The Big Squeeze by Steven Greenhouse

Just got through chapter five, The Rise and Fall of the Social Contract, from Steven Greenhouse's The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker (click here to view all my posts about this book).

The background about the post-war business atmosphere in America and Walter Reuther's (president of General Motors division of the United Auto Workers) negotiations with Charles E. Wilson (president of General Motors) that helped to create the social contract that started to collapse for blue-collar workers in the 1980s and for white-collar workers in the 1990s provided an educational break from the heart-wrenching from the first few chapters.

Stories of Jefferson, Wiscosin's Chuck Moehling (a Tyson Foods pepperoni plant worker); of Birmingham, Alabama-native and former worker at North Miami Sam's Club Farris Cobb; of Bartlesville, Oklahoma-native Drew Pooters, a career retail worker and manager; and Dominican Republic immigrant Julia Ortiz fighting for wages at least equal to the federal minimum wage.

Expect to read more about this book...

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker

I've read just a few chapters of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by New York Times labor and workplace correspondent Steven Greenhouse (click here to view all my posts about this book).

So far, much of the data is the same as from David Cay Johnston's Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) and Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else.

And the chapters of this book, like Johnston's book, each read like separate articles/essays with a common theme. But what is different from Johnston's books is the human aspect -- Johnston tells the stories of hard-working men and women (and their families) and their struggle as employees of mostly big corporations to join the middle class.

In that sense, this book is a lot like what I would expect of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), which I wrote a short paragraph about here.

Looking forward to reading more of The Big Squeeze, particularly once I get to where Greenhouse discusses examples of employers who treat their employees well.

Click here to view the table of contents or click here to to download a PDF excerpt.

White House Ghosts by Robert Schlesinger

I've finally finished Robert Schlesinger's White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters (click here to view all my posts about this book); once I made some time for reading it was a breeze to get through.

And my final verdict: this book is a winner!

As a young person born after most of these president's governed, I enjoyed learning more about our nation's presidents. I also liked learning about the roles of Chris Matthews, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Peggy Noonan, James Fallows, and other familiar figures through different administrations.

I especially appreciated reading about Eric Liu (who thoughtfully expressed the confusion anguish many Asian American's feel about their heritage and cultural identity in his memoir The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker, which I read in 2002) and Rahm Emmanuel and their roles in the Clinton administration.

Schlesinger convinced me of the importance of presidential speechwriters; as he tells it, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush failed to win second terms (and Bill Clinton contributed to the Republicans winning control of the House and Senate and George W. Bush's election to governor of Texas in 1994) largely because they did not view presidential speeches as serious business.

And serious business it is. An effective leader must have excellent communication skills or will fail to effect change. So while some have derided Barack Obama for his eloquent prose, I believe it will make him a better president.

Click here to visit the official website for the White House Ghosts, here to read an excerpt on the publisher’s website, or here to view the table of contents.

Robert Schlesinger's White House Ghosts

Just an update on White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters by Robert Schlesinger (which I first heard about in May and have been slowly reading since August; click here to view all my posts about this book).

I am enjoying the book; Schlesinger is a great storyteller and with each chapter I am more and more impressed by his abilities.

It's just that with all of the excitement surrounding the Presidential election and the drama of the financial crisis, I found myself watching news on tv and reading news online during every spare moment.

So I confess I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to these past few months.

Click here to visit the official website for the book, here to read an excerpt of White House Ghosts on the publisher’s website, or here to view the table of contents.

Barack Obama '79

Punahou has this statement on it's website regarding Obama's historic victory:

Barack Obama ’79 Elected President of the United States

Punahou alumnus Barack Obama was elected the 44^th president of the United States in an historic election. As a first-term senator from Illinois, Obama's candidacy has brought significant attention to Hawai‘i and to Punahou School.

In his acceptance speech, Senator Obama said, "It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

Punahou School President James K. Scott today said, "This is a historic moment for America and the world, and for Hawai‘i. We are thrilled and honored that a Punahou School alumnus - and son of Hawai‘i - has been elected to serve as the next President of the United States. At Punahou School, our calling is to foster each student's potential to reach his or her promise and effect meaningful change in society. President-elect Obama is an inspirational embodiment of that vision."

Barack Obama was born in Hawai‘i and attended Punahou School beginning in the 5^th grade, graduating in 1979.

Yippeee!

