BruceK

Blah, handwringing story from paid pundit land 1/5

Revisado: 01-01-22

I like Tom Nichols, I've read other things by him and heard lecture and talks
by and with him. He's a smart guy and his values are more or less correct,
but all we get from paid pundit land are more books with the same stuff
in them and the same non-answers. These people are part of the problem
since they are symbionts to this broken system.

I'd like to go through every line I highlighted on my Kindle ( I buy the Audible
and Kindle versions of most books ) and thought I had, but I just don't have
the time or inclination. The critics of our society are not doing right by us all
writing the same book, saying the same thing.

Basically all they end up doing is preparing us for the worst ... thanks a lot.

1/5

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Interesting subject, tiresome & tediously written

Revisado: 11-22-18

I heard this book discussed on the PBS RadioLab program and it sounded so very interesting and something I wanted to know more about in light of how simple life forms can share genetic material. The example in the show was how bacteria can transfer resistance to antibiotics - a very important subject these days. I bought it immediately but I have never read a book that was so much of a drudge, filled with tiresome and tedious details I am up to chapter 5 and there is really no mention of the science, how it was discovered and what it means.

This books wears one out and kills any interest in the subject. I am up to chapter 5 and nothing of any scientific relevance has even gotten close to being discussed. A reading experience that is absolutely terrible. I will never read anything by this author again, but moreover, I have seen a lot of books lately that are similar to this in that they go on and on about people, meetings, papers, minutiae and put in a relevant point only every 100 pages or so. I would be livid if I was reading this instead of listening to it in an audiobook, all that effort and dedicated time while virtually learning nothing about the subject it was supposed to be about.

I think the problem is that these writers are being paid by the word, not the idea, so they go on and on about the most unimportant and irrelevant details. I hope I can find some other book that actually explains HGT, Horizontal Gene Transfer, what it means, how it works and how it changes what we know about evolution and life, and what it means for humans and disease.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Trite and cliche ... this was not up to Patterson

Revisado: 09-01-17

All the characters in this book are unbelievable, and their actions
and descriptions are ridiculous.

When Audible calls this a best-seller, I don't think they're mentioning
that they had to give it away for free.

A few things I did not like about this book are that the "hero of the
book is a war hero all of whose friends are either criminals or
prostitutes. Another thing is that they glorify the Mafia, like a
Godfather movie, they make these lowlife scum criminals seem
like real honest stand up guys. Also the hero is always being taken
advantage up by his friends or family. He has to solve all the problems,
and he can do it with lots of money.

There is nothing real in this book, it is like a movie that I would rate
even lower than this which I rate overall as 2/5.

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Documents how US plutocracy oppresses citizens

Revisado: 04-14-17

I have read/listened to this book, in my case Audible and Kindle versions
twice, and plan to read it again. This book, an expanded, edited version
of the documentary by the same name is an important and well put together
compendium of Noam Chomsky's ideas on America's political order. It is
an important book to read if you are concerned about contemporary trends
with American politics and the 99%.

Many of Chomsky's ideas are in opposition to conventional thinking that they
seem strange at first, and take a while to sink in. This book is Chomsky distilled,
a concise clear summary of ideas most of us are too busy to think about or too
distracted to perceive, the "red pill" that clues the reader in to see the "Matrix".
Agree or disagree, you will never see this country the same way.

Noam Chomsky has spent his lifetime studying history and current events and
has passed on his insights in over 100 books and countless lectures, but this
book is an edited collection of the main criticisms of American politics. Our
system calls itself democratic, but works by keeping working citizens out of
the loop; without the information, tools and connections to understand our
common interests as citizens to fulfill the promise of our Constitution. Chomsky
shows that 85% of government policies go against what the people want when
they are polled.

An important point in this book is how in our society/economy we are
trained in what Chomsky calls the "vile maxim", morally evil rules of conduct
as being normal. The vile maxim is described as "All for ourselves and
nothing for anyone else" or care only for yourself and forsake all others.
How this is programmed and promulgated in our country makes the difference
between the US and the rest of the developed world - widening gulf.

