a black comedy sort of way to someone who has hearts and minds of the heartland (like a Washington policy wonk). I can't understand the left's penchant for finding vast conspiracies under every rock. Iraq is somehow the personal war of the Bush family to preserve their oil interests. The Florida election was rigged by insiders. And now Kansas and the rest of the heartland has been duped into some sort of self destructive haze by the bastard love child of social conservatives and Wall Street CEOs. Frank calls this "the backlash". Backlash against government intervention in life, against liberals, against "progressive" social policies, against the media and the Ivy League intellectual class. The real truth of the matter comes out in chapter seven. It is Frank who has the backlash. He is from Kansas but was left out of it's prosperity and change so "I left." Frank rails against the Kansas Republicans (the cons) like a shunned kid on a playground. He didn't get invited to play the fun games so he turned sour. The families around him got rich and his didn't. Must be a conspiracy. Obviously it has nothing to do with my own family's abilities or choice of careers. Frank places most of the blame for the conversion to Republicans on the "bitter self-made men." Back to the angry white male stereotype. Forget the fact that Howard Dean showed us what a REAL angry white man was all about.
Here is the reality. The Democrats were the party of the working class when the poor stayed poor and were kept that way by government subsidies. When workers started getting stock options, owning stocks themselves, paying less taxes, controlling their lives some more, starting their own businesses and becoming successful, they realized that what they really valued was freedom from government. The Great Society didn't work. Years and years of government hand-outs didn't improve any worker's ability to make a life for him/herself. Lower taxes, smaller government did. The Democrats have stuck with policies that have failed and the people know better now. They know now that it is not the job of government to redistribute wealth, it is to allow it to be created by every man, woman and child.
I am glad I read the book, but wouldn't recommend it as any kind of factual telling of what has gone on in heartland politics over the last 30 years. These are the rantings of a spoiled looser in a battle he doesn't even understand.
Some choice quotes:
"...the social conservatives who raise their voices in praise of Jesus but cast their votes to exalt Ceasar." Really?
"...he [the worker] labors night and day so that others might enjoy their capital gains and never have to work at all. Humility in the service of its exact opposite; is there not something Christlike about it all?" How many people live off capital gains alone? Over the last 30 years stock ownership has broadened across all social and economic classes. Even the lowest worker benefits from the capital gains in stocks through their retirement or 401K which is probably in a mutual fund.
"And culture - that infinitely malleable malefactor, upon which any evil design can be projected - is the only plausible oppressor left." Frank claims that the right suddenly pulled liberal culture out of a hat as the bogey man since Clinton embraced capitalism and took it off the table as a partisan issue. Does this guy want to go back to the class warfare of the last century? Worker against management? Has liberal culture caused no damage at all? Frank must not be tracking the divorce rate, rise in single parents, growth of drug use, or any number of degenerative trendlines that have gone up in the last 30 years since "everything became relative."
"Liberalism is not a product of social forces, blacklashers believe, it is a social force, a juggernaut moving according to a logic all its own, as rigid and mechanical as anything dreamed up by the Stalinists of yesterday." If you believe Liberalism is NOT a social force itself, I have some swampland in Florida I want to sell you.
Posted by Martin at 8:13 PM
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September 13, 2004
Bush Campaign releases recommended reading list
From the campaign today. The first two I want to read as they are independent journalistic accounts of the Presidency. And by Democrats!
Bush-Cheney '04 Suggested Reading List
Hundreds of books about President George W. Bush have been published during his Presidency and more will be released before Election Day. Some of these books are fair, accurate portrayals of our President and others border on the absurd. Here are a few of our preferences, what we call our suggested reading list:
A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush
By Ronald Kessler
Independent journalist Ronald Kessler, who voted for Al Gore in 2000 but had a change of heart after getting to know President Bush, went behind the scenes interviewing dozens of White House aides, several Cabinet members and top presidential advisors. He came up with an important conclusion: President Bush has the character to lead our nation at this crucial time. A Matter of Character will be on the New York Times bestseller list for the fourth week on Sept. 19.
Click here to buy!
Plan of Attack
By Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward of Watergate era fame used his exclusive access to the White House, including two interviews with the President and over 75 with administration officials, to provide a detailed account of the two years leading up to the Iraq War. Plan of Attack helps explain why President Bush and his top advisors made the difficult decision to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.
Click here to buy!