Obama!

Yay for Obama!

As an alumnus of Punahou School and as an American, I am ecstatic and proud about Obama's victory tonight!

If you haven't read either of his books -- Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream -- I highly recommend them.

I've listened to the audio version of Dreams from My Father and it is fantastic! Every bit as wonderful as you'd except from a Grammy winner -- Obama's ability to do voices (including those of his Kenyan relatives) is unbelievable.

I haven't finished The Audacity of Hope yet but will try to do so before Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009!

The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America by James Bamford

James Bamford -- author of Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization, and A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies -- has a new book out about the NSA's spying on average Americans. Click here to read a recent article from The New York Times about the author.

As I understand it, Bamford (with the help of former intercept operators) exposes how private contractors have done the sensitive work of storing and processing the voices and written data of Americans and non-Americans alike and that the NSA has created a massive facility in Texs to store such data.

I realize national security isn't of much interest to most folks with the current financial crisis, but The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America seems like an important book.

Click here to submit a question for the author for his 3pm online discussion today (October 14) on the Washington Post website.

White House Ghosts by Robert Schlesinger

I've just started reading Robert Schlesinger's White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters.

I found out about this book through the New York Times, checked it out from the library after the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and finally got motivated to start reading this lengthy book as I've been eagerly watching the presidential and vice presidential debates and the candidates speeches about the bailout bill.

So far, this book seems very well-researched. Schelsinger is a natural storyteller and expertly weaves the facts into a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of presidents and their speechwriters.

This book is required reading for students of the American presidency.

Click here to read an excerpt of White House Ghosts on the publisher’s website or click here to view the table of contents.

David Cay Johnston on the bailout bill

Whether you were for or against the bailout bill, these three essays by David Cay Johnston, written for The Plank (a blog for The New Republic) are worth reading:

• Who Benefits From the Bailout?
• Celebrating The Bailout Bill's Failure--And Looking Ahead
• Time to Take a Step Back

I've been a long-time fan of Johnston's investigative reporting for The New York Times and after recently reading two of his books -- Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else (click here to read an excerpt of the book or click here to read my entries on this book) and Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) (click here to read my entries on this book or click here to read excerpts and view the table of contents on the author’s website for this book) -- I've come to trust Johnston as an advocate for the common person.

It seems to me that instead of doing concrete research into how the bailout bill might affect Americans and the global economy, most media sources were simply fear-mongering about the chaos that we were doomed to if the bailout failed to pass. I'm also disappointed that Congress appears not to have considered alternatives to the bailout bill initially proposed by Hank Paulson and instead just worked to improve it.

It couldn't have hurt them to talk to some of the world's economists who had differing opinions.

Absent that, we can trust Johnston to speak up for us.

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter

I haven't been interested in reading any of former President Jimmy Carter's books.

And this Nobel Peace Prize winner has written a lot of books:

• A Remarkable Mother
• Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems
• America on My Mind
• An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood
• An Outdoor Journal : Adventures and Reflections
• Atlanta: The Right Kind of Courage
• Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope
• Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East
• Bringing Peace to a Changing World: Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bible Study with Jimmy Carter
• Christmas in Plains: Memories
• Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life
• Faith and Freedom : The Christian Challenge for the World
• Government as Good as Its People
• Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President
• Leading a Worthy Life
• Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer
• Living Faith
• Measuring Our Success: Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bible Study with Jimmy Carter Vol. 2
• Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility
  
• Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
• Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
• Sharing Good Times
• Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith
• Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation
• The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War
• The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture 2002
• The Personal Beliefs of Jimmy Carter
• The Virtues of Aging
• Turning Point: A Candidate, A State, and A Nation Come of Age
• Why Not the Best?: The First Fifty Years

I didn't know that he wrote not just non-fiction but also a book of poetry and a children's book. And that doesn't even include the books that he's written prefaces, forewords or introductions for!

But the one I'm considering reading now is Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I remember reading a less than glowing New York Times review of this book in January 2007 not long after this book came out.

Obviously the publisher thinks much more highly of this book; here's what the publisher has to say about this book:

President Carter, who was able to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt, has remained deeply involved in Middle East affairs since leaving the White House. He has stayed in touch with the major players from all sides in the conflict and has made numerous trips to the Holy Land, most recently as an observer in the Palestinian elections of 2005 and 2006.

In this book President Carter shares his intimate knowledge of the history of the Middle East and his personal experiences with the principal actors, and he addresses sensitive political issues many American officials avoid. Pulling no punches, Carter prescribes steps that must be taken for the two states to share the Holy Land without a system of apartheid or the constant fear of terrorism.

The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known, the president writes. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy, and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal of a just agreement that both sides can honor.

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a challenging, provocative, and courageous book.

Having read Queen Noor's Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, I'd like to learn more about Israeli-Palestinian history and politics and I'm interested in reading Carter's Palestine because I suspect that it tells a different side of the story than we normally hear in the United States.

That this book has sparked much uproar makes me think that this is an important book to read -- whether or not it is accurate.

Click here to view the table of contents or click here to read an excerpt.

Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?

Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America is definitely worth reading, particularly if your knowledge of Roman history is lacking (click here to view all my posts about this book).

I don't know enough about Roman history to properly evaluate the points Murphy makes but I still found it interesting. Murphy writes for the average person and not the highly educated scholar.

Murphy is clearly well-read and appears to have done substantial research for this book. I was surprised by how often he mentioned other books. Some of the books he mentioned are:

• Colossus by Niall Ferguson - "I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job" and America's best and brightest "aspire not to govern Mesopotamia but to manage MTV; not to rule the Hejaz but to run a hedge fund."
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs - "The collapse of one sustaining cultural institution enfeebles others . . . . With each collapse, still further ruin becomes more likely."
• City of God by Augustine
• Satyricon by Petronius
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Cato: A Tragedy in Five Acts by Joseph Addison
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Life of Washington by Parson Weems
• Democracy: An American Novel by Henry Adams
• Caesar & Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw
• Political Arithmetick by William Petty
• Roman History by Ammianus Marcellinus
• The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Edward Luttwak
• The Soldier and the State by Samuel Huntington
• This Kind of War by Colonel T. R. Fehrenbach - "You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life -- but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
• Corruption and the Decline of Rome by Ramsay MacMullen - "the privatization of power" or "the deflection of public purpose by private interests."
• Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino
  
• The Shadow Government by Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner
• Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
• Blow the House Down by Robert Baer
• The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
• My Year in Iraq by L. Paul Bremer - I'd really like to read this
• The Old Social Classes & The Revolutionary Movement of Iraq by Hanna Batatu
• Roman History by Cassius Dio
• Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling
• Mexifornia by Victor Davis Hanson
• Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron
• Why Most Things Fail by Paul Ormerod

The breadth of Murphy's sources is astonishing. He even quoted video games such as Rome: Total War and several movies -- including Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Gladiator, and Spartacus.

I found that I enjoyed this book immensely at the start but found my interest wavering as I got further into the book. But Murphy concludes this book rather succinctly with what he calls the "Titus Livius 100-year Workout Plan":

1. Instill an appreciation of the wider world, including creation of immigration-friendly policies and an increase in the number of Americans who are fluent in another language.
2. Stop treating government as a necessary evil and instead rely on it proudly for the big things it can do well.  Examples include nurturing business, reducing poverty, Social Security, and guaranteed student loans.
3. Fortify the institutions that promote assimilation (public services for illegal immigrants).
4. Take some weight off the military and national service.

I wonder what Murphy thinks of the current financial crisis....hmm....

Click here to read an excerpt from Are We Rome? or click here to view the table of contents.

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy

With the upheaval in the financial markets these past few weeks, it's been especially interesting to read Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (click here to view all my posts about this book). I had high expectations for this book and I have not been disappointed.

Murphy begins by telling readers how the Roman emperor Diocletian and his imperial entourage can be easily compared to President George W. Bush and his entourage:

• mensores: advance men who requisition supplies and arrange for security
• protectores: imperial bodyguards / secret service
• comitatus: caravan / all people in the Executive Office of the President
• pragustatores: food-tasters / undercover agents who purchase food supplies anonymously at American supermarkets
• nomenklatura: name-callers of emperor's visitors
• haurs pices: oracles who interpret entrails of sheep
• augurs: oracles who interpret the flight of birds

He also explained that the thumbs-down sign originated from the gladiatorial turned thumb sign "pollice verso" before eventually summarizing the six parallels between Rome and America that Murphy focuses his book on:

1. How Americans see America, particularly how those in Washington view Washington itself.
2. Military power: the shortage of manpower and the widening cultural and social divide between military social and civilian society.
3. "Privatization" (and "corruption") and the fading distinction between public and private responsibilities and resources.
4. How Americans view the world.
5. Borders.
6. The inevitable complexity that comes with being a large empire/country.

I'll write more after I get further along, but in the meantime thought I would share this typical George W. Bush quote that Murphy used to illustrate the consolidation of power in the executive branch that has happened in the past 8 years:

I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain  . . . . I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

Click here to read an excerpt or click here to view the table of contents.

Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone

With the presidential elections coming up, more and more folks seem to be talking about range voting -- how if we were only as smart as other countries we would have adopted range voting and people could have voted for Ralph Nader and still gotten Al Gore as our county's 43rd president.

So when I read Scientific American's review on William Poundstone's Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It), I thought it was worth writing about. When I first heard about this book in Janet Maslin's New York Times book review "Just Tell Us Whom You Want to Win" published March 20, 2008, I wasn't interested in reading it.

But with the election getting closer, it seems more and more relevant.

Poundstone calculates that at least 5 out of 45 presidential elections since 1828 have gone to the second-most-popular candidate because of spoilers -- a failure rate of more than 11 percent for our voting system.

I'm curious about what Poundstone ultimately concludes after his discussion of alternative voting systems.

Click here to view the table of contents or click here to read an excerpt.

As for the other books mentioned by Scientific American -- Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard A. Muller and Electronic Elections: The Perils and Promises of Digital Democracy by R. Michael Alvarez and Thad E. Hall -- don't appeal as much to me.

To learn more about Physics for Future Presidents, click here; click here to view the table of contents for Electronic Election or click here to read an excerpt of Chapter 1 in PDF format (also available in HTML format here).

Friends' Recommendations

Three friends each recommended a book this week:

• Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Farmer by Tim Stark
• One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century by Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
• I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire

The first book is a memoir about producing organic veggies on a small farm in Pennsylvania Dutch country, after giving up his city life in Brooklyn, NY.  Using an old Toyota pickup, he transported his first auspicious crop of Hill Billies, Tiger Toms and Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifters to the Union Square Greenmarket and soon began to sell his produce to New York's posh kitchens.

Considering my ongoing interest in gardening, and my enjoyment of books related to organic food, I think I would rather enjoy this book. Though I'm not sure I've got time for it.

Click here to read an excerpt of Heirloom.



One Party Country is by two The Los Angeles Times journalists -- Wallsten covers the White House and national politics and Hamburger is an investigative reporter.

The author's premise is that despite the Bush Administration's current unpopularity, the Republican domination of American politics is unlikely to end anytime soon due to the powerful Republican machine. Thanks to Karl Rove and others, the Republicans have identified and commodified every potential vote in the nation through large-scale fundraising, targeted single-issue marketing, manipulative gerrymandering, and more.

Definitely relevant to this year's presidential election and possibly worth reading, but not sure it'll jump to the top of my list of books to read.

Click here to read an excerpt.



And the last book is about the history of marriage from Adam and Eve to modern times. In irreverent laugh-out-loud-funny prose, Squire argues that marriage was developed to establish paternity by controlling the sex life of women. It received a favorable review from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick in her New York Times book review "I Now Pronounce You Totally Confused" published September 5, 2008.Click here to read an excerpt of I Don't.

I'm always interested in learning about the history of our traditions so I Don't is definitely my kind of book. I'll have to put it on my list to read next year.

Funny that all of these books were featured on NPR -- guess that's what everyone's listening to these days.

Economist - Running dry

I'm a little behind on my subscription to the Economist.

Okay, I'm a lot behind.

Months behind.

But I'm going to catch up, starting with the August 23, 2008 issue. From this issue, I just finished the Business section including "Running dry."

As I've mentioned before, I've been seriously concerned about the world's water supply since 2003 when I read Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. And having grown up on an island, water conservation and water rights have always been important to me.

My interest has been slowly increasing over the years and it seems like the issue of water is becoming a hotter and hotter subject with each month.

This article just reminded me that I've got to make it a priority to read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (click here to read my posts related to this book) and Ken Midkiff's Not a Drop to Drink: America’s Water Crisis (and What You Can Do).

I hope the situation does not get as desperate as some experts foresee.

Got to run to the library!

Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joseph R. Biden

With Joe Biden as Obama's VP choice, I'd like to read Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

I've listened to the audio version of Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and I have a hardback copy of The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream that I've been meaning to read.

Any thoughts on Biden's Promises to Keep?

Is it worth reading?

Does it provide insight into the man who may be our next Vice President?

How does it compare to Obama's books?

I've listened to Biden's August 2007 interview with NPR's Morning Edition; how does this memoir compare to this interview?

Click here to read an excerpt from Promises to Keep, courtesy of Random House, or click here to view the table of contents.

And lastly, click here if you're interested in a free Obama-Biden sticker, courtesy of MoveOn.org.

Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston

I've finally finished reading David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else!

I have also read Free Lunch (click here to read my entries on that book) and I felt like while I preferred Free Lunch, I really think the preference was mostly due to the order in which I read these books.

Had I read Perfectly Legal first, I think I would have liked Perfectly Legal more than I liked Free Lunch. (Sorta how I felt about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code versus Angels & Demons having read The Da Vinci Code first.)

Funny how that works huh?

Still I like how David Cay Johnston concludes both books with calls for action and discussion of some potential solutions -- he actually ends both books with "Reform begins with you."

I particularly like this story from the conclusion of Perfectly Legal:

There is a fable of a village in wine country where each fall, after the grapes have been crushed and the vintage bottled, a bacchanal is held. Each vinter climbs a ladder in the town square and pours into a common cask a jug of his wine. One year the last vinter making the climb had fallen on hard times. The weather had not been kind to his grapes and he felt pinched. He decided that no one would notice if he thinned the wine with a jug of water. When he came down from the ladder, everyone applauded and the mayor swung a mallet to knock the cork from the base of the cask, out of which flowed clear water.

The moral is that when one person cheats, no one but the cheat notices. But when everyone cheats, there is no party for anyone.

Now on to cheerier books, I hope.

Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston

I've been very slowly reading David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else!

I really enjoyed reading Johnson's 2007 Free Lunch (click here to read my entries on that book) but have had a much harder time getting through Perfectly Legal; while the material in each book is different, they book have the same feel and I guess I've had enough of hearing about how the super-rich are profiting from ordinary middle class and lower class Americans.


To find out more, click here to read James K. Galbraith's New York Times review of this book titled " Nothing Is Certain but Death" and published in February 2004 or click here to read an excerpt from the author's website for this book.

Click here to read Johnston's articles published in the New York Times.

Leap of Faith by Queen Noor

I felt mesmerized reading Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor (click here to read all my posts about this book), which I finished a few days ago.

Queen Noor is really a remarkable woman and role model. She is an international humanitarian activist and an intelligent and outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice -- she has worked with the World Wildlife Fund International, Seeds of Peace, United World Colleges, Landmine Survivors Network among many others.

The beautiful love story of King Hussein and Queen Noor nearly brought me to tears.

As someone who feels rather uneducated when it comes to issues of the Middle East, I was grateful to learn the differences between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims (Shi'a are a minority and believe that only direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad may have spiritual or political rule over the community), what the term Hashimite means (direct descendants of Muhammad), and about the tragic and complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I urge you to read this thoughtful intelligent memoir.

The Political Mind by George Lakoff

Just read William Saletan's "Neuro-Liberalism" published June 22, 2008 in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, a review of The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century Politics With an 18th-Century Brain by George Lakoff.

George Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute, a think tank in Berkeley, and The Political Mind sounds like a guide for progressive politicians.

As Lakoff explains:

American values are fundamentally progressive, centered on equality, human rights, social responsibility, and the inclusion of all. Yet progressives have, without knowing why, given conservatives an enormous advantage in the culture war. The radical conservatives seek and have already begun to introduce: an authoritarian hierarchy based on vast concentrations and control of wealth; order based on fear, intimidation, and obedience; a broken government; no balance of power; priorities shifted from the public sector to the corporate and military sectors; responsibility shifted from society to the individual; control of elections through control of who votes and how the votes are counted; control of ideas through the media; and patriarchal family values projected upon religion, politics, and the market.

Lakoff's suggestions for progressives, according to Saletan, are also interesting:

What should progressives say? That conservatism is “fundamentally antidemocratic.” It “tells us to save your own skin and not to care about your neighbor,” so “conservatives don’t pay that much attention to injured veterans.”

I don't know how much I buy into all of this but I'm certainly curious to hear more about Lakoff's theories!