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Post by the Scribe on Dec 2, 2011 13:45:50 GMT -5
Our previously selected classic books Linda should read are here:
CLICK HERE FOR THE TREASURE TROVE Devouring lions, giant bears, sharp-taloned birds of prey, deadly snakes, and snapping alligators—these and other animal predators in search of human flesh are a staple of ancient mythology, along with their mythic counterparts—dragons, griffins, gorgons, harpies, and more. The message is clear: for thousands and thousands of years our ancient human ancestors lived in fear of predatory animals and reflected the dangerous nature of their daily existence in the many animal myths that exist in almost every culture.
Trout contends ancient mythology about animal predators in search of human flesh has factual roots based on mankind's early history. He traced this concept back to the Pleistocene Era, when the human species was living and evolving on the African savanna. During that time, Trout said, humans lived amongst predatory creatures, like sabre toothed tigers and birds of prey, that were far more massive than their contemporary counterparts. He cited archaeological evidence which indicates that human beings were frequently eaten by these creatures, who likely saw man as easy prey, since they had yet to develop weapons to defend themselves.
Among the predatory creatures from the Pleistocene Era that Trout detailed were giant snakes (Republiconus Reptilica) that had a diameter of 18 inches and weighed 800 pounds as well as a bird of prey (Republiconus Vultura Capitalicus) which weighed 50 pounds and could lift humans off the ground. Additionally, he said, there were massive dogs, weighing 200 pounds, that hunted in packs of fifty and bears that had skulls which were 3 to 4 times the size of a modern grizzly bear. Given this extreme preponderance of predatory creatures, Trout observed that our ancestors living in this environment would likely witness "stacks of bones littering the landscape" and hear the sounds of not only victims of these predatory animals but also their calls to each other while on the hunt. "It must have been very unnerving for our ancestors to live within this milieu," Trout mused, "that was nosy with death and littered with corpses, bones, and kill sites."
Trout also suggested that these living conditions resulted in a critical change in the human psyche. "We finally realized that one of the best ways of dealing with our fear of predators was to become the predator," he explained. He pointed to early humans donning animal pelts and hunting in packs as ways that they mimicked the creatures that once feasted on them up until today's Republican Party. Additionally, Trout argued that mankind's role as prey laid the foundation for our religious belief system. He contended that the first gods which humans worshipped were predatory animals, which is the basis for the proverbial "fear of God." As man grew more sophisticated, he theorized, "we wanted to identify with a divine agent that was more like us" which led to the gods found in modern religions. In turn, Trout said, the idea of a "predator god" became fused with the devils of these religions. (republiconsatanistas)
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Post by erik on Dec 2, 2011 14:30:58 GMT -5
Fernando Parrado was one of the sixteen survivors of that devastating plane crash in the Andes in the fall of 1972 that killed twenty-nine others and, unfortunately, resulted in him and his fellow survivors having to resort to cannibalism before he and fellow Uruguayan rugby player Roberto Canessa made a ten-day trek out of the mountains and into Chile. His own personal story of those ten weeks of icy hell is told in this book.
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Post by goldie on Jan 20, 2016 14:55:37 GMT -5
Deep State Interview
Link to Interview and comments
www.mikelofgren.net/deep-state-interview/ Controlled by shadow government: Mike Lofgren reveals how top U.S. officials are at the mercy of the “deep state”
A corrupt network of wealthy elites has hijacked our government, ex-GOP staffer and best-selling author tells Salon
ELIAS ISQUITH
One of the predominant themes of the 2016 presidential campaign thus far — and one that is unlikely to lose significance once the primaries give way to the general election — is the American people’s exasperation with a political system they see as corrupt, self-serving, disingenuous and out of touch.
It is not an especially partisan or ideological sentiment; you can just as easily find it among supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders as among fans of Donald Trump. You can even find those who support paragons of the status quo, like Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush, making similar complaints. It’s about as close to a consensus position as you’re likely to find nowadays in American politics.
Yet despite the widespread agreement that something is seriously wrong with democracy in the U.S., there’s much less of a consensus as to what that something is — and, crucially, how to fix it. The answers Bernie Sanders offers, for example, are not exactly the same as those proffered by Donald Trump. Is the problem too much government? Not enough government? Too much immigration? Not enough immigration? Too much taxing and regulating? Not enough taxing and regulating?
Our lack of a systemic analysis of the problem is part of the reason why our answers are so diffuse and ill-fitting. And that’s just one of the reasons why “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government,” the new book from ex-longtime GOP staffer turned best-selling author Mike Lofgren, is so valuable. Lofgren puts a name and a shape to a problem that has often been only nebulously defined; and while his conclusions are not exactly uplifting, the logic and sophistication of his argument is hard to resist.
Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Lofgren about his book, the deep state and his read on the current sorry state of American government and politics. Our conversation, which also touched on President Obama’s relationship with the deep state, was edited for clarity and length.
How should we think about the deep state? Is it an elite conspiracy? A loosely defined social group? A network of specific institutions? How should we conceive of it?
Well, first of all, it is not a conspiracy. It is something that operates in broad daylight. It is not a conspiratorial cabal. These are simply people who have evolved [into] a kind of position. It is in their best interest to act in this way.
And given the fact that people would rather know about Kim Kardashian than what makes up the budget or what the government is doing in Mali or Sudan or other unknown places, this is what you get: a disconnected, self-serving bureaucracy that is … simply evolving to do what it’s doing now. That is, to maintain and enhance its own power.
When do you think the American deep state first started?
Probably, it started in WWII, when we had the Manhattan Project, which was a huge secret project that required tens of thousands of people to be working in complete secrecy — and we actually built enormous cities [for the project’s workers] … and no one knew they existed.
You also had the so-called Ultra and Magic secret [operations], the decoding of the Nazi and Japanese codes that required an enormous number of people to be doing absolutely top secret work that they did not reveal to anybody for decades. So, WWII created this kind of infrastructure of the deep state, which increased and consolidated during the Cold War.
What are the key institutions and players within the deep state?
The key institutions are exactly what people would think they are. The military-industrial complex; the Pentagon and all their contractors (but also, now, our entire homeland security apparatus); the Department of Treasury; the Justice Department; certain courts, like the southern district of Manhattan, and the eastern district of Virginia; the FISA courts. And you got this kind of rump Congress that consists of certain people in the leadership, defense and intelligence committees who kind of know what’s going on. The rest of Congress doesn’t really know or care; they’re too busy looking about the next election.
So that’s the governmental aspect. What about in the private sector?
You’ve got Wall Street. Many of these people — whether it is David Petraeus … or someone like [Bill] Daley, who is the former chief of staff to President Obama … or Hank Paulson, who came from Goldman Sachs to become Treasury Secretary and bailed out Wall Street in 2008; or the people that Obama chose to be Treasury secretary — like Tim Geithner. They all have that Wall Street connection.
And the third thing now is Silicon Valley.
Oh? Why is Silicon Valley now so central?
Because they generate so much money that they are rivaling and sometimes surpassing Wall Street. The heads of Google or Apple make more money than the guys running Wall Street. They make more money than Jamie Dimon. So that’s the new source of cash to run the deep state.
Silicon Valley provides a lot of money. But it also has access to an unfathomable amount of information. Which do you think is more valuable to the deep state — the cash or the info?
I think you can’t distinguish the two. There is a tremendous amount of money coming, in terms of lobbying, for Silicon Valley to get what it wants in terms of intellectual property and so forth.
At the same time, NSA insiders have told me that they couldn’t even operate without the cooperation of Silicon Valley, because the communication backbones that are set up and operated by Silicon Valley provide the vast majority of information that the NSA and other intelligence agencies are going to exploit — and they can’t do it themselves. They need the willing or unwilling cooperation of Silicon Valley.
But when the Snowden leaks first hit, a lot of Silicon Valley elites implied they didn’t knowingly or willingly work with the government, no?
There was a certain amount of deception there, after the Edward Snowden revelations. They claimed, Oh, well, the NSA made us do all these things! — but not really, because NSA, CIA, and these other intelligence organizations were also involved in giving seed money or subsidies to various Silicon Valley companies to do these things.
Right. Which raises the question of whether the line between the public sector and the private sector even matters anymore, at least when it comes to the deep state.
It is hard to distinguish them anymore. All these guys simply go through the revolving door to the point where you can hardly distinguish [government employees from private sector workers]. A good percentage of the people sitting at their desks right now in the Pentagon are private sector contractors. They are literally in the Pentagon, in the NSA building, in all these organizations. They are the ones who essentially run the show, by virtue of having the technical knowledge.
Snowden himself was a contractor.
Yes, he was a Booz Allen contractor. How is it that a Booz Allen contractor — a junior person — had access to all this information? It certainly doesn’t say much for Gen. Keith Alexander, who was the director of NSA at the time. How can he bitch and moan about Snowden? He was responsible for having him cleared, and for letting low-level contractors have that kind of access. And yet now he is working in some boutique cybersecurity firm on Wall Street and making a ton of money.
Do the people who work in the deep state have a common ideology or narrative that they tell themselves and one another, something that justifies their behavior or explains why their interventions into the democratic process are “necessary”?
I think it’s an ideology that dare not speak its name. They claim it is not an ideology, that it is simply their technocratic expertise giving you the benefit of their knowledge. However, their knowledge is always based on a neoconservative view of foreign policy, [and] in domestic policy, it enforces neoliberalism.
On a personal level, it is kind of, Well, we’re just doing the best we can or If only everyone appreciated how hard it is to decide whether to torture subject A or subject B when you are in the CIA or If only everyone appreciated how hard it is to decide privatize this or that. You just don’t really appreciate how difficult things are for us.
They sort of act like stoical martyrs when you ask them about why they actually do these things.
Do you think that sense of martyrdom explains the revolving door problem? I’m imagining something along the lines of these people saying to themselves, Well, I sacrificed for my country; so now I deserve to cash out.
I am sure they all acculturate themselves to that viewpoint. And when the money is there; you don’t want to leave it lying on the table. They certainly don’t. And our laws against that kind of behavior are nonexistent, or can be gotten around, so whynottake the money?
I once made a joke to a friend that President Obama was to the deep state what the press secretary is to the president. Was I closer to the truth than I realized? Or was I going too far?
I don’t believe so. [Obama] was a guy who was so carefully cultivated. You saw that already in the 2004 Democratic convention. He was going to filibuster the FISA Amendments Act regarding the telecoms illegal collusion with intelligence agencies, but somewhere in 2008, he decided he was going to vote for it. And that was right about the time that somebody supplied him with John Brennan, the current CIA director, who was going to tutor him on what it takes to be president from the national security perspective.
It doesn’t suggest a lot of autonomy on Obama’s part.
This guy is to some extent controlled. That doesn’t mean he is not articulate or bright or doesn’t know what’s going on; he is obviously more so, on all accounts, than his predecessor. But Obama, or any other president, has a very limited latitude of what he’s going to do on the very big issues of international finance and national security. He is very hemmed-in on those accounts. So he becomes a kind of a spokesman.
Just hypothetically, what do you think would happen if he tried to push the envelope and publicly reject some foundational element of the deep state?
I don’t think we really know what would happen, because the incentives for these people are so carefully aligned with what they’re “supposed” to do. Obama has already had White House dinners with very rich contributors about setting up his pharaonic monument, the Obama Presidential Library (which is going to require billions in funding). That already constraints how much he’s going to go rogue.
And we have to only have to think back to Clinton on his way out the door. He signed a bill which took the wraps off derivatives trading. He claimed later that somehow his hand was forced and that it was going to be written anyway and all that; I don’t think so. He ended up being paid over $100 million afterwards, mainly by corporate sponsors, to give speeches. It was kind of like compensation after the fact.