We've ended up with a morally bankrupt society that harms many of its people
while telling them they live in the greatest country in the world and pay to have
our military secure resources and power for the tiny elite who do not serve the
interests of the American people. In other developed countries they have
sustainable social systems that support and help their people, and their citizens
are better off than Americans on many dimensions while our media tells us the
opposite.

The book is put together in elegant order, well written; a handbook for understanding
the American tragedy. The "plutocrats" have worked efficiently to direct wealth and
power to the top and to disempower citizens and trick them with propaganda.

The Audible version is done well. The reader's voice is a bit harsh and cold
reminiscent of a college lecturer, but it is clear and the sentences are clear
and intelligible.

Requiem For The American Dream by Noam Chomsky 5/5

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esto le resultó útil a 21 personas

No Part 2 Audible available ?

Revisado: 10-30-13

This is an interesting and clear book, if a little slow.

It bothered me a little that fully the first 4-5 chapters are so basic and often seem to be covering intelligent design as much as they cover evolution.

You have to get 6 chapters into the book before it even starts to talk about evolution and Darwin, but it does explain well.

Aside from too much emphasis on creationism, even if it is as a negative, or inserted to make the creationists feel better, it does correctly criticism creationism as not scientific.

But I did enjoy that the book goes back into history to the ancient Greeks and shows that there were very advanced ideas back then beginning with the Ionians and their ideas of science. One wonders where we would all be today if these ideas had taken hold and had thousands of years to grow rather than religion and all the wars we have had.

The existence of a Part 1 implies that there is a part 2, but I do not see it in Audible.com.

While I enjoy and have bought many good non-fiction books at Audible, there is a real shortage of good scientific or educational books such as this one that I would love to see corrected. Another book called the "Making Of The Fittest" has more descriptions of evolution and its terms and ideas which I highly recommend.

One thing that bothers me a bit is that whenever they read Darwin the narrator switches to this feeble old high-pitched voiced, like a doddering old man with a fake British accent. It's a small price to have to pay, but I don't really understand why they feel the need to do that, at some times it is almost comedic and can detract from the ideas being presented.

Evolutionary Biology, Part 1: Darwinian Revolutions is both entertaining and educational. I recommend the book, but I am hungry for more, so I really want to see part 2 available as soon as possible. Part 3 anyone?

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Like Rattigan, Full Of Drama, Not Much Substance

Revisado: 03-19-12

I was interested to read this when I heard Rattigan speaking at the Commonwealth Club where he sounded intelligent and hit all the right notes. Now, I feel manipulated and want my money back.

Rattigan is just another media talking head massaging the demographics right to draw a crowd and sell books, especially the young and gullible. I should know better, so I suppose I fall into the gullible side of that.

When I saw him making the talk show circuit holding up this giant idiotic looking LED lightbulb the size and shape of an alien mothership as an example of how American ingenuity was going to storm the world I knew this was another nonsensical scam.

I'll make my own prediction, and it is open ended. Until each and every one of us, Americans, stops spending on money on cheap trinkets from China and cheap ideas that our media sells to us, and all of us start to be "from Missouri", ie. PROVE IT, and stop willingly handing over our money AND VOTES, AND EARS/EYES to the greedy bastards in our country nothing is going to change.

Rattigan in some of his talks has shown that he knows how to educate. He made some very good analogies, and distributed some very good information, but it takes more than just one guy that is good at one thing to get something done in a massive way, and here is where the American people fail. We think it is just the political left that failed because we're told that to do anything as "Americans", for all of us together, is to be socialistic, but it is all of us who are paddling down the drain while singing our disparate songs as we sink lower while the 1% are socialistic for each other! Ah, the irony. Is anyone loud enough to be in Dylan Rattigans place also enough of a sore thumb to be admitted to the 1% … it's a great defense mechanism.

If Rattigan would care to write a textbook I might read it, because he has a good knack for explaining things and making them interesting, but he is nothing but a guy trying to write a book to make money so he can continue to make books, in other words that puts him in the category with all the other blabbermouth time-wasters.

Hell, maybe the country doesn't need saving. I'm not doing badly, what do I care if all the rest of Americans jump from one lame idea to the next forever, me and mine will get along. But I do look for more in life and country, but nothing is really going to come from books like these, or whatever is the next style that publishers figure out will appeal to people … maybe resignation … which we already hear in the wings with ideas like, "don't worry about your privacy, you never had any to begin with". Maybe that will be the next emotional tone the media cretins will market us with. Well, I won't be buying.

