Spotlight for dvanhorn › home › dvanhorn › rss › spotlight.pdf · 2008-12-31 · OCHA: Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report 28 Dec 2008 16:00 ... to come together on Jan. 17,

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 07:24 GMT

Spotlight for dvanhornSpotlight of David Van Horn. Sources include: Comments for ideological criminal, David Van Horn'sFacebook Posts, David's bookshelf: all, Delicious/dvanhorn, Uploads from dvanhorn, and ideological criminal.

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AFP: Israeli patrol boat collides with aid ship off Gaza

AFP: Israeli patrol boat collides with aid ship off GazaSource: www.google.comAnother activist on theGaza-bound boat, former American congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, said the Israeli actions had beendeliberate.

"Our mission of solidarity and humanitarian relief was deterred by the Israelis purposefully to keep us fromdelivering the medical supplies to Gaza," McKinney told...

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=1482210959&share_id=43208637179#s43208637179

AFP: Israeli patrol boat collides with aid ship off Gaza

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLuXFpr0sUCImA3s-B62ULBFcbUw

Damaged Gaza aid boat docks in southern Lebanon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRghMmgQ1kA

On the Way Out, the SEC Chief?s Non-Mea Culpa - ProPublica

On the Way Out, the SEC Chief?s Non-Mea Culpa - ProPublicaSource: www.propublica.orgHe presidedduring the collapse of the investment banking system and the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, but accordingto head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, none of that was his fault.


On the Way Out, the SEC Chief?s Non-Mea Culpa - ProPublica

http://www.propublica.org/article/on-the-way-out-the-sec-chiefs-non-mea-culpa-1224#6866

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 07:24 GMT / Created by RSS2PDF.com Page 1 of 46

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What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World

author: Noam Chomsky name: David average rating: 4.02 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/30/08 shelves: currently-reading review:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/41265635?utm_medium=api&utm_source=rss

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World

author: Noam Chomsky name: David average rating: 4.09 book published: 2003 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


OCHA: Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report 28 Dec 2008 16:00

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-7MS2K9

The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians



Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America

author: Walter Lafeber name: David average rating: 4.10 book published: 1993 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


Year 501: The Conquest Continues



The U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference

author: William A. Dorman name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 1988 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:




http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-7MS2K9




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The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict

author: Dilip Hiro name: David average rating: 3.83 book published: 1990 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


Hope and Folly: The United States and Unesco, 1945-1985 (Media and Society)

author: William Preston name: David average rating: 0.0 book published: 1989 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


¡Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia

author: Oscar Olivera name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2004 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


Achieving Human Rights

author: Richard Falk name: David average rating: 0.0 book published: 2008 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/30/08 shelves: to-read review:


Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in theOccupied

Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Source: www.unhchr.chThe Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent s evere and massive violations ofinternational humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of anOccupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war. Falk is the UN human rights investigator thatwas recently expelled by Israel.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/17/days_after_calling_israeli_blockade_of


Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in theOccupied Territories







http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/F1EC67EF7A498A30C125752D005D17F7



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http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/F1EC67EF7A498A30C125752D005D17F7?opendocument=

Democracy Now! | 25 Years of the Harper's Index

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/23/25_years_of_the_harpers_index

25 Years of the Harper's Index

25 Years of the Harper's IndexSource: www.democracynow.orgHarper?s Magazine is marking thetwenty-fifth anniversary of its popular monthly feature, the Harper?s Index. The Index reports sometimesfunny, often sobering, political realities through statistics and unusual figures."Minimum number of times thatFrederick Douglass was beaten in what is now Donald Rumsfeld?s vacation home: twenty-five."


Bail Out the People Movement

http://www.bailoutpeople.org/jan17.html

Bail Out the People Movement

Bail Out the People MovementSource: www.bailoutpeople.orgThe Bail Out the People Movement invites youto come together on Jan. 17, 2009 to talk, share and plan to fight back. If there was ever a time for us torecommit ourselves to Dr. King?s struggle for economic social justice.


Gaza massacres must spur us to action

Gaza massacres must spur us to actionSource: electronicintifada.n...A short time earlier, US-supplied IsraeliF-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in theIsraeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations[...] in the middle of civilian areas. The US government w...


ei: Gaza massacres must spur us to action

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml













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FBI?s Complete File on Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/2008/09/fbi_mlk_file/

Carol Chomsky; at 78; Harvard language professor was wife of MIT linguist - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/12/20/carol_chomsky_at_78_harvard_language_professor_was_wife_of_mit_linguist/

Carol Chomsky; at 78; Harvard language professor was wife of MIT linguist - The Boston Globe

Carol Chomsky; at 78; Harvard language professor was wife of MIT linguist - The Boston GlobeSource:www.boston.comBrilliant and accomplished, Carol Chomsky taught for many years at Harvard's GraduateSchool of Education and wrote oft-cited articles about how young children learn to read. And yet, shepossessed talents that didn't easily fit on a curriculum vitae.


Katrina's Hidden Race War

Katrina's Hidden Race WarSource: www.thenation.comWhite vigilante justice tore through New Orleans afterthe storm. But no official investigation has shed light on the violence. See also: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/19/katrinas_hidden_race_war_in_aftermath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF92IrCbp5U


At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item - ProPublica

At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item - ProPublicaSource: www.propublica.orgIn this Frontline interview,Reinhard Siekaczek, a former Siemens executive, describes how bribery was "customary" at the company

This article is a joint report by ProPublica, PBS?s FRONTLINE, the The New York Times, and theInvestigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley. A related documentary will...


At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item - ProPublica


http://www.thememoryhole.org/2008/09/fbi_mlk_file/





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http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/19/katrinas_hidden_race_war_in_aftermath

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http://www.propublica.org/feature/siemens-bribery-1220


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US Complicity in Timor

http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990927/nairn

US Complicity in Timor

US Complicity in TimorSource: www.thenation.comIn his Nation dispatch from East Timor on March 30,1998, Nairn disclosed the continuing US military training of Indonesian troops implicated in the torture andkilling of civilians.Brought to you by the future Director of National Intelligence.


Noam Chomsky interviewed by Gabor Steingart

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Gabor SteingartSource: www.chomsky.infoLooking at it in perspective, thefact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable, its general nature, if not its magnitude.Markets are always inefficient.


SEC Admits it Missed Repeated Warnings on Historic $50B Financial Fraud

SEC Admits it Missed Repeated Warnings on Historic $50B Financial FraudSource: www.democracynow.orgThe Securities and Exchange Commission has admitted it missed repeated opportunities to discover whatmay be the largest financial fraud in history, a multi-billion-dollar pyramid scheme operated by Wall Streetlegend Bernard Madoff. ...


Democracy Now! | Days After Calling Israeli Blockade of Gaza "A Crime Against Humanity," UNHuman Rights Investigator Richard Falk Detained, Expelled from Israel


Democracy Now! | As Madoff Scandal Wipes Out Charities and Foundations, SEC Admits it MissedRepeated Warnings on Historic $50B Financial Fraud

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/17/as_madoff_scandal_wipes_out_charities






http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20081010.htm






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Democracy Now! | Federal Report Finds $100B Failure in US Reconstruction of Iraq

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/17/federal_govt_report_finds_100b_failure

Bush Abortion Rule Finalized Despite Opposition - ProPublica

http://www.propublica.org/article/bush-abortion-rule-finalized-despite-opposition-1218

The United States Has Essentially a One-Party System, Noam Chomsky interviewed by GaborSteingart


William Blum: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

William Blum: Vote First, Ask Questions LaterSource: www.counterpunch.orgThe world is in terrible shape. Idon't think I have to elucidate on that remark. How nice, how marvelously nice it would be to have anAmerican president who was infused with progressive values and political courage.


William Blum: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum12032008.html

Alexander Cockburn: Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Alexander Cockburn: Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American ValuesSource: www.counterpunch.orgTheWashington Post congratulates Obama for steering clear of the slime of Chicago politics, but what actuallyhappened is that Obama moved to richer pastures. Not for him Tony Rezko?s dingy billfold, but the dignity ofanticipatory bri. . . uh, campaign contributions from the Pritzkers, the Crown f...


Alexander Cockburn: Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values


http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/17/federal_govt_report_finds_100b_failure

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Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich, Frank Rich

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/opinion/14rich.html?ex=1387083600&en=7bc4d3c0f83b9e5e&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich

Two Cheers for Rod BlagojevichSource: www.nytimes.comGov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois is a timely nationalwhipping boy for an era of corruption and profound lack of accountability.


Comment on Friel and Falk: The Record of the Paper by admin

Falk in the news: Israel blocks UN rights official http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7784348.stm

http://ideologicalcriminal.ballistichelmet.org/?p=55#comment-7936

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel blocks UN rights official

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel blocks UN rights officialSource: news.bbc.co.ukThe Israeli authorities haveprevented a senior UN human rights official from entering the country, accusing him of being seriously biasedagainst it.


Israel blocks UN rights official

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7784348.stm

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Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah

Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad SalahSource: ideologicalcriminal....The government?sprosecution ofMuhammad Salah?a test case meant to demonstrate how bedrockconstitutional principles governing the admissibility ofcoerced confessions and secret evidence at trial, closedcourtrooms, and cross-examination rights could be stretched inthe post-9/11 era to make U.S. ...


Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah









http://ideologicalcriminal.ballistichelmet.org/?p=89


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Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part I)Michael E. Deutsch and Erica ThompsonJournal of Palestine Studies, Vol 37, no. 4 (Summer 2008), p.38Secrets and Lies: The Persecution ofMuhammad Salah (Part II)Michael E. Deutsch and Erica ThompsonJournal of Palestine Studies, Vol 38, no. 1 (Autumn 2008), p. 25 The U.S. war on terror launched in the wake of the 11September 2001 attacks cleared the way for the George W. Bushadministration's pursuit of neo-conservative foreign anddomestic policy objectives already on the drawing board. Thetragedy also served to extend and deepen the U.S.-Israelipartnership in the U.S. war on terror, both at home andabroad. Within this context, the government's prosecution ofMuhammad Salah-a test case meant to demonstrate how bedrockconstitutional principles governing the admissibility ofcoerced confessions and secret evidence at trial, closedcourtrooms, and cross-examination rights could be stretched inthe post-9/11 era to make U.S. trials resemble Israelimilitary tribunals in the occupied territories-is anoutstanding example of a U.S.-Israeli joint venture in thelegal realm.


Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 TrillionSource: www.bloomberg.comDec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- TheFederal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion ofemergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.


Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGvwttDayiiM&refer=home

Croakwashing? | Center for Media and Democracy

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8061

Naomi Klein: Outside Agitator


http://ideologicalcriminal.ballistichelmet.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/jps200837438.pdf







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Naomi Klein: Outside AgitatorSource: www.newyorker.comResponding to the financial crisis, Klein says,?This is a progressive moment: it?s ours to lose.?MacFarquhar's message seems to be: finally, a leftist thatwears make up. Nonetheless, some of Klein's own substantive message seeps through. The article is better ifyou read it as you should read straight news stories in The New York Times, ie. backwards.

I particularly liked Klein and, her husband, Lewis's attitudes on the hyper-successful marketing of Obama. Weall knew where we stood with McCain, but people, especially young people who are sophisticated consumers(which I frankly expected more of), have drank the Obama kool-aid, believing he is truly our friend and aprogressive leader. This was brought to you in part by an ex-hero of mine: Shepard Fairey. Because of this, Iconsider Obama as the most dangerous pacifier of domestic activism I've seen in my life. Rather than focuson the institutional role he must play, so many have been charmed by the empty, amorphous marketing thathas created the Obama cult of personality.


Edward S. Herman: Neoliberalism and Bottom-Line Morality

Edward S. Herman: Neoliberalism and Bottom-Line MoralitySource: www.zcommunications....From theReagan era onward I have been impressed with how regularly liberal and left-leaning economists I knew, whowent to work in industry and finance, very soon became pro-business, anti-labor, and politically right wing. ...


Neoliberal and Bottom-Line Morality, Edward S. Herman

http://zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/19835

Outside Agitator: Naomi Klein

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/08/081208fa_fact_macfarquhar?currentPage=all

Israeli forces kill two children in Gaza air strike

** Posted using Viigo: Mobile RSS, Sports, Current Events and more ** According to Al Mezan's fieldinvestigations, at approximately 2:25pm, on Tuesday, 2 December 2008, an Israeli scouting drone fired amissile towards a group of children who were playing near their houses, which are located north to the GazaInternational Airport in al-Shouka area, east of Rafah. As a result, two boys were killed: 16-year-old RamziIbrahim al-Dehini and 15-year-old Omar Mosa Abu Udeh.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/electronicIntifada/~3/473805102/article10007.shtml

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http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/19835


http://zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/19835


http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/electronicIntifada/~3/473805102/article10007.shtml

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author: Cormac McCarthy name: David average rating: 4.22 book published: 1979 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/03/08 shelves: currently-reading review:


Empire of the Sun

author: J.G. Ballard name: David average rating: 3.97 book published: 1990 rating: 5 read at: 2008/12/03date added: 12/03/08 shelves: review: Wow. Ballard's first hand account of growing up in Shanghai as WorldWar II broke out. He was immediately separated from his parents and spent the rest of the war on his ownand in various internment camps. This is a motherfucker of a book.


Garrison Keillor, America the cool

Garrison Keillor, America the coolSource: www.salon.comWe are being admired by Swedes! We don't haveto pretend we're Canadians. We elected Barack Obama!


Obama advisers: No charges likely vs interrogators

Obama advisers: No charges likely vs interrogatorsSource: www.google.comBarack Obama's incomingadministration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government workers who authorized or used harshinterrogation techniques during the George W. Bush presidency.


ei: President-elect Obama and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace

ei: President-elect Obama and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peaceSource: electronicintifada.n...


ei: President-elect Obama and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace


Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama's Intelligence




http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/11/12/obama_victory/


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Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama's IntelligenceSource: www.democracynow.orgJohn Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials underGeorge Tenet, are leading Barack Obama's review of intelligence agencies and helping makerecommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping andextraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involv...


Dear Colleague: Common and Uncommon Observations

author: Yi-Fu Tuan name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2002 rating: 4 read at: 2008/11/18date added: 11/18/08 shelves: review: One of the most thoughtful and curious authors I've read. This book isa collection of very short (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37355282?utm_medium=api&utm_source=rss

Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale

author: Chuck Kinder name: David average rating: 4.50 book published: 2001 rating: 5 read at: 2008/11/10date added: 11/10/08 shelves: review: this book is about chuck kinder's friendship with raymond carver,fictionalized about as much as say bukowski's women. it is one of the saddest portraits i've ever read.hilarious, but sad. a wonderful book. i read this book when it came out in 2001. at the time, i didn't know theconnection with raymond carver -- or even who raymond carver was. kinder, and his struggle with writing thisbook, are the basis for michael chabon's main character in wonder boys. (kinder was one of chabon'steachers at u pittsburgh.)


Student Detained After Refusing to Shake Hands with Israel?s President

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/04/18548822.php

Student Detained After Refusing to Shake Hands with Israel?s President : Indybay

Student Detained After Refusing to Shake Hands with Israel?s President : IndybaySource: www.indybay.orgOn November 2, Hebrew University student Ali Bahar was detained for three hours after refusing to shakehands with Israeli president Shimon Peres. Visiting the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Peres wascongratulating students on the opening of the academic year. ...


Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top post


http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/17/obama_taps_ex_cia_officials_tied







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ei: Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top post

ei: Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top postSource: electronicintifada.n...Emanuel is Obama's firsthigh-level appointment and it's one likely to disappointment those who hoped the president-elect would breakwith the George W. Bush Administration's pro-Israel policies


The Quiet American

author: Graham Greene name: David average rating: 4.04 book published: 1955 rating: 4 read at:2008/11/06 date added: 11/06/08 shelves: review: My first Graham Greene book. Now I see what all the fussis about.


A Life of Learning, Yi-Fu Tuan

http://www.acls.org/Publications/OP/Haskins/1998_YiFuTuan.pdf

Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb

author: Mike Davis name: David average rating: 3.67 book published: 2007 rating: 4 read at: 2008/10/31date added: 10/31/08 shelves: review: Davis' brief history documents the car bombs exponential curvingexplosion from the 1920's-era bombing of Wall Street through modern IED-laden Iraq, and really it is a historyof almost all armed struggles since at least the 1980's. The car bomb has been both the "air force of the poor"and a tool of choice for discriminating clandestine forces of developed nations. This is a fascinating book thateasily could have been 1000 pages longer, which is both a feature and a bug. For much of the context to theconflicts Davis addresses, you'll have to look elsewhere. But with excellent end notes, at least it isn't difficultto figure out where to start.


Against Obama

Against ObamaSource: www.thenation.comNever has the dead hand of the past had a "reform" candidate sofirmly by the windpipe.


Beauty Talk and Monsters (Native Agents)






http://www.acls.org/Publications/OP/Haskins/1998_YiFuTuan.pdf


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081110/cockburn


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author: Masha Tupitsyn name: David average rating: 4.42 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: 2008/10/26date added: 10/26/08 shelves: review: I gave up on this one.


Skels: A Novel

author: Maggie Dubris name: David average rating: 4.43 book published: 2004 rating: 5 read at: 2008/10/26date added: 10/26/08 shelves: review: This is the second Dubris book I've read, and for my money, one of thebest living novelists.


Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part I)

Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part I)Source: www.palestine-studie...The story ofMuhammad Salah chronicles the U.S. decision to criminalize the Palestinian resistance movement and,ultimately, to team up with Israel in a joint ?war on terror.? U.S. criminal statutes were ?weaponized? toachieve Bush administration objectives; racketeering lawswere deployed to crimin...


Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part I)

http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=10022&jid=1&href=fulltext

Focus on Israel and Palestine film and lecture series

Focus on Israel and Palestine film and lecture seriesSource: announcements.neu.edu


Life and Letters: In the Ring: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/06/081006fa_fact_mailer?currentPage=all

In the Ring, Norman Mailer

In the Ring, Norman Mailer Source: www.newyorker.com








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Harper at MIT CSAIL

Harper at MIT CSAILSource: www.csail.mit.eduMechanizing the Metatheory of Programming Languages


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Deregulation?s history of empty promises

Deregulation?s history of empty promisesSource: www.fair.orgThe leaders of the nation?s largest cable andtelephone companies are telling lawmakers something familiar: New national policies are required to connecteveryone to what they call a ?superbroadband? Internet highway. If Washington supports their politica


Deregulation?s history of empty promises

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3423

Just Metzner'd

Just Metzner'dSource: flickr.comPhotos from Erin and Jared's wedding.


David Foster Wallace (Harper's Magazine)










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http://harpers.org/archive/2008/09/hbc-90003557

Obama: The Price of Being Black - The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21771

Obama: The Price of Being Black - The New York Review of Books

Obama: The Price of Being Black - The New York Review of BooksSource: www.nybooks.comObstacles togetting blacks to vote have always been formidable, but this year there will be barriers?some new, somelong-standing?that previous campaigns have not had to face.


Restoring the Right to Vote | Brennan Center for Justice

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/restoring_the_right_to_vote/

Restoring the Right to Vote | Brennan Center for Justice

Restoring the Right to Vote | Brennan Center for JusticeSource: www.brennancenter.or...The right to voteforms the core of American democracy. Our history is marked by successful struggles to expand thefranchise, to include those previously barred from the electorate because of race, class, or gender. ...


CJR: It Really Is That Bad

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/it_really_is_this_bad.php

CJR: It Really Is That Bad

CJR: It Really Is That BadSource: www.cjr.orgPeople ask me if the business press has acted responsibly indescribing the panic currently consuming global financial institutions and markets?what with the use of wordslike ?momentous,? ?unprecedented,? ?historic,? etc.?and I tell them yes. ...













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Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight - WSJ.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169431617549947.html

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight - WSJ.com

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight - WSJ.comSource: online.wsj.comThe financial crisis thatbegan 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.

Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad betson mortgages have evaporated. New fault lines are emerging beyond the original problem -- troubled su...


The News Literacy Project

http://www.thenewsliteracyproject.org/

The News Literacy Project

The News Literacy ProjectSource: www.thenewsliteracyproject.orgThe News Literacy Project


The war they all agree on | SocialistWorker.org

The war they all agree on | SocialistWorker.orgSource: socialistworker.orgDespite new evidence of atrocitiescarried out by U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan, the two U.S. ruling parties are escalating the war.


The war they all agree on | SocialistWorker.org

http://socialistworker.org/2008/09/11/the-war-they-agree-on

David Foster Wallace (Harper's Magazine)

David Foster Wallace (Harper's Magazine)Source: harpers.orgPDFs of all of DFW's writing for Harper's.














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www.nytimes.com

www.nytimes.comSource: www.nytimes.comA punch in the stomach. My hero... Fuck.


David Foster Wallace, Influential Writer, Dies at 46 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Invisible Violence


ei: A new Palestinian strategy or the same failed one?


Op-Ed Columnist - Palin and McCain?s Shotgun Marriage - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07rich.html?ex=1378440000&en=20cbb79ef0bedc51&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

Ron Paul to call for voters to rebuff both Barack Obama and John McCain | Top of the Ticket | LosAngeles Times

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/ron-paul-to-cal.html

FIRE - Red Alert: Brandeis University

FIRE - Red Alert: Brandeis UniversitySource: thefire.orgToday, Brandeis University joins FIRE's Red Alertlist, a distinction afforded to colleges and universities that act with severe and ongoing disregard for thefundamental rights of their students or faculty members. ...










http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/ron-paul-to-cal.html

http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8983.html


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The Death of Media: And the Fight to Save Democracy (Melville Manifestos)

author: Danny Schechter name: David average rating: 4.17 book published: 2005 rating: 4 read at:2008/09/09 date added: 09/09/08 shelves: review: Schechter's little book on the death of media and theemerging new media is thoughtful, reasoned, and inspiring. Worth reading even if you already know what'sup.


The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

author: Lawrence Lessig name: David average rating: 3.97 book published: 2002 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 09/09/08 shelves: to-read review:


RNC in a minute

RNC in a minuteSource: video.236.com


Op-Ed Columnist - Palin and McCain?s Shotgun Marriage - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Palin and McCain?s Shotgun Marriage - Op-Ed - NYTimes.comSource: www.nytimes.comJohn McCain?s speed-dating of Sarah Palin reaffirmed that his decision-making process is impetuous and, inits Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless.


Informed Comment

http://www.juancole.com/

Failing to Use the 1st Amendment to Defend the Bill of Rights

Failing to Use the 1st Amendment to Defend the Bill of RightsSource: www.fair.orgThe striking new midtownManhattan tower of the New York Times seats all of the writers and editors together in one giant dual-storyopen plan. But this, it seems, is not enough to forge story conversations between neighb


Nieman Watchdog > Commentary > How deep is the candidates? faith in the Constitution?




http://video.236.com/services/player/bcpid1612766543?bctid=1776561712




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Nieman Watchdog > Commentary > How deep is the candidates? faith in the Constitution?Source:www.niemanwatchdog.o...John Hanrahan writes that the moderators in the presidential debates need to aska question like this one, first posed by reporter Charlie Savage: ?Is there any executive power the Bushadministration ...


Failing to Use the 1st Amendment to Defend the Bill of Rights


The Real Power of Human Energy

The Real Power of Human EnergySource: www.rebelliouspixels.comThis remix corrects the identity of theChevron corporation and its Orwellian multi-million dollar ?Human Energy? greenwashing campaign. In thiscorrected commercial the company?s true nature is exposed for what it is, a heartless profit-driven oilmachine. The Chevron corporation is not only an eco...Wow. I've been a fan of Jonathan McIntosh'sphotography for several years; these new "corrections" are strong.


banksy tags New Orleans on 3rd katrina anniv

banksy tags New Orleans on 3rd katrina annivSource: flickr.comThis recent New Orleans stuff is heartbreaking. Be sure to see his Palestine stuff too.


Richard Feynman explains the feeling of confusion

Richard Feynman explains the feeling of confusionSource: www.youtube.comFeeling of confusionSo I alwaysfeel stupid.


Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat | Video on TED.com

Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat | Video on TED.comSource: www.ted.comTED Talks In thisfiery and funny talk from the EG Conference, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what'swrong with the way we eat (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking). ...Iuse Bittman's cookbook all the time and watch his videos on nytimes, but this was fantastic: home cooking isa radical act.



http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=277



http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2008/recent-political-remix-videos


http://flickr.com/photos/anthonyturducken/sets/72157606971636794/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lytxafTXg6c


http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html


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I-Witness Video Blog: St. Paul Police use bogus "hostage" claim to seek entry to I-Witness Video off

I-Witness Video Blog: St. Paul Police use bogus "hostage" claim to seek entry to I-Witness Video offSource:iwitnessvideo.infoall Freemen ... have a Right publickly to remonstrate the Abuses of Power, in the strongestTerms, to put their Neighbours upon their Guard, against the Craft or open Violence of Men in Authority, andto assert with Courage the Sense they have of the Blessings of Liberty


Is the Internet an Effective Forum for Public Debate?

Is the Internet an Effective Forum for Public Debate?Source: www.youtube.comComplete video at: http://fora.tv/2007/10/27/Battle_of_Ideas_Digital_Commons Liberal author and columnist Alexander Cockburnargues that the so-called "Digital Commons" has not evolved into an effective forum for public debate. ...


Critical Mass Bicyclist Assaulted by NYPD

Critical Mass Bicyclist Assaulted by NYPDSource: www.youtube.comcontext: http://www.glassbeadcollective.org/cm0307.htm This video has been made possible by an anonymous touristand members of the Time's Up! Environmental Group, Glass Bead Collective, and I-Witness Video.


The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

author: Erik Larson name: David average rating: 3.93 book published: 2003 rating: 3 read at: 2008/09/05date added: 09/05/08 shelves: review: Really this is two books, weaved together by, as far as I can tell,alternating chapters. One is that of the World's Fair (but is it?) in Chicago in 1893 revolving mostly aroundDaniel Burnham, the fair's chief architect. The other is that of Dr. H. H. Holmes, America's first documentedserial killer. The former is a fascinating story of a time when Americans still dreamed big. The fair was largelyconceived in response to the Paris fair of 1889, the one that gave the world the Eiffel tower. The Americanarchitects sought primarily to out Eiffel Eiffel, putting Chicago (and the US) on the cultural forefront. Itsucceeded, despite an abundance of impossibilities. The fair had a number of historical consequences.Architectural innovations in foundations lead to the proliferation of skyscrapers. Spray paint was invented toquickly paint the fair buildings. The labor movement was largely advanced by the demands workers put onthe fair organization. The country moved from DC to AC power because of the fair. Our answer to Eiffel camein the form of a wheel from a guy named Ferris. Shredded Wheat, bellying dancing, etc. It's really afascinating and worthwhile story. The other story is not. As I was reading the Holmes story, I kept thinking thewriting was a bad imitation of Capote. So it was no surprise to see In Cold Blood listed as a source ofinspiration in the end notes. But it just doesn't add up. Larson makes frequent use of the ten o'clock newsstyle "hangers" trying to leave you in suspense, but only left me irritated. And although Holmes was clearly apsychopath, I never really felt the terror (unlike In Cold Blood). I would've much rather seen a more in depthbook about the fair. In particular I would like to've read more about the architectural influence of the fairbuildings. It clearly had an large impact on building design and city planning. And these things are touchedupon, I just wanted more.



http://iwitnessvideo.info/blog/109.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvqRztOP-H8

http://fora.tv/2007/10/27/Battle_of_Ideas_Digital_Commons


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ

http://www.glassbeadcollective.org/cm0307.htm



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Democracy Now! | Eight Members of RNC Activist Group Lodged With Terrorism Charges

Democracy Now! | Eight Members of RNC Activist Group Lodged With Terrorism ChargesSource:www.democracynow.orgRamsey County prosecutors have formally charged eight members of a prominentactivst group with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. The eight members of the RNC WelcomingCommittee are believed ...


Amy Goodman Arrested at RNC

Amy Goodman Arrested at RNCSource: www.youtube.comDemocracy Now's Amy Goodman, Sharif AbdelKouddous and Nicole Salazar were arrested by the Minneapolis Police Department. Charged with conspiracyto riot. Footage from Rick Rowley and Brandon Jourdan.


Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster

author: Michael Eric Dyson name: David average rating: 3.91 book published: 2006 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 08/29/08 shelves: to-read review:


Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software (Hardcover)

author: Ben Klemens name: David average rating: 4.12 book published: 2005 rating: 1 read at: date added:08/11/08 shelves: to-read review: I thought this book was confused and poorly written. I don't know -- maybe Ijust have a bad attitude (Hawley liked it!?). The author bastardizes the Curry-Howard isomorphism, one of themore important observations on the connection between formal logic and programming languages (of a veryspecific kind), which has a very technical meaning to it. I guess it's nothing new, in popular literature there arean uncountable number of cringe worthy discussions of uncertainty, relativity, incompleteness, etc. But nowthis fucker has stepped on my turf. I had a hard time taking him seriously after that and couldn't bring myselfto finish it.


Bright Shiny Morning

author: James Frey name: David average rating: 3.67 book published: 2008 rating: 0 read at: date added:08/11/08 shelves: currently-reading review:


The Man Who Knew Infinity


http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/4/eight_members_of_rnc_activist_group


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ





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author: Robert Kanigel name: David average rating: 3.85 book published: 1992 rating: 3 read at: 2008/08/02date added: 08/06/08 shelves: review: A lovely biography of Ramanujan.


When You Are Engulfed in Flames

author: David Sedaris name: David average rating: 3.92 book published: 2008 rating: 2 read at: 2008/07/30date added: 08/06/08 shelves: review: I bought this book in the airport (of course). I was just in fromBarcelona to Newark, and faced a five hour wait before my connection. And since Sedaris is at his best whenyou're jettlagged on the ass end of international travel, irritated, brain dead, and over caffinated, naturally Iwas somewhat relieved to find a new Sedaris book among the crap at the airport bookstore. But after that itwas mostly a series of dissapointments. Turns out, I had already read most of this book---most of it appearedin the New Yorker. Also it turns out, I don't really like David Sedaris. Sure, he's funny. But you're basicallyreading the diary of a man who more or less does nothing but write in his diary and then makes a living beingshuttled around the world to read out loud from this diary. It might be funny, but there's no there there. It's justcorn syrup and food coloring.


Snuff

author: Chuck Palahniuk name: David average rating: 3.02 book published: 2008 rating: 1 read at:2008/08/06 date added: 08/06/08 shelves: review: This book is like actual pornography: mostly boring andunbelievable. Read Miller's Opus Pistorum instead.


Subculture: The Meaning of Style (New Accents)

author: Dick Hebdige name: David average rating: 3.99 book published: 1981 rating: 4 read at: 2008/07/20date added: 07/20/08 shelves: review:


Surveillance Means Security!: Remixed War Propaganda

author: Micah Ian Wright name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2006 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 05/16/08 shelves: to-read review:


Geoffrey Millard | Interview With Seymour Hersh

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021408A.shtml







http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021408A.shtml

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Balloon Juice: A Juxtaposition

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9672

YouTube - john.he.is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs

Programming in Haskell

author: Graham Hutton name: David average rating: 4.40 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 02/11/08 shelves: to-read review:


With Trotsky in Exile: From Prinkipo to Coyoacâan

author: Jean Van Heijenoort name: David average rating: 3.00 book published: 1978 rating: 3 read at:2008/02/10 date added: 02/10/08 shelves: review: OK, so probably not for everyone. Jean van Heijenoortserved as Trotsky assistant and bodyguard, starting when he (JvH) was 20 and Trotsky had been exiled toTurkey. JvH worked with Trotsky for the next seven years before returning to the foundations of mathematics.He's responsible for maybe the most important book in the field of symbolic logic and the foundations ofcomputer science (although most computer scientist don't know this): From Frege to Godel. He was laterkilled by his fourth wife, shot in the back of the head in a murder-suicide. Oh, and he was a professor ofphilosophy at Brandeis for a number of years. Anita Feferman wrote a biography of his life called Politics,Logic, and Love (there seems to be an alternative version of the book From Trotsky to Godel, but the one Iread was Politics, Logic, and Love). It's a bit greasy, as all too many biographies are, but it's worth a read. Soto say the least, the guy had an interesting life. Maybe hero is the wrong word, but I've admired his story forsome time, and there's at least some superficial overlap in our interests/politics/etc. With Trotsky in Exile ismeant not really as a memoir, although it is, but perhaps with less sentimentality and reflection than youmight hope, but rather it is intended to supplement (and correct) the collective history on Trotsky's years inTurkey, France, Norway, and finally Mexico after his exile, by providing van Heijenoort's unique perspective.If you're interested in Trotsky, I'm sure there are more general and comprehensive books that should be readfirst. Me, I'm interested in van Heijenoort himself, so this book was a must and it delivered.


War: The Lethal Custom

author: Gwynne Dyer name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2006 rating: 0 read at: date added:02/10/08 shelves: to-read review:



http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9672

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The Wretched of the Earth

author: Frantz Fanon name: David average rating: 4.32 book published: 2005 rating: 0 read at: date added:02/10/08 shelves: to-read review:


The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel

author: Mark Leyner name: David average rating: 3.81 book published: 1998 rating: 2 read at: 2008/02/08date added: 02/09/08 shelves: review: I've been trying to track down somebody I like as much as DFW, andLeyner gets thrown in with him occasionally. Like I saw him, DFW, and Jonathan Franzen on an old CharlieRose show. In it, Leyner says he tries to really "delight" his reader, which he expands on in Tetherballs itself,in which the main character, Mark Leyner, is reading the film review he wrote of his own movie (aptly namedThe Tetherballs of Bougainville) that he never made, but only reviewed (all of which is taking place in thescreenplay he has written the night before being awarded the best-screenplay award from his high school --yeah, it's one of those): "This is a movie that consistently subordinates meaning to titillation. And it is a moviethat perpetually teeters between puerile perversity and puerile sentimentality. But between the perversity andthe sentimentality, like a gleaming sliver of light emerging from between abutting slabs, there is---dare I sayit---an element of /grace/." Except there isn't (and simply uttering "this book has an element of grace" doesn'tactually it endow it with said element). I mean there are some laugh out loud funny moments, but more oftenthan not, I was fucking bored as shit and in parts I felt kind of embarassed for Leyner. Like when the maincharacter and his monkey, who is really his incognito father, write a number of best-selling novels underpseudonyms like "Michael Chabon", "Donna Tartt", "Douglas Coupland", "Jennifer Belle"---and yes, you getthe idea, but no, the fucking list goes on and on because Leyner has to drag every thing out until you want topuke blood---"Colin Harrison", "Tibor Fischer", "Jeffrey Eugenides", "Jonathan Franzen", "Junot Diaz", "MartinAmis", "Bret Easton Ellis", "Mona Simpson", "Peter Hoeg", "David Foster Wallace", and more. I suppose thispasses for delight in the same way that reading the phone book does. There's some really funny shit in here,but a) that's not enough to make a book good and b) Leyner seems to do everything he can to drown what'sgood in the book under this overwhelming, self-referencing / -consuming / -defecating absurdity.


In Persuasion Nation

author: George Saunders name: David average rating: 3.99 book published: 2007 rating: 3 read at:2008/02/09 date added: 02/09/08 shelves: review: I read half this book, decided it was funny and absurd, butnot really my cup of meat. So I put it down and read Mark Leyner's The Tehterballs of Bougainville, whichproduced a kind of violent reaction on a glandular level. After that I returned to In Persuasion Nation andsuddenly it seemed so much more approachable. The last three stories are the strongest, and I thinkSaunders is at his best when he is his most autobiographical---in this case with Bohemians. Sure, that'sprobably not what you read a GS book for, but I don't care. Anyway, the point is the book really comes onstrong at the end, and I ended up really enjoying it. On the back cover it says GS was awarded a McArthurgenius grant for "bringing to contemporary American fiction a sense of humor, pathos, and literary style all hisown." I looked up pathos---I mean, I more or less knew the word, but probably couldn't have written down asufficient definition, so I wanted to double check. My beat up old Webster's says: "the quality or power ofevoking pity or compassion." Yep, that's what Saunders has in spades.






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Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs

author: Gilles Deleuze name: David average rating: 3.91 book published: 1991 rating: 1 read at: 2008/02/03date added: 02/03/08 shelves: review: I give up. It was just too boring.


ESCAPISM

author: Yi-Fu Tuan name: David average rating: 3.86 book published: 1998 rating: 5 read at: 2008/01/26date added: 02/03/08 shelves: review: I had no idea this is what "Geographers" wrote about. Maybe it isn't.Tuan looks at what it means to be human, with all its weirdness, contradictions, and possibility. What isimagination? Culture? Sex? Violence? Art? Escape? It's the smartest, plainest, most earnest book I've readin years.


Pastoralia

author: George Saunders name: David average rating: 4.28 book published: 2001 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 01/14/08 shelves: to-read review:


The Innocents

author: Taryn Simon name: David average rating: 4.58 book published: 2003 rating: 4 read at: 2008/01/01date added: 01/13/08 shelves: review: Another great book of photos by Taryn Simon. The subjects have allbeen convicted of crimes and subsequently, often years later, cleared. Many are photographed at the site oftheir alleged crime. It is really chilling stuff. See her other book Hidden and Unfamiliar, for sure.


Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

author: Taryn Simon name: David average rating: 4.77 book published: 2007 rating: 5 read at: 2008/01/01date added: 01/13/08 shelves: review: When I was in Frankfurt in late September, I went to the Museum fürModerne Kunst and happened to catch the opening of Taryn Simon?s An American Index of the Hidden andUnfamiliar. I was blown away. Simon?s photography is both stunning in its asthetics and astounding in itssubjects. Moreover, the irony of having to travel to Germany to get a glimpse of a young and powerful artistexposing the unseeable in American culture and society was not lost on me. I didn?t make the connection atthe time, but I knew of Simon?s earlier work from a New Yorker article about her book The Innocents, whosesubjects have been accused and convicted of crimes they did not commit, often photographing them at thesite of the crime. Simon?s work is smart beyond her years; each piece carries with it its full semantics andrattling insight into the pathology of everyday American life, and yet the whole is greater than the sum of itsparts.








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The Braindead Megaphone

author: George Saunders name: David average rating: 3.91 book published: 2007 rating: 4 read at:2008/01/01 date added: 01/13/08 shelves: review: There is a nice confluence between this book and DFW'sConsider the Lobster-- in particular the last of Wallace's essays, which is on American talk radio, seguesseamlessly into the Saunders' first essay, "The Braindead Megaphone", which is as good an essay on thedumbing influence of mainstream media as I've ever read. Oh, and it's fucking hilarious, which when youthink about it, why shouldn't it be? So I had never read GS before, neither his fiction nor non-fiction, and DFWis a hard act to follow, let me tell you. But they write with a similar style, both tending to write about writingwhat you are now reading and often openly discussing the difficulties of being lucid, which (paradoxically?)makes for more lucid writing. Saunders is less "brainy", if you want to call it that. Whereas DFW is nervous inthe high-strung neurotic sense and is constantly worried about seeming pretentious, which itself is a kind ofpretension, GS is more comfortable in his skin, his open-mindedness, pacifism, and general wonder in theworld. The gems for me were: the title essay, the essays on writing---namely "Thank You, Esther Forbes","Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra", and to a lesser extent (gem-wise, not writing-subject-wise) "The Perfect Gerbil"and his introduction to Huck Finn (that's got to stroke the ego, eh?), which he more or less steals (payshommage, whatever) to Vonnegut's Slaugherhouse Five by opening with his own difficulties undertakingthe---understably---daunting task of writing an intro (which you are at this moment reading) to what might bethe greatest American novel ever written (if you believe Hemingway, for example). Some of the otheressays---more overtly satirical---I liked, but is just Not My Cup of Tea and reads more like Jack Handey's stuffin Shouts & Murmurs of the New Yorker. What's left are his travel essays for GQ, which frankly I wouldn'thave been heart-broken to miss. Again though, I should say it was good and as far as typical travel writinggoes its really good; just NMCoT. In short, what you'd really like is not more GS books, but more people likeGS inahbiting the world---or at least the US. He approaches writing with humor, humility, doubt, and anappreciation for how difficult it is to get through the things that really suck in life. Until everyone swallows thereflective-thoughtful-nice-funny-person pill, let's be grateful at least we can read GS' books.


Deschooling Society (Open Forum)

author: Ivan Illich name: David average rating: 4.17 book published: 1999 rating: 4 read at: 2008/01/01 dateadded: 01/13/08 shelves: review: Illich questions the basic assumption that most liberal (or for that matternon-liberal) people in the US have: more educational = more gooder. Attacking the idea that compulsoryschooling is constructive, Illich offers one of the more radical analyses of the educational system I've everheard of of, much less read. What, after all, is the relation between schooling and learning, if any? Assomeone who has spent a huge portion (like one over one) of their life in school and now teaches at auniversity, I found this book seriously compelling. You might not swallow Deschooling wholesale, but Illichshines the light on so many of the unspoken (I know I'm mixing metaphors here) axioms of the educationalsystem---always a healthy endeavor---and challenges us to either defend or discard.


Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays




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author: David Foster Wallace name: David average rating: 4.12 book published: 2005 rating: 4 read at:2008/01/01 date added: 01/12/08 shelves: review: Since I've loved everything else I've ever read by DFW,which has been everything else he's ever written (except for that 1990 book he co-wrote on rap, which I didn'teven know existed until a few days ago), I don't know why it took me so long to finally get around to this one.But of course I loved it. So what does one say about DFW? Shit, I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable toeven try, so I'll only say this: I feel really sorry for whoever it is that has to write his book jackets, and whoeverit is did a remarkably horrible job on this one. OK, I'll say one more thing: it speaks to a writer's ability whenthey can review an English usage dictionary and you think it is the most profound book review you've everread, and one of the more profound essays on writing you've ever read, and despite the fact that you readthis essay on a red-eye from Portland to Boston and were zombie-tired walking home at some god awfulearly hour, you went out of your way to try to find this usage dictionary at your local independent booksellerso as to commence reading it cover to cover. Some things to ponder: what do these essays have incommon? They're written and published over a really broad time period, many pre-9/11, and as Adam pointsout, there is a serious nerdishness to them (see above re usage dictionaries), and they're---I think---his mostovertly political and self-doubtful essays. Worth it, for sure.


Before Night Falls: A Memoir

author: Reinaldo Arenas name: David average rating: 4.19 book published: 2001 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 01/11/08 shelves: to-read review:


How to Be Alone: Essays

author: Jonathan Franzen name: David average rating: 3.66 book published: 2003 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 01/09/08 shelves: to-read review:


Democracy in America (Penguin Classics)

author: Alexis de Tocqueville name: David average rating: 4.01 book published: 1835 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 01/01/08 shelves: to-read review:


You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive

author: Seth Tobocman name: David average rating: 4.25 book published: 1999 rating: 4 read at: dateadded: 12/29/07 shelves: review: This book has a great spirit and sense of humor. Really lovely stuff. Cameacross it by chance in a used bookstore in Somerville.








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The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy

author: Howard Friel name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2004 rating: 4 read at: 2007/12/01date added: 12/28/07 shelves: review: Howard Friel and Richard Falk?s The Record of the Paper: How theNew York Times Misreports Us Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004) is a blistering indictment of the New York Timescoverage of foreign policy over the past fifty years, with particular emphasis on the years following September11, 2001, the invasion and subsequent occupation and torture of Iraq, up until the manuscript?s deadline ofJune 2004. The book also examines the US backed coup attempt of Hugo Chavez, the World Court case ofNicaragua versus the US, the Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam war. It chronicles the paper?s record ofignoring international law (from September 11 2001 to March 21 2003, the editorial page never mentioned thewords ?UN Charter? or ?international law? in the seventy editorials on Iraq), the consequences of it?seditorial policy of ?non-crusading? journalism (as ?former reporter and a former editor [John L. Hess andAurthur Gelb, respectively:] at the Time have pointed out, the Times applied its ?non-crusading? standard ofeditorial policy equally to housing corruption in New York City and to Hitler?s campaign in Europe?), and itslegacy of ?impartial? news coverage, which leaves the Times ideological on both sides of any given issue(see the chapter on Michael Ignatieff?s case for and against torture before and after Abu Graib for adevastating example of this). But more importantly, Friel and Falk highlight the relevant facts andconsiderations that necessarily become unspeakable by extension of the Times? neglect of international law.(Read more at ideological criminal).


Friel and Falk: The Record of the Paper


http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/2007/12/28/friel-and-falk-the-record-of-the-paper/


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Howard Friel and Richard Falk?s The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports Us ForeignPolicy (Verso, 2004) is a blistering indictment of the New York Times coverage of foreign policy over the pastfifty years, with particular emphasis on the years following September 11, 2001, the invasion and subsequentoccupation and torture of Iraq, up until the manuscript?s deadline of June 2004. The book also examines theUS backed coup attempt of Hugo Chavez, the World Court case of Nicaragua versus the US, the Gulf ofTonkin and the Vietnam war. It chronicles the paper?s record of ignoring international law (from September11 2001 to March 21 2003, the editorial page never mentioned the words ?UN Charter? or ?internationallaw? in the seventy editorials on Iraq), the consequences of it?s editorial policy of ?non-crusading? journalism(as ?former reporter and a former editor [John L. Hess and Aurthur Gelb, respectively] at the Time havepointed out, the Times applied its ?non-crusading? standard of editorial policy equally to housing corruption inNew York City and to Hitler?s campaign in Europe?), and its legacy of ?impartial? news coverage, whichleaves the Times ideological on both sides of any given issue (see the chapter on Michael Ignatieff?s case forand against torture before and after Abu Graib for a devastating example of this).But more importantly, Frieland Falk highlight the relevant facts and considerations that necessarily become unspeakable by extension ofthe Times? neglect of international law. For example, the following facts could not be uttered in regards to theUS invasion of Iraq without appeal to international law, paraphrasing from the text: The US and UK repeatedly threatened the use of force against a UN member state without Security Councilauthorization in violation of UN Charter Article 2(4), which stipulates, ?All members shall refrain in theirinternational relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independenceof any state [?]?.No Security Council resolution issued since 1991 has authorized the threat or use of forceagainst Iraq.Iraq has not attacked any state since 1990; it has never attacked or threatened to attack the USor UK.Claims that Iraq intended to attack the US or any state indirectly by providing WMD to terroristnetworks were speculative and self-serving and lacked credible evidence.The ?preventive? use of force,including an armed attack against Iraq, as a response to prospective terrorist threat from Iraq violated the UNCharter and fundamental principles of international law with respect to the prohibition of the use offorce.Failure to comply with disarmament obligations is insufficient as cause for threat or use of forceaccording to UN Charter Article 51.No Security Council resolution has stipulated failure to comply withdisarmament obligations as being sufficient as cause for threat or use of force.The resort to force in theabsence of a resolution and any credible evidence of an imminent threat of armed attack violated not only theUN Charter; it also constituted a war of aggression and, thus, a crime against peace under the Nurembergprecedent. All of these points, of course, are central to any evaluation of US policy towards Iraq, and even though the US?in large part established [the Nuremberg] precedent as an expression of global condemnation of Naziaggression, the Bush administration not only violated Nuremberg-related law by invading Iraq, it do so withouteven a mention from the New York Times that such laws were violated or even existed.? Thus the Times isguilty of ?not only a conspiracy but the commission of a war of aggression under international law.?

So, dual to their exposition on the Times is a full measure of US foreign policy against the rubric ofinternational law. As they state in the Introduction:

It is our judgment, supported by a consensus of international law experts from around the world, that theUnited States government has repeatedly violated international law with respect to its war-making over thepast half-century or so, resulting in unjustifiable death and destruction, as well as diminishing the quality ofworld order.

The exposition of a case against the last fifty years of US foreign policy according to international law makesthe book worth reading in and of itself. The authors first citation is to a privately circulated memorandum bythe international law expert, Howard N. Meyer, ?On Not Taking International Law Seriously?. The essay laysout the book, more or less, in miniature, both in terms of the US violation of international law and the Timessilence. I was able to find an expanded small collection of letters by Meyer, ?No Regrets About IgnoringInternational Law?, which is available as a doc from the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions. I?vemade it available in pdf and html on ideological criminal. If you only have a minute, read the essay. If you


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Falk

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9781844675838


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hess

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Gelb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff

http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/Meyer_ignoring_int%27l_law.doc

http://www.pegc.us/

http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/files/Meyer_international_law.pdf

http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/files/Meyer_international_law.html

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have a couple hours (and you should), read the book, it?s good.

One can tell that the book was put together in a fairly hasty manner. It?s clear that the book is coveringevents up until the final moments of publishing. There are typographical problems. There are editingproblems. The two authors never seem to find a common voice. There are very clearly two tones in the book,the predominant one of international legalese and another more impolitic one that shoots from the hip withawkward analogies (you decide which is which). There is a fair amount of copy & paste from previouscritiques by the author with regards to US foreign policy and international law, but none if it is unwelcome orunnecessary. Friel and Falk have a companion volume, Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York TimesMisreports Conflict in the Middle East, and I would expect a fair amount of redundancy (or perhaps it is moreaccurate to say ?scaffolding?) in this volume. But so what? The books are interesting beyond any superficialflaws. Moreover, the framework of international law is essential to our understanding of current events yetcompletely absent from mainstream analysis. Friel and Falk are able to speak comprehensively about currentevents and their context in a timely way. They offer a view of what newspapers could look like if they upheldtheir mandate.

Friel and Falk conclude by suggesting an editorial policy to replace its current ?non-crusading? one with oneborrowing language from the federal judiciary, which applies ?strict scrutiny? on issues of fundamentalConstitutional rights, whereas a criteria of ?rational basis? is applied for limiting non-fundamental rights forthe sake of public health and safety. So for example,

[T]he Times applied, at best, only a ?rational basis? test to whether the United States should bomb NorthVietnam in response to the reported attacks on US ships in the Tonkin Gulf, when a ?strict scrutiny? testwould have showed that bombing North Vietnam violated international law under these circumstances.Applying a strict scrutiny standard journalistically to the US involvement in Vietnam, beginning at least since1954, might have prevented, or at least discouraged, the full-blown war in Vietnam that followed, because itmight have made the government?s twenty-year record of violating international law and misrepresentingimportant facts with respect to Vietnam impossible to sustain, or even initiate.

In short, an editorial policy of ?strict scrutiny? would apply the most rigorous standards of journalistic reviewto news events and conditions that implicate war and peace, human survival, human rights, the globalenvironment, and fundamental principles of the UN Charter and US Constitution.

That doesn?t sound so bad, does it?


The Struggle for Water: Increasing Demands on a Vital Resource (Sourcebook on ContemporaryControversies) (Sourcebook on Contemporary Controversies)

author: Aaron Fishbone name: David average rating: 5.00 book published: 2007 rating: 5 read at: dateadded: 12/28/07 shelves: to-read review: Just wanted to point out Aaron's book for everyone who knows him(and everyone who doesn't, but should).


The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy




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author: Lingua Franca name: David average rating: 4.22 book published: 2000 rating: 0 read at: date added:12/03/07 shelves: to-read review:


Civilization and Its Discontents

author: Sigmund Freud name: David average rating: 3.67 book published: 1930 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/03/07 shelves: to-read review:


The Essence of Capitalism: The Origins of Our Future

author: Humphrey McQueen name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2003 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 12/03/07 shelves: to-read review:


Hidden and Unfamiliar

When I was in Frankfurt in late September, I went to the Museum für Moderne Kunst and happened to catchthe opening of Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar. I was blown away. Simon'sphotography is both stunning in its asthetics and astounding in its subjects. Moreover, the irony of having totravel to Germany to get a glimpse of a young and powerful artist exposing the unseeable in American cultureand society was not lost on me. I didn't make the connection at the time, but I knew of Simon's earlier workfrom a New Yorker article about her book The Innocents, whose subjects have been accused and convictedof crimes they did not commit, often photographing them at the site of the crime. Simon's work is smartbeyond her years; each piece carries with it its full semantics and rattling insight into the pathology ofeveryday American life, and yet the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The MMK was also exhibited photographs from Larry Clark's haunting Tulsa, which documentsmethamphetamine use among Clark and his friends, including a photo of a young pregnant woman shootingup meth. Another connection I didn't make at the time was that Clark is the director of the film Kids.


I, Claud: Memoirs of a Subversive (Counterpunch)

author: Claud Cockburn name: David average rating: 0.0 book published: 2008 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/17/07 shelves: to-read review:


Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East





http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de/

http://www.tarynsimon.com/



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author: Howard Friel name: David average rating: 5.00 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/17/07 shelves: to-read review:


Another Century of War?

author: Gabriel Kolko name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 2002 rating: 5 read at: 2004/01/01date added: 11/17/07 shelves: review: I regard Kolko as the best of modern historians. This little book saysmore to put the current conflicts in the context of historical hegemony, short-sighted opportunism, and theconsquences of "realist" politics, than any other tome regardless of heft. Published in 2002, before theinvasion and occupation of Iraq, it still offers a firm foundation for analysis of that and most likely any futureconflict the US will engage in.


Scahill: Blackwater




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Jeremy Scahill won me over when we was reporting for Democracy Now! on the 2004 presidential election. Wesley Clark was in New Hampshire campaigning just days before the primary. The usual campaigncoverage is a about as informative as a dog turd. Everyone is in softie mode- journalists, politicians, publiccitizens. And in the midst of it, a young reporter walks up to Clark who is making his way down the streetkissing babies, etc. And Scahill opens: "In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium...".(See the rest of the confrontation here).

So when his book Blackwater was announced, about the mercenary firm of the same name made famous byimages of burnt remains of employees hanging over the Euphrates, I knew I had to read it. All in all, the bookwas great. It is clear and sober, yet a pleasure to read (Not nearly as academic-and therefore boring-as PeterW. Singer's Corporate Warriors, although I recommend that book highly for a thorough and detailed portrait ofhow the system of mercenary armies arose and now operates, politically, financially, and historically). Scahillhas a written voice that is far less confrontational than his spoken one, and yet the cutting analysis is stillthere. He is someone who thinks, and sadly we can't say this about many of the journalists out there. Scahillrepresents hope for the future of investigative journalism. And unlike some of his colleagues, he checks hisemotional baggage at the door, giving us a book far more substantial and potentially influential.

In fact, one of the few criticisms I have of the book are not about Scahill's writing, but the publisher'smarketing. It's published by Nation Books, and is blurbed by (among others) Joseph Wilson, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, and Arundhati Roy. In other words, the usual gang. None of them have muchexpertise in the field, and all convey a sense of "yeah, another howler from the Left." Anyone who makes itpast the cover is already a believer. But in between the covers, the book is far more accessible than to justMother Jones readers. It should have been put out by a university press and blurbed by actual experts (likePeter W. Singer). It deserves to be taken seriously.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the book are the occasional sprinklings of observations from MichaelRatner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has a way of calling a spade a shovel-with allthe euphemisms and opaque language surrounding the thriving mercenary industry, Ratner has a way ofgetting the language right. In speaking of the unprecedented deployment of private mercenaries domesticallyimmediately following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, Scahill quotes Ratner (page 332):

These kind of paramilitary groups bring to mind Nazi Party brownshirts, functioning as an extrajudicialenforcement mechanism that can and does operate outside the law. The use of these paramilitary groups isan extremely dangerous threat to our rights.

Yeah, what he said.


Disabling Professions (Ideas in Progress)

author: Ivan Illich name: David average rating: 3.83 book published: 1978 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/16/07 shelves: to-read review:


Reflections on Violence (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Scahill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/1632224


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_W._Singer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_W._Singer


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ratner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ratner

http://ccrjustice.org/



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author: Georges Sorel name: David average rating: 3.42 book published: 2004 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/16/07 shelves: to-read review:


Human apparatchiks

Below is a brutal and hilarious affront to the Brandeis administration, written as a letter to the editor of thecampus newspaper, The Hoot, in response to the recent actions taken against Donald Hindley, professor ofPolitics. The incident is recounted in Inside Higher Ed's article Sending in the Class Monitor.

Letter to the editor: Response to human apparatchiks

Dear Editor,

I was distressed to read that the administration is assigning human apparatchiks to monitor Brandeisclassrooms to assure linguistic conformity and political orthodoxy. Surely, the administration knows that thetechnology of authoritarian surveillance has advanced far beyond the primitive methods employed by thelikes of J. Edgar Hoover and Erich Honecker.

A laptop and a webcam can do the job far more cheaply and efficiently. Just position one unit per class in theback of the room, then patch the feed into a mainframe system located in Bernstein-Marcus. This simpleexpedient would not only provide an accurate audio-visual record of conversational malfeasance by facultyand students, but the real-time surveillance would allow the administration to dispatch agents immediatelyinto the classroom to stop the utterance of verboten words or ideas.

-Prof. Thomas Doherty (AMST).


Namesake

author: Michel Goldberg name: David average rating: 4.00 book published: 1987 rating: 4 read at:2007/04/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: My PhD adviser's favorite book. A moving personal historyof Michel Goldberg, a man who plotted (and had the chance) to kill Klaus Barbie.


Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States

author: Trita Parsi name: David average rating: 4.42 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/13/07 shelves: to-read review:


Ubik



http://www.thehoot.net/?module=displaystory&story_id=2480&format=html

http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2007/11/09/brandeis




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author: Philip K. Dick name: David average rating: 4.08 book published: 1969 rating: 4 read at: 2007/08/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: PKD was new to me. Sure, I'd seen the movies, I've caught all thereferences in literary and pop-culuture, but I'd never actually read anything of his. "Sci-Fi" is not my thing. Butthen again, I've never really given it a chance, or even known what it is. So I started with Dick, and Ubik, and Iliked it.


Infinite Jest: A Novel

author: David Foster Wallace name: David average rating: 4.23 book published: 1997 rating: 5 read at:2000/08/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: favorites review: A momentous first novel (unless you count hisgraduate thesis). I was instantly enamored with DFW and he is no less of a essayist or short storyist (?) thana novelist.


Women: A Novel

author: Charles Bukowski name: David average rating: 3.94 book published: 2001 rating: 5 read at:1998/06/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: favorites review: One of the best. Maybe my favorite.


Post Office

author: Charles Bukowski name: David average rating: 4.09 book published: 1971 rating: 5 read at: dateadded: 11/13/07 shelves: favorites review: One of the best.


Children of Light

author: Robert Stone name: David average rating: 3.67 book published: 1986 rating: 1 read at: 2007/02/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Having now read Stone's Children of Light, I can say I no longer havehigher hopes for his fiction. It was one of the most hollow novels I've ever read. Remarkable, perhaps, forhaving such a quality in spades. Maybe I'm reading the wrong things. I'll give him one more chance withsomething early like A Hall of Mirrors or Dog Soldiers. And that's it.


Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties

author: Robert Stone name: David average rating: 3.33 book published: 2007 rating: 1 read at: 2007/02/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: See my review on ideological criminal: Stone: Prime Green.








http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/2007/02/05/stone-prime-green/


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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

author: John J. Mearsheimer name: David average rating: 3.89 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: dateadded: 11/13/07 shelves: to-read review:


Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, Updated and Expanded Edition

author: Whitfield Diffie name: David average rating: 0.0 book published: 2007 rating: 0 read at: date added:11/13/07 shelves: to-read review:


The God Delusion

author: Richard Dawkins name: David average rating: 4.03 book published: 2006 rating: 2 read at:2007/02/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: See my review on ideological criminal: Dawkin's: The GodDelusion.


Kingdom Come

author: J.G. Ballard name: David average rating: 3.44 book published: 2006 rating: 4 read at: date added:11/13/07 shelves: review: My first Ballard book. And it certainly won't be my last. I got interested after areview in the Financial Times; also, I'm a fan of the films adapted from his work. Kingdom Come is the storyof fascism budding in the suburbs of London around the mega mall structures that have come to replace anykind of municipality. The book is interesting, sometimes in spite of itself. Ballard's narrative is flawed andlacking at points, yet the theme and hypotheticals of the novel make up for whatever is missing from theliterary treatment.


One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

author: Ali Abunimah name: David average rating: 4.30 book published: 2007 rating: 5 read at: 2007/03/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: One of the best books I've read (and I've read a bunch at this point) onIsrael/Palestine and how to move forward. Abunimah is a clear and young voice of compassion andreconciliation in a world of elderly and infirm voices who espouse a tortured logic. If you're of the mind thatthe only way to peace in Israel/Palestine is a one state solution, you should read this book. If you're not, itgoes double that you should read this book.


Exit Ghost




http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/2007/02/13/dawkins-the-god-delusion/

http://ballistichelmet.org/dvanhorn/2007/02/13/dawkins-the-god-delusion/




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author: Philip Roth name: David average rating: 3.50 book published: 2007 rating: 4 read at: 2007/11/01 dateadded: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Ever since I read Portnoy's Complaint in high school, Philip Roth has beenone of my favorite authors. Exit Ghost is the final chapter in the Zuckerman story. Impotent and incontinent,Zuckerman returns to New York City, where the no-longers and the not-yets hash it out. In many ways, theparabolic end point to The Ghost Writer, I'd suggest reading that first, which is a fantastic novel all on its own.


The Road

author: Cormac McCarthy name: David average rating: 4.08 book published: 2006 rating: 4 read at:2006/11/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Long before the Oprah interview, or the Pulitzer, my dadsent me a little black book-- the latest from Cormac McCarthy, of border trilogy fame. I sat down to startreading it at about 9 pm. Around 4 in the morning, I was done. I couldn't put it down. Maybe the last time thathappened to me was when I read Capote's In Cold Blood when I was undergraduate on vacation in SouthCarolina.


Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

author: Jeremy Scahill name: David average rating: 3.80 book published: 2007 rating: 4 read at: 2007/11/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Scahill won me over when we was reporting for Democracy Now! onthe 2004 presidential election. Wesley Clark was in New Hampshire campaigning just days before theprimary. The usual campaign coverage is a about as informative as a dog turd. Everyone is in softie mode--journalists, politicians, public citizens. And in the midst of it, a young reporter walks up to Clark who is makinghis way down the street kissing babies, etc. And Scahill opens: "In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs anddepleted uranium...". So when his book on Blackwater, the mercenary firm made famous by images of burntremains of employees hanging over the Euphrates, was announced, I knew I had to read it. All in all, the bookwas great. It is clear and sober, yet a pleasure to read (Not nearly as academic--and therefore boring--asPeter W. Singer's Corporate Warriors, although I recommend that book highly for a thorough and detailedportrait of how the system of mercenary armies arose and now operates, politically, financially, andhistorically). Scahill has a written voice that is far less confrontational than his spoken one, and yet the cuttinganalysis is still there. He is someone who thinks, and sadly we can't say this about many of the journalists outthere. Scahill represents hope for the future of investigative journalism. And unlike some of his colleagues, hechecks his emotional baggage at the door, giving us a book far more substantial and potentially influential. Infact, one of the few criticisms I have of the book are not about Scahill's writing, but the publisher's marketing.It's published by Nation Books, and is blurbed by (among others) Joseph Wilson, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein,Michael Moore, and Arundhati Roy. In other words, the usual gang. None of them have much expertise in thefield, and all convey a sense of "yeah, another howler from the Left." Anyone who makes it past the cover isalready a believer. But in between the covers, the book is far more accessible than to just Mother Jonesreaders. It should have been put out by a university press and blurbed by actual experts (like Peter W.Singer). It deserves to be taken seriously.


No Country for Old Men





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author: Cormac McCarthy name: David average rating: 4.01 book published: 2005 rating: 4 read at:2007/11/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Another gift from my dad, maybe from a year ago, that Ijust got around to reading. After seeing the preview for the Coen brother's adaptation, I knew I had to read itbefore seeing the movie (which I can't wait to see and is now out). I read McCarthy's The Road when it cameout and was blown away. This one is equally dark and hopeless, just on a smaller scale. Anthony Lane,reviewing the film, wrote of the book in the New Yorker: "If I want wry lawmen and smart, calculating fugitives,I'll get them from Elmore Leonard; and, if I want Leonard, I'll take him neat, rather than slow-filtered, drop bydrop, through a layer of Faulkner, then laced with the Book of Jeremiah." Frankly, I like the drip treatment ofMcCarthy, and as far as I can tell, he's operating on a whole other literary level than Leonard. There's poetryin McCarthy's prose.


The Abstinence Teacher

author: Tom Perrotta name: David average rating: 3.31 book published: 2007 rating: 1 read at: 2007/11/01date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: My dad sent me this book, and also the DVD of "Little Children", whichis based on his novel of the same name. Here's what I wrote him after reading it: I went to the theater but itwas packed, so I opted out, went to a coffee shop and read Perrotta's book, which I finished this morning.Really bad. If you haven't read it yet, I wouldn't bother. There was something that bothered me about LittleChildren that I couldn't put my finger on until now. Perrotta is trying to be the moralist of suburbia, but hisvalues are shallow and his insights banal, and I think mostly wrong. Not to mention, in the case of TheAbstinence Teacher, a real snoozer-- 350 pages to describe a confrontation between a single soccer momand born again recovering addict soccer coach who leads the kids in a prayer after one of their games.Maybe I've spoiled myself having just read McCarthy and Roth back to back, both masters of the austere. Incomparison, this book is just farty.


Cathedral

author: Raymond Carver name: David average rating: 4.48 book published: 1983 rating: 5 read at:2007/10/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: review: Another collection of Carver's short stories. I recognizedsome of the characters and plots from Robert Altman's Shortcuts, and as good as that movie is, it doesn'tcompare. But read the books and watch Altman's interpretation. Both are worthwile.


What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

author: Raymond Carver name: David average rating: 4.41 book published: 1989 rating: 5 read at:2007/10/01 date added: 11/13/07 shelves: favorites review: Carver was new to me. Erin sent me this andCathedral with a note saying "either you'll love these, or I don't know you"-- and she knows me pretty well.Carver is a master of the short story. He writes small moments with small words and a plainness that canbreak your heart. Outstanding stuff. I wish only that I had found him earlier. Many thanks to Erin.







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Habits of being

Reading bell hooks today, I came across this:

In retrospect, I see that in the last twenty years I have encountered many folks who say they are committed tofreedom and justice for all even though the way they live, the values and habits of being they institutionalizedaily, in public and private rituals, help maintain the culture of domination, help create an unfree world. In thebook Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, Martin Luther King, Jr. told the citizens of thisnation, with prophetic insight, that we would be unable to go forward if we did not experience a "truerevolution of values." He assured us that

the stability of the large world house which is ours will involve a revolution of values to accompany thescientific and freedom revolutions engulfing the earth. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing"-orientedsociety to a "person"-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights areconsidered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapableof being conquered. A civilization can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as itcan through financial bankruptcy.

Today, we live in the midst of that floundering. We live in chaos, uncertain about the possibility of building andsustaining community. The public figures who speak the most to us about a return to old-fashioned valuesembody the evils King describes. They are most committed to maintaining systems of domination-racism,sexism, class exploitation, and imperialism. They promote a perverse vision of freedom that makes itsynonymous with materialism. They teach us to believe that domination is "natural," that it is right for thestrong to rule over the weak, the powerful over the powerless. What amazes me is that so many people claimnot to embrace these values and yet our collective rejection of them cannot be complete since they prevail inour daily lives.

From Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.


The Yes Men


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780415908085-0


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The Yes Men have struck again (photos, videos, and links):

Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered anoutrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada's largest oil conference, held at StampedePark in Calgary, Alberta, today [June 14, 2007].

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the major highlight of this year'sconference, which had 20,000 attendees. In it, the "NPC rep" was expected to deliver the long-awaitedconclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed byformer ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actual speech, the "NPC rep" announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably themassive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) areincreasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst casescenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.

As Jon puts it on the heads list:

The Yes men have consistently found some of the best ways to deal with hard hitting topics. Their use ofhumor to humiliate organizations is brilliant, and we should all be thankful to them. If only there was more ofthis going on. It seems that the use of truthful information and satire against blatantly assholic organizationsreally has potential (especially when it's directed at a large group of their sheep).

Or, as Marissa succintly puts it:

These guys don't fuck around, and they are smart and hilarious to boot.

I first came across the Yes Men at an art exhibit at MASS MoCA. They were running a video projector of TheYes Men documentary. In it, the Yes Men give a talk at a WTO "future of textiles" meeting in Finland. Duringthe talk, Andy tears of his velcro-seemed business suit to reveal a golden body suit. A large golden phallusinflates from between his legs (at the exhibit, they had the suit fitted on a mannequin with phallus constantlyinflating and deflating). The phallus sends signals to devices implanted in the textile workers anuses andgives immediate feedback to the boss donning the suit. It's one of the funniest and smartest actions I've everseen.

For a limited time, ballistichelmet is now hosting the movie for your viewing pleasure.

Jon also pointed out a recent documentary, Bringing Down A Dictator, he saw on the student movementOtpor (Serbian for "Resistance") that helped bring down Milosevic in 2000 using humor and satire in a similarway to the Yes Men.

A few more links to Yes Men videos (thanks to Jon): Democracy Now! video - The Yes Men have struck again. On Tuesday, a man claiming to be arepresentative of Halliburton gave a presentation at the "Catastrophic Loss" conference at the Ritz-Carlton inAmelia Island, Florida. Conference attendees include leaders from the insurance industry. We speak with theYes Men's Andy Bichlbaum, who took part in the hoax. (transcript).This is a little satire from the Yes Menfooling around and seeing if people will sign a petition in favour of preemptively annulling all gay marriages.very funny!The Yes Men strike again. Impersonating a Dow Chemical spokesman on BBC, "Jude Finisterra"promises a huge compensation for the thousands of victims of the Bhopal disaster in which Dow Chemical'ssubsidiary Union Carbide India was responsible for in 1984.The Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum is interviewed afterthe media finds out about his Dow Chemical impersonationThe Yes men and their take on the oil industry. Again I am reminded of the situationalist spirit and the book Lipstick Traces seems all the more relevant to


http://www.theyesmen.org/

http://www.vivoleum.com/event/

http://lists.ballistichelmet.org/pipermail/heads-ballistichelmet.org/2007-June/000168.html


http://www.massmoca.org/

http://www.theyesmen.org/movie/

http://www.theyesmen.org/movie/

http://www.theyesmen.org/hijinks/tampere/

/media/yesmen/yesmen.avi

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/films/bdd/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00w3nY6hkas

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/12/1353258&mode=thread&tid=25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN_K57HhTr8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lScyQYUHLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJ-qQSDC8o

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MARLIP.html

http://rss2pdf.com

the best of today's activism.


Tanya Reinhart

Tanya Reinhart has apparently died of a stroke in New York. Reinhart was one of the few critics of Israel thatI felt could consistently be relied upon for sharp, correct, and just analysis of Israeli policy and advocacy forPalestinian rights. So many other intellectual big hitters have let me down, but not her. Her books, Israel/Palestine: How To End the War of 1948 and The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003,have been listed on ideological criminal's very short "Recommended Books" list since the beginning.Israel/Palestine in particular is perhaps the best account of the conflict and a must read for anyone interestedin the context of the occupation and a way forward to a just peace. Concise, unflinching, demystifying andwell-written, I can't recommend it highly enough. Her voice will be missed. The world needs far more of herintellectual integrity and sense of justice.

Noam Chomsky, her PhD adviser, has written a eulogy which appeared on CounterPunch today, andDemocracy Now! played excerpts from a 2004 interview and a February 2007 talk given as part of the IsraelApartheid Week.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Reinhart



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Reinhart

http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart03192007.html

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/19/1354224

http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net/

http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net/


http://rss2pdf.com

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Spotlight for dvanhorn › home › dvanhorn › rss › spotlight.pdf · 2008-12-31 · OCHA: Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report 28 Dec 2008 16:00 ... to come together on Jan. 17,