Given the ubiquity and continuity of the deep state, will it matter whether the Republican or the Democrat wins the presidential race later this year? Or will it be the same either way?
It matters to a certain extent. A competent rogue is probably preferable to an insane one. There are definable differences between Bush and Obama. However, the differences are so constrained. They’re not between the 40-yard lines; they are between the 48-yard lines.
Is there any scenario in which the deep state’s influence and power can be curtailed or eliminated? Or does the fact that it’s evolved sort of organically suggest that only something truly revolutionary could upend it?
The deep state has created so many contradictions in this country. You have this enormous disparity of rich and poor; and you have this perpetual war, even though we’re braying about freedom. We have a surveillance state, and we talk about freedom. We have internal contradictions. Who knows what this will fly into? It may collapse like the Soviet Union; or it might go into fascism with a populist camouflage — like Trump is selling us.
Elias Isquith is a daily columnist at Salon who focuses on politics and inequality. He tweets at @eliasisquith.
Recent Posts
An oligarchy has broken our democracy. It must be dislodged January 17, 2016 Republican Deficit Hypocrisy January 16, 2016 “Deep State” Interview January 5, 2016 The West’s Deadly Mideast Fantasies December 2, 2015 Republicans Are Revolutionaries, Not Conservatives: A Response to Thomas Schaller November 10, 2015
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 22, 2016 15:13:56 GMT -5
The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America's Soldiers Hardcover – February 16, 2016 by Joseph Hickman (Author), Jesse Ventura (Foreword) Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the “burn pits” where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material. Based on thousands of government documents, over five hundred in-depth medical case studies, and interviews with more than one thousand veterans and active-duty GIs, The Burn Pits will shock the nation. The book is more than an explosive work of investigative journalism—it is the deeply moving chronicle of the many young men and women who signed up to serve their country in the wake of 9/11, only to return home permanently damaged, the victims of their own armed forces’ criminal negligence. from comments: It probably never will be known with certainty why Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, left for Iraq a healthy and vibrant 40-year-old man only to return home a year later to succumb to a series of mysterious and unexplained illnesses that metamorphosed into incurable brain cancer that took his life at age 46. But a convincing if circumstantial case can be made that the cause was exposure to toxic smoke from immense open-air burn pits at Camp Victory and another base where Beau Biden was bivouacked.
One of the more insidious backstories of the Iraq war, which Joe Biden enthusiastically supported as a Democratic senator from Delaware, is how the friends of his predecessor, Dick Cheney, at Halliburton got rich providing housing, meals, water and many other services to Beau Biden and hundreds of thousands of other American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a cost of an estimated $39.5 billion by reliable estimates, much of it in no-bid contracts as the Pentagon outsourced many of the non-combat duties handled by the military in previous wars.
In this shocking new book, investigative journalist Joseph Hickman, himself a Marine and Army veteran, asserts that Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, where Cheney was CEO before he became vice president, poisoned thousands of American soldiers and many thousands more Iraqis with the toxic smoke from the burn pits they operated in place of the incinerators typically run by the military. Some of the burn pits were operated on or near chemical warfare sites from Saddam Hussein's rule.
Hickman’s story follows an arc tragically familiar to the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam: Denial by the government that there was a problem, refusal by government agencies to address the problem, and finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence, grudging admissions by the government that there is indeed a problem.
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Post by erik on Feb 22, 2016 15:47:59 GMT -5
Here's a really good one: A scathing look at the CIA from where it started, under the reign of one Allen Dulles, and all the foreign finagling they have done.
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 26, 2016 23:37:58 GMT -5
The Fight to Vote Hardcover – February 23, 2016 by Michael Waldman (Author) From the president of NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice and the author of The Second Amendment, the history of the long struggle to win voting rights for all citizens. In The Second Amendment, Michael Waldman traced the ongoing argument on gun rights from the Bill of Rights to the current day. Now in The Fight to Vote, Michael Waldman takes a succinct and comprehensive look at a crucial American struggle: the drive to define and defend government based on “the consent of the governed.” From the beginning, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought to right to vote, others have fought to stop them. This is the first book to trace the full story from the founders’ debates to today’s challenges: a wave of restrictive voting laws, partisan gerrymanders, the flood of campaign money unleashed by Citizens United. Americans are proud of our democracy. But today that system seems to be under siege, and the right to vote has become the fight to vote. In fact, that fight has always been at the heart of our national story, and raucous debates over how to expand democracy have always been at the center of American politics. At first only a few property owners could vote. Over two centuries, working class white men, former slaves, women, and finally all Americans won the right to vote. The story goes well beyond voting rules to issues of class, race, political parties, and campaign corruption. It's been raw, rowdy, a fierce, and often rollicking struggle for power. Waldman’s The Fight to Vote is a compelling story of our struggle to uphold our most fundamental democratic ideals. ©2016 Michael Waldman (P)2016 Tantor
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2016 1:55:03 GMT -5
Jenkins has written “a Silent Spring for the human body” — Richard Preston, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Hot Zone. In the past few years, scientists have become increasingly worried about the growing presence of synthetic chemicals in our bodies, and in our environment — and the connection these chemicals may have to cancer, hormonal imbalances, and many other diseases. These are not just the toxins leaking out of industrial dumps — they are the chemicals leaking into us from the products we use every day: from cosmetics, cookware, and the fabric in our upholstery; from pharmaceuticals in our drinking water and the pesticides we spray on our lawns. I learned this the hard way. A few years ago, I discovered a surprise in my abdomen: a tumor the size of a baseball. An hour before I was to enter the operating room, researchers asked if I had ever been exposed to toxic chemicals. In my life, I asked? This seemed like an odd question. What kind of chemicals do you mean? The researchers began reading from a list, which turned out to be very long. Some things I had heard of, many others I had not. Formaldehyde? Weed killers? Glues? Dry cleaning fluids? Detergents? Lacquers? Flame retardants? Plastic meat wrap? Plastic meat wrap? Clearly, what I knew about my chemical exposure history was pretty vague. I decided to search for clues. My new book, ContamiNation, takes a clear-eyed look at the ways everyday things may be making us sick, and shows how we can protect ourselves by making wiser, healthier choices. It examines the way products are made and regulated (or, typically, not regulated); the way synthetic chemicals enter our bodies, and the latest research about what this chemical “body burden” may be doing to our health. It looks at our shopping habits, our drinking water, and our lawn care, and it ponders the ways advertising and marketing have blinded us to some pretty obvious problems. PRAISE ContamiNation “delivers a scary punch. The everyday environment of American life is seething with little-understood and sometimes demonstrably dangerous chemical compounds–weird stuff that’s crept into all our bodies, whether we know it or not. And we don’t know what it does or could do to us. A nice piece of work, a Silent Spring for the human body.” — Richard Preston, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Hot Zone. All of us long for answers on how to navigate our puzzling and perilous chemical world. You could not find a better guide in exploring such important questions than McKay Jenkins. In this elegantly told, wonderfully readable journey of a book, Jenkins illuminates not only the science of everyday toxic compounds but the best ways to manage them in everyday life. Read it and keep it. You’ll be glad you did.” — Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. “McKay Jenkins allows the discovery of a tumor in his left hip to lead him – and us – into the world of failed chemical regulations. ContamiNation is a story of unflinching courage combined with hardheaded research. It’s chock full of suspense… and footnotes, too. Be warned: the answer to the title’s question will almost certainly amaze you – and may just send you to the barricades.” – Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment The landscape of health has changed. When you look at the increases in the rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, allergies and autism, the statistics are numbing. But epidemics don’t have genetic causes, they have environmental ones. And today, as McKay Jenkins details in ContamiNation, some of the greatest threats to our health aren’t found in our DNA, but in our food supply and environment. This book is jam-packed with information and is not only an invaluable resource for those interested in protecting their loved ones, but a sound investment and a book that will pay health dividends for a lifetime.” – Robyn O’Brien, author of The Unhealthy Truth and founder of AllergyKids Foundation mckayjenkins.com/(resources below found on above website) FDA: Chicken meat contains arsenic, but keep eating it! Majora Carter talks about environmental justice The health consequences of fracking (Boston Globe, 22 Feb. 2012) Lead in your lipstock? (Huffington Post, 14 February 2012) Pittsburgh shows way to leafier cities New push to label toxic building materials (NY Times, 2 Feb. 2012) Reckless development now shown to have negative health consequences (NY Times, 30 January 2012) University of Vermont will ban sale of bottled water on campus (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 February 2012) Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox (“Gasland”) arrested for trying to film fracking hearing in Washington More evidence of dangerous toxins in beauty products (Washington Post, Jan. 30, 2012) Cool video on using algae to treat municipal wastewater Poop and Paddle: One man’s quest to treat his own wastewater Kids get a bigger dose of toxic chemicals than their mothers (scientific American. Jan 26, 2012) Kaiser Permanente announces that it will use less toxic materials in its hospitals (Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2012) State Department to put Keystone Pipeline on hold (The New York Times, 18 January 2012) New Heights of Double Speak, from the cosmetics industry More evidence of phthaltes and their effect on childhood development. A new study links phthalate exposure to compromised childhood development The plastics industry manipulates textbooks, takes a page from the Soviet playbook Pesticides: Bad for babies, bad for kids. Three government studies warn about pre-natal exposures. From the NRDC. Frizzy hair, formaldehyde, and infertility: A new study will make your hair stand up Resources Toxins in Consumer Products Green Science Policy Institute: Provides scientific research to industry, government and non-profits about chemicals in consumer products. Environmental Working Group: Research and recommendations for all kinds of consumer goods. Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families: Pushing for better toxics laws Environmental Defense Fund: The group’s Not A Guinea Pig wing works on chemical policy reform Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: A searchable database for personal care products. The Green Guide: An intelligent online magazine for smart, sustainable shopping A database of toxins in building materials, and how to avoid them The Ultimate Green Shopping Guide Sustainability, Toxics, and Citizen Action Delaware: Delaware Environmental Summit Maryland: Growing Up Toxic, a report from the Maryland Public Interest Group New England: Toxics Action Center Environmental Health Strategy Center World: Vandana Shiva, global ecological visionary Blue Voice, a group devoted to dolphins and whales Environmental Justice Majora Carter Group, working to “green the ghetto.” Federal HHS reporton environmental justice strategy Native Species Maryland Native Plant Society: A good place to learn what to plant, and what to rip out. University of Maryland Forest Stewardship Education: A nice Backyard Planting Guide U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Guide for Native Plants and Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping Pesticides and Lawn Care SafeLawns.org: A resource for maintaining your lawn without synthetic pesticides. Citizens for a Green Camden: A group fighting the use of toxic pesticides in Maine. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity MCS Referral and Resources: A place to learn more about research and health advice. Teaching Resources Environmental Journalism Toolkit Shorter Pieces How Chemicals Change the Way We See (Terrain, February 9, 2016) How a Baseball-sized Tumor Woke Me Up to Everyday Chemicals (Quartz, February 2, 2016) Flint’s Water: Poisoned by Lead, and By Race (Medium, January 25, 2016) Coming Soon: Major GMO Study (Sssh: It Will Be Done in Secret, by Russians) (Huffington Post, December 18, 2014) Can We Trust the EPA? Not if History is Our Guide (Seattle Times, 13 April 2014) Climate Change: It’s All in Our Heads (Orion Magazine, 17 January 2013) The Orca and the Shopping Mall (Huffington Post, July 25, 2012) Returning Soldiers, Jobs, and the Great American Landscape (Huffington Post, Jan. 20, 2012) Why I’m Not Preparing My Students to Compete in the Global Marketplace (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 15, 2012) A National Park in West Virginia?(Huffington Post, Jan. 10, 2012) Cooking With An Axe (Huffington Post, Dec. 12, 2011) Hormone Disruptors in Canned Food: New Worries (Huffington Post, Nov. 23, 2011) Canoes But No Kayaks: Thoughts on Environmental Studies (Huffington Post, Nov. 18, 2011) Can We Stay Healthy in a Toxic World? (Orion Magazine, August 9, 2011) Pediatricians: Toxics Endanger Kids Health (Huffington Post, May 5, 2011) States Want to Join Feds in Rolling Back Environmental Regulation (Huffington Post, April 28, 2011) The Lawn Chemical Ritual (Huffington Post, April 22, 2011) Protecting Ourselves from An Invisible Danger: Environmental Toxins (Huffington Post, April 19, 2011)
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 14, 2016 0:07:49 GMT -5
An interesting read. Educational. ISIS is explained to be a cult and Muhammad the prophet warned about these types of cultic groups rising into power. Most Muslims are terrified of this group and are living in a nightmare which is why they are emigrating as quickly as they can. ISIS is trying to set conditions for their prophet JESUS CHRIST to return to Earth. This WON"T sit well with American right wingers and Evangelicals so look for lots of criticism from that side about this book and its content. Many are already trying to denigrate its black author. Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe Hardcover – March 8, 2016 by Malcolm Nance (Author), Richard Engel (Foreword) ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—has taken on the mantle of being the single most dangerous terrorist threat to global security since al-Qaeda. In Defeating ISIS, internationally renowned intelligence veteran, author, and counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance gives an insider’s view to explain the origins of this occult group, its violent propaganda, and how it spreads its ideology throughout the Middle East and to disaffected youth deep in the heart of the Western world. Most importantly, Defeating ISIS gives an amply illustrated, step-by-step analysis of the street-level tactics the group has employed in assaults against fortified targets, in urban combat, and during terrorist operations such as those in Paris during the November 13 attacks. As much as ISIS is a threat to Western targets and regional stability in the Middle East, Nance describes not only its true danger as a heretical death cult that seeks to wrest control of Islam through young ideologues and redefine Islam as a fight to the death against all comers, but also how to defeat it. Defeating ISIS is the first highly detailed and fully illustrated look into the organization by one of the world’s foremost authorities in counterterrorism. 100 color illustrations, 100 black-and-white illustrations, maps throughout
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 15, 2016 1:26:38 GMT -5
Starred Review. Is the Central Intelligence Agency a bulwark of freedom against dangerous foes, or a malevolent conspiracy to spread American imperialism? A little of both, according to this absorbing study, but, the author concludes, it is mainly a reservoir of incompetence and delusions that serves no one's interests well. Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times correspondent Weiner musters extensive archival research and interviews with top-ranking insiders, including former CIA chiefs Richard Helms and Stansfield Turner, to present the agency's saga as an exercise in trying to change the world without bothering to understand it. Hypnotized by covert action and pressured by presidents, the CIA, he claims, wasted its resources fomenting coups, assassinations and insurgencies, rigging foreign elections and bribing political leaders, while its rare successes inspired fiascoes like the Bay of Pigs and the Iran-Contra affair. Meanwhile, Weiner contends, its proper function of gathering accurate intelligence languished. With its operations easily penetrated by enemy spies, the CIA was blind to events in adversarial countries like Russia, Cuba and Iraq and tragically wrong about the crucial developments under its purview, from the Iranian revolution and the fall of communism to the absence of Iraqi WMDs. Many of the misadventures Weiner covers, at times sketchily, are familiar, but his comprehensive survey brings out the persistent problems that plague the agency. The result is a credible and damning indictment of American intelligence policy. The incident which gives this book its title reveals something essential about its tone and direction. At the end of his two - terms of office President Eisenhower called into his office, the former legendary OSS officer and director of the CIA Allen Dulles, and said to him point- blank. " After eight years you have left me , a "legacy of ashes." In other words the institution whose task it was to provide vital intelligence to the U.S. Executive on world - affairs had not done its job. Eisenhower was concerned about what legacy would be handed on to his successor, President Kennedy. And surely enough some months later 'The Bay of Pigs' fiasco occurred in great part because of the faulty plan and information provided by the CIA's Richard Bissell. Bissell believed an infiltrating semi- Army of 1600 would easily defeat Castro's sixty- thousand troops. The result was the Kennedy Administration's first major disaster. The two - sides of Intelligence work, the gathering of information, and the undertaking of covert operations are generously surveyed in this work. Weiner a long- time reporter for the NY Times devoted twenty- years to this book, and in the course of it read through fifty- thousand declassified CIA Intelligence documents. He also interviewed ten former directors of the CIA. He points out errors made all along the way. Frank Wisner at the beginning ignored 'intelligence gathering' and sent during the Korean War thousands of hired agents to suicidal behind- the- enemy- lines operations. In the Bay of Pigs fiasco and in numerous other operations the CIA instead of providing hard, truthful contradictory analysis essentially worked to politically support a prior decision of the Executive branch. Speaking 'truth to power' has not been its essential strong point. Weiner understands the difficulty of having a spy agency in a democracy where there is always a certain discomfort regarding covert operations. His argument is nonetheless not about the wrongness of having such an Agency in a Democracy, but rather about the too frequent failures of judgment and action. This book is extremely rich , providing new insight into a great share of American post- war history. It touches upon almost all the major conflicts. It also chronicles CIA successes wherever they have occurred, It is not in other words a one- sided politically motivated bashing of the Agency but rather a thoughtful, informative, challenging study that may provide valuable guidance as to how the Agency should be reformed to better confront the many security challenges the U.S. is facing today. The God's Eye View Knowledge is power…and they know everything. NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. He knows unlimited surveillance is the only way to keep America safe. Evelyn Gallagher doesn’t care much about any of that. She just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA’s camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash. But when Evelyn discovers the existence of an NSA program code-named God’s Eye, and connects it with the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins: Delgado, a sadistic bomb maker and hacker; and Manus, a damaged giant of a man who until now has cared for nothing beyond protecting the director. Within an elaborate game of political blackmail, terrorist provocations, and White House scheming, a global war is being fought—a war between those desperate to keep the state’s darkest secrets and those intent on revealing them. A war that Evelyn will need all her espionage training and savvy to survive. A war in which the director has the ultimate informational advantage: The God’s Eye View. When Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove was having its run, service people left the theater muttering, “That wasn’t a satire. That’s what they’re like.” So it is with Eisler’s fine thriller. His power-mad loons, who pull the levers of supersecret government organizations, aren’t exaggerated for dramatic effect. We know that because Eisler has appended an eighteen-page guide to all the nasty stuff governments do in the name of national security. His achievement, though, is to make this cybersnoop world not just a backdrop but instead a vital—and wonderfully vile—character on its own. Evelyn Gallagher, head of the NSA’s camera network and facial-recognition program, observes a meeting between a reporter and a would-be whistle-blower. She reports it to her boss, who decides the two must be killed and Evelyn spied upon because now she knows too much. The agent sent to monitor her is not quite what the boss thinks, and the personal and cyberfink stories are blended beautifully. Tension and action spice the plot, but that’s all that can be revealed here. Someone might be watching. —Don Crinklaw, Starred Review "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -C.S. Lewis Barry Eisler could not have paid better homage to that quote had he tried. The ever-evolving surveillance state, the nanny state, that the West is becoming has never been more frighteningly portrayed than in his newest book. The fact that it is not yet here is more a limitation of current technology than of intent. Having worked as a federal agent for over two decades, I can attest firsthand to a not insignificant portion of the security field that would very much welcome such emergent technology. With glee. Make no mistake, its not avarice or power that drives them, for the most part (although those benefits aren't unappreciated). It's that no cost is too high to pay for safety. And while others of us firmly believe in our Constitutional oaths and fight against these incursions into civil liberties, the rubber really meets the road where elected officials with authorization powers exist. They are the ones who determine yay or nay. They hold the keys to the kingdom. So be careful who you put into positions of authority in this modern, technological era. Because Barry Eisler's very well written, thrilling book is more than just a stirring tale, although it is that. It's a cautionary tale. Give the wrong people the right access to technology, and it might become eerily, frighteningly prescient. And all for your own good.
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Post by erik on Mar 15, 2016 8:33:20 GMT -5
The argument sometimes made about the CIA is that it really is an advocate for American business interests who fear the nationalization of their businesses in countries where they are anchored (e.g. Iran nationalizing its oil fields in 1953, which led to the violent ouster of Mohammed Mossadegh). According to former CIA/Pentagon liaison Colonel Leroy Fletcher Prouty (who was a prime inspiration for Donald Sutherland's character "Mr. X" in JFK), the acronym CIA not only stands for Central Intelligence Agency, but also stands for Capitalism's Invisible Army. There's also, for Linda's consideration... This book certainly provided source material for screenwriters Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen in their screenplay for Spielberg's film BRIDGE OF SPIES, which was about that momentous and complex series of dealings that James Donovan went through to get the exchange that freed both Rudolf Abel and Francis Gary Powers, as well as the wrongly jailed American student Frederic Pryor, on the Glienicke Bridge (the actual Bridge Of Spies).
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Post by PoP80 on Mar 15, 2016 17:06:24 GMT -5
Here's one from her own list.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 20, 2016 23:59:54 GMT -5
How to Steal an Election: The Inside Story of How George Bush's Brother and FOX Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Course of HistoryThis is the inside story of how Jeb Bush persuaded the Fox network to call the presidential election for his brother George W. Bush on Election Night 2000. It was one phone call to Fox — the details of which are revealed in this book for the first time — that propelled George W. Bush into leading position for 43rd president of the United States. Even though the erroneous statement had to be retracted within two hours, the damage done by this false call to Al Gore's chances of winning the election were incalculable. David Moore, at the time senior editor for the Gallup Poll, makes the plausible and alarming case that, had Fox not made this miscall, the resulting political environment would have been less biased in favor of Bush, and that Al Gore could have won.
On Election Night in 2000, Moore was with the exit poll "decision team" of CBS and CNN, taking notes on how election races were called, and miscalled, around the country — including the two miscalls and two rescissions in Florida. Prior to joining Gallup in 1993, Moore was founder and director of the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire.
Americans will remember many instances of balloting fraud and voter intimidation tactics used by the RNC during the election; they will also remember the Congressional hearings on the subject, where a handful of employees from Diebold and Global Election Systems, testified that they had rigged machines to steal votes from the Democrat Party. What most Americans may not recall are the details in the theft of the presidential election, and this book will provide those details.
Instances of "missing voting machines" were common in predominately Democrat voter districts, where in many cases, in many states, voters were required to stand in line for many hours to vote for Al Gore, but in pro-Republican districts the wait was usually a few minutes. The book explains why, and how, that was allowed to happen.
Instances of ballots being pre-punched for George Bush2 were also common, and reported. Voters who noticed and objected were given tiny stickers to place over the pre-punched holes; voters who did not notice and who voted against George Bush2 had the ballots invalidated because of the extra hole.
There are several instances of balloting fraud that the book should have included but did not. Such as the districts that never had their pro-Gore votes counted; such as voters registered as Democrats being told on the telephone that they would be arrested if they voted; such as the "challenged" Democrat voters who were allowed to vote but their ballots were not counted, pending "challenge review."
All in all this book is a good introduction to the treason committed by the Republican Party at the time, and the overwhelming evidence produced, but there are better books on the subject.
The pitifully low amount of reviews and rating on Amazon do David W. Moore and his book a great injustice. "How to Steal an Election" is not the incoherent rambling of a leftwing conspiracist, but a meticulously researched and well-written account of the role the media played in the travesty that was Election 2000.
In case you don't know, Al Gore actually won Election 2000. So how did George W. Bush end up getting into the White House and turn America into a sinking dictatorship for eight years?
Moore doesn't go into every aspect of the Election 2000 fiasco, but he goes into great detail about the most overlooked guilty party in the story: the media.
Did you know the guy who made the erroneous call in Bush's favor on Fox News was actually the cousin of George and Jeb Bush? Did you know that Voter News Service was urgently advising all networks that the race was too close to call when Fox went ahead anyway, causing the other networks to follow suit?
It's a fascinating story about the inefficiencies of America's media and a warning to what inept journalism can cause. The media screwed up, so we got George W. Bush as president. What more of an incentive does anyone need to do a better job?
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nobody's nobody
A Number and a Name
If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Posts: 44
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Post by nobody's nobody on Jun 25, 2016 17:51:55 GMT -5
Okay here's a book I definitely think Linda may want to check out? It's literally right up her ally, so to speak! It's called "Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon" By Dave McGowan. I've read it and he has nothing to say about Linda. He just mentions her name a few times in passing. He does have some eye-opening things to say about guys like Jim Morrison (like who Jim Morrison's dad was), David Crosby, The Byrds, etc. etc. Anyway here's the best interview on youtube of Dave (who I understand passed away last November) about his book!
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 13, 2017 2:38:20 GMT -5
Found this interesting article on What's Linda Ronstadt Reading? Lots of books that gives us an idea on Linda's interests.
What's Linda Ronstadt reading? Piper Castillo Updated: December 3, 2013 at 09:36 PM Nightstand | Linda Ronstadt
Parkinson's disease may have halted Linda Ronstadt's singing career, but there is no doubt that her classics, including You're No Good, When Will I Be Loved and Heart Like a Wheel, will grace airwaves for years to come. Ronstadt, 67, talked with us on Nov. 27 by phone from San Francisco about her approach to life with Parkinson's and her passions for music and books, as well as her memoir, Simple Dreams, which was released in September. Although the final list of inductees has not been announced, Ronstadt has been nominated for a spot in the 2014 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
What's on your nightstand?
I have two little piles of reading right now. The first one is Eric Schlosser's Command and Control. It's about the nuclear accidents and the near nuclear accidents we have had. It's just one of the most chilling things I have ever read. I've got Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It's really good and is about what influences the thought process. I've got two memoirs, Ian Tyson's The Long Trail: My Life in the West and Donald Fagen's Eminent Hipsters, which is just a great, smart read. He talks about life as a musician and how wacky it is. He's a Bard graduate, a great writer and so insightful.
I've also got Here's to You, Jesusa by Elena Poniatowska. It's a novel based on a woman involved in the Mexican Revolution.
I know you're already well-versed in Mexican history. What did you learn from this book?
I didn't learn anything I didn't know, but it was interesting to have the story written in a woman's voice. It shows a woman's perspective in that very interesting time. The women were absolute support for the troops. They worked, they cooked, but also, if they were a coronela, a colonel's wife, they'd command the troops if there came a time when her husband was not able to do it, so it was an interesting time for sexual equality.
Speaking of sexual equality, I recently saw a documentary on the Troubadour (a West Hollywood venue) in the 1970s. Your photo popped up in it several times. It seems to me that era had many male musicians who had sexist tendencies. How'd you stay on track? Were you reading feminist literature?
I do remember reading Ms. magazine, but I wouldn't really call myself a feminist. The truth is that with musicians, everyone likes it if music is flowing. You could be a goat or a camel even, but if the music is flowing nothing stops the groove. Music is a great leveller in that way in terms of racism, sexism or homophobic attitudes. A lot of those things sort themselves out in the musical arena. Music fosters cooperation, not competition.
How are you feeling, and have you relied on books to gain information as you navigate Parkinson's?
I'm not feeling too bad at all. I'm getting a lot of support from UCSF (University of California, San Francisco). They have a good program for people with Parkinson's, and I'm working on trying other treatments before drugs. ... I'm getting a lot of physical therapy. I just read a book by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight. She's a neuroscientist who experienced a stroke on the left side of her brain. It's an amazing book about living from the right side of the brain, which is where artists live all the time. She described it as an "ecstatic" experience. How the brain works is extremely interesting to me now, although the ecstatic experience she describes has eluded me. … I think what's been most helpful are other Parkinson's patients.
You've got a wide array of books on your list. What's your book selection process?
I love to go to independent booksellers. My favorite thing is to go into a bookstore where people know books. ... In San Francisco, there's Browser Books on Fillmore. They always know what I want.
Can you share with our readers what singers leave you marveling?
There are many great singers, but there are several that I put in "the really exalted'' category. The first person that I heard in that category was Pastora Pavon from Spain. I was only 2 when I first heard her on the record player. She was considered to be one of the most important flamenco singers of the 20th century. Later on, I heard Yanka Rupkina from Bulgaria. She's had an influence on many in pop music. If you ask David Crosby about her, for example, he'd rhapsodize about her, and Emmylou Harris loves her, too. I got to sing with Yanka once, and I was thrilled. She brought me Bulgarian rose, an essential oil. Its scent was intoxicating. Actually, I read about Bulgarian rose later in a great book called The Emperor of Scent (by Chandler Burr). It was about (scientist) Luca Turin. Bulgarian rose is a prized perfume around the world.
Since you had both Spanish and English in your home as a child, what was your bedtime reading like then?
My father spoke Spanish, but my mother did not. So the books that we read were in English. We loved reading L. Frank Baum's Oz books with the beautiful art. He was a feminist. I loved the way he was into girl power and, you know, a lot of the things in the Oz books remind me of what the Internet is doing now, like the way his characters would use a magic mirror to see what people were doing. When you get up in the morning and check in with Facebook, it's like that. It's a magic mirror with a Mac.
www.tampabay.com/features/books/whats-linda-ronstadt-reading/2155277
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 15, 2017 0:43:28 GMT -5
It appears that our diplomats in the American Cuban embassy have had destruction to the white matter of the brain. (similar to Parkinson's) However, this destruction could only be caused by some type of microwave pulses. So who would do this? My guess is our own intelligence agencies i.e. CIA who along with the Republicons were completely against our gaining closer ties to the Cuban government and people. With a Republicon president and congress in power they felt comfortable enough to pull this off and cause a withdrawal of our people there.Guinea Pigs: Technologies of Control Paperback – December 8, 2014
by John Hall (Author)
For years the federal government has sought to remotely control human behavior. Starting with the CIA projects MKULTRA and MKSEARCH in the 1950s, the American public has been unwitting guinea pigs in a multitude of non-consensually performed experiments that have continued into the 21st century. Guinea Pigs takes readers on a journey into the darkest corners of U.S. non-consensual experimentation and the various technologies of control that have led to our current surveillance state. The recent revelations regarding the extent of NSA eavesdropping is only the tip of the iceberg. We are currently in an information war and a mind war, where our privacy and autonomy as human beings are at stake. Guinea Pigs will arm you with the information needed to fight back against those who seek to eliminate human free will. Over the coming years, terms like "remote neural monitoring," "brain-mapping," and "electronic harassment" will become household words. To be one step ahead of the game, be prepared for the future with Guinea Pigs. Born in San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo, John Hall is a physician who considers writing his second profession. "Knowing the United States government's dismal track record with regard to experimenting on the public without informed consent, the sheer number of people voicing identical complaints of electronic harassment, and surveillance had to be explored logically." Publisher's website: sbprabooks.com/JohnHall
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 15, 2017 0:47:10 GMT -5
The Making of Donald Trump Paperback – November 14, 2017 by David Cay Johnston (Author)
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER that connects the dots from Donald Trump's racist background to the Russian scandals
"A searing indictment." — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Johnston has given us this year's must-read Trump book." — Lawrence O'Donnell, host of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
The international bestseller that brought Trump's long history of racism, mafia ties, and shady business dealings into the limelight. Now with a New Introduction and Epilogue. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, who had spent thirty years chronicling Donald Trump for the New York Times and other leading newspapers, takes readers from the origins of the Trump family fortune—his grandfather's Yukon bordellos during the Gold Rush—to his tumultuous gambling and real estate dealings in New York and Atlantic City, all the way to his election as president of the United States, giving us a deeply researched and shockingly full picture of one of the most controversial figures of our time.
”Provides useful, vigorously reported overviews of Mr. Trump’s life and career ... Mr. Johnston, who has followed the real estate impresario for nearly three decades, offers a searing indictment of his business practices and creative accounting.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
”David Cay Johnston has given us this year’s must-read Trump book.”—Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC’s The Last Word
”Johnston devastatingly covers ground he broke open as a reporter on the Trump beat in Philadelphia and at The New York Times...The best of investigative reporting is brought to bear on a man who could potentially lead the free world.”—USA Today
”Carefully fleshes out the details of Trump's known biography...with solid documentation.”—Tampa Bay Times
"Johnston's case is unassailable and eye-opening." — The Nation
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Post by erik on Dec 15, 2017 9:29:38 GMT -5
Yes, Mr. Johnston has made the rounds talking about Der Trumpster, especially on each of MSNBC's evening news shows. I have read The Making Of Donald Trump myself, and can attest to every thing being said about it being true. Scathing as hell.
Hopefully one day soon, he can write a sequel, namely, of course, The Unmaking Of Donald Trump.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 2, 2018 13:39:13 GMT -5
Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country – April 1, 2018
by Steve Almond (Author) excerpt: www.pw.org/content/bad_stories_what_the_hell_just_happened_to_our_country
Like a lot of Americans, Steve Almond spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. The problem wasn’t just the election, but the fact that nobody could explain, in any sort of coherent way, why America had elected a cruel, corrupt, and incompetent man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is Almond’s effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices―from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin―to help explain the roots of our moral erosion as a people.
The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. To understand how we got here, we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. Bad Stories is a lamentation aimed at providing clarity. It’s the book you can pass along to an anguished fellow traveler with the promise, This will help you understand what the hell happened to our country.
Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild) had this to say about Bad Stories: "I started reading your book hours ago and I couldn’t stop until I finished and now it’s 1:30am (dammit!). IT IS SO FUCKING GOOD. Bad Stories is among the very few things that have made sense to me when it comes to this damn election. It’s depressing as hell, but also somehow consoling too.” Bad Stories is an effort to make sense of our historical moment. The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. Using literature as a lens, Bad Stories explores our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, and our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. It’s the book you can pass along to anguished fellow travelers with the promise, This will help you understand what the hell happened to our country.
Why Do We Keep Telling Ourselves "Bad Stories?"
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Post by erik on Jul 9, 2018 19:29:21 GMT -5
Before leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg also was involved with planning nuclear war strategies at the Rand Corporation and the Pentagon. In this book, Ellsberg describes in detail that entire history of his, and the whole of the history that surrounds it.
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Post by oldeseadogge on Jul 14, 2018 14:11:18 GMT -5
For something other than politics, I suggest the works of C.S. Lewis. He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, and being an Oxford don presents his material in a logical and very readable manner.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 14, 2018 19:01:17 GMT -5
For something other than politics, I suggest the works of C.S. Lewis. He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, and being an Oxford don presents his material in a logical and very readable manner.
To this day "The Great Divorce" remains my favorite.
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