Ezine Didn't Like This One

Two Books to Define and Divide a Country


Article ID: 5922843

Article Submitted: February 15, 2011

Category: Book-Reviews:Non-Fiction

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1) I remember when I first told family that I had cancer. Several said that they did not know what to say. I should have responded "Ha ha, gotcha, finally shut you up." or "I thought that you would say you would be right over to help me fix that." The point is I didn't expect them to know what to say. Saying nothing is fine. I didn't know what else to say either at the time. Then I read "Anticancer: a new way of life". I was able to say "The best way that you can support me is to read this book."

The book "Anticancer" (2008, update 2009), written by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D, is one of the more important books written in the new century. David has lived almost 2 decades with "deadly" cancer. I put that word in quotes only because he has defied the word. By focusing on nutrition he has lived far beyond survival (time) expectations. We all have that power. The thrust of his book is attempting to ensure antiangiogenesis through nutrition. This encompasses antiinflammation and antioxidation. Cancer is an inflammatory event. David has been more unfortunate in his cancer than I, in that he has endured radiation and chemo therapies. Still, good nutrition has helped him to rejuvenate after those therapies. The book passes through dueling chapters alternately describing his personal saga and advising how one can do better. This is an effective structure, so that charts alternate with story. Like all books, especially short and easy reads, it has limitations. (How can he leave carrots and corn off of nutritional charts? And include eggplant?) However, the charted information is invaluable and has changed my life.

Following my pathological diagnosis of cancer (post-surgery) I had no resources to help me not to relapse. A knowledgeable doctor like David Servan-Schreiber had relapsed in diet and disease. What chance did I have? But, as I follow the advice in his book, I believe that I have a chance. I have incorporated the book into my lifestyle, along with some Eastern (TCM) disciplines, post-surgery. Nutritional discipline will determine my pain and destiny as much as anything else I will do. I hope that anyone reading this will not wait for their "tipping point" to read this nutritional "Bible". David's personal saga is worth reading about. He made many of the mistakes which he hopes you will not duplicate. Most of all READ THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU GET CANCER! I didn't, I got disease.
This book is so valuable for me that I bought it. I am extremely frugal (darn cheap) and usually get my books at the library. It holds an esteemed position in my kitchen, where it belongs.

If a person has IBS issues, as a companion book I recommend Heather Von Vorous's "Eating For IBS". Careful though, we thought I had IBS when I actually had something very toxic.

Omissions are an obstacle in this book (not paid by the word) but the message is clear enough and key. My problem is that there seems to be no contact with the doctor available to the public. I have no way to personally thank him.
This book helped me to see that I wasn't a beaten hypochondriac. After my disease confirmed that it was not imaginary, this book helped me to release blame and go forward proactively.

2) If when you see the title of this next book you think "thank goodness" or "col sarn it, I think I'll take me a gander and see if I can't learn how to do that" I suggest that you concentrate on "Anticancer".

"Death of the Liberal Class" (2010), written by Chris Hedges, is one of the more important books written in the new century. I kept telling my wife that I could have written it. But I lack at least 10 articulation IQ points. I am barely smart enough to read this book. Okay, doomsdayers, it's worse than you think. We're talkin' Armageddon, human extinction, pick your persuasion. I'm as anti-government as the next guy, but I didn't want to know some of the statistics cited by Chris. I knew that there was no difference between Republicans and Dems. I already knew that we are destined to collapse and rebuild, but I didn't want confirmation. Like all books, especially tough reads, it has limitations. But I learned a lot. There is no us and them. There is only us. Just like David Servan-Schreiber, Chris Hedges has no reasons to fib. As David's book is like a documentary about Monsanto, Greg's is like a documentary about Abu Ghraib or Darfur. It's painful but you need to know. This fellow leaves no stone unturned. He hates every President since Woodrow Wilson. He hates everyone from Buffett to Walmart and You. He has good reasons. I do think that the title of the book does the author a disservice. Middle-class can be often substituted for liberal class in this book.

Here's some excerpts, quotes, and paraphrases:
Chapter 1-The liberal class fails to protect the rights of the middle class.
In killing off the liberal class, the...state...killed off its most...important partner.
The collapse of past constitutional states,...was also presaged by the death of the liberal class.

Chapter 2-Mr. Noam Chomsky makes a lot of sense here.
Michael Moore gets booed off the Oscars stage by liberals.
Christ said, "My Kingdom is not of this World." It's about preservation of the species down the road.
Malalai Joya regarding Afghanistan: "More civilians have been killed in the Obama period than even during the criminal Bush."
Michael Ignatieff, liberal view: War is a humanitarian action, 2003.
There is a criteria for all human civilizations. Reverse funnel, trickle up.

Chapter 3-The tragic dismantling of the Federal Theatre Project in the late 1930s.
The tragic Taft-Hartley Act, 1948.
TOE THE LINE.

