From the frontispiece: " Giuseppe Tomasi was a Sicilian nobleman, Duke of Palma and Prince of Lampedusa. He was born in Palermo in 1896 an died in Rome in 1957... He published nothing during his lifetime, but bequeathed, in addition to his great novel [that'd be The Leopard - R] a memoir, some short stories, an incomplete novel and some fascinating appraisals of English and French literature."
Must be nice to be a nobleman. Anyway...
This is a historical novel based on the transition in the 1800s in Italy from the end of the Kingdome of the Two Sicilies to the declaration of Rome as capital of Italy 1870. (Credit to the translator's note; I don't know much about 19th century Italy.) So, one political system is transitioning to another, the key characters are princes and their families... what can the book be about but the strangeness of a changing world?
It's really a pretty impressive book - challenging enough to get into through the style, has plenty of interesting little asides and allusions and interesting characters, and in the end feels nicely rounded out.
Thanks to Simone for this one!
Monday, March 13, 2006
Friday, March 10, 2006
The Black Ice - Michael Connelly
Not a badbook, just another detective thriller type, set in LA. Apparently the critics think the book is excellent, so I guess I was lucky not to get a dog of the genre.
Friday, March 03, 2006
October Sky - Homer H. Hickam, Jr
Once in a while you find a memoir by someone who actually had an interesting life, and is able to write about it in an interesting way. Hurray!
Okay, Homer Jr lived in a West Virginia coal town in the 1950s, and instead of high school ball and working in the mines, he got stuck into rocketry. Being an egghead in a coal town wasn't always the best plan, but Homer and his mates made out alright.
I think what keeps this story interesting is that it doesn't rely on the "I did this, then that, then this, then that..." approach. He's managed to tie in the events that happened around his immediate experience, and then with the hindsight of a few decades, relate the whole works as intertwined events - like when his father, the coal company's head guy in the town, couldn't slip him some materials for building rockets after the company was bought out and the unions showed up and so on.
Almost made me want to go out and build a rocket.
Okay, Homer Jr lived in a West Virginia coal town in the 1950s, and instead of high school ball and working in the mines, he got stuck into rocketry. Being an egghead in a coal town wasn't always the best plan, but Homer and his mates made out alright.
I think what keeps this story interesting is that it doesn't rely on the "I did this, then that, then this, then that..." approach. He's managed to tie in the events that happened around his immediate experience, and then with the hindsight of a few decades, relate the whole works as intertwined events - like when his father, the coal company's head guy in the town, couldn't slip him some materials for building rockets after the company was bought out and the unions showed up and so on.
Almost made me want to go out and build a rocket.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Striptease - Carl Hiassen
Yes, two books in a row by the same author. What can I do? It's one of those two-in-one volumes.
Another amusing, fluffy, vaguely nonsensical Florida based crime/comedy novel. This time it starts in a strip joint and ends in a sugar cane field.
Light 'n easy...
Another amusing, fluffy, vaguely nonsensical Florida based crime/comedy novel. This time it starts in a strip joint and ends in a sugar cane field.
Light 'n easy...
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Native Tongue - Carl Hiaasen
Hurray! Fluff!
Light, easy, and not completely insipid.
From the back: PR man Joe Wilder didn't believe the theft of the last two blue-tongued voles on earth from a billionaire's Florida theme park. He just wrote the story. Before he could say Robbie Raccoon, he was hiding out in the Everglades with a one-eyed man and a gun toting granny in pink curlers, and ready to put the skids on the craziest crime con in the history of the state.
I think it's a parody of the hard-bitten crime novel genre... even if it's not meant to be, it was fun to read.
Light, easy, and not completely insipid.
From the back: PR man Joe Wilder didn't believe the theft of the last two blue-tongued voles on earth from a billionaire's Florida theme park. He just wrote the story. Before he could say Robbie Raccoon, he was hiding out in the Everglades with a one-eyed man and a gun toting granny in pink curlers, and ready to put the skids on the craziest crime con in the history of the state.
I think it's a parody of the hard-bitten crime novel genre... even if it's not meant to be, it was fun to read.
Monday, February 20, 2006
The Constant Gardner - John le Carré
A tour de force of plot development... the plot is developed slowly and meticulously. It's not a fast moving book at all, and not as exciting as the cover suggests.
Very writerly - hints of events in the past are fleshed out later on in the book. Only the main character turns out to be particularly interesting in terms of development; everyone else is sort of just there.
The story is built on the nefarious activities of 'big pharma', and essentially the argument against those activities drives the actions of the protagonists.
If it wasn't for the qualities of the writing, this would be a rather generic take on the 'big pharma does bad things' approach; however, le Carré manages to heighten the sinister without sounding like a loony lefty.
Very writerly - hints of events in the past are fleshed out later on in the book. Only the main character turns out to be particularly interesting in terms of development; everyone else is sort of just there.
The story is built on the nefarious activities of 'big pharma', and essentially the argument against those activities drives the actions of the protagonists.
If it wasn't for the qualities of the writing, this would be a rather generic take on the 'big pharma does bad things' approach; however, le Carré manages to heighten the sinister without sounding like a loony lefty.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The Mysterious North - Pierre Berton
Berton's a darn fine story teller, and here he is telling the story of his time in Canada's North from 1947 to 1954, with retrospective chapters from 1989, where with the hindsight of 25 years, he can comment upon what he's written.
I can't help but be a bit jealous of ol' Pierre - what an interesting batch of stories. Imagine, getting a phone call from a buddy who's flying to Baffin Island in a few hours, and he asks you if you'd like to pop along for the ride? Of course you do - and later on you fly around the Rockies in northern BC looking to prove/disprove the existence of an Eden-like valley amidst the rock and snow.
The way things used to be... I couldn't really imagine if it wasn't for stories like these.
And a special thanks to Simone for bringing this book home one day.
I can't help but be a bit jealous of ol' Pierre - what an interesting batch of stories. Imagine, getting a phone call from a buddy who's flying to Baffin Island in a few hours, and he asks you if you'd like to pop along for the ride? Of course you do - and later on you fly around the Rockies in northern BC looking to prove/disprove the existence of an Eden-like valley amidst the rock and snow.
The way things used to be... I couldn't really imagine if it wasn't for stories like these.
And a special thanks to Simone for bringing this book home one day.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Overthrown by Strangers - Ronan Bennett
This was a pretty good book - a bunch of people get mixed up with each other, and they are mostly non-descript and utter unremarkable in their abilities - strange for a book about people taking on the forces of evil (normally there's a trump card in their character that allows them to overcome). Not so these sad sacks. They seem clever at times... but is it enough?
I kind of enjoyed it for the unconventional ending, which is probably pretty realistic given the subject matter - the exercising of power in developing countries, and the naivete of starry eyed idealists who hop on in trying to make it all right.
This story actually drew me in enough to care about the characters - it starts off like any old thriller good vs. evil plot, but as I got into it, the story was like one of those stories but just enough not like the norm to be interesting.
I kind of enjoyed it for the unconventional ending, which is probably pretty realistic given the subject matter - the exercising of power in developing countries, and the naivete of starry eyed idealists who hop on in trying to make it all right.
This story actually drew me in enough to care about the characters - it starts off like any old thriller good vs. evil plot, but as I got into it, the story was like one of those stories but just enough not like the norm to be interesting.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Naked - David Sedaris
This isn't a bad book at all, although it was not 'sidesplitting' as the NYT book review declares on the back cover.
Step one: Take the wave of memoir-itis where everyone thinks their life story is interesting enough to write a book about.
Step two: Write a whacked out parodic example of said wave.
Step three: Publish "naked".
What's so brilliant about it - that it's taking the mickey out of narcisism, or that it's a 'gay book', or what?
A nice light read, but if this is the freshest in American writing, the genre's getting pretty worn out.
Step one: Take the wave of memoir-itis where everyone thinks their life story is interesting enough to write a book about.
Step two: Write a whacked out parodic example of said wave.
Step three: Publish "naked".
What's so brilliant about it - that it's taking the mickey out of narcisism, or that it's a 'gay book', or what?
A nice light read, but if this is the freshest in American writing, the genre's getting pretty worn out.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Abomination - Paul Golding
This is a gay book (literally) about a Continental boy dropped into a proper English school system (like his dad was), but his character is more like that of his Spanish mom. So he doesn't really fit in, which is exacerbated by his homosexuality. As he grows older, he doesn't become any more interesting.
Once the mild shock of the more graphic descriptions had worn off, it wasn't all that impressive, and again, I found myself not really caring too much about the character. Through his trials and tribulations, self-loathing, self questioning, defiance, I didn't feel like there was any great insights made, no profound linkages between the retread of a hard time in school and being gay (other than the other boys call you specific names).
