Two More Books off the List… Oh, look there’s still a Library here…

Yesterday I finished reading The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy by Two Guys. I didn’t finish the book but I am done with reading it. I should have just picked up the original article these two wrote. I don’t need a 400 page, immaculately researched, and backed up book to tell me that Israel gets a free pass here in the United States. Turn the news on and you see it does. As do all our other brutal but anti-terrorist friends in the world.  Is this going to change anytime soon? Probably not, the book quotes innumerable politicaians and organizations that all say the same thing, “The Israel Lobby is the most powerful in Washington”, and “They control the public discourse relating to Israel and the Middle-East in this country”. That is a depressing thought, it is also depressing to think that even bringing up the topic of a bias in American discourse towards Israel gets you immediately labeled a new anti-Semite. So I guess that is what I’m going to be looking forward to, when I say that Carter is right and what is going on in Israel and along the West Bank is Apartheid and there is no excuse for it in a democratic country. There is also no excuse for anyone who thinks that it is okay to do so, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Racism is Racism, Hate is Hate. You don’t get rid of it by building walls around it, or killing it.

Enough of the depressing, soul wrenching dump we call the Middle East.

I also just finished Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. I liked the book, but then Buddhism appeals to me Zen in particular because there is no religiousness about it. It’s a practice and it’s solely concerned with the here and now, this existence. If more people were doing that instead of getting weepy eyed and hopeful about what might happen after were dead, the world would be a better place. I didn’t need all the talk about the punk scene in the 80’s but that’s Warner’s life and this is his book… So he can do what he wants. Stripping all the bull out of practice though, I liked that. Also the talk about Godzilla rocks, he needed more of that and less of Ultraman, who likes Ultraman?

In conclusion, if you’re interested in learning about Zen Buddhism without all the ritual and formula and tricky words, without all the baggage you should pick up a copy of the Hardcore Zen.  If you need all the references to back up what you already knew about American foreign policy towards Israel pick up the first book and flip to the back, there is pages of it. Oh, and pointing out the truth doesn’t make you a bigot. Some people just don’t like the truth… Screw them.

Reviewing Cradle to Cradle

I just finished reading Cradle to Cradle by W. McDonough & M. Braungart.  It’s an interesting book, big on ideas sadly short on details. The book is about changing how things are designed in our world today. Most designers approach their project as a cradle to grave affair. Create a product that will breakdown after X years and then have the consumer throw it away. They advocate a paradigm shift of creating products that when disposed of can be upcycled instead of downcycled (recycled) or when thrown away give something back to environment. They list a couple of projects that they’ve worked on that did just that or at least started down that road.  They don’t acknowledge though the enormous difficulty in restructuring an entire economic system, especially one in which billions of people and trillions of dollars are heavily invested.

There’s nothing to disagree with in the book because of its abstraction.  There isn’t anything here to attack because everything is only intellectual. The only complaint that can be leveled against them is their lack of concrete details. There isn’t any plan here to get done what they want to get done. It’s easily to build castles in the clouds, it doesn’t take anything to do so. The difficulties arise when you start devising a plan, a plan that not everyone is going to agree with. A plan that some are goingto vehemently oppose. No one, no one wants to destroy the planet. Everyone agrees it should be cherished and protected. Say when you say that you’re preaching to the choir. When it comes to the “how” that is where the trouble starts. McDonough and Braungart don’t offer any hows though so their book ultimately goes no-where and does nothing…

Change is in the Wind

Please excuse the cliche, but the wind happens to be lowing as I look out of my bedroom window and change is something that has been on my mind. We get comfortable sometimes in life, content.  The yoke finally fits and we’ve worn a nice smooth groove as we turn the wheel. All the things that used to bother us about our lives, sink into the background as they become the norm. And perhaps we forget ourselves. We put who we are on hold for… For what? I don’t know and it worries me. That I’ve allowed myself to sink in so comfortably. Thankfully life has a way of waking us up (as do the ones who love us most), they shake us a little, until the scales fall off our eyes and we can see clearly again. Just what it is we are doing and why we are wasting so much to do it.

Comfort is an important part of life, but it isn’t all there is to it. We forget what it means to be adventurous, to take risks. We sacrifice challenge for consistency. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m so much better than where I am. I have a fantastic mind, a fantastic education. I have friends and family who support me whatever I may do and I know Diana is right there beside me as well. Why am I wasting all of that on Borders? They don’t deserve all of the extra effort I have put in there, they’ve certainly never compensated me for any of it. Borders provides a check and a meager one at that. That’s it.  Nothing more. Yet, I have allowed myself to get completely caught up in it.

It isn’t worth it. There is so much more to this life then getting caught up in a stupid job. I’m not going to spend anymore of my energy on it. It can be better spent looking for a new job, working on getting in to graduate school and spending time with my friends and loved ones.

So this is just a notice that changes are coming. It won’t be easy to make them.  But I can do it, and my life is worth more than what I am doing with it.

We consider others crazy when they have the courage to follow their dreams. It would be a better world if all of us were a little more crazy then we are.

Work Continues?

I haven’t really done much here as you can see. I have some new menus, but if you click on them you’ll find they are empty. I guess I should crow a little here and let everyone know that I got my GRE scores back. I scored in 91 percentile in the verbal, 42 percentile in quantitative, and 88 percentile in analytical. Those are pretty good scores according to the people around me, well the quantitative one isn’t that good but I won’t be needing it for any graduate schools I might be applying to. I got my LSAT scores back but they aren’t nearly as impressive, I scored right in the middle of the pack. I’m sure the score could get me into a Law School, just not a good one. So, graduate school it is. Now I need to start applying and finding out what I want to do in Graduate School. Oh, and apply to for some jobs that are better are mine and start writing more.

Next post will be worth reading promise.

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