Ten Minutes from Normal
By Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes, top advisor and close friend of the President, gives us a keenly insightful look at American politics and America's 43rd President. Hughes's first-hand experience of the deep concern for all Americans that forms the cornerstone of George W. Bush's presidency comes through loud and clear. In a post-9/11 world, Hughes redefines the very notion of what is "normal" as something special and precious, never to be taken for granted in America again.
Click here to buy!
Letters to My Daughters
By Mary Matalin
Mary Matalin, who served as assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, delivers a poignant memoir comprised of letters to her daughters on topics from careers and political convictions to spirituality and personal responsibility. Matalin draws from her unique experiences as a powerful Republican female voice in politics, wife of a powerful Democrat male voice in politics, campaign advisor, daughter and mother.
Click here to buy!
Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane
By John Podhoretz
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, takes specific attacks on President Bush and sets the record straight in this humorous book. Podhoretz writes about how the President has prevailed with the odds stacked against him and risen above the rhetoric, all the while frustrating his critics as they continue to look for ways to discredit him.
Click here to buy!
The Right Man: An Inside Account of the Bush White House
By David Frum
This compelling account of President Bush by a former member of his team, David Frum, gives incredible insight into the President's personality and leadership style. Frum examines how President Bush endured and even thrived when faced with difficult challenges, and The Right Man is a great tool for understanding our great President and his first-term administration.
Click here to buy!
A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush
By David Aikman
David Aikman follows George W. Bush on his spiritual journey from boyhood to the Presidency. In A Man of Faith, Aikman shows how the President's faith inspires his strength and conviction, and has allowed critical decisions to be made with clear, conscious thought. Aikman's look at our President's faith holds much weight given that President Bush is the most spiritual world leader in recent times.
Click here to buy!
Posted by Martin at 11:22 AM
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September 10, 2004
Review of Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley
Just finished
The very watchful among you may have noticed that this book went off my AllConsuming Currently Reading lists last week. I would like a "read" list from AllConsuming. Erik says it is on the to do feature list when he has an extra weekend.
Anyway. The Easy Rawlins murder mystery Little Scarlet, Walter Mosley's latest. You will notice that I tend to read two types of books. I call them "thick" and "thin". Basically ones that make my brain hurt and ones that put it at ease. Little Scarlet and all Walter Mosley in general fall into the second category. Plane and bedtime reading when the brain wants to be entertained and not work too hard. But this is not all trash. Walter Mosley with Easy Rawlins weaves alot of history and social struggle into his books. This one is set in the race riots of Watts in 1967. Easy is enlisted by the white Deputy Director of LAPD to help them solve the apparent murder/rape of a black woman by a (supposed) white man in the middle of the heat of the moment. The national gaurd is out trying to keep order. A black man can't drive or walk down the street in Watts without being stopped. So the Deputy gives Easy a letter telling the police to let him go about his business which pulls him out of many situations. One is when he is getting a ride from his friend Mouse who is driving a load of stollen goods from Watts to a distributor outside. Mosley doesn't mince any words when describing the reversal of fortune of the black men suddenly getting respect from white cops. The black man being oppressed by the white man is in all Mosley's books, but in this one, it is particularly heavy. And the hero Easy gets some good licks in against the man much to his surprise. But of course in the end he is right back where he started, a black man in a white city trying to make a better life for himself and his family.
The three main conflicts in Easy's life (and in all his books) are the white police, fidelity to his girlfriend, and the temptation of the street criminal life (as lived by his antithesis Mouse). He is constantly tempted by other women. In this one, the lilth young Juanda. He resists heroicly and ends up giving her money to go to college instead of sleeping with her. His killer friend Mouse, "the most dangerous man in LA", keeps the threat of death and crime close at all times. Easy is tempted and at times pulled close to the edge just by being around Mouse. He also must fight daily the urge to just kill his foes as Mouse does without compulsion. The police are the constant simbol of blind authority. In Little Scarlet, a white cop extends his hand in sincere friendship to Easy, something he has never had in other books. If you are a frequent reader of Easy Rawlins books, you will see quite a bit of character development in this one. Easy overcomes another set of challenges to his fidelity, his straight legit life, and his conceptions of law and authority. There is material progress along the path of "maybe I will make it in this world afterall".
In mystery category I give Little Scarlet a 8/10. If you are a fan, it is a must read to continue the story. If you are not, it is an enjoyable, entertaining read.
