Category Archives: Books

Spook Country

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Spook Country is William Gibson’s newest novel. According to amazon.com it will be released on August 7, 2007. Fragments of the novel have been posted non-sequentially on Gibson’s blog for some time now, and have led to much speculation on the content and plot of the novel. From the US publisher Putnam’s catalog:

“Tito is in his early 20s. Cuban by ancestry, he speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a Nolita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.

Hollis Henry is a journalist, on investigative assignment from a magazine called Node. Node doesn’t exist yet, which is fine, she’s used to that, but it seems to be actively preventing the kind of buzz that magazines normally cultivate before they begin to exist. That would be odd, and even a little scary, if Hollis allowed herself to think about it much, which she can’t afford to do.

Milgrim is a junkie. A high-end junkie, hooked on prescription anti-anxiety drugs, but he figures he wouldn’t survive 24 hours if Brown, the mystery man who saved him from a misunderstanding with his dealer, ever stopped supplying the little bubble-packs. What Brown is up to Milgrim can’t say, but it seems to be military – at least, Milgrim’s very nuanced Russian is a big part of it, as is breaking into locked rooms.

Bobby Chombo is a ‘producer’, and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a trouble-shooter for military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry has been told to find him.”

Gibson is far and away my favorite author. Yet another reason to go on.

Futurism: Glancing sideways

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“The thing that’s going to be quaint about “cyberspace” (that already is, really) is the inherent assumption that it’s a realm unto itself; that it’s in any way elsewhere or other. Glancing sideways is becoming more generally recognized as about the best way of doing what we used to call futurism.”

–William Gibson

Life After Death

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“A must read for everyone who will die.” That’s how one reviewer describes Deepak Chopra’s “Life After Death.” I ordered the book after seeing Dr. Chopra on The Colbert Report. The title pretty much describes the book which got a fair amount of highlighter (my measure of good non-fiction). Here’s one graf from page 239:

“In spiritual terms the cycle of birth and rebirth is a workshop for making creative leaps of the soul. The natural and the supernatural are not doing different things but are involved in transformation on separate levels. At the moment of death the ingredients of your old body and old identity disappear. Your DNA and everything it created devolve back to their simple component parts. Your memories dissolve back into raw information. None of this raw material is simply recombined to produced a slightly altered person. To produce a new body capable of making new memories, the person who emerges must be new. You do not acquire a new soul, because the soul doesn’t have content. It’s not “you” but the center around which “you” coalesces, time after time. It’s your zero point.”

I’ve never studied or researched reincarnation, but I’ve always had a curiosity about and openess to the idea. In 1988 I wrote:

“As I think about the idea of a past existence, I feel a fondness for this “earlier me”. A sense of gratitude for whatever spiritual progress he was able to achieve. At the same time, I feel a sense of anticipation or expectation for my “next life”. And some responsibility to that future self. I’d like to move him (or her?) along as far as I can on this “cosmic lap.” To move him closer to…a perfect consciousness? Nirvana?”

“Mixed in with all of that is a sense of relief that I don’t have to complete everything in this lifetime. This is not the only shot I’ll get. And this awareness is vital because we all know –consciously or subconsciously– that we won’t “get it all done” in a spiritual sense. We hope (and work) for progress but a single” lifetime seems hopelessly short.”

Upon rereading the full post, I’m struck by how close I got (to Dr. Chopra’s explanation), given my complete ignorance.

I confess I could never stretch my common sense and logic (and faith?) around many of the stories in the Bible. And my recent read of Richard Dawkins’ case for atheism (The God Delusion) didn’t convince me. But I really enjoyed Life After Death and will read more by Dr. Chopra.

Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille

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“During the Reagan administration, the American government devised and put into place this secret protocol named Wild Fire. What Wild Fire is, is the nuclear obliteration of the entire Islamic world by means of American nuclear missiles, in response to a nuclear terrorist attack on America.

