2005.9.18=7[#261]:8.15=#(60x3+42)[US#42] Brain. BookTV, Mid-autumn party. #1.Galloway, 2.UK US spies, 3.US society, 4.Murdock > BBC, 5.Tech hum future

"11 steps to a better brain": http://tinyurl.com/8cbyo "Flowers in the Klamath Basin, Oregon": http://tinyurl.com/8hg49 Fair cool to mild: Up 5:55 for CBS Sunday Morning & SJ Mercury News, sleep, up 7:55, Mei off to drive some old folks, BookTV: 05.8.11: John Richardson ending in tears, "My father the spy" > "#2.2", hair bath shaving, BookTV: George Galloway vs C Hutchinsons ("Love, Poverty, and War") > "#1", mom tel going to do hair so frees me from her drugs today. Sons are around, 2 tel for Mei: drive to singing & hair matter. Mei back, lunch, Mei off, BookTV: 05.8.26: Stephen Budiansky, "Her Majesty's Spymaster" > "#1.1" on now 2:49pm, for "#2" now. Check and arrange documents to 2 big drawers. Past 6pm, Mei back, so drive to the Mid-autumn karaoke & dance Hakka party, near 7pm4 of all our families of our generation and up, aBi and Ju-hao coupe present, some of us wear new dance shoes from Taipei, later mom sings a number of Japanese songs w/o karaoke accmpaniment, she left w Hiro couple earlier, we stayed w the last persons late, discuss mom's refusal to take some critical drugs w Jun. Home 11:40, Internet, BookTV Joel Garreau, "Radical Revolution" w fantastic tech vision > "#5", bed 2:20am. #1. Galloway Against War: 1. "I'M Not the Only One", George Galloway; paperback 240 pages (February 3, 2005); Penguin Books Ltd, amazon.co.uk: [[ No reviews from US amazon.com ]] http://tinyurl.com/7utlv "" Reviews: Book Description: Political firebrand, bête noir of the right-wing tabloids and thorn in the side of New Labour, George Galloway is one of the most iconoclastic figures in public life today. He’s been threatened, smeared and branded a traitor for his stand against the war in Iraq, yet refuses to be gagged and remains a fearless activist for peace and social justice worldwide. In I’m Not the Only One he continues his campaign, speaking out for the millions of citizens who feel powerless and disenfranchised in today’s political vacuum. In the era of Tory Blair and a New Labour that’s betrayed its socialist roots, attacked civil liberties and swallowed the corporate lie, it’s time, he argues, for an alternative. Here Galloway outlines his compelling vision of a new political movement: a coalition that speaks for all those people – whether Muslim or Christian, black or white, pensioner or student – locked out of the current system, who took to the streets to protest against war and injustice … and who want their country back. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Synopsis Political firebrand, thorn in the side of New Labour and leading activist against the war in Iraq - George Galloway has sparked yet more controversy and headlines with I'm Not The Only One. In this searing polemic, now with devastating new material on the fallout of the war in Iraq, he attacks the lies of our current government, continues his campaign for peace and social justice worldwide and expressed his deep longstanding commitment to Iraw, the Palestinian cause and the people and culture of the Middle East. "" 2. "Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington: The Brit Who Set Congress Straight about Iraq", by George Galloway; Paperback 144 pages (September 15, 2005), New Press [[ No review from UK & US ]]; amazon.ca: http://tinyurl.com/b3pxf "" Editorial Reviews: Book Description: A lively, rousing account from the Briton who took DC by storm. "As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number oftimes as Donald Rumsfeld. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering, and war."—George Galloway in the U.S. Senate, May 2005 In late spring of2005, George Galloway, a newly elected British member of Parliament, came to Washington, D.C., to appear before a Senate subcommittee that claimed—without ever talking to him—that he had enriched himself through the scandal-plagued Iraq oil-for-food program. What happened next was a rare political moment: to the surprise of the assembled senators, congressional aides, and press, Galloway turned the tables on his accusers, calling attention to the dishonesty and hypocrisy that led to the war in Iraq. This is the story of Galloway's relationship with Saddam Hussein (including details of their private meetings) and of his remarkable visit to Washington in which he dared to set the record straight—not just his own record, but also that of the U.S. government. Filled with the passion and wit that are Galloway trademarks, the book includes the complete transcript of the famed Senate testimony and is packed with facts about the U.S.'s ignominious history in Iraq—facts that are easy to forget but crucial to remember. "" #2. British & US Intelligence: 1. "Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage" (Hardcover) by Stephen Budiansky: Viking Adult (August 18, 2005); amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/cwf8j "" From Publishers Weekly Rising from humble roots, Sir Francis Walsingham is a model of a certain type of Elizabethan figure, thriving at an innovative court that preferred service by men of talent rather than by the high nobility. As Queen Elizabeth's secretary of the Privy Council, Walsingham coordinated a number of official and unofficial spy networks, historian Budiansky relates in this fresh look at the Virgin Queen's reign. Corresponding equally with ambassadors and shadowy informants, supervising code breakers and couriers, teaching himself the rules of watching and waiting, Walsingham developed influential models for the roles of secretary and spymaster. Additionally, according to Budiansky, at a time when religion was very much intertwined with both internal and external politics, he proved an early example of the political mindset that put national devotion above religious sentiment. Diplomatic intrigue and attempted conspiracies are natural threads to weave through the stories of Elizabeth's marriage negotiations; her struggle to create a religious settlement; her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots; and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Even readers who are already versed in Elizabeth's reign will find Budiansky's new angles on a much-examined era enlightening. (Aug. 22) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "" 2. "My Father the Spy : An Investigative Memoir" (Hardcover), by John H. Richardson; HarperCollins (August 1, 2005); amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/a2tev "" From Publishers Weekly The author's father, the hero of this heartfelt if shapeless saga, started out a leftish romantic but eventually became the powerful CIA station chief in Vienna, Manila and then Saigon. Drawing on government documents and reminiscences of his father's colleagues, journalist Richardson (The Viper's Club), depicts his father, John Sr., as a humane, principled official coping effectively with great crises. But his home life, reconstructed from memory, personal letters and diary entries, is a less engaging domestic melodrama of intergenerational incomprehension, featuring an interminable series of chilly miscommunications, youthful provocations, drunken scenes and fumbling reconciliations. The story implicitly links the demise of American hegemony to the waning of paternal prestige, but it's not clear what one has to do with the other, and Richardson's conflation of his father's profession with his personal life lacks much substance or perspective. Remorseful, perhaps, at his own juvenile disdain, the author defends his father from critics of John Sr.'s actions in Vietnam—especially the "arrogant jerk" David Halberstam—and closes with a melancholy chronicle of his father's alcoholic decline and excruciatingly drawn-out death in 1998. Richardson stays too close to this painful material to fashion it into something more than family history. Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "" #3. US Social Reality: 1. "Bait and Switch : The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream", by Barbara Ehrenreich[[ http://barbaraehrenreich.com/ ]]; 256 pages (September 2005), Metropolitan Books, amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/773w5 "" Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com: "" Through over three decades of journalism and activism and over a dozen books, Barbara Ehrenreich has been one of the most consistent and imaginative chroniclers of class in America, but it was her bestselling 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed, a undercover expose of the day-to-day struggles of the working poor, that has been the most influential work of her career. Now, with Bait and Switch, she has gone undercover again, this time as a middle-aged professional trying to get a white-collar job in corporate America. We asked her a few questions about what she found: Amazon.com: Your previous book, Nickel and Dimed, became a blockbuster bestseller with a classic "there but for the grace of God go I" liberal message "" "" Ehrenreich: What surprised me most, right from day one of my job search[ for a corporate work], was the surreal nature of the job searching business. For example, everyone, from corporations to career coaches, relies heavily on "personality tests" which have no scientific credibility or predictive value. "" "" Amazon.com: You seemed to make much closer ties with your fellow workers in Nickel and Dimed than you did on the white-collar job hunt. What was different this time? Ehrenreich: You're right--there is a difference. But it's not so much a matter of personalities as it is about two different worlds. There's a lot of camaraderie in the blue-collar world I entered in Nickel and Dimed. People help each other and look out for each other; they laugh together--often at the managers. The white-collar world doesn't encourage camaraderie, far from it. There it's all about competition and fear--of losing one's job, for one thing. Other people are seen as sources of contacts or tips, at best; as competitors or rivals, at worst. And among the unemployed add shame and a sense of personal failure, the constant message that it's all your own fault. All this discourages any solidarity with others or real openness. "" "" From Publishers Weekly: A wild bestseller in the field of poverty writing, Ehrenreich's 2001 exposé of working-class hardship, Nickel and Dimed, sold over a million copies in hardcover and paper. If even half that number of people buy this follow-up, which purports "to do for America's ailing middle class what [Nickel and Dimed] did for the working poor," it too will shoot up the bestseller lists. But PW suspects that many of those buyers will be disappointed. Ehrenreich can't deliver the promised story because she never managed to get employed in the "midlevel corporate world" she wanted to analyze. Instead, the book mixes detailed descriptions of her job search with indignant asides about the "relentlessly cheerful" attitude favored by white-collar managers. The tone throughout is classic Ehrenreich: passionate, sarcastic, self-righteous and funny. Everywhere she goes she plots a revolution. A swift read, the book does contain many trenchant observations about the parasitic "transition industry," which aims to separate the recently fired from their few remaining dollars. And her chapter on faith-based networking is revelatory and disturbing. But Ehrenreich's central story fails to generate much sympathy—is it really so terrible that a dabbling journalist can't fake her way into an industry where she has no previous experience?—and the profiles of her fellow searchers are too insubstantial to fill the gap. Ehrenreich rightly points out how corporate culture's focus on "the power of the individual will" deters its employees from organizing against the market trends that are disenfranchising them, but her presentation of such arguments would have been a lot more convincing if she could have spent some time in a cubicle herself. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "" http://tinyurl.com/chpyv "" Book Description: The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America’s ailing middle class what she did for the working poor Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible résumé of a professional “in transition,” she attempts to land a middle-class job—undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then trawling a series of EST-like boot camps, job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She gets an image makeover, works to project a winning attitude, yet is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and—again and again—rejected. Bait and Switch highlights the pople who’ve done everything right—gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive résumés—yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster, and not simply due to the vagaries of the business cycle. Today’s ultra-lean corporations take pride in shedding their “surplus” employees—plunging them, for months or years at a stretch, into the twilight zone of white-collar unemployment, where job searching becomes a full-time job in itself. As Ehrenreich discovers, there are few social supports for these newly disposable workers—and little security even for those who have jobs. Like the now classic Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing exposé of economic cruelty where we least expect it. About the Author Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed (0-8050-6389-7). A frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, she has been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine. She lives in Virginia. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. There’s all sorts of useful information being offered, which I struggle to commit to my notebook. Ask people to give you their contacts, and when they do, write them thank you notes by hand, on nice stationary. Get a fountain pen; ballpoint won’t do. If you can’t get a real interview, at least ask for a 20 minute “contact interview” aimed at prying contacts out of people. Write to executives who are profiled in business publications and tell them what their company needs at this stage, which is, of course, you. Tell them how you’re going to “add value” to their firm. “Stand out. You’ve got to be the banana split.” Wear a suit and tie or female equivalent at all times, even on weekends, and I pick up a warning glance here: my sneakers have been noted. Network everywhere. One fellow landed a job thanks to networking at a 7/11 on a Saturday morning; luckily he had been fully suited up at the time. "" 2. "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America", by Barbara Ehrenreich; Paperback, 240 pages 0 edition (April 16, 2002); amazon.ca: http://tinyurl.com/8qakm http://tinyurl.com/chdpj "" Editorial Reviews: From Amazon.com: "" "" As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test. "" #4. Murdock on BBCNews: 1. "Blair blasts BBC over US 'hatred'", EDDIE BARNES, POLITICAL EDITOR; scotsman.com; Sun 18 Sep 2005: http://tinyurl.com/amgcq "" TONY Blair has sparked another furious row with the BBC after claiming the corporation's coverage of the hurricane Katrina disaster was anti-American "" 2. "Blair 'attacked BBC over Katrina'", BBCNews: http://tinyurl.com/8z9f4 "" The BBC said it was committed to full, accurate and impartial coverage and had not received a complaint from Mr Blair. Mr Murdoch, who owns the Sun, the Times and News of the World newspapers and Sky Television, labelled the BBC a "government-owned thing". "" 3. [G]K: "Re: [G...] Blair blasts BBC over US 'hatred'" "" Sky and Fox are both owned by the same company (NewsCorporation, which Murdoch controls), while there is not any cross ownership between the BBC and Disney-owned ABC. The BBC merely supplies footage to ABC, and there is a BBC-originated financial market report each morning produced especially for ABC's "World News Now" overnight service. However, the relationship between Disney and the BBC does go back to the 1930s, when Disney became the first Hollywood studio to allow its films to be regularly screened on the BBC's television service. In fact, a fairly famous piece of TV history was made when the BBC's TV service was suspended at the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, and the order to go off the air immediately was delivered to the Alexandra Palace control centre in the middle of the screening of a Mickey Mouse cartoon. When BBC Television returned to the air in 1946, the first thing screened was the same Mickey Mouse cartoon, at roughly the very point it had been interrupted... "" #5. "Radical Evolution : The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human" (Hardcover), by Joel Garreau; Doubleday (May 17, 2005): http://tinyurl.com/7khoz "" From Scientific American: What's in store for humanity? It is becoming clear that we will use our growing technological powers to transform not only the world around us but ourselves, too. Many forms of human enhancement are already routine--sports medicine, psychotropic mood drugs, wakefulness and alertness enhancers, cosmetic surgery, drugs for sexual performance. Much more will become possible in coming decades. Joel Garreau's Radical Evolution joins several recent titles that attempt to make sense of the radical future possibilities for our species. The potential prospects include superintelligent machines, nonaging bodies, direct connections between human brains or between brain and computer, fully realistic virtual reality, and the reanimation of patients in cryonic suspension. As enablers of such miracles, Garreau mentions especially "GRIN technologies"--genetics, robotics, information technology and nanotechnology. The focus of Garreau's book, however, is not on the nuts and bolts of the technology itself but rather on what it will all mean for us humans. His reporting skills well honed by his work as a journalist and editor at the Washington Post, Garreau is constantly on the lookout for the human story behind the ideas. Biographical sketches of the people he has interviewed for the book get approximately equal airtime with their opinions about human extinction and transcendence. The bulk of one interviewee's beard, the size of another's collection of musical instruments, the length of a third's pants: as Garreau knows all too well, these are the indispensable rivets to hold the attention of the current version of Homo sapiens while we try to ponder whether we will have indefinite life spans or whether the world will end before our children have a chance to grow up. ""