"The Magic of Believing", by Claude Bristol

Claude Bristol wrote this book to give encouragement and power to those who wanted and needed it, which of course is all of us. The focus of the book is on the power of the subconscious and of visualizing desired goals and accomplishments in order to achieve them. He explains how the two kinds of mind, the conscious and the sub-conscious work together to create and to solve problems. This is a great little book, just 180 pages of motivation. Get it, read it, then put into action your two minds to take you where you want to go in life.
Do it. Do it Now. :)

Under The Dome, by Stephen King: a town reacts to a cataclysm

What initially caught my attention about Under The Dome is its huge size. Then as I settled into reading it, I

was  captivat4ed at once. I love the way Stephen King gets immediately into the action in his stories. In this colossal book (over 1000 pages), a woodchuck is cut in half and a plane crash leaves body parts strewn on the ground before page 15. The beginning pages contain a map of a town and a list of major and minor characters. This story is a bit like a lord of the flies but with adults instead of all children. Something catastrophic happens and the aftermath sends the balanced and flawed citizens of the town into dark acts and even darker motives. With out telling you the details, it is enough to say that everyone changes and in the end those who survive what is to come have a new sense of what it means to be human. Get this book and enjoy the wonderful story weaving skills that Stephen King seems to continue to polish.

This book is filled with dolls made of ceramic, porcelain, metal, cloth, and wire. The variety and designs are unlimited. If you are a sculptor or dollmaker, you will get inspiration from seeing the creative works of these dollmakers. Order a copy from Amazon now.

Michael Lewis talks about his latest book, "Wall Street: Inside the Collapse", on 60 Minutes show

Watch CBS News Videos Online

How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead, by Ariel Gore

This is an absolutely marvelous book which gives any writer or wanna be writer motivation, inspiration and practical methods for writing and getting published. I am almost finished reading it now and have derived much of real use from it. In short, the biggest lessons I took from it were that rewriting and rewriting again are essential, and that writing is just the beginning, with publishing the end game. No publication, no fame or cash or even feelings of closure. I am grateful to Ariel Gore for having put this book together for us. To read a more thorough review by an excellent reviewer, go to this link.

Rich Like Them: My Door To Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth, by Ryan D'Agostino

This book caught my attention. Having been wealthy for at least a year or two, and lost it, I was intrigued by the idea of someone profiling the lives of others and their paths to wealth. It is a very readable book, about quite down to earth people who generously told the author how they were able to accumulate luxurious homes, cars, and money in reserve. I saw myself in the pages, but of course in my present circumstances I am impoverished. Still, this book gave hope and promise. What is made once can be made again. Both consistent efforts and luck play a part in the wealth of many, and will certainly play a part in any recovery I might be able to make as well. I suggest this book as a great read to give you ideas on how to acquire money and then how to keep it and build it into even more money. Thanks to D'Agostino for taking the time and doing the door to door walking and talking for this book. He literally walked door to door to get interviews with these friendly and helpful people.

Chicken Soup for the Writers Soul, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, & Gud Gardner

Lately I have taken great pride in spending time in bookstores without spending anything except for a hot latte. I use the time there to browse, read brief lines from the books that catch my eye, and write down titles and authors. Then in the days following, I go to the nearby newly constructed library and check the book out for free. After all, these are hard economic times and the need to hold onto the few dollars we have leads us to more traditional sources of books that we can get at no cost. Anyway, I found Chicken Soup for the Writers Soul and have spent the past two days soaking up the stories and guidance that the writers included in the book have to share. The stories tell of the support of parents, of the opportunities that public school teachers provided, and of those first days as a new writer. They are inspirational and motivational, and one can see oneself in the stories. The paths to becoming a full time writer are many, and I guess that is the main value of this book: it reveals that there are many ways to get there. Pick it up and spend some time with it. I guarantee you it will not disappoint you.

The Crimson Petal and The White, by Michel Faber

I read this marvelous novel some three years ago. At least it seems that long ago. I still think about it occasionally. Now it seems it is in development for a film version. The story centers on a love affair between a wealthy lavender farmer / perfumer / soap maker and his young prostitute beauty. He finds her and begins to be her benefactor and sex partner as he deals with a mentally disturbed wife and an ill daughter. The story progresses with the young lover striving to keep the relationship alive and using it to improve her lot in life. The ending is quite unexpected. You will find this book impossible to put aside until you have read all of the over 840 pages. Michel Faber is an amazing author of solid fiction. Of course you can order it in paperback from Amazon.

What I suspected is now a known fact: Goldman Sachs is a den of thieves

I do not think I have mentioned it, but by the day that Bear Stearns fell in after hours collapse, I had lost almost evey dollar of my retirement and savings funds in the messed up stock market. I had begun to trade in 2006, and was doing fine as long as the market was hot and going up. Then it turned sour,and despite all my amateur efforts to margin trade, I kept losing consistently, each time trying again only to lose more and more. I wound up losing my home to foreclosure, filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ruining my credit. I had to leave the house and took a temporary job in Arizona, which was a disaster. After three months I quit that miserable job and returned to California to take another job which also lasted just three months. I was maligned and abused in both of these jobs, and have now been employed just six months total in the past 4 years. I am broke and angry. I lost over $780K. At 63 years old, overqualified with waaaay too much education, there are no employers who want to hire me. I have applied for over 100 jobs (all of which I am qualified to do), with not even one call back. This is the American dream? More like a nightmare. I am glad to see the news being revealed of the depth of the corruption in our system and the devastation it does to ordinary people like me.

Randy Johnston: Robbed at Pen Point

Attorney Randy Johnston has written a marvelous book on how white collar professionals rob us all by just the stroke of a pen. He describes how it is done, how to get justice after the damage, and how to prevent it from happening to begin with. This is a groundbreaking volume from an attorney who deals with the damage done by contractual robbery daily. Get Robbed at Pen Point and read it as soon as possible.

Michael Finkel: True Story

This IS a true story. It is the story of identity theft that haunted one unemployed and despairing writer and the story of a low wage young married man who thought he could solve his problems by erasing the lives of those who depended upon him. Both men wanted a new chance at life. One retreated to Montana to find solitude, the other fled to Mexico seeking to become someone he was not and never could be. This is a tale you will be amazed at and will leave with questions and doubts about the people that surround you in your community.

Film: Alice in Wonderland

Let me say at the outset that I have seen every version of the story that has been put into film. I even saw the stage play version starring Richard Burton and his daughter. In the stage play, the costumes were in black and white' the effect was graphically charming. The version that included Gene Wilder was amazing as well. Gene's famous "Soup" song, in which he prolonged one word for the longest time ever in a song, was a stroke of theatrical genius. I will always savor that scene.
In this laterst version, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway are the characters Alice, played by Mia Wasikowska, encounters in her revisit to Wonderland.

The film's 3D and Imax presentation were wonderful. I have decided that 3D is definitely here to stay and will only get better in the years ahead. Who knows? One day it will transition into a holographic miracle in which the viewer is actually surrounded by the scene, as if he or she is within the scene. That would be marvelous, wouldn't it?  I found the caterpillar to be a wonderfully played character, even more so thatn the Cheshire Cat. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were great also, as a kind of paired morons. You really must see the movie, if you love fantasy and allegory. The White Queen, with the help of the Mad Hatter and Alice, wins over the domination of the Red Queen in the end and Wonderland is changed into a place of peace and beauty as it should be.

Batavia's Graveyard, by Mike Dash

This book reveals the events that took place following the shipwreck of a trading ship headed for Java. The ship crashed onto rocks near Australia and then in the months that followed, over a hundred people were murdered as the madness of one man stirred treachery and evil. This is a must read historical work by the author of Tulipomania. Batavia's Graveyard is an excellent read. Mike Dash has done it again, produced a masterpiece of history.

Julia Child: My Life in France: A great autobio of her years there

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/My-Life-in-France/Julia-Child/e/9781400043460

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/05/22/books/28ridi2.html

Author Robert Parker: Just Discovered his books, and he just died in January 2010

Robert Parker passed away just a few months ago. His writing style has been noted for its word parsimony. His writing style was leaner than Hemingway's, it is said. I spotted his books in the bookstore just last evening and loved this one. Even the font used is terrific..simple and easily readable. Obviously Parker cared about his readers. He got to the point, was great with dialogue, and created real world characters. His books are the basis of the Jesse Stone movies on television. I intend to read as many of his works as possible, hoping to learn his style and incorporate it into my won writing.

Dean Baker: The Conservative Nanny State, the book and his discussion of it on a Youtube Video

Detroit gets the bulldozers ready to "revitalize" blighted, foreclosed neighborhoods

Homes left empty when unemployed auto workers had to give them up to foreclosure have made many neighborhoods into ghosts of what they once were. Standing empty for over a year or two, many of them have been vandalized. Their broken windows and torn apart exteriors make the place look like it has been a combat zone. On some streets, only one person remains on the street, in a house surrounded by vacant houses. Now the city, instead of taking steps to create jobs or to find a way to give these homes to the newly homeless, has decided to bulldoze them all. This is the ready answer to many things in America: throw it away. We throw away natural resources, people, businesses, schools, and our own best efforts. How sad a situation this is. Still the headlines tell us we are in a recovery. Odd, isn't it?

Benjamin Disraeli wrote in the mid 1800s of the growing division between the rich and the poor, in a troublesome gap that he viewed as leading to continuous conflicts between these two worlds.  He saw it as enough of a serious problem to write a novel based on the issue. Wikipedia has this entry on the novel:
"Sybil, or The Two Nations is an 1845 novel by Benjamin Disraeli. Published in the same year as Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Sybil traces the plight of the working classes of England. As the title suggests, Disraeli is interested in dealing with the horrific conditions in which the majority of England's working classes lived — or, what is generally called the Condition of England question. The book is a roman à thèse, or a novel with a thesis — which was meant to create a propagandistic furor over the squalor that was plaguing England's working class cities. Disraeli's novel was made into a silent film called Sybil in 1921, starring Evelyn Brent and Cowley Wright."

What we have been seeing in the world today is a relentless glorification of the rich, with their conspicuous consumption, amidst the throngs of the poor who remain hungry and homeless. This novel is a good read to hone in on the nature of this dilemma.

A Jackass by any other name is Tom Delay

This ignorant yet arrogant idiot is now saying that "people are unemployed because they want to be". One might just as well say that people lose their homes to fires because they wanted it to happen, or that they are suffering from cancer because they unconsciously wanted to. What kind of an insane man is he? Then he goes on to justify his outrageous statements on budgetary concerns. This is equally idiotic, since in the past months Congress has doled out hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations. For DeLay to make these comments is an affront to the people. He should be booted out at once, and denied any job or unemployment, since he feels it is not justified. Christ, there is a pack of greedy pigs in Congress. We need to put apples in their mouths and roast them over on a spit.

Stiglitz explains how the global economy fell and what caused it. Get this and do some reading if you want to understand it.

Available from Amazon (with a different cover), this book is an in depth examination of the many failings of the financial sector. It explains why the changes that are currently being recommended will not be enough to correct the problem and prevent another such collapse. It seems the potential for such catastrophic drops are endemic to the system itself. Thus, the system is in need of major surgery/

Xiaopeng Han First Winner of Gold for China in the Winter Olympics

Xiaopeng's performance was incredible. His flips in the air were executed with power and ballet like fluidity. He hit the ground with an exultant stance after he spun in the air. This marks a new high for Chinese participation in the World Olympics.

Book Review: Harry Markopolos' "No One Would Listen" is a thriller about the Madoff scam

In his book, Markopolos revealed that if he had been threatened by Madoff, he would have killed him. Wow. This ought to be a great read. The perennial failures of the SEC to take any actions on complaints is documented here. We all know and are disgusted by our dismal government. As one Senator recently said, we need to kick out all the incumbents and start fresh. Thank God guys like Markopolos are brave enough to speak up.

Exactly What is a Hedge Fund? Paddy Hirsch Explains What it is and How it works (or doesn;'t work)

What Started the Global Economic Meltdown? Part 2

What Started the Global Economic Meltdown? "Put" Options on Bear Stearns Were Highly Unusual Trades That Drove the Market Down

What is an "Economic Hit Man"? John Perkins, who was such a man, explains it

Be Sure to Watch the Film "Slumdog Millionaire", starring Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto

It is a story of hardship, childhood struggles and pain, learning and loving, and of the power of chance in life. A young boy in Mumbai, India, born to poverty, survives the turmoil of his surroundings and becomes a contestant on a television game show. Each of the answers he gives to the questions he gave correctly came from an experience in his past, and by chance he wins by recollecting that past. The film and the story of destiny is superbly portrayed. The cinematography is inspirational, the music divine, and the young actors gave their best in the portrayals. Here, for your enjoyment, is the trailer seen on YouTube:

Unique Skating Performance with Music from Slumdog Millionaire: "Jai Ho" by Charlie White and Meryl Davis

K.R. Sindhar has invented an exciting new energy production method. He melts beach sand into squares, which he then coats with black ink on one side and green ink on the other. He takes two of these and sandwiches in the middle a cheap sheet of metal alloy. Then he pumps in oxygen and a fuel such as hydrogen or natural or bio gas. The ink coated silicon plates provide a surface on which the fuel and the oxygen can unite and produce a clean electricity, with no waste by products. One sandwiched plate can power a light bulb. When he stacks a number of plates together, they can power a machine or a home. Many more will power a village or a university. He has raised millions of dollars to develop his energy business and on Wednesday it will launch in a big way. He sees the day when each home will have a Bloom box, which he believes will cost no more than $3000. Bloom boxes take up far less space than solar panel grids and yet produce much more electricity. Companies like Ebay and FedEx already have Bloom boxes installed and are enjoying electricity at hundreds of thousands less cost.

The Lost City of Z, by David Grann

This is a story of a true adventurer who felt that there really was an El Dorado out there.. in the deepest part of the Amazon jungle. He followed his belief into the jungle, deeper and deeper and encountering tribes who used arrows, spears, and clubs to convince outsiders to see things their way. As he blazed his trail, smoke from his campfires was seen rising in the sky each evening as he bedded down for the night. Then one night there was no smoke at all. He was never seen again. Now, David Grann has written the story. Brad Pitt has purchased the film rights and will be starring in the film himself. I am going to buy the book tomorrow and read it. I can hardly wait to find out all about what happened to the great adventurer, Percy Harrison Fawcett.

Should Schools Be Allowed to Remotely Webcam Students Even at the Student's Home?

A school district in Pennsylvania placed a theft detection feature on the laptop computers that they issued to students. Then a laptop appeared to be missing, and the district activated the feature, which consists of a webcam which would take a photo of the student in his home, if in fact he had the laptop there without having been issued the laptop in the prescribed manner. Naturally, the student and his family protested that photographing the student in his home was fundamentally an invasion of privacy and are taking action against the school district. What do you think? Should the school district prevail in its argument that the webcam was used for only the limited purpose of finding the laptop and then recovering it? Go to Philadelphia School Webcam to read more about what happened and the points of view of the opposing parties.

News and Reviews

This blogger / author will scour the daily newspapers and online sources as well to find news reports and book reviews to present to you in summary or expanded form with original commentaries and interpretations. Some posts may be on leading headlines; some may be items that have not hit the mainstream. Regardless, the blog author's perspective will be added to the features. Here goes.. first day/