Posted by Martin at 1:22 PM
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September 1, 2004
Review of Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen
Just finished Skinny Dip. My mom got me started on Carl Hiassen books about 10 years ago. They are all about Florida (where I used to live) and typically deal with some wrong being done to nature in Florida by the hyper growth that has been hoisted upon the state by RVs full of "snowbirds", corrupt politicians, corrupt crackers, and worse. Skinny Dip tackles the issue of the destruction of the Everglades.
Chas, a corrupt incompetent psuedo biologist in the employ of a large farmer who is polluting the swamp with fertilizers, opens the book by killing his wife (throwing her off a cruise ship on their anniversary) out of fear that she will rat him out. Things go bad for Chas from there on in. Hiassen has very colorful bad guys in his books. In this one, the corporate farmer's hired thug Tool has a bullet stuck in the crack of his ass requiring him to steal fentenal patches off old people in nursing homes. Then of course there is the ex-cop turned hermit on an island who finds the girl and saves the day.
I read most of this book on recent plane trips up and down the coast. Perfect travel summer reading. You also come away with an appreciation of how destructive the "peopleization" of Florida is to the natural resources. I grew up some time in Florida. It is being overrun. In the not too distant future I believe it will reach holding capacity in more ways than one. Hiassen does a great job of weaving in the exact effects that large scale corporate farming has on the swamp and the effect that has on the water supply, people, etc. A nice side benefit of the entertainment.
Posted by Martin at 3:18 PM
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July 5, 2004
Thanks dear reader for the book recommendation...
A reader sent me this nice note:
You may already know it, but it was new to me. It's called The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky.
It's a series of short chapters, in the guru-talks-to-novice form, each covering a different model of profitability. Good stuff. My favorite was the chapter called "Blockbuster Profit," on Marc Geron. Having grown up at Xerox PARC, and now spending all my time studying & doing theatre laboratories, I was almost jumping out of my skin to read about a guy who had figured out how to both nurture and optimize R&D. It's the first time I'd read about something which kept the strengths of PARC or MIT, but improved on the financial viability. Most places kill or starve the goose in their frantic lunge for the golden eggs.
______________
I immediately went to Amazon and bought it. Look for my impressions soon. Thanks and keep the ideas coming!!!!
Posted by Martin at 8:27 PM
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July 3, 2004
Review of Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D'Souza
July 2, 2004. Saw Farenheit 911 this week and needed an antidote. I had received Letters to a Young Conservative as a gift two years ago and had it in my "to read" pile. I came of political age under Reagan. He was the first president I could vote for. He was the first politician I ever volunteered for. He provided a very positive and affirming vision of what it means to be an American and how to participate in our democracy and the world. Up until the 60's it was pretty clear what it meant to be an American. Most people agreed on a large number of core values. Somehow in that drug/sex haze that begat me (born 1964), our parents decided to try and throw everything before out and start over. D'Souza does a very good job of reminding us why that was a silly idea and how the legacy of free everything still haunts us today.
This is the kind of book you can pick up anytime and open to any chapter and find thought provoking prose. Each chapter has a specific topic or theme. If you want to understand the falacy of the Anti-Globalists argument, turn to chapter 26 (particularly relevant given current events). Want to understand why the Catholics, once the party of Kennedy, are now up for grabs? Want to know how and why the heartland of America, once working class Democrats, are now all Republicans? Turn to chapter 29. My favorite is probably chapter 18, "How to Harpoon a Liberal". Full of juicy tidbits from his many campus visits and the direct confontations with tenured liberal professors and brainwashed freshmen students. When you are young and still rebelling against your parents, it is fashionable to take up any cause identified on the "fringe". When you are older and hopefully have your own family, you usually come to realize the value of law, society, family, values, and why "traditions" work. When I was young, I was also incredibly fearless, egotistical and selfish. I thought nothing could hurt me, I knew most of the answers and whatever I liked was right. In the end, much of the liberal agenda is selfish kids not growing up, not accepting responsibility and learning to trust others.
The young liberal would say "whatever feels good, do it". The young conservative has an uncomfortable feeling with that. Something about imposing his minute by minute egotistical desires on the world doesn't seem right. If you feel this discomfort and want to know why and how to explain it, read this book.
Posted by Martin at 7:39 PM
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June 29, 2004
Precipice by Tom Savage
I am catching up on a bunch of books that I have read over the last two weeks. Alot of travel means I finished six! Most in the "light reading" category. Like . It was left at my house by Alex's father who consumes pulp detective novels like an Irishman and his Guiness. I tend to like suspense/detective novels that take place somewhere specific and include alot of local color. That way I can tell myself that part of the read is "educational" instead of pure fluff like an episode of . Oh, well enough schocking of my Amazon Associates links, lets get to the book.
Precipice is Tom Savage's first book. He was raised in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and this debut is set there. There is something slightly Jimmy Buffet about the characters. Very son of a son of a sailor. The idle rich and their sailboats. The plot has some nice twists to it though. Not completely transparent from the start. The story starts out simply enough as here are these nice rich people enjoying paradise. Kay, the rich widower, her second husband Adam, and her daughter (from the first marriage) Elle. Their nanny suddenly disappears as does Adam's deck hand on his sailing yacht. Into this gap comes a new deck hand and a new bored Harvard daughter of rich east coast money who takes the nanny job (Diana). As the plot goes on you find out that everyone has a past and everyone has an angle to be in this place at this time and it is not all as random as it may seem. Savage keeps you guessing almost to the end. Who is allied with who and what are the motivations. Of course there is a fair dose of killing and robbery along the way. And the necessary childhood damage that follows people around. On my one to 10 scale for detective novels, this one gets a 7. I may even read it again.
Posted by Martin at 7:01 PM
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May 31, 2004
Read Hit List by Lawrence Block
Had a couple plane rides last week, so read Hit List by Lawrence Block. Sometimes the brain needs a break. This kind of thing gives it. I usually like Lawrence Block's murder mysteries, but I must admit that this one fell way short. It was a different character than he usually writes about (maybe the only book with that guy since it didn't sell that well). The protagonist is a hit man, a contract killer. He is also a stamp collector (supposed to give him depth and ellicit empathy). Single living in a small non-descript flat in New York. Works for a "suburban housewife" out in New Jersey. Very dispassionate, but not in a cruel way. In a "well, this is my job and I better get it done so I can go to the stamp dealer" sort of way. He is not very complex, although Block tries to make him so. During a couple of his jobs he has a "funny feeling" and strange things happen. Like two people being shot in the head with a 22 in a hotel room he just moved from. And two of his targets getting killed by other means right in front of him without his help. Eventually he figures out that a competitor is trying to kill him and has successfully killed other guys as a way to reduce the competition. Sometimes I wish that tactic were available to my startups. Of course this eventually leads him to try to get the drop on the other guy and I won't bore you with the details there. Lets just say the end peters out into nothingness. Not really a page turner. Not an engaging character. But provides a good break from computer manuals and business plans to change the world.
Posted by Martin at 6:29 PM
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May 4, 2004
Puerto Vallarta Squeeze: Robert James Waller
More reading in Sayulita. Being in Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta, I had to read this one. Even though it was by Robert James Waller who, after Bridges of Madison County, I swore to never read! Amazon's review concludes with:
These characters are flatter than cardboard, their situation is extremely unconvincing and the book is singularly devoid of suspense. But these weaknesses are nothing compared to the prose, which reads like an illiterate's imitation of Hemingway. Even the faithful may want to think twice about this one.
Good thing I was in Mexico and well away from any sort of connectivity when I read this one. It was an enjoyable beach read that I finished in an afternoon. Expecting Bridges kind of sappy chick flick writing, I was happily surprised when the main character is an ex-marine who is now a free lance hit man. While I must agree with the Amazon reviewer's comment about flat characters and an unconvincing situation, the book did deliver what I wanted in that place at that time: An entertaining read set in and around where I was at the time. The descriptions of downtown, latenight Puerto Vallarta were engaging enough to get me to leave our quaint little town early on the last day to spend some time exploring PV. My friend Chris McQuarie wrote a movie script about a sniper and got me interested in the ways of snipers. The portrayal of the Clayton Price, the ex-marine sniper, as a practiced, disciplined loner was interesting to compare to the characters I had read about in Chris's script. The lone sniper being pulled out of his seclusion by a seductive Mexican maiden, Luz, was at times hard to believe and not very convincingly written. But I wasn't looking to be convinced of the ability of such a guy to love. Or of her former boyfriend to mess it up along the way.
What I was looking for was an easy beach read with guns and some local color from Puerto Vallarta. I got just that.
Posted by Martin at 8:14 PM
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Reversible Errors by Scott Turow
So I was in Sayulita Mexico last week. Hence the radio silence here. While there I stayed in the house of a friend right on the beach. Could surf right outside the door on a great left. Unfortunately my arms couldn't handle paddling all day, so there was quite a bit of time to read. The house was full of books people had brought and left, so most were just right for the beach. One I particularly enjoyed was Reversible Errors by Scott Turow.
Another in the lawyer murder genre which for some reason I have become enamored with. Reversible Errors though stands a bit apart in how developed the characters are. The basic story is a guy on death row gets a new (third) court appointed (high powered pro-bono) attorney to handle his latest haebus corpus to stave off execution. Of course he didn't do it. The busy, expensive lawyer of course doesn't believe him, but is earnestwhile and dedicated. Through some investigation, he finds new witnesses that attest to his client's innocence. Of course the prosecutor who put the guy in jail the first time, is now about to run for Chief Prosecutor and doesn't want to see her career making case fall apart. Where it gets interesting is when the defendant's lawyer gets traction on his long term crush on the disgraced former judge who originally sentenced his client. Meanwhile the formerly single, now married to high powered congressman, prosecutor has had an on/off affair with the married detective who was in charge of the case. The haebeus corpus and various court motions bring these characters back into each others lives after 10 years of turmoil.
In most murder/lawyer who dun-it's the primary dramatic tension is: Did he do it? Maybe if you are lucky, you may get some tension because the bad guy is still out on the loose and he may do it again. Here, the tension is different. The guy is already is jail. We know who they think did it. But there is still tension on who really did it because there are witnesses that come in late. The former head of security at an airport near the restaurant where the original murder took place is now an inmate at the same prison as the accused and is dying of cancer. He says he did it. But you don't know his motivations for saying this. There is also the love tension between defense lawyer and former judge in the case. Of course complicated by possible wrong-doings by the judge in the case. Who does the defense lawyer side with, his client (who is a scumbag anyway) or his long-term crush and now possible lover? The prosecutor also has her hands full with an illicit wild sex affair with the detective who made the original arrest and obtained the original confession. As evidence provided by the detective gets called into question, the prosecutor begins to question her ability to believe him in other areas.
Each of the multiple plot lines kept me engaged. There was enough tension to keep me reading to the last line. Without giving away the ending I will tell you that Turow doesn't succumb to the temptation many writers have of using the last chapter to tie everything up in a nice bow. Bravo!
Posted by Martin at 7:18 PM
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March 12, 2004
Be a romance novel star...
Ever wanted to be the subject of a book, but couldn't get around to writing it yourself? Hey, that is what search and replace is for. A couple of steamy romance writers have taken this concept on the web with yournovel.com. Actually quite an interesting idea and a nice use of the technology. They already have a bunch of books written. Romance novels in different geographies and two flavors: "Wild" and "mild". Each has two main characters, man and woman. Want one about you and your wife/husband? For $50 bucks, the site will run search and replace and print your very own copy. Neat trick eh?
Posted by Martin at 11:58 AM
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. I didn't mean to be, but the first one got me hooked. I bought it in the airport and had to tell my traveling friends that I was reading it for my daughter. You know, to see if it was appropriate for her. "How old?" "Uh, three". busted. So I have read them all. And this for the new one, I did the right thing and ordered it through my local bookstore paying full retail. (Death to you who bought it at Costco!) Finished this on a plane trip back east a couple weeks ago. When my brain gets full of business books, I turn to these page turner detective novels. Well Novel is a stretch, but you know what I mean. This one was good, an easy and engaging read, but not really that memorable. Set in LA and the main culprit being a psychoparist, I was hoping to get some insight into those two worlds that I didn't have before. I didn't get anything. No new parts of LA. No new tricky things about therapy. Even though these kind of books are all fiction, one thing I like is getting some kind of glimpse inside something I don't get every day. Therapy didn't deliver that so it gets a 2 of 5 stars.