Skip this book, skip this genre, go talk to your neighbors and convince then all to unhook from their cable and start writing their own websites and wising up by teaching each other basic skills in something useful. Above all remember that all of us are human beings and all of us have a right to some fraction of the Earth's bounty, and the 1% are all of those people who have cornered resources and make everyone else work for them to get what should morally be theirs to begin with - it's just too complicated so ya cannot write it up on a speadsheet, balance it, and prove it in their courts.

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Concise world view by very problematic author

Revisado: 02-20-12

In a way I feel hoodwinked by the author now that I have read his 3 major books because they all say the same thing in a long and drawn out way … and I have to say if you want to buy one of these books get the last ones and skip paying money for repetition.

I believe Perkins describes the world of the "corporatocracy" as he sees it and has apparently experienced it well. It seems to make sense and be consistent.

My problem is Perkins himself. Here is a guy who has everything, he operated as a self-described hit man (economic) for some long amount of time, enough to amass a lot of wealth, power and a network, and only then he turned on his masters and his way of life and wrote a rather superficial expose. Perkins has his cake and eats it too. What did he really do, and what is he holding back? He must have lots of "EHM" connections around the world whose stories he could add to his books,and describe more of how this corporatocracy works instead of handwaving.

Certainly the names are changed, and the story rings enough true that he does not have to get, nor does he get very specific about much that he writes about. Towards the end almost in order to avoid being specific he starts to get new-agey about the whole subject and has in fact apparently written books about shape-shifting, turning into animals or existing on the spirtual plane … which seems to me to appeal to a certain kind of not very analytic reader. It seems that is the audience he is aiming for … the folks who are not very analytical or logical. Do a search on Google for blogs where his stuff gets mentioned and you can see what I mean. If this guy was really who and what he claimed I would think he could appeal to a more intellectual crowd.

So as I read Perkins' books I am stuck in uncertainty of the value of reading the book. Although most of the ideas Perkins discusses I knew about from reading political books for a long time, Perkins gets away with really doing very little work except storytelling in all of this books. Perkins feels like a con man to me and that is my problem with his books and his ideas. I think there is much more depth and more hidden agenda here than Perkins lets on, and he carefully truncates any mention of anything beyond the simplistic ideas he sells sensationalistically.

Does he get specific, no. Perkins is just another voice in the wilderness among many people who profit from all these awful things by writing about them, but what is he doing about except taking trips all over the world with celebrities and playing both sides of the issue. That does not help anything, and nothing in the books really explains how to change things.

Maybe he is even right about things, there is nothing else to do but join em if you can't beat em, but I don't think Perkins' books do much other than add to the author's celebrity and bank account.

If you are unfamiliar with Perkins' ideas and feel you have to know what he is all about I would just recommend reading whatever his latest book it, aside from the new age books on spirituality, because if you've read one you've read them all, and they do get better as he writes more. I am sure he will keep at it and maybe even hopefully really pull back the curtain and what is going on and the big plan for the world and who is driving it where, or he could just keep churning our retreads.

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esto le resultó útil a 13 personas

Not bad

Revisado: 07-24-11

I got interested in neuroscience over ten years ago, and it seems the latest trend in books is to put neuroscience or brain in the title and serve up many of the same studies and ideas that you can read in a lot of places and spin it in some way.

All in all this book was fairly good, though again, there was not much here I had not heard about or read somewhere else. I did not like that much the overly familiar or slang language and terms that were sometimes used to make the topic seem more relevant, but it was not excessive and it did fit the topics.

I did not think the book was too technical by far. There was a lot of talk about neurotransmitters and chemistry and brain structures, but the case is made early on that a little bit of that is necessary and in my opinion there was not enough. Enough to make it seem technical, but the processes and ways our brains work is not understood and the descriptions given were not that valuable to me. Of course no diagrams or maps in the audio edition.

I am fascinated by this subject and try to read anything that seems like it will offer some new information of viewpoint ... so I am bound to run into some repetition and mediocre offerings.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas