Dtek Industries

i'm excited to be reading a novel again. this time it's To Kill a Mockingbird, which i haven't read since high school -- long enough ago that i might as well be reading it for the first time.

the inspiration, of course, comes from the middle child in the photo above: Scout, the oldest, wisest, and yet most innocent of JAG and the Suze's triplets.

i'd love to have anyone join me, but am already tearing through!

i'd never heard of him or his book before, but David Korten spoke some salient sanity on Democracy Now! today. the book is called Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth and at first glance it sounds great.

from today's DN:

Here it is, my revised critique of Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Let me know what you think.

(The first posts are now drafts only. They are now below my original post.)

i've been reading an incredible book called The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler. the subtitle is "How social production transforms markets and freedom". the title is obviously a reference to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, which is the original "liberal" in "neoliberal" -- the bible of modern free-marketism.

Do you hear that, the bell ringing? Well, that's right, its ringing for you...

OK, people, I don't really know how much I can give to this one--time is short and I am busy as the next person. But I started last night, am two chapters in, and I'm totally hooked. The goal is to finish what is regarded as Hemingway's greatest novel For Whom the Bell Tolls over the next four weeks or so. That shouldn't be too difficult, though I suspect my posting about it will be kept to a minimum.

What do you guys say, want to join me?

(warning: be careful with the links below if you haven't read the book yet. not so much "spoilers"; i just feel strongly that you'll enjoy the book so much more knowing less about the story...)

well i took my break from the USA Trilogy, and picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road. no idea what i was in for.

after having it recommended to me a few years ago, i've been working on the USA Trilogy by Dos Passos.

Jackson himself printed this interview with Michael Pollen for me:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/in_defense_of_food_author

I'm going to get this and Omnivore's Dilemma today, and I'm going to run a marathon with Jackson within a year. And I am never going to die.

been reading a few military history books lately...

first, The Guns of August, a spectacular history of the first month of World War I by Barbara Tuchman. absolutely incredible how she's been able to reconstruct the personalities, issues, and zeitgeist of that period that shaped so much of human history for the past century.

to take a sample, almost at random (this is King Albert of Belgium and Germany's Kaiser in Berlin soon before outbreak):

i'm having fun with JAG and Shakespeare, and i'm not done there yet, but i'm also reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan -- a narrative, well-documented look at the simple question of what to eat in modern, industrial society.

i'm through section 1 of 3 and "i'm lovin it" (is that copyrighted?). i expect to be evangelizing for the book after i finish, and holding it up as a recipe for one of the common sense actions we're always seeking...

among the nuggets he's already hit on: