Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz

A great read by an author who is becoming one of my favorites.  The book examines the legacy of the American Civil War in today’s South.  Combining in depth historical research with poignancy and wit, Horwitz’s book is a must for the shelf of any history buff.  Much like another book of his,  A Voyage Long and Strange, the research was conducted first hand throughout the region.  This spices the book up a little as it adds a travel theme to the stew.  The narrative is easy to follow yet smart.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

A classic.  I guess I was on somewhat of a Civil War Kick.  This time though, the work is fiction.  Also, Crane chooses to place his protagonist, Henry Fleming, in a Union uniform.  The book written in a flowery, beautiful, 19th century prose.  I even took my pen out and scribbled, underlined, and bracketed sentences and passages that just oozed of descriptive goodness.  Much of the book focuses on Fleming’s thoughts and emotions throughout days on the front.  A reader witnesses Fleming go through stages of paralyzing fear, jubilation, anxiety, guilt, and a number of other emotions.  Crane was only 24 upon the book’s publication.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Another classic.  The only thing I can say about this book is READ IT.  It’s about 100 pages, and packs a serious punch.  Do yourself a favor and read this.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

If I could give this book a sub-title it would be:  The Way the World Really Works.  In this memoir, Perkins discusses his days as an Economic Hit Man (EHM).  The role of the EHM was to, essentially, saddle a country with so much debt that they would never be able to repay it.  As a result, the lender organizations and countries enjoyed political, military, and economic cooperation from those debt-ridden states.  Now, that is a bastardized and over-simplified summary, but you get the idea.  This book truly helps you to understand the word globalization.  The book can paint a pretty dreary image of the world and the United States, and at times can get gritty–not for the idealistic or faint of heart.  If you’re interested in US foreign policy, or international policy over the last 50 years, this is a must read.

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan

This was my summer reading assignment–yes, I have summer reading in college.  The book is a collection of 5 short stories, all told from the perspective of children living in Africa.  From a Muslim killed by Christians amidst religious violence, to an Uncle selling his niece and nephew into child slavery, this book covers the spectrum of hardships many African children face today.  But through it all,  I think there is some strand of hopefulness.  The stories are all together moving, sad, and inspiring.

For now, enjoy these.

By Robert Persig

Publisher: William Morrow & Company

I first heard about this novel when checking out some reading lists online, specifically, a reading list for men.  The title intrigued me, so I did a little looking and found that it was a best seller, a landmark work, etc. etc.  One of my favorite genres of books is the road novel.  Endless miles on an open ride provide a great background for a novel.  I am also infatuated with motorcycles.  The book seemed like a perfect fit for me.  I was wrong, and I think that soured my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

It wasn’t as much a novel about the road, about motorcycles, or about a father-son relationship (which I was also promised) as it was about philosophy.  I should have been clued in to this when the employee at Barnes & Nobel walked past the fiction section to the philosophy section.  If I had to quantify the ratios, I would say that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is 2 parts road novel, 1 part father-son examination, and 4 parts philosophy.  Qualitatively, I would describe the book as dense.  I found myself thoroughly enjoying and breezing through the road oriented passages, and yet laboring through the philosophy passages.  Admittedly,  much of the philosophy was over my head.  I am not a slow reader, yet I found this book a tiresome read.  Work, rather than pleasure.  That said, I will say the road and the father-son passages were interesting, and to a large extent, entertaining.

In all, I am glad I read it.  It does offer many interesting insights and anecdotes that are indeed relevant to everyday life.  Also, the running narrative on the author’s “former self” Phaedrus, is quite interesting, although at times frustratingly mysterious.  If you’re interested in philosophy, I recommend the book–otherwise, I recommend the book with an asterisk.  If you don’t know much about philosophy,  go ahead and get your feet wet, it’s not a painful read.  But if you know you have an aversion to over analysis and philosophy, then I’d say look elsewhere on the bookshelf for your next read.

Facebook is taking your “likes” and pages that you are a fan of, and offering that information (for a fee) to these sites, so that they may tailor what they offer to your preferences.  For example, if you “Become a fan of…” a certain artist on facebook, next time you log into Pandora, it’s likely a new channel will appear for that Artist you recently “Became a fan of”.  Kinda cool, I guess, if you like your personal information being sold–WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE.  The implications are immense, and quite frankly, scary.

It’s one thing to personalize my music listening, but it’s not hard to imagine scenarios far more alienating and sinister.  Say you “Become a fan of” a certain politician.  Now, your political views may be sold to outsiders and websites.  Every site you log on to that purchases the data, will know you, and know your views.  Pre-judgement at its finest.  I’ve seen a fan page for “Blacking Out,”  sure, it’s funny in college, but you wouldn’t tell the entire web about it–the entire world–would you?  Just think for yourself, what have you “Become a fan of,” or “Liked”.  Do you want the entire web to know all that?  Rest assured, these three BETA sites are only the beginning.

All this would be pretty darn neat if Facebook only told their users about it.  But they didn’t, they rolled it out without your knowledge.  Think I’m kidding?  Log on to docs.com and check out the banner that appears at the top of the screen.  Facebook stated, that it “gave users unprecedented control over their data and that it only shared what they have agreed to make public.”  The problem is, no one agreed to make this information public.  Facebook took it upon themselves to do it for us.

What further irks me is the long, tedious, confusing process you have to go through to disable these so called features.  It’s so laborious that I cannot help but think that it is intentional, as to discourage users from opting out.  What follows is a step-by-step guide to opting out.

On ACCOUNT drop down menu > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization Pilot Program, Click Edit Settings

You Should see a check box (already checked for you albeit) like this:

Uncheck this.  At this time, you will be met with another box, a warning, as if what you are doing is inadvisable.  Proceed.

Before you click confirm.  Open in a new tab, the LEARN MORE link.  If you read the text, it turns out that your information can still be exported to the entire web through the action of your Facebook freinds.  Not cool.  We will take care of this, too.  After opening the LEARN MORE link, confirm.

This link will take you to a help center.  This is a handy link because this help center is buried within the user interface, making it hard to come across on your own.  There is a list of 20 help topics.  The 18th of 20, should be this:

Click here.  You should be met with:

Open each individually (new tabs makes it easier, as clicking on one will open the link in the same tab and hide this list from you each time, tricky, eh?) and click BLOCK APPLICATION on each page.

Congratulations, you’ve just protected yourself from having your information exploited and sold!  I am worried, however, where will this stop?  Will I be notified when new sites are added to this program?  Will I have to opt out of them individually as well?

It was Pee-Pee’s 5th Birthday

]]> http://www.wellwornin.com/blog/2010/04/day-off-go-to-the-shore/feed/ 0 http://www.wellwornin.com/blog/2010/03/book-review-superfreakonomics/ http://www.wellwornin.com/blog/2010/03/book-review-superfreakonomics/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:00:07 +0000 Ted http://www.wellwornin.com/blog/?p=656

By: Steven D. Levitt (The Economist) & Stephen J. Dubner (The Writer)

Publisher: William Morrow

If you’ve read Freakonomics and enjoyed it, you should read it’s sequel, SuperFreakonomics.  There I said it–That’s the review in a nutshell.  For a more detailed review, continue reading.

Good news and bad news.  Bad news first: Freakonomics was a great book, and an enthralling read–easily one of my favorite books.  Maybe my expectations for Super- were a little too high, but the sequel didn’t quite fill the shoes set before it.  But, really, could it?  Freakonomics was fresh and provided a lot of food for thought–everything from sumo wrestling to crack dealing.   It was wholly original.  Maybe Super- just lacked the originality factor of its predecessor.  It feels as though the book was rushed, like the authors took whatever material they had on hand–left over from the original even–and cranked out another book (Ironically, in the Forward the authors tell us they tried to avoid doing this).

But it’s not all bad!  Believe me!  Good news:  It does offer its fair share of not your average insights.  Example: Prostitution in a Chicago park seems to peak every year around July 4th–the same time that family reunions peak in the very same park.  Hmm…  Super- seems to have a continuity (although at times it feels contrived) to it that I cannot recall from Freakonomics–however, I did read it two years ago.  Super- is a fine read, however, and applies to today, with a portion of the book devoted to global war–er…uhm…global cooling.  It’s also a quick read, coming in at about 200 pages, it’s nothing too serious.

In all, if you’ve read the first, read the second.  If you haven’t read the first–read the first.  Then consider the second.

Buy SuperFreakonomics Here

Buy Freakonomics Here

Also of note:

Freakonomics Blog from the NY Times and the Freakonomics Podcast