Books

For my book making friends

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:20:00 GMT

I had a picture book made for Aurora for her birthday. It was made by Memento Press and while they were a little protective of their binding method they said it was a modified FastBind technique. I collected 20 images and one extra for the cover and included a word document with captions on a CD. 2 day turnaround. Looks great.

Here are some online pages about do it yourself bookbinding:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tobycraig/29223.html
http://www.joannebkaar.com/Bookbinding_/body_bookbinding_.html

Glenn's book is finally out

Chris Jefferies — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 23:01:00 GMT

The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction

I had ordered my copy from Amazon.com about a month ago, and finally it arrived. You can order it here:

Here's my review:

While this book is titled “The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction” it is above all about freedom.

Glenn breaks freedom into two primary categories. Freedom to will, he says, imposes restraints on others. Freedom to experience is a more extensive kind of freedom that, while limited at the boundary where others’ liberties are encroached upon, also calls for responsibility to find common ground within our various differences.

From his experience in political campaigns he shows how political advertising is calculated for maximum psychological effect and that even those who are aware of its manipulation are not immune from its persuasion. If you remember, for example, a childhood memory of holding Bugs Bunny's hand at Disneyland then you’ll be interested to read the chapter on televised ads.

Glenn answers the question of “What is to be done” and foresees the internet and the emerging social media web sites such as web logs (blogs) as a means of democratizing the political process by encouraging broader participation.

I recommend this book for those who want to understand the deceitful manipulations of the political machine from a political insider who has a profound command of varied philosophical and scientific perspectives.

Copied to the forums for discussion at:
http://www.jumano.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=48

Jumano Forums

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:30:00 GMT

I've set up a web forum for discussion threads at: http://www.jumano.com/Forums

Please visit the forums and start up or join a discussion.

The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction

Chris Jefferies — Wed, 24 Mar 2004 11:21:00 GMT

Reference to Glenn Smith's Book from John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction
Glenn Smith
ISBN: 0-471-66763-3
Hardcover
208 pages
July 2004
US $24.95Add to Cart

Today a sea of information and disinformation divides Americans from one another and their leaders. It is not by force of arms that American democracy drifts toward a new kind of tyranny. It is by the growing ease with which Americans are manipulated by advertising and the media, estranged from personal political involvement, and held captive by manufactured fears and enforced deprivations.

A look at the language of contemporary political dialogue reveals the shallowness of our reasoning. An examination of the overwhelming power of paid political advertising to determine election outcomes, and its role in the political addiction to money, will shed even more light. The trivialization of debate by celebrity pundits who promote themselves over the substance of political issues further estranges citizens from the political decisions that affect their everyday lives.

All of these issues will be illustrated in The Politics of Deceit by example: some involving American political celebrities, some behind-the-scenes, some humorous, and some alarming.

One miracle a month - that's all we ask

Chris Jefferies — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 22:02:00 GMT

From the The New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16991

Has an interesting theory on the frequency with which we might expect to experience a miracle; on average, it would be about one a month. Based on that, and based on the fact that I don't remember any “miracles“, it appears I've missed over 600. Wow, pay attention, Chris.

One in a Million By Freeman J. Dyson

Debunked! ESP, Telekinesis, Other Pseudoscience by Georges Charpak and Henri Broch, translated from the French by Bart K. Holland

Johns Hopkins University Press, 176 pp., $25.00

Debunked! is short and highly readable. It tells good stories about human foolishness masquerading as science. It offers useful assistance to citizens trying to tell the difference between sense and nonsense. When it was published in France, the title was Devenez sorciers, devenez savants, which means literally, "Become magicians, become experts," or more freely translated, "Learn to do magic and learn to see through it." The English title misses the point. The book is saying that the best way to avoid being deceived by magic tricks is to learn to do the tricks yourself.

... Littlewood's Law of Miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hear things happening at a rate of about one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month. Broch tells stories of some amazing coincidences that happened to him and his friends, all of them easily explained as consequences of Littlewood's Law.

More on the Jack London evening.

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 22:31:00 GMT

One of Michael Oakes statements from Jack London: “Short on invention, but long on elaboration.“

When Jack went to university he saw, “passionless pursuit of passionless knowledge“.

Found these references to on-line books:
Martin Eden and People of the Abyss by Jack London

Martin Eden was supposedly about one of London's best friends, George Stirling. I've never made a connection between the name 'Martin Eden' from Tom Waits' song 'Shiver Me Timbers' and the Jack London book.

Here are some great images from Beauty Ranch near Glen Ellen, California.

See the previous post on this subject.

Jack London Speaks at San Francisco Museum & Historical Society

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:21:00 GMT

On Tuesday night, Aurora and I met up with our Yerba Buena Walking Tour Group (which includes Lydia Asselin, Nancy Coe, John Winn, Jeannette Hook).

We had dinner at Nancy's first. She prepared a wonderful meal which started off with a wonderful sweet potato/salmon soup, followed by a spinach/avocado/grapefruit salad and tasty, tender, mercury free Monkfish and with rice pilaf. We rushed through some coffee and ginger cookies and then walked briskly to the San Francisco Museum & Historical Society meeting.

The main event at the meeting was an actor (Michael Oakes) acting the part of Jack London as he gave a lecture about his life and his book “The Call of the Wild“. Michael's wife, Renee Oakes, briefly played the part of Jack's wife, Charmian.

Michael first gave a lecture as Jack London, then opened the floor to questions of Jack London, then broke character and spoke of art as an actor.

I didn't realize the hardships Jack London underwent in his youth and that he had so many health issues (partially related to his drinking, partially related to diseases he suffered on his adventure travels). Besides being a world famous author, he was also an Oyster pirate, a deep-sea sailor, a hobo, and an Alaskan prospector. He was also a socialist and fought for worker's rights issues.

From the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society events page:
“Imagine a book club meeting where the author of a brilliant and popular novel is present to discuss his bestseller. Now, imagine that it is 1904, and the SFM&HS has formed a book club. Author Jack London will join our meeting to discuss his recently-published masterpiece, Call of the Wild. Actor/Scholar Michael Oakes of Live Oakes Theatre will present Jack London in Chautauqua. Also performing will be actor/scholar, Renee Oakes, as London’s wife, Charmian.

For more information about Jack London and about Live Oakes Educational Theatre, log onto www.LiveOakes.com. Feel free to dress in period costume. Don’t forget to reread Call of the Wild and other works by Jack London prior to the meeting. Please join us for a reception at 7:00 p.m.”

Thank you Nancy and Lydia. It was a great evening.

Here are some other links of interest:
http://www.jacklondons.net/life.html
http://www.jacklondon.com/

In the time of your life, live...

Chris Jefferies — Sat, 07 Feb 2004 13:38:00 GMT

In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.
-- William Saroyan

Other quotes by William Saroyan:
http://www.thinkexist.com/english/Author/x/Author_4385_1.htm
http://208.177.152.139/~bedrosaf/Saroyan/three_famous_saroyanisms.html
http://www.williamsaroyan.org/quotes.html

Noam Chomsky - Hegemony or Survival

Chris Jefferies — Sat, 07 Feb 2004 11:48:00 GMT

I heard Noam Chomsky on a panel discussion this morning. He speculated that in the month before the election, Osama bin Laden will be killed or captured... It will be interesting to see what happens in the months leading up to the election.

Here's a great overview of Chomsky's life/work from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

Hegemony or Survival at Amazon

Here's an article by the same name as the book (I suppose it was a work in progress for the book):
http://www.globalsolidarity.org/articles/nc_hegemony.html

From MIT:
http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/bibliography/noam.html
http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/biography/noambio.html

Chomsky Site:
http://www.chomsky.info/

Book Stores discovered - San Francisco

Chris Jefferies — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:40:00 GMT

I've been taking quick half hour walks during my lunch breaks. Last week, on two different days, I discovered 2 book stores about a block apart from each other:

Argonaut Book Shop
Rare Books, Prints, Maps & Manuscripts
786 Sutter Street

Lots of wonderful old historical books, I looked at a book, original printing, of Freemont's memoirs from 1887. It had a map of the western US which did not include the Escalante River (which was the last river to be discovered in the US).

Supposedly, in Hitchcock's movie Vertigo, there was a book store called the Argosy, which was actually the Argonaut.

Kayo Books
Vintage Paperbacks and Pulp Mystery
814 Post Street

Wow! I couldn't beleive there was a book store that would cover this much of this kind of material. TONS of pulp fiction novelettes with lurid covers. Here's a sampling (click on any of them to see more detail):