I actually felt most for the mother. In the beginning, she's a bit of a character, to the end she's a shell of who she was, and she loses the spark of liveliness that made her interesting at the start. The father's just a bit of a twit, and while I think the reader's meant to loathe him in the same way the main character does, I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to really feel anything in this regard either.
So, overall not nearly as good as the cover quotes would suggest.
Once the mild shock of the more graphic descriptions had worn off, it wasn't all that impressive, and again, I found myself not really caring too much about the character. Through his trials and tribulations, self-loathing, self questioning, defiance, I didn't feel like there was any great insights made, no profound linkages between the retread of a hard time in school and being gay (other than the other boys call you specific names).
I actually felt most for the mother. In the beginning, she's a bit of a character, to the end she's a shell of who she was, and she loses the spark of liveliness that made her interesting at the start. The father's just a bit of a twit, and while I think the reader's meant to loathe him in the same way the main character does, I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to really feel anything in this regard either.
So, overall not nearly as good as the cover quotes would suggest.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations - David Landes
It's been a while since I read this, and my memory of it is a little hazy. The question being answered is, in short, why is it that some countries are so wealthy, and others are so poor?
Now, Landes wrote this as emeritus professor of history at Harvard, so that in itself should lend some credence to the book. I do recall, that I felt a little unconvinced at the end of the book - his position that the values and attitudes that led to and sustained the industrial revolution are the drivers of success felt glib and pat, but presented with such a tone of self-assuredness that I can't help but think that he is, rather than having a good think about things, regurgitating in book form the convictions that he's developed over however many years as a distinguished academic.
I don't really disagree with most of his observations. It's more the lack of any indicators of success besides wealth. The other thing I didn't really agree with was his estimation of sustainable wealth generation - e.g., the wealthy countries today are growing sustainably because their growth has been sustainable for the last couple of hundred years. Glib, pat, and debatable.
It's a historical tour de force, and I'd say a good point to start chatting about the issues raised, but by no means should it be held as the final word.
Now, Landes wrote this as emeritus professor of history at Harvard, so that in itself should lend some credence to the book. I do recall, that I felt a little unconvinced at the end of the book - his position that the values and attitudes that led to and sustained the industrial revolution are the drivers of success felt glib and pat, but presented with such a tone of self-assuredness that I can't help but think that he is, rather than having a good think about things, regurgitating in book form the convictions that he's developed over however many years as a distinguished academic.
I don't really disagree with most of his observations. It's more the lack of any indicators of success besides wealth. The other thing I didn't really agree with was his estimation of sustainable wealth generation - e.g., the wealthy countries today are growing sustainably because their growth has been sustainable for the last couple of hundred years. Glib, pat, and debatable.
It's a historical tour de force, and I'd say a good point to start chatting about the issues raised, but by no means should it be held as the final word.
Friday, September 30, 2005
City of the beasts - Isabel Allende
This is a really engaging mystical story. In broad strokes, young American boy has to go hang out with his grandma on the other side of the country during a family health crisis. Grandma's scheduled to go to the Amazon - she's a writer type for National Geographic or something. So, junior has to go along. The Amazon, in reality as well as in this book, is equal parts unknown mysterious and scary wonderland, and a place for unscrupulous people to try and boost their egos and bank balances at the expense of the indigenous folks.
Junior learns to adapt, to be brave and live up to his totemic animal's reputation (I kinda want a totemic animal. With my luck, it'd be something like a cricket.) Anyway, he learns to see with his heart and accept the rythm of the jungle.
Books translated, as this one is, into English run the risk of losing some of the qualities of the original language (Spanish, in this case). Either the translator was brilliant, or the original book has huge qualities that some could get lost and it is still wondrous to read - or both.
The book isn't supremely spiritual and metaphysical as to be impenetrable - on the contrary, it makes the (perhaps mythologized and romanticised) Amazonian wonder accessible. It makes the point of the plight of indigenous people without being preachy.
A good read, and recommended.
Junior learns to adapt, to be brave and live up to his totemic animal's reputation (I kinda want a totemic animal. With my luck, it'd be something like a cricket.) Anyway, he learns to see with his heart and accept the rythm of the jungle.
Books translated, as this one is, into English run the risk of losing some of the qualities of the original language (Spanish, in this case). Either the translator was brilliant, or the original book has huge qualities that some could get lost and it is still wondrous to read - or both.
The book isn't supremely spiritual and metaphysical as to be impenetrable - on the contrary, it makes the (perhaps mythologized and romanticised) Amazonian wonder accessible. It makes the point of the plight of indigenous people without being preachy.
A good read, and recommended.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Down under - Bill Bryson
This is my first Bill Bryson book, and I'm still not sure if I like it or not. He's definitely good at writing from the point of view of the tourist. There are parts of the book, such as when he's describing the diversity and vastness of the continent, or the way the blackfellas been treated, when he demonstrates a sensitivity as well as an awareness of his own lack of deep understanding of things, when I really admire his style and observations.
Other times, he just sounds like a dumb American who lived as a whingeing Pom for twenty years, and who's been to Australia, likes it, and wrote a book about it.
Oh, he makes fun of cricket... nothing new there. It's not a terribly interesting story he tells, that's all. He seems to like it, but like so many journals of where people have gone and seen wondrous things, it's hard to really care about it.
Sure read the book, there's some flashes of brilliance, but over all, a pretty light read.
Other times, he just sounds like a dumb American who lived as a whingeing Pom for twenty years, and who's been to Australia, likes it, and wrote a book about it.
Oh, he makes fun of cricket... nothing new there. It's not a terribly interesting story he tells, that's all. He seems to like it, but like so many journals of where people have gone and seen wondrous things, it's hard to really care about it.
Sure read the book, there's some flashes of brilliance, but over all, a pretty light read.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Five past midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre & Javier Moro
Sucks to be poor and unimportant as the waves of the global market splash and ebb capital around, doesn't it? One day you're sitting there wondering if the damn rice is ever going to grow and the little power brokers in your remote province will ever cut you a bit of a break, when lo! some nice guy wanders around and gives you super duper seeds and an amazing cow, and life is going to be fabulous when the super seeds get eaten by little buggies and the cow doesn't have enough to eat so it keels over, so you have a really nice steak with no salad and then bugger all.
Act 2. Things get worse! So, you pack up the wife and kiddies and leave the nice little rural area you've been scratching by in for ever, and go to a city, where, as we all know, the streets are paved with gold. Well, maybe they were, because now there's just mud and more grinding poverty. Oh, but the kiddies can go make matches and cigarettes by hand in dark, close buildings, or scuttle over trains looking for things to salvage or maybe beg a couple of units of currency...
And lo! A wondrous thing happens. Out of nothing but concern for fellow human beings, and the boost in the pocketbook is really just a nice side effect, some big company which makes batteries, has decided to conquer the little buggies mentioned above, so the rice can grow proud and strong, the people can eat, prosper, and buy more bug-icide.
That company looks to your country which has lots of hungry people, and a history of climactic difficulties when it comes to feeding them, and decides that it'd be a heck of an idea to build a big factory right in your new city to manufacture this bug-icide. Right on, dude! Work, money and more food to buy with the money... a dream come true.
The factory gets built, people get good work, and training in handling the dangerous chemicals that go together to make their bug-icide. Your little slum even gets a television! Happy days!
Remember that bit about the pocket book? Turns out it's more important than we thought. So, things go downhill in the shiny new factory, as a couple of currency units here and a couple over there are saved... until... things go really wrong, and lots of people die, and no one really is assigned responsibility; the survivors and the victims' families never get compensated - and the compensation that they were supposed to get was minimal anyway.
Pretty crummy story, huh? It's a true one. A chemical plant blew up because it wasn't maintained, and killed 30 000 people in India.
This is by the same fellow who wrote City of Joy, and it's just as sensitive and disturbing.
Read it.
Act 2. Things get worse! So, you pack up the wife and kiddies and leave the nice little rural area you've been scratching by in for ever, and go to a city, where, as we all know, the streets are paved with gold. Well, maybe they were, because now there's just mud and more grinding poverty. Oh, but the kiddies can go make matches and cigarettes by hand in dark, close buildings, or scuttle over trains looking for things to salvage or maybe beg a couple of units of currency...
And lo! A wondrous thing happens. Out of nothing but concern for fellow human beings, and the boost in the pocketbook is really just a nice side effect, some big company which makes batteries, has decided to conquer the little buggies mentioned above, so the rice can grow proud and strong, the people can eat, prosper, and buy more bug-icide.
That company looks to your country which has lots of hungry people, and a history of climactic difficulties when it comes to feeding them, and decides that it'd be a heck of an idea to build a big factory right in your new city to manufacture this bug-icide. Right on, dude! Work, money and more food to buy with the money... a dream come true.
The factory gets built, people get good work, and training in handling the dangerous chemicals that go together to make their bug-icide. Your little slum even gets a television! Happy days!
Remember that bit about the pocket book? Turns out it's more important than we thought. So, things go downhill in the shiny new factory, as a couple of currency units here and a couple over there are saved... until... things go really wrong, and lots of people die, and no one really is assigned responsibility; the survivors and the victims' families never get compensated - and the compensation that they were supposed to get was minimal anyway.
Pretty crummy story, huh? It's a true one. A chemical plant blew up because it wasn't maintained, and killed 30 000 people in India.
This is by the same fellow who wrote City of Joy, and it's just as sensitive and disturbing.
Read it.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Drylands - Thea Astley
Cool - a fiction book, the first one in a long time. Shortish story shorter: The lives of a bunch of people in a fading Australian rural town are intertwined.
This is a pretty darn good book - it's readable AND it's technically interesting. There's a bunch of Aussie-centred subtexts I'm sure, but I've not been here long enough to pick up on all of them. I do know that chronology, psychology, economics and ecology are very believably dealt with in this book. The characters are not too complex; just enough so that they're interesting. The plot is the focus of writerly effort, I think, and it was worthwhile.
Good stuff, worth reading.
This is a pretty darn good book - it's readable AND it's technically interesting. There's a bunch of Aussie-centred subtexts I'm sure, but I've not been here long enough to pick up on all of them. I do know that chronology, psychology, economics and ecology are very believably dealt with in this book. The characters are not too complex; just enough so that they're interesting. The plot is the focus of writerly effort, I think, and it was worthwhile.
Good stuff, worth reading.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Collapse: Why societies choose to suceed or fail - Jared Diamond
We're not as screwed as David Suzuki thinks, but we're still pretty screwed.
This is a damn big book. I started it on a flight from Ottawa to Sydney, and just finished it. Diamond seems like a pretty rigorous researcher, and he's generally a pretty good writer.
(Very) long story short: there's lots of factors that contribute the demise of civilisations. The environment is a really important one, but it operates in concert with other things, not the least of which is the decisions made by the civilisation. That's why the Easter Islanders died off, but the Icelanders and Inuit managed to stick around.
Well worth reading, this one.
This is a damn big book. I started it on a flight from Ottawa to Sydney, and just finished it. Diamond seems like a pretty rigorous researcher, and he's generally a pretty good writer.
(Very) long story short: there's lots of factors that contribute the demise of civilisations. The environment is a really important one, but it operates in concert with other things, not the least of which is the decisions made by the civilisation. That's why the Easter Islanders died off, but the Icelanders and Inuit managed to stick around.
Well worth reading, this one.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Public Relations - A matter of spin: N E Renton
This is basically a little collection of how-to tips for the public relations practitioner in Australia, from planning press releases to spinning and timing stories so that the media covers it the way you want to.
Trouble is, I think people are too damn good at this sort of stuff, and the PR folks have a grand old time getting away with little massages of news and so on.
There's not a lot to this book - it's more of "another treasure of wisdom" from "a renowned leader in Australian PR" blah blah blah. It's just a manual.
Trouble is, I think people are too damn good at this sort of stuff, and the PR folks have a grand old time getting away with little massages of news and so on.
There's not a lot to this book - it's more of "another treasure of wisdom" from "a renowned leader in Australian PR" blah blah blah. It's just a manual.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Naked Ape to Superspecies - David Suzuki and Holly Dressel
We're screwed, folks.
Well, that may actually be a glib interpretation. There's a lot of things going wrong with the world, and David Suzuki is a heck of a guide through the dystopia that we're turning our planet into. You know, we're kind of like dogs that haven't learned not to pee in the house, or stupid kids who get their own place and just have fun and trash the joint. Actually, I think we're more like the kids than the dogs - we're supposed to have some sense, being human and all.
About the book. David Suzuki, in case you haven't heard of him, is a geneticist turned environmentalist, and he's pretty darn good at it. His story is that he was having a grand old time down at the genetics lab, and one day he found out about some worrying goin's on over in corporate genetics ville, and had a fundamental re-thing about what was going on.
Essentially, there's no argument that humans (and their ancestors, and all the other creatures great and small) have an effect on the environment. But to use this argument as a panacea against the doom and gloom of the enviro-lefties is disingenuous. Humans, as superspecies rather than naked ape of days gone by, is able to cause enormous environmental change in such short periods of time that ol' Mother Earth can't keep up with cleaning up after us.
Sometimes we're pretty clueless: I think it was this book (though it could be one of the other envirodoom books I've read lately) that tells the story of some wonderful bio-engineered microorganism that was supposed to do something particularly handy, like eat pollution and turn it into sunlight, or make loaves of bread appear on wheat stalks or something like that. Neat, and readily commercialisable. The way things worked, in order to get approval to release this into the wild in the States, the FDA said to the company "Make sure this gizmo won't do anything real bad, m'kay?" And the company said "Sure! We'll run some tests." So they sterilized some soil, put the gizmo in the lab in the soil, and lo and behold, it sat there kind of bored cos there was nothing to do. Some bright young grad student had an idea. Soil isn't sterile, he thought to himself. So he wandered out on his lunch break, grabbed a bucket of soil and brought it in to the lab. He put in some of the genetically engineered wonder, and nearly pooped himself when in short order there was nothing left alive in the 'natural' soil. The wonder-organism killed off every other biotic element in the sample. Ergo, release this into the wild and... it's gonna kill off all the microorganisms, upon which everything that grows in the soil depends... and that we depend on to, you know, live.
It was a fluke that there's still stuff growing in North America, dudes. One bright young fella with a bucket of dirt made a big difference.
That's the story that's stuck with me after finishing the book. The book's typically well written, and is rigourously researched. I can't fault Suzuki's motives or persuasion.
The only problem is, it's the enviro-left again. The folks making the money off GMOs and wrecking our house have control of the discourse, and the regulations. The arguments that their technological wizardry is going to save the earth is drowning out the little pesty voices suggesting that they're mucking up more than their fair share of it.
Righto, here's a whack of links from the back of the book. I've updated URLs that I've been able to find.
Well, that may actually be a glib interpretation. There's a lot of things going wrong with the world, and David Suzuki is a heck of a guide through the dystopia that we're turning our planet into. You know, we're kind of like dogs that haven't learned not to pee in the house, or stupid kids who get their own place and just have fun and trash the joint. Actually, I think we're more like the kids than the dogs - we're supposed to have some sense, being human and all.
About the book. David Suzuki, in case you haven't heard of him, is a geneticist turned environmentalist, and he's pretty darn good at it. His story is that he was having a grand old time down at the genetics lab, and one day he found out about some worrying goin's on over in corporate genetics ville, and had a fundamental re-thing about what was going on.
Essentially, there's no argument that humans (and their ancestors, and all the other creatures great and small) have an effect on the environment. But to use this argument as a panacea against the doom and gloom of the enviro-lefties is disingenuous. Humans, as superspecies rather than naked ape of days gone by, is able to cause enormous environmental change in such short periods of time that ol' Mother Earth can't keep up with cleaning up after us.
Sometimes we're pretty clueless: I think it was this book (though it could be one of the other envirodoom books I've read lately) that tells the story of some wonderful bio-engineered microorganism that was supposed to do something particularly handy, like eat pollution and turn it into sunlight, or make loaves of bread appear on wheat stalks or something like that. Neat, and readily commercialisable. The way things worked, in order to get approval to release this into the wild in the States, the FDA said to the company "Make sure this gizmo won't do anything real bad, m'kay?" And the company said "Sure! We'll run some tests." So they sterilized some soil, put the gizmo in the lab in the soil, and lo and behold, it sat there kind of bored cos there was nothing to do. Some bright young grad student had an idea. Soil isn't sterile, he thought to himself. So he wandered out on his lunch break, grabbed a bucket of soil and brought it in to the lab. He put in some of the genetically engineered wonder, and nearly pooped himself when in short order there was nothing left alive in the 'natural' soil. The wonder-organism killed off every other biotic element in the sample. Ergo, release this into the wild and... it's gonna kill off all the microorganisms, upon which everything that grows in the soil depends... and that we depend on to, you know, live.
It was a fluke that there's still stuff growing in North America, dudes. One bright young fella with a bucket of dirt made a big difference.
That's the story that's stuck with me after finishing the book. The book's typically well written, and is rigourously researched. I can't fault Suzuki's motives or persuasion.
The only problem is, it's the enviro-left again. The folks making the money off GMOs and wrecking our house have control of the discourse, and the regulations. The arguments that their technological wizardry is going to save the earth is drowning out the little pesty voices suggesting that they're mucking up more than their fair share of it.
Righto, here's a whack of links from the back of the book. I've updated URLs that I've been able to find.
- GreenNet
- Friends of the Earth
- GreenPeace (Canada)
- The Population Institute
- Sierra Club (Canada)
- TWN
- Adbusters
- Redefining Progress
- Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill (QPIRG-McGill)
- Organic Consumers Association (Old site) (New site)
- Biotechnology.org
- Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
- International Centre for Technology Assessment
- Council of Canadians
- International Forum on Globalization
- Center for Media and Democracy - PRWatch
- CorpWatch
- David Suzuki Foundation
- Rainforest Action Network
- World Resources Institute
- Sea Sheperd Conservation Society
- Essential Information Encouraging Activism
- Health Care without Harm
- Environmental Rights Action
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Collateral language: A user's guide to America's new war - John Collins and Ross Glover, eds.
The trouble with lefty challenges to the way the world works is that for some reason, they can't get their position to be taken seriously either by the power elite nor the majority of the Joe and Jane Sixpacks. Heck, they can't even be heard. So what happens? A bunch of intelligent, concerned, and politically engaged people tell each other how misguided the people in charge are, how they're pulling the wool over the people's eyes, betraying the trust of democracy and freedom, and generally agreeing that something needs to be done.
Here we go again. This collection of essays, published shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, are fairly cogent and reasonable arguments against the status quo of the War on Terror(ism), and all the other things the US power elite does in order to ensure its global hegemony, like sponsoring the 'disappearance' of social democratic figures in South America in favour of despotic arseholes who'd rather kill off their own citizens in exchange for money and weapons from Uncle Sam.
The problem, and several of the essays get it, is that the discourse has been so effectively framed to support the dominant world view - America as a beacon of freedom and democracy, ill-defined terrorists (generally, whomsoever the American executive doesn't like) are threats, therefore high ho, it's off to war we go.
I had a rather leftish university education, and two things led to my distance from the cause, as it were: First, saving the world and advancing the cause of the proletariat, unless one is a suitably well-regarded professor or populist writer, does not the mortgage pay. Second, this problem of actually getting anything done sort of is disillusioning. Answers to the problem of being heard, of having an effect, are few and far between. The discourse has been so coopted and controlled by the elites, that when the lefties make a statment or organise a march, it's really easy for them to be marginalised as the nutters in the way of progress. Only the left takes the left seriously, unfortunately.
After that rather cynical rant, I must admit having a soft sport for the arguments in the book. Hell yeah, I think our civil liberties are being eroded in favour of a false sense of security. Hell no, I don't think bombing the bejesus out of poor hungry people is the way to global security. Hell no, I don't think accelerating the consumption of natural resources is the manifest destiny of the 'developed world'. Hell yeah, I think a nation ought to be able to protect its global trading interests (does anyone else want their copyright laws remodeled in America's image? Most Aussies don't seem to remember this part of the Free Trade Agreement). Hell yeah, I think people are being fooled by the power elites. Yeah, I think that innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Nicaraguans get just as dead as innocent Americans, and their families weep in sorrow and in anger just as much.
I am aware of populist resistance to the machinations of the global groups - WTO et al - but the stuff that doesn't make the headlines is the scary stuff. Genetic engineering and genome patenting and so on - we don't hear so much about that.
There's a bunch of non-mainstream news sources listed at the end of the book - I'll put in links to them here in the hope that maybe one or two more people see one of the alternative realities. The left needs to figure out how to play the power and discourse framing game with the big boys, though.
Interesting links from the book (page 223):
Here we go again. This collection of essays, published shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, are fairly cogent and reasonable arguments against the status quo of the War on Terror(ism), and all the other things the US power elite does in order to ensure its global hegemony, like sponsoring the 'disappearance' of social democratic figures in South America in favour of despotic arseholes who'd rather kill off their own citizens in exchange for money and weapons from Uncle Sam.
The problem, and several of the essays get it, is that the discourse has been so effectively framed to support the dominant world view - America as a beacon of freedom and democracy, ill-defined terrorists (generally, whomsoever the American executive doesn't like) are threats, therefore high ho, it's off to war we go.
I had a rather leftish university education, and two things led to my distance from the cause, as it were: First, saving the world and advancing the cause of the proletariat, unless one is a suitably well-regarded professor or populist writer, does not the mortgage pay. Second, this problem of actually getting anything done sort of is disillusioning. Answers to the problem of being heard, of having an effect, are few and far between. The discourse has been so coopted and controlled by the elites, that when the lefties make a statment or organise a march, it's really easy for them to be marginalised as the nutters in the way of progress. Only the left takes the left seriously, unfortunately.
After that rather cynical rant, I must admit having a soft sport for the arguments in the book. Hell yeah, I think our civil liberties are being eroded in favour of a false sense of security. Hell no, I don't think bombing the bejesus out of poor hungry people is the way to global security. Hell no, I don't think accelerating the consumption of natural resources is the manifest destiny of the 'developed world'. Hell yeah, I think a nation ought to be able to protect its global trading interests (does anyone else want their copyright laws remodeled in America's image? Most Aussies don't seem to remember this part of the Free Trade Agreement). Hell yeah, I think people are being fooled by the power elites. Yeah, I think that innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Nicaraguans get just as dead as innocent Americans, and their families weep in sorrow and in anger just as much.
I am aware of populist resistance to the machinations of the global groups - WTO et al - but the stuff that doesn't make the headlines is the scary stuff. Genetic engineering and genome patenting and so on - we don't hear so much about that.
There's a bunch of non-mainstream news sources listed at the end of the book - I'll put in links to them here in the hope that maybe one or two more people see one of the alternative realities. The left needs to figure out how to play the power and discourse framing game with the big boys, though.
Interesting links from the book (page 223):
- Alternet
- Amnesty International
- Common Dreams News Center
- Food First
- FreeSpeech Television
- Global Exchange
- Guardian Unlimited (Mainstream, but a little more critical)
- Human Rights Watch
- The Independent (Hey, a competitor to the Guardian?)
- Independent Media Center
- The MediaChannel
- Media Workers against War - ah, this appears to be no longer working.
- Media Working Group
- Middle East International
- Middle East Research and Information Project
- Mother Jones
- The Nation
- Posters for Peace
- The Progressive
- Re:constructions
- United for a Fair Economy
- War & Peace
- Z Magazine
Thursday, August 18, 2005
The Race - Tim Zimmerman
Well, I found me another 'extreme sailing' book - in the theme of the Vendee Globe, except with more people and fewer rules.
Zimmerman starts in true round-the-world sailing story tradition, by nailing the highlights of the various races that have marked milestones in sailing - Slocum's circumnavigation, the trans-atlantic solos, the Whitbread, the OSTAR, et cetera, et cetera. Not a particularly innovative start to the book, but what are the options, really? In any event, I kind of liked his summary, as it moved along the chronology pretty quickly - good for me as I've read a couple of versions of sailing history, perhaps not so good for someone for whom this is the first introduction. Then again, a quick introduction could be appreciated. In any event...
"The Race" is essentially a race around the world in crewed boats. Competitors take off, and first one to the finish wins. Stopping in port for repairs nets a time penalty. Since they sail around Antarctica, the boats have to be pretty tough to survive in the Southern Ocean - but not so tough that they fall apart in rough oceans.
Zimmerman's storytelling is competent, but I didn't get the same urgency to turn pages as I did in reading about the Vendee.
Zimmerman starts in true round-the-world sailing story tradition, by nailing the highlights of the various races that have marked milestones in sailing - Slocum's circumnavigation, the trans-atlantic solos, the Whitbread, the OSTAR, et cetera, et cetera. Not a particularly innovative start to the book, but what are the options, really? In any event, I kind of liked his summary, as it moved along the chronology pretty quickly - good for me as I've read a couple of versions of sailing history, perhaps not so good for someone for whom this is the first introduction. Then again, a quick introduction could be appreciated. In any event...
"The Race" is essentially a race around the world in crewed boats. Competitors take off, and first one to the finish wins. Stopping in port for repairs nets a time penalty. Since they sail around Antarctica, the boats have to be pretty tough to survive in the Southern Ocean - but not so tough that they fall apart in rough oceans.
Zimmerman's storytelling is competent, but I didn't get the same urgency to turn pages as I did in reading about the Vendee.
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