Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the OligarchsA True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder

By Ben Mezrich

When Russia fell the assests of the state.wound up in the hands of 9 men. This  book tells the story of how.that came about.

In the opening of the book we see Putin caling the oligarchs .together, to Stalin's old house, to warn them, "you can keep your millions, but stay out of my way. He was serving notice to these "Yeltsin Era Oligarchs", watch your ass! Many of these men would not  heed the warning and would.not survive in the Putin Era.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

"The most influential and exposed oligarchs from the Yeltsin era include Boris Berezovsky,Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,Alex Konanykhin, Mikhail Fridman, Anatoly Chubais, Vladimir Gusinsky, Vitaly Malkin andVladimir Potanin.^[5]

Potanin, Malkin and Fridman are the only ones of the list to have retained their influence in the Putin era (1999- ). The others "have been purged by the Kremlin", according to The Guardian."

9 The first "Oligarch" we meet is Boris Abromovich Berezovsky, oil king.

11 Growimg up as a, "less desirable ethnicity," with a gift for mathematics, the best life young Boris could have ever hoped for was,"a.simple quiet life of books and laboratories."

11 "And then--Perestroika...first Gorbachev...then Yeltsin...then an infant form of capitalism that was just now reaching it's chaotc teenage years.

14 As a math wiz, Young Boris undestood.the power of inflation and how it works in the favor.of the debtor. He utilized this principle to "arbitrage" his was to 60 million dollar bank account.

15 People in Russia just after fall took to calling it the "Wild East."

32 A brief look here at our second Oligarch,  Vladimi Gusinsly, owner of Russia's NTV network and insider banker.

33 At first, the auctioning of Russiian resources was meant to be egalitarian, available to everone. A program setup by Anatoly Chubais, was to work like a Russian stock market with vouchers going.to the common man and everyone benefitting from the sale. What began as a "noble idea," quickly fell victim to the  forces of the same "massive inflation" that propeled Berezovsky to the top. One by one Russia resouces ie,"timber, copper, automobiles, textiles," and finally media, "wound up in the hands of a small group of like-minded businessmen," the oligarchs.

This is hardly a new concept in this world. The same thing happened here in the US after our Revolution. The departing soldiers were payed in script called continentals (remember the phrase not worth a continental, yes it comes.from this). Later, the fledgling US government determined to pay full value to redeem these notes and the "insiders" with the means to pay for them went on a buying spree. The soldier got some (very little) money for what he assumed was worthless paper, and those on the inside, with the means to purchase, became fabulously wealthy. Capitalism and Communism are just two faces of Oligarchy.

 

Adios America The Lefts Plan To Tur Our Countr Into a Third World Hellhole

By Anne Coulter

Oh she's at it again. The Viscous Vixen of Verbal Vituperation has written another (and don't laugh out loud when I say this) "book."

She does make a few good points that I actually agree with. But as per her usual, quickly surrenders the high ground with her endlessly ignorat hate.speech.

I have to say this time it isn't all the lefts fault, with some.finger pointing at the right as well.

The point is good Anne. We must.close the border and deal with our immigrants. 

The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food And Flavor

By Mark Schatzker

This book is a follow-up to Tomatoland by .
Todays food is being bred for looks and ease of growth and abundance. The thing being bred out is taste.  This book chronicles the evolution of that process.

We open up with the invention of the Dorito. The ongoing metaphor of.the book is that the Dorito was just a poor-selling tortilla chip until the "Flavoring" was added. This is what is happening to the rest of the foods that are more bland than ever until the "Flavoring" is added.

19 Chapter Two: What happened to the chickens.

22 The beginning of the end of chickens was at A&P's Chicken Of Tommorrow contests. 

23 This event,"would go on to doom the flavor of chicken and dumplings for decades to come"

26 "they are all broilers now. Words like 'Fryer' and 'roaster' still appear in cookbooks, but they dont exist anymore. We eat gigantic babies."

28 Not just poultry suffers, fruits and vegetables are steadily loosing there nutritional value as well and our paid "watchdogs" who should care, dont. Read,"As The Food Quality Drops, The USDA Just Shrugs," an article by Cheryl Long in Organic Gardening.

29 After several studies the results were in, "the reason that things like broccoli, wheat and corn had changed [was] just like chickens, they had been selected to grow.faster and bigger, and that was diluting the nutrients."

So there you have our bigger andbetter-looking.food is not all it purports to be.

31 Monsanto soent 10 million dollars trying to fix bland tomatoes. There aswer to bland genetically engineered tomatoes? What else more genetic engineering. To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. Instead of.going back to the real tomato they further "frakenchised" it with the same poor results. What did Einstein say about stupidity.?

64 "Modern milk is like modern cjickecken and modern tomatoes--bland and watety."

The author says theyput butter Flavoring in margerine to make it taste more like butter.  Now the put it in butter too, to make butter taste more. Like butter.

69 In MRI scanning, the same.pleasure centers light up for.food addicts as heroin addicts when shown pictures of their particular pleasure. This is no surprise to me. Also, studies show the craving has alot.more to do with addiction than the actual substance that is craved. 

76  Although we crave and are physically rewarded by our salt, sugar, fat (read the book Salt, Sugar Fat for the full story on these three), and now umami (the savory taste), the author says its the flavor that causes the craving that causes us to eat. "We crave flavors."

81 So congratulations to us, for we figured out how to get as fat as we want. We now haventhe technology to stay wrapped in fat for the rest of our very shortened lifetimes.

82 According to our author,"We're done for. The rise in obesity is a predictable result in the rise of manufactured deliciousness."

Remember,  only 31% of the population does not have the problem. 

82 The future looks bleak, time to buy stock in "Lipitor and sweatpants."

120 Olecanthol in olive oil operates on the ssame.pathways as ibuprofen in the body and may be responsible for some.of the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.

130 the fake frankenfood is everywhere in the supermarket. All diversein tastes and flavors but beneath the surface, it's all the same. Dannon strawberry yogurt has no strawnerries in it.

132 Today, we pop multivitamins even though years of research suggests they do nothing to augment health.

137 "This was get-up-out-of-your-chair and start dancing fried chicken." Chef Robert Irvine says good foo should make to wanna dance. I guess he was right.

140 The Buckeye chicken actually tastes like chicken. Who knew?

144 Good, naturally flavored, fills ypu up better, and therefore, you eat less.

Check this out in USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/06/22/general-mills-artificial-ingredients-cereal/29101165/

General Mills to Nix Artificial Flavoring from its cereals

 (Ha no way) whars the catch?

152 Humans love eating the plants that give off defense mechanisms when they are consumed. Animals get the message and.leavethem alone but we actually love the taste of their defensive juices. We love toxic pesticides, "nicotine, cocaine, heroin and THC -'even caffiene- all evolved to interfere with neuronal.signaling in herbivors." We get a kick out of being intoxicated, a word the author reminds us, has the word toxic in.it. 

Read this paper

Explaining Human Recrearional Use Of Pesticides published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

158 So the problem is that the foods that are actually good for us are be oming vlander and less tasty, while.the food that are not good.for us are just the opposite. And then if.you make "diet.food" that tastes real.good people.just o ereat.that in a.process known as the "snackwell effect."

162 We still wait.in vain for.someone to figure out, in an economical way, how to deliver natures flavor and nutrition. "For everone else, pass the Doritos

171 "It's simple to eat healthy," says Michael Pollan, "just.eat foods your grandmother would recognize."

174 I oder to no have the ranco a GMOtomatoa would cause, Tomato expert Harry Klee will breed the changes into the tomato that make it tastier.

176 Klees experiments proved that "yoeld does not have to come at the expense of flavor. So far, no one.cares. Tastleless sells.

197 Remember "big food" only cares about te bottom line. If these companies see there is money to be had in flavor,  then.flavor we shall have.

198 Whose fault is it for this ttal lack of interest in flavor? The author blames "the horde of shopping cart pushers that thinks anything that costs more than 99c a pound os a rip off."

206 the Apoendix gives useful hints on how to eat better. Eating a wide variety of things in a good way to proper nutrition. Also avoid food that flavor was added by a PhD. 

This is a good ook for learning how to eat better and therefore less.

Books:

Neurogastronmy by Gordon Shepard. This book is about the science of food enjoyment.

Move: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By Rosadeth Moss Kanter

So now we live in a world of yesterdays and has-beens and crumbling infrastructure. The drive that made us the envy of the world in the post-war era, has left us. We once knocked out the big projects like the US highway system and now we cant even keep our potholes filled.

I first realized that we has lost.the race, or at least passed the torch, while watching an engineering show. This show portrayed massive building projects all over the world. It showed the biggest and bestest technology and none of them were in America. Thats when I first started to realize that we were no longer us in the lead.

This book tells how we can start to reverse this trend. Instead of waiting for our incapacitated and.feeble Federal government to act, we are going.to have to fix it ourselves. Entrepreneurs all over America are beginning to find ways to improve our situation qhile.making a buck too.  Certainly nothing wrong with that.

5 It's just a matter of priorities claims Kanter saying that "America has the expertise and innovation" and even the money needed to fix the problem, but we lack the combined will. Countries that out-perform us in these  areas "allocate public money for public works at the national level." 

9 "The average American commuter wastes a total of 38 hours in traffic per year." This is a consequence of our choices. There was a time, in America, when we had a choice between mass transportation and solo. We would have to decide if it would be buses and trains or trucks and cars. We went with cars and we atill suffer the consequences of that decision today. The author goes on to detail our shame here.

11 Then we take a look around the world, we whiz through the ' Chunnel'...ride a high-speed.train in China," and even enjoy a high-speed internet connection in the sticks in Turkey.

13 Chicago street swallows minivan in 2011.

Well spend money when it comes.to."defense" or war. Thats how we got the US highways and the Apollo program. 

23 Michael Ward CEO of CSX gets a nod for making his compnay greener and more responsive to the environmemt.

24 Yes the Tappan-Zee Bridge. Thats a big infrastructure project and right in my backyard. 

Chapter 2 On the Rails

Other countries have trains that move along aafely at speeds of 150-200 miles an hour. We're unsafe at.35 mph on our trains. Everyday.theres a new horror story on the news of yet another train accident in America. I would not feel.safe on trains of planes right now. Although statistically driving is much more damgerous, I'll drive.

The Japanese bullet trains are faster and safer than ours and as we learned from David Sedaris, cleaner too. In one of his books i read he marvels at the fact that when the little Japanese forls.gets smudges all over the train window, the mother cleans the window before she gets off the train.

47 The Chicago rail hub is deemed "The Slowest Six Miles in America." It is the most inefficient and ineffective mass of steel ever contrived and cloggs the through traffic in its bowels.

58 I did not realize Amtrak was a government-owned corporation. It comes from passage of the 1970 Rail Passenger Service Act which created the National Railroad Passanger Corporation, aka Amtrak.

61 Federal reimbursement for rail has gone down since 1976 at  4.95%. Its now 1.02%. This while the others sectors, ie highways and aviation, havenremained stable or gained. This shows where the priority lies.

69 We either invest in railroads or that freight the carry is going to move to the already congested highways causing, as the author says,"crioling delays for commuters and 2o million tons of CO2 emissions from trucks."

Rail infrastructure is cumbling and outdated due to lack of inteest and funding.  Im remembering Arlo..  Good monnin' American how are ya.

Choter 3 Airlines

74 The Airline industry "1.3 trillion in economic actvity [and [ supports 10.2 million jobs.

75 The ASCE says if we don't start uograding now 350,000 of those jobs will dissapear.

110 Stewart International Airport in Newburgh ny was privtley owedfrom 2001-2007. Then it was sold back to theport authority as a bad investment.

124 HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes are "dynamically priced" and can vary from 25 cents to five dollars depending on traffic congestion and time of day. Either pay up or sit in traffic. Wow I've heard of a two-tiered internet, but a two-teired Highway? Big data will help government and the pseudo-government (corporations) to suck every last penny out of us with much greater effeciency. This "dynamic pricing" gambit is popping up all over now on the internet with prices being set individually depending on how much they think they can get you to pay.

128 Digital billboards, which have proven to be more distracting then the regular ones ("80% of accidents are caused by driver distraction") are coming to a highway near you. They will be able to "communicate with the vehicle t display a message custom designed for the driver".  So now those crazy ads that follow us around the internet, will follow us around the highway too.

Imagne a dystopian future where advertising, now ubiquitous, follows us everywhere we go.

Hey how about if were willing to look at ads, you give us a break on the HOT pricing?

133 "In mid-2014, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Apple CEO Tim Crook stood together in silicon valley to announce a partnership to combine data analysis, cloud, and mobile technology with smartphones and tablets." How bout dynamic advertising on your dashboard screen? I think George Carlin said it best when he said bend over a little further so we can shove this big advettising poll a little further up your arse.

150 Dynamic pricing coming.to a parking meter near.you. apparently parking apps,which are intended to help you.find parking faster by.announcing empty spots, will alos adjust.price to the need. Just like the HOT lanes, those who can afford.it, and want to pay up, will move.to the head of.the line.

162 Smart street lights with cameras led.to a "24% lower rate of fatal red-light running crashes. However, it has also lead to an increase in rear-nd collisions caus by drivers locking up the breaks at the red light. Such is human behavior, and that cannot be digitized, not yet at least.

The time is rapidly.approaching when you could be sitting in the park and.order anything and have.it delivered to you. Moblile phone technology and drones will enable this.

175 Well Mr. Putnam we may not be"Bowling Alone" much longer. Cities are now trying to change.things u ppo by reversing the trend so prevalent since the 50's. They seek to place te needs of people over cars and improve the "public space." Theses.cities.will becme.more people centric as the last great migration plays out.

Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia

by Anthony M. Townsend

Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World

by Doug Saunders

Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World

by Doug Saunders 

Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next by Kasarda, John D., Lindsay, Greg 1st (first...

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

by Robert D. Putnam

The Internet of Things: How Smart TVs, Smart Cars, Smart Homes, and Smart Cities...

by Michael Miller

Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed...

by Anthony Flint

181 The main thing that must improve and expand as the city of tommorrow comes.into focus--public transportation. Sudies show that physical mobility actally leads to social mobility and upward mobility.

The "smart bus stop" of.the future will include a.kipsk amd.connectivity with you.cell phone.to tell you which bus to take and exactly.when it will arrive at.your stop.

190 When unban improvement projects fail to connect the grass roots milage varies and hilarity ensues. For example, MARTA, which stands for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority was translated by the urban users of.said system as "Moving African Americans Rapidly Through Atlanta."

254 The discussion here is how to finance the big projects, like the Miami Port Tunmel, without raising taxes. One scheme,.proposed by John Delancy (D-MD ), would allow the corporations who hide their money off shore to avoid taxes to "repatriate" that money as long as they buy bonds bonds with it. That would be a nice reward for the unethical corps.

256 "The American dilemma is politics, not money.

From.Wikipedia:

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877 – July 27, 1963) was an African-American inventor and community leader.^[1] His most notable inventions included a respiratory hood to protect against smoke and a semaphore, a type of traffic signal which used hands controlled by a person in a booth to direct traffic

Many innovations are.coming quickly to American transoortation. With the right guidance and decision making we could maybe catch up the rest of the "civilized" world yet.

Books:

Change Masters

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Confidence: How winning streaks and Loosing Streaks Begin and End

World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy

Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misflits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance

Christopher Macdougal

I love that way.this book out with the dissapearence of General Heinrich Kreipe in Crete on April 24, 1944. Its a very complelling beginning that makes the reader want to dive right in. Macdougals earlief work, Born To Run, was just fabulous and gave me alot. I can't wait to see what this book has to offer me as well.

12 General Keitel says if It werent.for the "unbelievably strong resistance of the Greeks," They would have invaded Russia two critical months earlier and changed the outcome of the war.

13 The real secret to endurance is finding away to burn fat ("one fifth of your nody"), instead of carbs. Cant wait till he tells us. I could run to China with all my fat.

Fascia, the body's connectibe tissue, is more efficient, and more resilient than b ulk muscle.

14 One must master the art of "natural movement."

18 Churchill wanted to turn ordinaey people into clandestine fighters in the mold of "Lawrence of Arabi."

23 The author tells the story of a Pennsylvania Pincipal, who out maneuvered a machete weilding maniac. The principal,   Norina Bentzel, "when sshe crossed her arms and retreated, she instinctively seized on exactly the posture recommend in pankration, the ancient Greek art of no-rules fighting." 

First, become master of the amygdala. This organ calculates you chances of succes in what you are about to attempt nased on previous experience. If it thinks you can you usally can; if not you shut down.

26 According to Darwinian theory, a hero sacrificing himself for his fellow man,  "would leve no offspeing to inherit his noble nature." 

"So, if natural selection eliminates natural heroism, why does it still exist?"

31 "Heroism isn't some mysterious inner virtue, the hreeks believed, it's a collection of skills that every man and woman can master so that in a pinch, they can beome a protector" (hero).

33 FOM Hitlers Amerika Bombers

36 The German airborne commamdos jumping into Vrete were issured "tabletss of Pervitin, an early version of crystal meth."

Max Schmeling, the man who knockeed out Joe Louis, would ne amomg the troops "liberating" Crete.

47 FOM The Battle of Crete tactics and strategy.

48 The Vretan, nicknamed Beowulf, began to climb the stteep mountain "and isntead of struggling, [he] seemed to.fall upward, bouncing from rock to rock for hours with n odd effortless looking elasticity" (fascia!).

58 It's "Parkour! Also called free - running.

FOM Parkour terninology and style. Rewaatch brod city parkour episode for the terminology.

65 The secret "dirty tricks" commando squad the Churchill envisioned woulf be code-named "The Firm."

68 Recruited from Shanghai were two Brits known as "the Twins". The men were Fairbairn and Sykes and they were experts at street fighting, including "how tostab a man to death with a sheet of newspaper. The two were not strong but tjey were "really wobbly," thats what made them deadly.

68 "When it comes to raw strength, muscle is only a minority partner. The real powerhoue iss our 'fascia profunda'."

70 The "stromg-men" of the 1950's were rigjt on track with the indian war.clubs and themedicine ball; it's all about elastic recoil energy.

The fibrous elastoc tissue  courses throughout your body, and when used correctly, leets you martial the strength of severall muscle groups on tandem. The author describes it ass a DNA looking fiber that twists from your heals to your shoulders.

72 The fascia actually is loaded with neurons thht constantly communicate. The amygdala is one the recipients of this communication.

The actions are locked in to facilktate doing the motion again. And whatever posture you assumed to pull it off now becomes locked in.

81 Want to win a wild west gunfight? Just point and shoot. Let.the fascia aim.

FOM Wing Chun

91 learn to be instinctibe in the "trapping zone."

92 FOM pankration techniques

93 Pankration means "total power and knowledge"  Pankration wentndorth with Alexander and is believed to be the basis for most martial arts. "Natural movement and.elsaticity can make anyone" a formidable adversary.

Pg 98 FOM the gallilee skull. The first neaderthal.found outside Europe.

108 The Hellenist mytjology of Kronos swallowing babies and Zeus triumphant sounds similat to tje Sumerian creation myth with Tiamot. FOM about these similarities.

115 In Greece there is the concept of Xenia and all it denotes in serving.your fellow man like "the Hero of Flight 90."

119 This Pendlebury, like Schlieman before him, believed the myths of Greece, or really tje Minoans, was actually based in reality. What a great concept.

121 Schleiman passed the torch to Evans who passed it on to Pendlebury. "All thistime a written road map had been right there." This concept when carried over to strange being descending from the heavens gives new meaning to the old "made up" stories. What if these people, in  pictures and writing were justndescribing what they were actually seeing. Intriguing. 

123 After Minoo's son was killed after winning all events in the Athenian games, King Minos demended retribution. "Minos forced Athens to send fourteen of its finest young men and women every year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur." I guess we know where the "Hunger Games" concept came from. In the basement of the actual palace of Minos were piles of bones of children, thought by Evans to be the bones of these victims.

124 Theseus, with the help of Adiadne Mino's daughter, slew the beast andnreturned to Athens. It was then, our author claims, "when the Minotaur died, pankration was born."

155 The hardest part about parkour isnt strength, its confidence. 

161 The Greeks learned early to forage. What other think of as weeds the Greeks know as useful nutrition, like watercress "the most nutritionally dense of all vegetables."

The weeds that we discard are actually the real food that, with the help of "big food" companies has been deemed to have no value. And the crap we are enticed to eat has actually very little real food. How did we come to this state?

176 "Tara" is the strogholg of ancient Irish kings

200 This section talks about the eruption of Martinique in the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt. The note that the natives saw it coming and got the hell,out and the newcomes died in droves waiting to be told.what to do. He says the specialization of tasks in the industrial . revolution caused us to loose our inmate sense of survival.

210 Healthclubs and gyms are the biggest wastes of time and money. "Fitness clubs are the only business the depends on customers not showing up."

213 After the success of pumping iron and the invention of the Nautilus and anabolic steroids, the age of the "super-male" was born. The image of the buff pumped up super-athlete was plastered on the pages of magazines an unattainable physique for the rest of us males to aspire to. This is not physical fitness. In fact, its the opposite.

220 "Being fit isn't about being able to lift a steel bar or finish an Iron Man...It's about rediscovering our biological nature and releasing the wild human animal inside"

222 "Simple and brief interactions with nature can,produ e marked increases in cognitive control." Being in nature can actually make you smarter.

227 "We'd be helpless if we couldn't do three things; hunt gather and share. Period.  That's it."

233 "Most people see exercis as punishment for being fat." Nstead we need to flip the script. We need to get back to our natural state where exercise is seen as rewarding play. This concept can be seen today in this new tradition of the "mudder" runs, where there are no loosers, the goal is comraderie and just finishing. Exercise is a reard of living not a punishment. Get out there and move. Be oa a doer and not a.don'ter. "Get off the your fat lazy American ass.'

265 Now get this... In order to start using.fat as fuel, instead of sugar, you need to just do two things; "cut out sugar and lower your heart rate." Once again I had this all wrong. I thought you had to burn all of your sugar store first when exercising and then you wold start burning fat. Wrong! You can burn you fat and.leave the sugar stores in place. And besides, when you burn off all of your sugar stores, your body wants to replace them; this is where the false hunger comes from.

273 In spite of what the "Fluid Insustrial Comlex" tells you, you can rely on your body"s own thirst mechanism to tell you when its time.to drink. Oo much hydration is bad for you and it can actually kill you. See Dr. Timothy Noakes book "

Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports

for the full rin down on this new "death by marketng" phenomenon.

Your body is actally smarter than those paid salesmen at Gatoraide. This highly-tuned thirst mechanism has developed over millions of years, and is the reason why we can chase down antelopes by running all day after them.

277 "Insulin evolved to handle complex carbohydrates created by nature." It does not work well with the simple.sugars created by man. "Simple.carbs are absorbed too fast, your cells get their fill and the rest is turned

This is a must read book for anyone who seeks to know what fitness really means. Anyone can,be skinny or pumped up, but only a few acheive real fitness. This book will help you get there.

Watch Shirley Darlington in Movement of three

https://youtu.be/alxyVjbqQks

Books:

Pendlebury The Archeology of Crete

The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands

By Dr Eric Topol

Ebook

Dr Topol's first book The Creative Destruction of Medicine was great. A survery of the convergence of the smart phone and medicine, it spoke of revolution. His latest provided updats and even more astounding information from the front lines of the information age, and how it relates to medicine.

25 "Later AMA revisions and documents on ethical affairs in the 1980s included two statements that give considerable authority to physicians based on their judgment. On informed consent, the AMA contended that physicians should be entitled “to treat without consents when the physician believes the consent would be ‘medically contraindicated,’”and maintained that “disclosure need not be made when risk disclosure poses such a serious psychological threat of detriment to the patient as to be ‘medically." I remember this being invoked only once in 30 years of nursing.

27 "The term doctor’s orders has to go. It conveys the problem. Going forward, the doctor should never order anything. Any medications, lab test, scan , procedure, or operation needs to be fully discussed, making the decision to act a shared one." Careful Doc the othernwill shun you if they catch you being nice to nurses.

30 "This highly frustrating end-of-the-hospital-stay experience reeks of disrespect for the patient, and is yet another flagrant example of not-so-benevolent paternalism." Yes, i agree. All of.the indignities we suffered at the hands of medicine discharge day was always the worst. And I agree itt showed a complete lack of respect.

31 "That usually doesn’t matter in the courtroom, however, so physicians seeking to avoid lawsuits often follow the guidelines to the letter. 45 Paradoxically, it has been pointed out that “patients can face grave risks when doctors stick to the rules too much.” Lawsuit driven medicine is counterproductive and often harmful to patients.

32 "Do you know your LDL?”Doctors around the country were evaluated by “quality metrics”as to whether their patients had reached target LDL levels. But in 2013, the new guidelines eliminated these target numbers. The panel of experts pointed out that there was no scientific basis for the target numbers in the first place." Federal Governmemt, ie. Medicare, driven medicine is counterproductive and.ofter harmful to the patient. The new paradigm will be pt driven medicine.

"Statins, particularly potent ones, induce diabetes in at least 1 of 200 individuals treated. That reduces the overall benefit of statins by 25 percent, right off the bat." 

33 "Of note, the cost of treating patients with a lipid abnormality that shows up in a lab test, but without any evidence of heart disease, increased from $ 9.9 billion in 2000 to $ 38 billion in 2010.  This is the highest growth rate (14.4 percent) of expenditures for any of the top ten medical conditions, and the only one driven not by the incidence of a disease or actual symptoms, but only by a single lab value." Lucrative yes.

"This embodies the “tyranny of experts”and what has been referred to as “eminence-based”rather than “evidence-based”medicine." Ha! I want to work with this Doc.

34 There are many times unecessary care is given baes on false premise. The PSA cause alot of  grief for alot of pts. Also not needed are well visits. Studies show the more tou stay away from the Dr, the better your results will be. 

40 "More recently, Nate Silver, in The Signal and the Noise, asserted that the industrial revolution of 1775 was sparked by the printing press." The author stresses the importance of the printing press and thenrevolution that it created. He equates that the importance of the digital revolution

Books

Patient, Heal Thyself Robert Veach

Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee

Elizabeth Eisenstein classic two-volume book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change.

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

By Erik Larson

Audio book

Started this one at the gym today. This huge ship with  the distinct  4 exhaust profile,called the "Lucy wen down on May 7, 1915. Sunk by the Germans, whose relentless submarine warfare was the terror of the seas.

Great story about a important historical event and read by Scotti Brick.  Yes Lets do this.

Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else

By Steve Lohr

Library book

2 Data mining makes the invisinle visible. A typical ICU can "generate 160,000 data paoints a second."

4 Data mining will function as a layer of artificial intellegemce on top of the decision making process.

5 Data as a tool is as important as was the telescope or the microscope. 

10 "You can't manage what you can't measure." W. Edward Demming.

15 New Term "data scientist"

24 When exploring a new subject, use Hammerbacher's 3 book rule. "Read at least three books from different prospectives to 'subtract out the author bias'." I like this guy.

28 This guys math instructor at Harvard  was Paul Bamberg,co-founder of Dragon systems. We have the Dragon system at work.

38 whats needed is a GPS for ICU patients. One that,"doesn't need to wrestle with the underlying data."

43 Watson is now available in the cloud. No longer just a Jennings whooping Jeopardy pro, Watson is now.ready for some serious data crunching. IBM's new initiative is.to get developers to write software for it. 

Books

C P Snow The Two Cultures

Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity

By James O'donnell

Library bcook

This looks good. Lets do this

Before montheism, The Romans had many Gods. They had a God for everything, except premature but I hear even that one was coming quickly.

63 Check out these books by Walter Burkett, University scholar of the ancient world.

72 Killing animals for God, and other pious and ignorant rituals attest to the delusions of man in this plague we call religion. Everybody knows exactly what to do to be "holier than though." And now, to prove I'm holier than you, I'm going to kill you too. Pretty darned ludacris if you aske me.

78 Tertullian AD 200 (Which is now annoyingly 200 CE) was one the early stuanch chroniclers of Christian montheism.

Tertullian was another big name of early Christianity. These are the people who help shaped the Christian mythology. 

The Romans, had no concept of dyimg for gods. To them that was ridiculous. They wanted the Christians to just get in line and put on thr sprimkle of blood or whatever dumdass ritual was being done and.call it.a day. They, the Romans, knew they didn't believe it. That was fine. They went through the motions.to appease the curremt people im power. Not only would the Christians refuse to go along, they would begin to.speechify. Theybwould haughtily preach about how great and pious they were and how this other religion is nonsense. Stop! You're both right. It's all self servimg nonsense.

"Take me to chuch I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies."

94 Josephus on Augury. Josephus tells of am army on the match stopped by an Augur who is staring at a bird in a tree. The General says,"What's the holdup here?" The Augue explains, "I'm watchingt that bird to see which way he flies. That direction must also be our direction for surely this bird knows the future. The General shoots the bird dead with an arrow and as the bird falls to the ground he turns to the Augur and asks, "Then why couldn't he predict that?" This is such a great story.that illustrates wonderfully the complete insanity of claiming to see into  the future. From sacrifice to augury to haruspicy and oracles to the "Psychic Friends Network to the Long Island Medium and to organized religion, its all a show people. These are the conventions of man and not the work of  "Gods." Wake up! 

101 Some earlynworks are lost amd are omly kmown through quotations in the works of others.  Celsus, who wrote arond the year 170, is only know from quptes in the rebuttal by Origen. He has some truthful things to say about the Cult of Christianity then surfacing in Rome. Definetly worth a read.

109 The two maxims on the wall at Delphi were "know thyself" and nothing in excess." Thats some pretty sage advice.

The author says the Cristians invented the Pagans in a sense. They used the word Paganni, wich roughly translates to our "baxk woods hick," to denote those who beleived in the old ways. Its only with the triumph of Christianity that the pagans as a unit were born. Interesting concept.

193 FOM Nicean Council of 380. This is wherentthe Nicean Creed comes from? I though the one in 325 was the olny one.

So Theodosiius ascends the throne and prefers "homoousios." That he believes God and Jesus are of "the same" devine spark. Which leaves Arianism and its doctrine of "homooisisios" or simialr in devine spark. There is leterally one iota (greek word for I) of difference. But it is these subtle difference that cause schisms and much suffering.

For the first time,under Theodosius, the "word Catholic used consistently as a proper adjective."

"It took time but the Creed [the Nicean Creed] and the term homooisisios  [of the same] won out."

In the 5th Century "questions of Christology" would lead to "Nestorianism and Monophysitism" for.close variants of orthodoxy.

Books

Apuleius The Golden Ass

George Frazier The Golden Bough

Hamlets Mill

Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America

By Bob Herbert

Audiobook

So this was frieghtening. From failed wars to failed infrastructure, the American Dream is in peril. Tjis is angood survey of all that is wrong currently.

Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing

By Laura J Snyder

Library Book

Who would have thought that two great geniuses in optics would be living right across the street from each other and perfecting their crafts within hailing distance of each other. Leuwenhoek, would dicover a whole new world as yet unseen by anyone else with deziens he would call "animacules." Meanwhile, across the street, Vermeer would perfect the use of a device called the camera obscura to bring three dimensional light and shadowsnto a two dimensional painting. I love the premise of this book. Can't wait to get into it.

7 The 1600's were a time of scientific revolution. The motto was trust no man, observe for yourself. This period was detailed wonderfully in Holmes "Age of Wonder." At the heart of it all was the revolution in optics allowing things heretofore invisible to be studied. And Vermeer said,"Let there be light."

134 So the term camera.obscura is misleading. While is does "obscure" the.image.to a.certain degree, it enhances many aspects. CContempories wrote "that the camera obscura displayed more than  ould be seen with the naked eye." In addition,"it revealed optical laws and the way light works." Art and science hand in hand.

135 The Dutch were natural collectors, with their home "cabinets" displaying the ecclectic of items from around the world.

137 Painters in the Dutch Golden Age emloyed a sense of realism in their paintings. But the artists also had to be skillful enough to use illusion to.trick the eye as well.

141 Experiments would prove the eye to be nature's camera obscura.

144 There is evedence that suggests the first use of the camera.obscura ny Vermeer was for his "only know cityscape...A View of Delft."

145 The Procuress and The Sleeping Maid both show sings of faulty prospective, ie the split screen in the former and the table in the latter, that appear resolved with later paintings. This is seen as a new familiarity with the camera.obscura.

149 Davinci taught us that even shadows have colors. This is a concept I had never thought of before. This shows in the dark blue shading of tje woman's blue wrap in The Milkmaid.

157 Vermeer, instead of tracing images with his camera obscura, used it more as a guide and to play around with the scene before committing it to canvas. Vermeer was in no was a slave to it.

160 The author speculates that the man in The Geogrpher, pictured on the cover of this book, is Leuwenhoek. Not sure about that though.

167 The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the 80yrs was and gave Independence to the Dutch Republic. It also ened the 30yrs war in the Holy Roman Empire.

192 Where science is in agreement with the church, it flourishes: Where it is not, it dies.

198 Hookenalergic to paint, puts down the brush and picks up the microscope. He coinsnthe term cell for the "little boxes" he sees in his observations.of a cork. Art and science. Hooke's Microgrphia was published in 1665.

207 1672 Rampjaar the year of catastrophe dawned and With the attack of the French and English, Vermeer joins the Army.  

212 Vermeers "specular" higjlights is a.good.topic for further study. The master of light and shadow continues.to amaze.

215 "What Vermeer was painting was the way the eye actually sees, not the way the mind thinks it sees." The human eye, in conjuction with the brain, automaticall adjusts vision to "make sense" of the input. What you see is the end result of this play. Vermeer understood this and tried to omit this "after bias" by painting what the eye actually sees and not the adjustment.

216 Not overly prolific,"Vermeer painted 45 pictures in total, of which roughly 35 are known to us today.

Vermeer loved maps and globes,"[this] obsession beomes apparent in Vermeer's later works." Vermeer used this device "9 times in all, [and] 4 times in his final 9 pictures."

234 Although never published in book form, like Hooke's Micrographia, Leewenhoek's observations were published in the form of letters to the Royal Society.

239 One of the  recurring metaphors throughout this book is "making the invisible, visible.

Public disections became a.form of public entertainment,  but you were not allowed to take home any parts.  Hey whole stole the liver? Come on, give it up. I guess its not anymore grusome than an episode of CSI. 

243 For a sjort while, in this period [1600's], that the woman amd man must achieve orgasm in order to conceive. Goos thing that wasnt the case or there wouldn't have been many babies. Man first discovered orgasm at the dawn of time. Women first discovered orgasms...oh around 1967. 

250 And then, in a letter to the Royal Society dated Setember 7, 1674,Leewenhoek first reported on seeing his "animacules." 

253 "Imagine the shock of realizing, for the first time, that wayer contained a wholenworld of living creatures completely invisible to the naked eye. Up to that time the objects were all inanimate. For the first time a living world was viewed in plain water. This was truly a "day the universe changed."

261 Scientists and others of this time.were reluctant to give away the secrets of how they acoomplished what they did. The tradition of alchemy was to comceal by code names and such to disguise what was really happening in their experiments. There are some who belive old nusery rymes contain specific recipes for experiments. Again, the church was not.jappynwith this type of experiments and even Newton realized tjis and keep his side experiments occult. The fact that Leewenhoek would tell the Royal Society the details of how he did things, infuriated them.

264 Hooke, at this time, was more interested in the study of light and not available to afirm or refure Leewenhoek for the Society, fornwhich he was later censured. He was too busy arguingnwith Newton over what made up light. He proposed it was waves and Newton thought it was particles. Later Einstein, like the Miller Beer commercial, would say "stop you're both right."

266 Then, November 15, 1677, it happened. Hooke was finally available and able.to replicate Leewenhoek. The society members marveled at what they saw as though first looking into "Chapman's Homer." 

Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1941-1945.

By Barbara W Tuchman

Library Audiobook

Who better to talk about China and Stillwell than Tuchman. Much enjoyment listening to this at the gym

Books

Red Star Over China

Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard

By Laura Bates

So this is a pretty interesting book I guess. It's about an English professor who teaches Shakespeare to death row inmates. Nice hobby I guess if ya dont like gardening. I guess some of them get it.

Read half but real chore to try the rest but maybe...

The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power

By Steve Fraser

Library book

So whereas the other three books; Coming Apart, Boom,Bust, Exodus and Our Kids tell what happened and why, this book attempts.to explain why there was so little.outrage at this latest capitalist crime spree.

Finance moves west and the populist movement begins.

Henty Demarest Lloyd says the Republican party isnall used up. "The Republican party took the black man off the auction block, but it has put the white man on the auction block of the money power." 

There's a book that just came.out called "To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party." I remember seeing that title and thinking yes this party once stood for something. You made men free. What do you stand for now?

101 In 1896 the People's Party disolved. "Millions flooded back into the Democratic party. William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech brought them in by the truckload.

1896 McKinley wins. The populists are beat down. Frederick Turner pronounces the frontier closed. A new millennium is upon us. The 1890 census spells it all out.

112 Find out more about the "Paris Commune"

113 Here's  the "Great Uprising of 1877"

115 At the time of the Great Uprising a Pittssburgh paper writes. The laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, will not take up arms to put down their brethren." Contrast this with the rich dick who said "I could pay half the working class ro exterminate the other half." Maybe not sir. Maybe we will cohere.

118 Major unrest between the forces of capital and labor contnued. The 1886 Haymarket Square. What did the communist savages want? An 8hr work day. 

119 The movement towardss an 8hr work day became known as the great upheaval.

122 "The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor... [was] part trade union, part guild [and] part political protest...Like.the Populist movement... [it was] an alternate social universe of reading rooms, newspapers, lecture societies and clubs."

124 May 1, 1886 is the first May Day. Though not first celebrated until the following year "to honor the executed anarchists." May Day is "still celebrated now in most parts of the world except in the United States where it began."

128 It was Jay Gould in 1886 who said that about hiring.labor as quoted above.

131 Tomkins Square, Haymarket Square, these are the temples of Labor. And the most honored rallying cry of them  all Homestead!

133 Shortly after Homestead Frick is Shot by Andrew Berkman. People who screwed over their fellow man in that day always had to worry about this possibilty. Nowadays "Neutron Jack" can safely go on TV and.brag anout his abuse of the working class to thundering applause.  Wasnt always that way. Is this  how democracy ends? To thundering applause? 

134 Pullman 1894!

137 Coxie's Army

138 Ludlow! These arenthe historical bastions of labor.

139 1905 'The Wobblies"

145 "The past is mot dead, it's not even past." William Faulkner

146 "On the shoals of roast beef and apple pie socialistic Utopias of every sort are sent.to their doom. There is a new nook out this week that claims it's our ability to buy stuff (consumerism) that keeps us from rioting today. Even though it sucks we can still buy a new Iphone and be happy. 

Even Carnegie pictured hiself a.working class hero by founding working mens libraries. Course he then made it, with his union busting and insistence on the 12hr work day, so  the.working man would never have time.to use them. 

196 The picture looked great in America in 1970. The rising tide was lifting all boats for sure and it lifted the poors higher. "The bottom fifth of the population saw its income raise by 116%." And thentop fifth got 85%. There was plenty to go round.

235 "Between the years of 2000 and 2011 17 American manufacturers closed each day.

272 The blasts the myth that ruthlessness is necessary to promote proper "shareholder value". The author reminds us that this shareholder value is a brand new.concept in the corporation and that in most cases after ruthlessness and treachery to boost the corporations bottom line, in many cases the stock price declines. 

284 Ahh were firmly in the 80's now. It was heady times with everyman an investor and the day of the day trader. Newpapers, tv pop culture itself revolved around the next tale of Wall Street riches  just waiting.to be plucked. "The apotheosis... [of this era] was when Ivan Boesky addressed the graduating class in Berkeley 1986." The speech about greed being good was the basis.for the character of Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, that was being written at this time, and would come out the following year.

287 And n with Reagan's splendidly opulent Inaugural ball, suddenly being rich becamemthe new black. The message was everywhere, from Lifestyles of the Rich amd Famous to fawing magazine coverage of these fabulously rich new society. It was morning again in America and we in the unmonied class were waiting.to be trickled upon. And boy did we ever get trickled on.

301 So our says its a 'vanishing act" that todays rich do, at least those that want to be elected.  Watching the uberrich John kery and George bush dress and actmlike.good old boys in that election was good.comic opera. This hiding out in plain site "contributes to self erasure as a ruling class: the final nonconfrontation." Not really sure i buy this argument.

303 Consumerism and a.feeling of choice, though false, is what keeps us quiescent says the author. A new book comkng out called Cool: has the same premise.

309 So how do you continue to feed your consumerism habit with no money? You charge it. Debt most times leads to those long nightsmof.feeling guilty and possible bankruptcy. But not.to feel yoo bad the author reminds us that the.most indebted of us ie our "financial institutions walk away from their debts passing them on to the public treasury, without a qualm.

213 Theres a fine line here about consumerism. The children of the greatest generation shunned the consumerist nature and the need to acquire and conform. I,  at the tail end of the boom, did not feel that way. Of.course those hippies were taken up later in the craze as anyone whose tried to buy tickets to Fleetwood Mac ($300 yeah right) will tell you. That group spends money now.

Yes independent contractors. The corps like that, easier to throw stuff away.

341 In 2012 union membership was at 6.6, the end of an era.

351 A new auto worker today bring home what his grandfather did in 1946, and glad to get. "All this was met with barley a whisper of discontent."

384 Good point here. The word parasitism in the first Gilded age meant the rich. In this one it means the poor. Still not sure how we got there though.

Mario Procaccino coined the term 'limosine liberal" in a Mayoral race against John Lindsay.

385 A 'tenther" is a person who quotes the tenth amendment at you, which reserves for the states all powers not  expressly granted to the feds

393 Oh this has to be wrong. "The homosexual population earns 10-26% less than heterosexuals." Ive never met a poor gay guy yet.

Books:

Henry.George progress and Poverty

Edward Bellamy Looking Backward

Henry Demarest Lloyd Wealth Against Commonwealth

William Dean Howells A Hazard of New Fortunes

1982 Barry Bluestone The Deindustrializarion of America

Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition for the Twenty-First Century

By George Gilder

Steven Quartz and 1 more

Cool: How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World

John  kenneth Gallbraith The AffluentnSociety

Vance Packard The Hidden Persuaders

Marcuse One Dimensiomal Man

Charles Murray Losing Ground

Essays

Boom, Bust, Exodus: The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities

By Chad Broughton

Library book

This is right in line with what I've been reading. I told the girl at the library I'm in my "death of the American dream" phase. These four book Murray's Coming Apart, Putnam's Our Kids, This book and Frank's Age of Acquiescence, and now the audiobook Losing our way will make the block.

These are all so similar Its like reading one big book detailing the story of our lost American Century. I grew up in the 60's at the height of the boom, and came.of age in the 70's when the cracks.first started.to show. In the 80,s I joined the work force albeit in the Army but still. These were still roaring times for all supposedly, but unbeknownst to me at the time the seems were coming apart. I remember thinking if everyone is.rich now why are so many Dollar Stores opening everywhere. The peices just didnt fit. By the 90's it was the computer boom and we all assumed we would.make up our losses  digitally, and some did. But definetly by the 2000's everybody could tell something was definitely wrong with the American Dream. Though still true for a small privileged few, for the rest of us it had turned into a nightmare. Then the rich dicks crashed the country amd.with that most of the worls and the.blinders were finally and totally removed.

Now we live in two separate Americas. Two diffents types of Americans separated but wealth, geography and experience.

These five books.mentioned document what I lived through. The weird thing is that I was totally ignorant of the vastness of the divide most of the time while living it.

I look forward.to seeing what was actually.going on behind the curtain while I was just trying to live my life in my beloved America.
(Gets off soapbox,  [to rousing applause]).

6 So the Maytag factory moved to Mexico, (great song about jobs moving to mexico by the Pirates of The Carribean call Streetman Named Desire check it out)
(And remind me never to by a Maytag appliance ever again) The worst thing about all this is is the big lie. The nig lie was we have to move.to Mexico, (cutting the throata of our fellow Americans in the process), to stay competitive. At the same.time CEO salaries were skyrocketing to astronomical hieghts. There was no move to compete. It was never necessary. The money the saved by destroying their own country went right into their own greedy little fat pockets. This is the whole.reality of the job moving phenomenon that swept America in the 70,s and 80"s. So where was I? Oh yes the Maytag move to Mexico so another greedy CEO can get his 30 pieces. So the so called "free trade areas" set up down there are called Maquilladoras. A local poet named Gloria Anzaldua describes it as "an open wound where the third world grates against the first and bleeds." Does that give you some idea of how wonderful it is there. Congratulations, you broke the country and exported misery all so instead of making 20 times the workers you could make 200. Kudos enjoy you pound of flesh and ignore that whole pesky Kharma thing, I'm sure ot doesnt apply to rich people.

Pg 7 love this "Pobre Mexico tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos" poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States. I first hear this reading a book by Eisenhower's son about the Mexican War and have lovednit since. 

12 the tar used by the workers in the late 50,s was full of what would later be recognized as carcinogens. Just be a nurse and witness the shells  of the human detritus from these and other factories. 

19 The author reminds us here of the "Kitchen Debate" where Nixon one upped Khrushchev by "beating the soviets at their own game of creating a classles, or at.least more egalitarian,  society."

Pg 28 finally after much negotiation the Admiral.factory was a.good placento work. It was a good job. "The 60's and the early 70's...thosr were the good times."

Up till that point no one expectednto benthere long anyway so it didnt matter. I remember my factory days. Everyone it seemed had somethingnelse going on for them and very few of my co workers ever would say that this job was important to them. We had musicians, professional athletes and all types of people who aspired to other lives that would be there for them andntheynwould leave this place behind. But webhad heard of Union places where people got paid well and got excellent benefits. The people who worked at places like Ford Motor Co were the elite of the working class and we all aspired to it. 

This is an aside....The NYS budget has passed. Minimum wage? Nope. Education money? Nope anything goodnfor anybody? Yep. Now when the rich buy there yachts in NY theyll do it tax free. This is what is important to our "so called" representatives. Anyone need any further convincing of how screwed we are?

Pg 32 with all boats being lifted equally, in 1973 "appliance city was humming" I was 12 that year and thanked god that I was born into this greatness. The future was so bright we had to wear shades (which were also manufactured in America.)

Pg 33 "There were 18 million manufacturing jobs" in America in 1975 and it would peak in 1979. That was the year I was to join the work force and finally get my share. Little did I know, the future, my future, in America would be much different than what I had thought.

Pg 36 Here's a tidbit I didn't know. The original legislation that gave workers rights under FDR's new deal didn't include farm workers. This is why their wages are so low and still are today. My parents came to Clintondale NY as migrant workers.  I will never forget where II come.from.

Pg 36 The farm workers Union triednto get the border sealed to stop the illegals from busting their srtikes with their sheer numbers. But the local power structure intervened and "the flow of replacement workers resumed. " This in 1967. Anyone who today, some 40 years later, who wonders why we can't seal off the border still, has their answer. Its because it support low wages for the farm jobs. 

Pg 44 And to this day, the labor pool, [in southern Texas] is at once limitless, desperate and transient -just the way employers like it. Such is the enduring legacy of the Magic Valley."

Pg 47 In 1974 Rockwell International bought out Admiral and it was the beginning of the end for Appliance City. In the negotiations for that year, instead of seeing what the Union could get, it was what would the Union give up to keep the doors open. And in that instance,30 years of prgress had just peaked and very few realized it.

Pg 62 Whereas the old managers shouted customer, customer, customer, the new CEO shouted Shareholder, shareholder, shareholder. Jack Welchs shareholder value movement had begun to take hold. Its where you forget everything else and just concentrate on the share price. This why phones are automated, it costs less and improves shareholder value. Ask anyone if they like these automated phones-the answer is.no. They know we hate them. They did it anyway. This is why I have to go back and.forth between internet and TV companies. They company couldn't care less about existing customers. They just want.new sign ups. This is what is good.for the.bottom line. Everything in the now, this quarter. In a recenrt movie I saw the corpoate lawyer tells the other one his kid is now 7 quarters old. This is where we are at today. And all that shaeholder value? You got it, went right in the CEO's pocket. They this trend is starting to reverse. Let us hope that is true.

Pg 64 so in the end Mr "shareholder value" Ward in just 18 months crashed the company and completely.tanked the stock. Screwed up everything. So what do you thinnk the board did? Tar and feathers? Out of town on a rail? Nope, not in this altenate plane of America. They handed him 2 million and asked him to please leave. Yep that sounds about right. Marvelous! That's fair.

Pg 71 After many takeaways, the plant.closed anyway. The news sent the stock price soaring. Screwing 1,600 American workers gave them a 7% bump. Congratulations! 

Pg 79 "Clinton sighns NAFTA on December 8, 1993. A day that will live in infamy. And Ross Perot hears a sucking dound.

131 The author quoyes a worker,"It used to be that if you laid people off, it was a badge of shame...Now its cheered on Wall Street. "Neutron" Jack Welch and that other asshole.nicknamed "machine gun" something, (I cant find it.right now) were proud of the fact they they screwed over their loyal employees. They bragged publicly about the enjoyment they got out of destroying all those lives and reveled in the monetary rewards of such pychopathic behavior.

This from the Huff online;

The study (PDF) also found that 36 of the 50 layoff leaders "announced their mass layoffs at a time of positive earnings reports," suggesting a trend of "squeezing workers to boost profits and maintainhigh CEO pay."

Wow.....just wow. It truly is an age of Acquiescence.

In 2004, the year the factory finall closed, saw a "record US trade deficit of 617.7 billion" dollars. In Canada the first ever Wal-Mart store to unionize was promptly closed.

134 "The gutting of the unions paralleled a general erosion of social connectedness. And here we have the metion of "social capital" and the inevetable reference to "bowling Alone" (man this is an important book, read it.  I read it and I'm going to read it again.) So I guess the first thing we are.going.to need to do is learn to trust each other again. Thats going to be hard to do with every story you see on the news that tells you not to. They do that for a reason. God forbid we all get together for a minute and realize who the real problem is here in America.

147 Now mexican Maytag workers make about 6.75 a day. The cost of the average lunch at the only resturaunt in town is also about $6.75.

152 mostly prices for goods and foodstuffs were "dollarized". A 2003 study that compared prices between Nuevo Laredo and Minneapolis showed "prices were comparable. 

153 Message to CEO's with factories in Mexico. "It's good that you have come but you must see your workers as human beings." Part of that means paying a.living wage.

155 In moving to Mexico, they not only all cost of running the factory, but "any sense of obligation to the place where they make there money." 

Remembet the Company picnic? Those were the days my friend.

159 Flora, a Maquilladora worker and single mom, leaves her house from 6a till 9p 6 days a week. 

215 So get this my right-wing nut job friends "Only 10% of Californias uncompensated care was from these people. I love it when I read a.posting from one of my friends that says all the Mexican has to do is set foor in Amerixa and free riches and services are showered on them. Everyone of them should live one day in a pickers shoes. The attitude would change I'm sure. It's ok though just stand by because that status is where we are all heading in the working class here in America. So you will have a chance to experience it first hand.

223 This poor ex-Maytag worker, still making less than poverty wages hasnto pay back benefitsnto the state of Illinois because shes now working. Meanwhile the CEO, who crashed Matag, got 20 million. Oh yeah, that's fair.

247 The ABCD's of the American grain market. Acher Daniels Midland, Brugo, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus (not julia?). These are the biggest players in the international grain game today. Read Oxfams "Cereal Secrets" for the whole scoop. 

256 Oh what these poor people go through. Tough to loose a job. ..tough. Meanwhile, "The aughts had been the first decade of zero net job growth" in America. (Had I had this info then I would have never job-hopped like I did at this time. Bad move on my part.) Also, the top one percent got a 154 boost in their bottom line between the years of 1980-2010. Anyone say justice? Not saying they dont deserve it but...

260 This is straight out of Punam's "Our Kids." "Family income was nearly.as predictive as parental education in" in determining educational acheivement. Read "Our Kids" to get the full story on this topic.

262 Poor education is the new black. Racial segregation has actually declined while segregation based on education has increased. It means the poorer less educated classes dont have other role models living in their midst anymore. Read all about in Putnam's "Our Kids" and Bill Bishop's "The Big Sort."

269 They actually talk of gowing through "stages of grief" in loosing their jobs. 

271 Studies show that we carry an "impact bias," which can help mislead us in timesnof acute change for good or bad. Mom was right, maybe, whatever has happened, is not such a big deal and it'll look better in the morning. 

279 In speaking of Drugs and the cartels, this local.say the drugs used to go up the coast through Tijuana. Nowasdays though the drugstravel up north via the NAFTA corridor. Wonderful! Anothernside benefit of being sold out by our "paid employees" to the Corporations. Ducky!

281 In juarez, its "Maquilladoras, narcos and migration...that's the triangle." Truly understand whats going on there you havento understand this.

In "Exporting Obesity," The authors basically asked if the end user in the junk food cycle get as much and the seller. The everpresent and cheep fast (bad and really cant be actually called food) encourages obesity, diabetes and a slew of other health hazarrds. The author says "we must add 'big food' to the triangle."

290 In the end, you're bought up and dismantled for your parts. The companies who specialize in this like Bain Capital, "are not the job makers anymore, they are profit-takers. They are not buying up your Factory to save.your job. Hey, it's just business.

295 Renewables mean jobs, yes. Im also finishing Naomi Klien's "This Changes Everything." I love her stuff. She makes argument in her book.

299 For the first time since the 1990's, Manufacturing jobs went up in America. Maybenthose jobs really are coming back. There one Jobs that wont be coming back who told the Prsident "those jobs are not coming back." The Mac will be assemnled in the  USA once again.

This book was great. Kept me right in thebaction and.provided alot of goodies. Must read!!! Special

Books

Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. Apparently people at the time were outraged that he would tell them the grim reality of the existence of the working class in the Industrial Age. We need another tale of two cities now.

John Kenneth Gallbraith The Affluent Society.

 

Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants

by Robert Smith

Essays

Read The Last Refrigerator in the Atlantic

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the-last-refrigerator/380154/

Articles:

This article was written in 1974 in the Chicago Tribune.  Compare it to what you read in the papers today about America.

Stability In the Heartlands Galesburg: Rockwell's America

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1974/05/26/page/45/article/galesburg-rockwells-america