)on the plane back from NYC. Picked it upon Cam's recommendation. Overall, an excellent and very timely read, although Natan is quite long-winded to make his point. While this book is on the required reading for the entire Bush administration and while many cynics label Sharansky a right wing apologist, they clearly have not read the book nor do they understand the roots of his beliefs. Sharansky's message on the power of freedom to overcome tyranny and terror is rooted deep in his own struggle as a Soviet dissident which was largely successful in bringing freedom not only to Soviet Jews, but to all the Soviet Union. The underlying premise is so simple, many people miss it's power: ALL PEOPLES WANT FREEDOM. In a Free society, all people are free to express their views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm: what he calls the "town square test." In this way, most countries cleave clearly into two camps, societies of freedom and societies of fear. Free societies tend toward peace (although not always), fear societies NEVER seek peace, they ALWAYS require an enemy (internal or external) to maintain their rule over the people. In free societies, the rulers derive their power from the people, in fear societies, the regime (communist, dictator, strong-man, pseudo elected, etc.) exists solely for SELF PRESERVATION even when that is in opposition to the best interests of the people. In free societies if leaders to things the majority of the people don't like, they will be thrown out and new leaders brought in peacefully. In fear societies, this transition is rarely made and usually not peaceful when it is. Summary: A compelling look at a very current issue. This IS about world peace. Peace only comes through freedom. If you look at what has happened in the former communist countries, you know that it can happen in the mid east. I rate this 4 of 5 only because it is a bit long-winded to get the point across. But the point and perspective is one everyone would do well to understand.
. It took three months to read. Pretty old english. I was intrigued when I read that for hundreds of years it has been the #2 seller in England just behind the Bible. While I link to Amazon to buy it here, I bought it at a second hand bookstore for $.50. You can too and I recommend that. 2. Most depression and mental illness can be traced to some form of transference neurosis. Basically the living the present in terms of the past (rather than maturing emotionally).
"The basic definition of transference is given by Fenichel (1945). "The patient misunderstands the present in terms of the past; and then instead of remembering the past, he strives, without recognizing the nature of his action, to relive the past and to live it more satisfactorily than he did in his childhood. He "transfers" the past attitudes to the present."
3. The psychotherapy process goal it to identify the specifics of a patient's transference neurosis that is causing the current negative effects. By bringing it to the surface of the patient's consciousness (out of the darkness), there a high likeliehood of getting the patient past it and to integrate the knowledge and change behavior.
"A certain time lag takes place from the time the therapist begins interpreting resistances and conflicts to the time they are "assimilated," that is, made use of by the patient in changing himself or his situation."
"...THE crutial factor in psychotherapy is the experience by the patient of the difference in reaction of the therapist from the reaction of the parents."
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Ok, so everyone else is reading Blink too, but there is a good reason. It is an interesting, and timely book. Tipping Point was one of the incentives for me to invest in Cloudmark who is applying smart mob technology to the spam problem. Blink is about thin slicing. Making decisions in an instant. Some call it instinct. Many people think instinct is just nature and it can't be developed or learned. Wrongo. Every input you have goes into your ability to have good instinct. If you spend alot of time thinking about internet security (as I do), hopefully your instinct on seeing a new company will be better than someone who doesn't spend alot of time thinking about it. Gladwell doesn't just use business examples to talk about things in the blink of an eye. He leans on John Gottman's ability to thin slice marriages, a professional gambler's ability to "feel the deck", the Implicit Association Test, and Ekman and Friesen's Facial Action Coding System for reading people's faces. The facial stuff is the most interesting to me. The fact that trained researchers can watch tapes of people with the dialog off and tell if they are lying, nervous, telling the truth, etc. My favorite part was when he described Clinton's face. It is the "I got my hand in the cookie jar, but you will love me anyway" face. EXACTLY. He had many things stuck in places they shouldn't have been, but had such a friendly happy face that most people (not me) forgave him. Amazing what you can do with a face. When we realize that, there are two ways to make it actionable. First, you could be more aware of your own facial contortions and try to manage them. On the flip side, you can pay more attention to your reactions to other people's facial expressions. Do you react in the predicted way when Clinton smiles? Is he manipulating your reaction and feelings at a very deep level? What do actors do? They act and get the audience to have feelings and reactions. Be ware of how you are being sold.
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. In a funny way it was inspiration. Yea it is the story of a young professional surfer who gets her arm bitten off by a shark, but there is a happy ending. As I read I remembered the fact that in dirty water (what we had in LA) sharks can't see so they bite first and chew second. A wet suited black leg looks allot like a seal. That was not comforting and Alex thought I was morbid for reading about a surf shark attack while waiting to surf. But the real story is about overcoming fear. About passion and following your calling. About the overwhelming, sometimes irrational pull of the waves and the ocean (which most surfers can attest to). It would be very rational for a person who had their arm bitten off my a shark surfing to never go in the ocean again. It is very unusual (and somewhat irrational) for that same person to go back in. What strength does it take to overcome something like that? The positive force must be stronger than the negative force. So Bethany Hamilton learned to paddle with one arm. Learned to push herself up into a standing position by putting one hand in the center of the board instead of one on each side. She learned to balance and turn with only one arm (try that). Her courage and strength is world class. Yet she is still just a teenager who is a bit bemused at all the attention. She really just wants to hang out with her friends and family and surf. But the agents keep calling. And she attends to them out of a sense of duty. Hey, the shark could have killed her.
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on my Sony Cassette walkman as I delivered papers in highschool. Watching Steve on Saturday Night live as a "wild and crazy guy" was a rare treat when the parents stayed out late. The first of his novel's I read was Shop Girl width="120"
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. I am confident enough in my masculinity to say that I liked the book. It was a good beach read. Nice and light and breazy. So a couple of weeks ago on my way to LA I picked up his new one expecting something similar. What I got was an obsessive rambling disorganized diatribe of useless banter with no point. I bailed out after about 60 pages and never even finished it. Don't waste your time. Come on Steve, give us another one.
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Have been traveling allot lately (thus the light postings). I was in Portland three weeks ago and met my brother for coffee at Powells. Powells is literally a candy store for the book owner. Sprawling now over more than one square city block, you are handed a map to the sections when you walk in. Just on my way through the technical section to the coffee shop, I picked up five books. Unfortunately I should have figured out from the $5.98 sales price on Cosmopolis (regularly $13.00) that something was fishy. Even though it was in the "staff recommendations" section. I keep forgetting that many times what the staff of a bookstore like Powells likes is somewhat like what indie film fanatics like in movies. Quirky, off beat tomes that appeal to a very limited audience.
What is needed in this kind of world is a strong, strict father who can:
- Protect the family in the dangerous world,
- Support the family in the difficult world, and
- Teach his children right from wrong.
What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. The rationale behind physical punishment is this: When children do something wrong, if they are physically disciplined they learn not to do it again. That means that they will develop internal discipline to keep themselves from doing wrong, so that in the future they will be obedient and act morally. Without such punishment, the world will go to hell. There will be no morality.
Have been contemplating the role of silence in everyday life (we don't get enough). This little booklet (i find out after buying it) is actually written for priests and pastors as a guide to help explain to their flock the role of solitude, silence and prayer in connecting to the "other side". Henri J. M. Nouwen (author of lots of stuff) draws on the experiences and teachings of the "Desert Fathers and Mothers of the fourth century". His goal was to see if they had anything to teach us in the 21st century about. They do. Some useful passages:
"The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart." - a practice of many paths. Basically use prayer (or mantra) to disengage your mind from the present and reach the heart (god).
"a word or sentence repeated frequently can help us to concentrate, to move to the center, to create an inner stillness and thus to listen to the voice of God."
"Our compulsive, wordy, and mind-oriented world has a firm grip on us, and we need a very strong and persistent discipline not to be squeezed to death by it. By their solitude, silence, and unceasing prayer the Desert Fathers show us the way."
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- Wahhabi is the most fundamental interpretation of Islam and is applied in part because Saudi Arabia is "keeper" of the two holiest sites in the faith, Mecca and Medina.
- All wealthy Saudi's live two totally opposite lives. One inside strict Saudi Arabia, and another over seas where all the pent-up desires overflow with a vengeance.
- The Saudi royal family was terrified to see what happened to the Shah of Iran and immediately started placating the Wahhabi with money and power to prevent a repeat.
- bin Laden family members were most likely complicit in the fundamentalist take-over of Mecca since company trucks were used to get the fighters in there and the bin Laden organization had the only detailed maps of the place.
- The family clan unit (all the sons and daughters of one powerful father) is an ironclad bond when faced with threats from outsiders. By virtue of this, despite public statements, the bin Laden family has NOT disowned Osama.
- Osama bin Laden is an overwhelming hero in Saudi Arabia. If an election were held today, he would probably win.
- Saudi family life (at the high end) is totally disfunctional in a western sense. The sexes have separate houses. Men can be married to up to four wives at once and any number over a life time. To divorce a woman a man must simply recite "I divorce thee" three times and it is done. A woman has virtually no rights at all. Children are raised almost exclusively by servants. The appearance of devotion to religion is more important than anything else.
- While Carmen and her husband kept the equivalent of $50,000 around the house for "emergencies", her husband's office was a bare wooden desk with bare walls except for a picture of his father and the king.
- With America's complicity, the Saudis have provided aid, shelter, and material comfort to the Muslim Brotherhood.