Chapter 4-Starting in the hippie 1960s the liberal class subordinated ethics.
"...to call oneself a liberal one doesn't really have to believe in anything."
"The liberal class had placed its faith in...human progress."
"Pluralism becomes a catchall, dressed up as multiculturalism..."
We should all be mere spectators of life.
The last paragraph of the chapter needs rereading.

Chapter 5-"...intellectuals were not...able to prevent the powerful from...""filling history with...hatred..." (Although I have taken omission liberties with the above quote, the clarity as meant is preserved).
There is a nice story about FedEx crushing an evil unassuming employee.

Chapter 6-Pages 205-206 are great, including an uncharacteristically hopeful "Our communities will sustain us, emotionally and materially."
A frantic SOS: Illusion becomes the truth.
Jaron Lanier's observations are not calming, like: "Funding civilization through advertising is like trying to get nutrition by connecting a tube from one's anus to one's mouth."
And the author's hope that journalism will continue to reach (even) a tiny audience.

Redundancy is an obstacle in this book (paid by the word) but the message is clear enough and key. A negative: the book is written as "elitist journalism" in my opinion. But somehow it is understandable while being unintelligible.This Pulitzer Prize winning author is not the purported journalist here. He is in fact a columnist here. This is not a documentary but an editorial. Sadly, I'm afraid that I agree with him that the book is documentary.
This book helped me to see that I wasn't a hopeless paranoid. Unfortunately, all that I can do is buy low, sell high, and remain debt-free.

Alas, Chris Hedges and David Servan-Schreiber have become part of the problem. These guys carry price-tags. (Attention Michael Moore, Thom Hartmann.) This automatically excludes many of the people who need to read these books. Many of the information needy won't read these. The same old preaching to the choir. Still, journalism is a last bastion of freedom.


Health blog http://healthdiseasehappinessdispair.blogspot.com

VISIT MY WE SITE here.

never heard of this guy before, sorry

James Gray. Like I said, we saw "The Yards". Then later in the month we saw "Two Lovers". You can bet I was scared about that title. I was pleasantly surprised. The head case survives! I think.? We'll be looking for more of this fellow's stuff. He has a new one coming out in 2012. Good director-he seems to favor Joaquin Phoenix. That's not all bad.

WEBSITE HERE

UPDATE 2/25/11-Saw this director's other 2 movies, "Little Odessa" & "We Own the Night". Not as good as the other two. He's got one coming in 2012.

Go Team Go

Just when I was thinking "There ain't no good DVDs to see anymore" we got back-to-back homers in the bottom of the ninth. One about corruption in NYC (who woulda thought?) could've been about sanitation engineering (that's garbage collection) I suppose, but it was about crooks in the train parts business. All-star cast in "The Yards" (2000 release) includes: James Caan, Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway, Joaquin Phoenix. All straight A+s for dose guys. Ellen Burstyn, giv'er an A too. Problem was, the library copy was ruined right where the crux of da movie took place. I think Joaquin (Willie) did the deed though. All dese guys did dose accents great, weze loved it.
And before that we saw "Truth or Consequences, N.M." (1997), not quite as all-star a cast but not shabby neither. Kiefer Sutherland stars in a great directorial debut. Vincent Gallo is great. Rod Steiger too cool. Martin Sheen as Sir gets 'er done. Boy his kid's a mess though ain't he? Now he didn't just mess himself, he put 300 coworkers on the unemployment line (who work on his TV show) while he goes to Club Rehab.

So anyway, we tie the game in the bottom of the ninth with those back-to-backs and we feel pretty good about it with "Zodiac" (2007) comin' up. Robert Downey, Jr., Jake Gyllenhall right? Downey had straightened up by the time that he took this role, but he still could play a screwball pretty good.
So we're lookin' for one more long one and we're goin' home a winner, but there's two outs. Well, like Mighty Casey "Zodiac" struck out. Well we'll get 'em in extra innings.
Funny, all three of these got 3-4 stars, but I don't think so. I like the first two.

Visit my web site here.

quirkysmirky Jennifer, like father like daughter

Yeah, talkin' about David Lynch's spawn. The critics panned her "Surveillance", but I say see it.
It's easy to see that the cops "got what they deserved". And probably ditto the high gal & guy. But the little girl's family? Try to reconcile that! Yeah, the son was a snooty teenager I guess.
Can't divulge more. I'm giving it 5 stars, in your face critics. Smirky & quirrrrrky Julia and Bill are the film's stars.

In all fairness to the critics, I didn't get "Boxing Helana" too much, just like them. It was pure weird enough though. What ain't from this family?

Visit this creep's web site here.

Macabre Macrame'

There is more to Edgar Allan Poe than "Quoth the Raven, nevermore." He is difficult, as he quotes Latin without interpretation and is prone to rambling "Old English" drug induced wordiness. I have a copy of his "complete tales & poems" (Dorset Press), and can only highly recommend a few as will follow. I can't imagine a reader sitting through all thousand plus pages while remaining upright. The fellow was indeed a natural genius of the dirge mentality. He is however, too depressing for the sane of us. Too much downers my man. One sentence should be one sentence, not two pages: "The Purloined Letter" for instance. It could have been jolly good but the punchline is in Latin. And E. P. regurgitates and ruminates for 1 1/2 pages. The 5 (pfft) star story has one of my favorite lines in it however: "We gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man..." For my money, nothing worse than a seven star out of ten is worth a read. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is the dude's best, 9*. 8* star stories: "The Black Cat", The Masque of the Red Death"-that's it! 7* (so readable), "The Gold Bug", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "A Descent into the Maelstrom", "Ligeia", "The Tell Tale Heart". Those 4 famous stories are still tough to read after the titles. Forget "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". It could have been a 7. It's a good story (the monkey did it), but again the punchline is in a language that I did not study; French.

here's the website

Pasted from Ezine/One of 2002's Best Films="Spun"

...on meth that is.

My own personal preface: I will always feel that "crank" chefs deserve the death penalty.

Having said that I will proceed.

I'm just a bi-polar old man but I think this film is so hilariously nasty that it is a must-see.

"I can smell the snail trails all over the store."??? If you are not familiar with that phrase it's in here. It is uttered by one of the quintessential Spanish sleaze princesses. Let's see, what else? The decongestant used to make speed is kept behind the counter as it is supposed to be. But the clerk has no problem selling thirty bottles at a time, as long as it is for a good cause. I almost busted my stitches when the nude blonde in the handcuffs was blank down below, a la 1950's mens mags or "Barbie". We can see a meth factory, but no hair please. A brilliant commentary. This whole epic is an absolute symphonic cacophony.

WARNING: Careful with that axe Eugene. This one is a hard "R" rating. I mean R leaning on X.

If this movie isn't a cult classic it deserves to be. Don't get me wrong. I'm not nostalgic for the homemade poison which it revolves around; never got into it, thank goodness. I did some equally dumb things maybe. Want to snort some aerosol spray cooking oil?

Sometimes it helps to laugh at this mean world. This movie did make me do that. Edgy would be a mild description. I rate it a thousand stars. Seldom does a film hit its mark so perfectly. It's a bulls-eye for director Jonas Ackerlund. The characters are brilliant caricatures in a very sad theme and Mickey Rourke absolutely "cooks".

The writing deserved an Oscar. Just genius.

The animation deserved an Oscar. No airbrushing there.

The makeup deserved an Oscar. They took some really good looking actors and made them look like trash. Except for Mickey. He probably didn't need a lot of help, as he fits the niche. And Mom didn't need much help. Don't look too close. She's just your average American, but I had to turn away.

I cannot tell any more. Just hold on tight.

Seriously though, this film is disturbingly desperate when the laughs are over. The bad thing is, it can really get this horrible. I've seen a friend pick up lint out of the carpet hoping that it was crank. Just tweaking man. This junk is rife in America and it makes me cry, not laugh. SPEED KILLS!!

Jim William knows what he is talking about. He was a drug-induced catatonic schizophrenic for a short time. Much was lost then. Much bonus time was gained, along with a multi-faceted identity.


WEBSITE: http://themaven.synthasite.com

More "Best of the Decades"? Books

JAMES HILTON's "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1934) rates 5* only because of its brevity and ease of reading. Rather than being touched by Mr. Chips's personality I became extremely annoyed by his umph-ing interspersed speech. As my school Latin is quite rusty, I missed almost all the jokes, too. JA
MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS's "Cross Creek", published in 1942 is a mildly interesting perspective on daily life in rural 1940's Florida, including outrageous political incorrectness as well as some insightful ecological concerns. 5*. non-fiction. JA
L. H. Oswald is the "Libra" in DON DELILLO's novel published in 1988. Unless one is a big fan of J. F. K. assassination theories, the feeling and ambiance are the thing. I was only 11 when this thing went down. So which characters are unreal in this "historical fiction"? I wouldn't know. But the tension is palpable and Jacqueline still gets brain matter on her. 7*. JI
I tried to read "Midnight's Children" as my '80s book. No Way! 60 pages in I gave up, and had no clue what I had read.
"The Evolution Man or How I Ate My Father", by ROY LEWIS (1960), is a humorous tale of the Pleistocene Age, including the discovery of fire, with amusing insight into humans' progress. 7*. JA
BERYL BAINBRIDGE's "The Birthday Boys" (1991) features strong characters in a descriptive, touching fictional account of a 1912 try (Wales) for the South Pole. 8*. JA