For Wild Fire to be a reliable deterrent, as Mutually Assured Destruction was, it cannot be kept a complete secret. In fact, since the Wild Fire plan was implemented, the heads of all Islamic governments have been notified by succeeding administrations in Washington that an attack on an American city with a weapon of mass destruction would automatically ensure an American nuclear retaliation against fifty to one hundred cities and other targets in the Islamic world.

Wild Fire is seen by the American government as a very strong incentive for these countries to control the terrorists in their midsts, to induce these countries to share information with American intelligence agencies, and to do whatever they need to do to keep themselves from being vaporized.”

From Nelson DeMille’s latest novel, Wild Fire. In DeMille’s story, some right-wing loonies get their hands on some Soviet suitcase nukes and decide to blow up a couple of American cities, blame it on the terrorists, and turn Sand Land into molten glass.

I googled “Wild Fire” and found myself on the Library of Congress website, looking at Senate Report 105-200 – Department of Defense Appropriation Bill, 1999. Just search the page for “Wild Fire” and you’ll find the reference but no explanation. Probably nothing but figured I’d note it here.

This is just something an imaginative writer came up with, right? Like most of DeMille’s novels… Wild Fire is a thriller. (And a nice companion read to Scott Adams’ The Religion War.)

Are Bush and bin Laden on the same side?

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Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains “why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages.” The following excerpt is from an article at Salon.com:

We’re seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don’t subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle.

Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional “next world” is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

The Religion War

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“The Internet (is) God’s central nervous system, connecting all the thinking humans, so that one good thought anywhere could be available everywhere. The head would know what the feet were feeling. It would be an upper consciousness, above what the human beings that composed it would understand.” (Pg.151)

“God is everything, all the matter and empty space that now exists, or ever will exist. He expresses his preference in the invisible workings of gravity, probability, and ideas. God is that which is unstoppable, permanent, all-powerful, and by its own standards perfect. God was in no hurry. He was reforming. He didn’t think in the way that humans do, as that is unnecessary for an entity whose preferences are identical to reality. Humans think in order to survive and entertain themselves. God has no need for a tool that is useful only to the frail and unsatisfied.” (Pg. 177)

“You’re a collection of molecules and those molecules are made of smaller bits, and those bits are made of even smaller bits. The smallest bits in the universe are all identical. You are made of the same stuff as the concrete in the floor and the fly on the window. Your basic matter cannot be created or destroyed. All that will survive of what you call you life is the sum of your actions. Some might call the unending ripple effect of those actions a soul, or a spirit.”

“Consciousness is a feedback loop. It has four parts: You imagine the impact of your actions, then you act, then you observe the actual result of your action, then you store that knowledge in your brain and begin again to imagine the next thing.” (pg 31)

Excerpts from The Religion War, by Scott Adams

Maybe means no

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I spent a good chunk of 1987 driving around Iowa, trying to sign radio stations to the new statewide news network we were starting. My first pitch (Roger Gardner was with me) was to Larry Edwards, the GM at WMT in Cedar Rapids. Probably the #2 station in Iowa at the time. We told him what we were planning to do and he asked if we had a contract with us. We did, and he signed it on the spot.

The next day we met with Betty Baudler and Rich Fellingham (GM and Ops Mgr) at KASI in Ames, Iowa. We told them about the network and they signed on the spot. I think the same thing happened a few days later with Andy Anderson at KMA, Shenandoah.

The point here is not that I’m a great salesperson (I’m not). The point is, these managers did not say “maybe.” Eventually, we got to some that wanted to “think about it.” But these guys understood what we were going to do and decided –on the spot– they wanted to be part of it.

They weren’t all that easy and I got a lot of “maybe’s” over the years (“Could you send me another copy of your proposal?” or “Let me talk it over with my program director and we’ll get back to you.”) Somewhere in about year 15 I remember saying to a couple of prospects:

“If you had to give me a yes or a no today, which would it be?”
“Uh, I don’t like being pressured!”
“No pressure, I’m just curious. If you HAD to say yes or no right now, which would it be?”
“If you’re gonna pressure me, then the answer is no!”
“Great. I won’t take any more of your time.”

Anybody that was EVER going to say yes would have stopped me before I got to the door. Or called the next day to say she changed her mind. Never happened. (End of 20 year flash back)

In Small Is the New Big, Seth Godin reminds me that “maybe means no.” He also explains the intellectual dishonesty that is behind most “maybe’s.”

“Dealing with change ultimately does make you confront one thing: dishonesty. And dishonesty–intellectual dishonesty, decision-making dishonesty, not-willing-to-face-the-music dishonesty–is the greatest enemy that a company can have. We disguise it as waiting to get more informaiton or looking for more input. In fact, the real deal is that we’re not willing to look the situation in the eye and make a decision, right or wrong. And so companies and individuals put off acknowledging what they already know and acting on it. They don’t commit to a decision until they have to–even if they’ve already made the decision in their minds, and a delay in making it official means spending more money, making mistakes, and staying up all night to catch up.” (Pg. 133 Small Is the New Big, Seth Godin)

So maybe I’ll respond to the next pitch I get with:

“I’m not going to say “yes” to your proposal. Ever. You can have a “no,” or a “maybe.” Which would you perfer?

Seth Godin: “small is the new big”

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Just received my copy of Seth Godin’s new book, small is the new big and flipped it open to page 155:

“The number of channels of communication is going to continue to increase. And either you’ll have a channel or you won’t. Either you’ll have access to the attention of the people you need to talk with (notice I didn’t say “talk at”), or you won’t. So the real question to ask isn’t, “How much will I get paid to talk with these people?” The real question is, “How much will I pay to talk with these people.”

The title of the book refers to a blog post from June, 2005. Godin talks about the new book in a half-hour, moderated Skypecast this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. CDT.

Update: Poor old Seth had to introduce himself because the moderator has tech issues and was late getting into the Skype call. Looked like about 25 or 30 folks on the call and they never got around to taking questions. Typepad — which sponsored the Skypecast– plans to post portions of the audio on their blog.

War on Terrorism

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John Seery (at The Huffington Post) thinks George Bush has lost the war on terrorism:

“Let’s face it: Osama bin Laden, holed up in his cave somewhere, must be laughing at us. He’s calling the shots, and he really doesn’t have to lift a finger. Why? George Bush is doing his bidding. His administration has suspended many civil liberties and deftly defied the U.S. Constitution. Junked the Geneva Convention. Tortured prisoners. Oversaw criminal acts at Abu Ghraib. Ignored due process at Guantanamo. Engaged in domestic spying without court supervision. Flushed billions down the toilet in Iraq. Weakened our military readiness. Set much of the world against us. The Middle East is now ablaze in terrorism. At home, we live constantly in “elevated fear” levels (whether color coded or not). Our internal politics have become poisonously divided, not united. Osama bin Laden is playing George Bush like a cheap fiddle.”

For some reason, Seery’s post reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984 (Amazon notes):

“Oceania is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant “correction” of such records. “‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'”

Update: Ashcroft Finds Private-Sector Niche – “Former U.S. attorney general John D. Ashcroft, whose tenure saw the creation of a burgeoning homeland security industry, has emerged as the highest-ranking former Bush administration official to lobby for and invest in companies in that field.” [MSNBC]

Nobody’s reading books

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These statistics –compiled by Dan Poynter– explain so much. I found these on a Buzz Machine post last week and have been haunted by them since.

  • One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
  • 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
  • 42% of college graduates never read another book.
  • 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
  • 57% of new books are not read to completion.
  • Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
  • Customers 55 and older account for more than one-third of all books bought.

I confess to being something of book pimp. I get really jazzed about a book (a la The Long Tail) and bore the shit out of the people around me about it. And I frequently “loan” books to people who really don’t want to “borrow” them (let alone read them) but they don’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me so. So they take the book and put it on a shelf or in a drawer and that’s as close to reading it as they get.

It isn’t their fault. If they wanted to read the book, they would have gone out an bought it. So no more loaning books unless I hear these words: “May I PLEASE borrow that book? I can’t find it anywhere and I’m dying to read it. I promise to get it back to you next week.”