- A single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls could bring the world's oil-addicted economies to their knees by crashing into one major Saudi oil field.
I have a 4 year old. My father never spent much time with us doing stuff. Only around holidays. I learned to ride a bike by falling down. This guy actually found out there is a good way to teach kids to ride in one day! And he breaks down how to teach a scared kid how to throw a ball into managable steps. A MUST have for every parent. Most of the activities are suited for 5-8 year olds though, so my daughter is still a bit young. But I keep it near the front door for reference on the outside activity days. I will let you all know how the bike riding training goes.
Have been reading this on and off for the last month. Mostly off because the crap was getting quite thick. On politics, I will read all sides of the debate and make my own mind up. This book has received reviews that make it sound like a witty yet thoughtful expose of some grand conspiracy of Republicans against the "average man". Like this from the LA times:
A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush
By Ronald Kessler
Independent journalist Ronald Kessler, who voted for Al Gore in 2000 but had a change of heart after getting to know President Bush, went behind the scenes interviewing dozens of White House aides, several Cabinet members and top presidential advisors. He came up with an important conclusion: President Bush has the character to lead our nation at this crucial time. A Matter of Character will be on the New York Times bestseller list for the fourth week on Sept. 19.
Click here to buy!
Plan of Attack
By Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward of Watergate era fame used his exclusive access to the White House, including two interviews with the President and over 75 with administration officials, to provide a detailed account of the two years leading up to the Iraq War. Plan of Attack helps explain why President Bush and his top advisors made the difficult decision to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.
Click here to buy!
Ten Minutes from Normal
By Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes, top advisor and close friend of the President, gives us a keenly insightful look at American politics and America's 43rd President. Hughes's first-hand experience of the deep concern for all Americans that forms the cornerstone of George W. Bush's presidency comes through loud and clear. In a post-9/11 world, Hughes redefines the very notion of what is "normal" as something special and precious, never to be taken for granted in America again.
Click here to buy!
Letters to My Daughters
By Mary Matalin
Mary Matalin, who served as assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, delivers a poignant memoir comprised of letters to her daughters on topics from careers and political convictions to spirituality and personal responsibility. Matalin draws from her unique experiences as a powerful Republican female voice in politics, wife of a powerful Democrat male voice in politics, campaign advisor, daughter and mother.
Click here to buy!
Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane
By John Podhoretz
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, takes specific attacks on President Bush and sets the record straight in this humorous book. Podhoretz writes about how the President has prevailed with the odds stacked against him and risen above the rhetoric, all the while frustrating his critics as they continue to look for ways to discredit him.
Click here to buy!
The Right Man: An Inside Account of the Bush White House
By David Frum
This compelling account of President Bush by a former member of his team, David Frum, gives incredible insight into the President's personality and leadership style. Frum examines how President Bush endured and even thrived when faced with difficult challenges, and The Right Man is a great tool for understanding our great President and his first-term administration.
Click here to buy!
A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush
By David Aikman
David Aikman follows George W. Bush on his spiritual journey from boyhood to the Presidency. In A Man of Faith, Aikman shows how the President's faith inspires his strength and conviction, and has allowed critical decisions to be made with clear, conscious thought. Aikman's look at our President's faith holds much weight given that President Bush is the most spiritual world leader in recent times.
Click here to buy!
The very watchful among you may have noticed that this book went off my AllConsuming Currently Reading lists last week. I would like a "read" list from AllConsuming. Erik says it is on the to do feature list when he has an extra weekend.
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I immediately went to Amazon and bought it. Look for my impressions soon. Thanks and keep the ideas coming!!!!
July 2, 2004. Saw Farenheit 911 this week and needed an antidote. I had received Letters to a Young Conservative as a gift two years ago and had it in my "to read" pile. I came of political age under Reagan. He was the first president I could vote for. He was the first politician I ever volunteered for. He provided a very positive and affirming vision of what it means to be an American and how to participate in our democracy and the world. Up until the 60's it was pretty clear what it meant to be an American. Most people agreed on a large number of core values. Somehow in that drug/sex haze that begat me (born 1964), our parents decided to try and throw everything before out and start over. D'Souza does a very good job of reminding us why that was a silly idea and how the legacy of free everything still haunts us today.
More reading in Sayulita. Being in Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta, I had to read this one. Even though it was by Robert James Waller who, after Bridges of Madison County, I swore to never read! Amazon's review concludes with: