Daily Thoughts 03/25/2013

The Voyage of the Pequod from the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville; one of a series of 12 literary maps based on British and American literature, produced by the Harris-Seybold Company of Cleveland between 1953 and 1964.

Daily Thoughts 03/25/2013

I finished reading Kingston Noir last night.  I also read Walter Jon Williams book, The Fourth Wall.  It is a near future thriller.  There is the use of augmented reality glasses, three dimensional viewing devices, and some cultural and technological changes, but it is recognizable as very similar to the world today.

Sean Makin, the main character is very acerbic and somewhat of a jerk.  The setting is in a mix of  reality television and an international serialized science fiction show.  The story is very dark, acerbic and funny.  Sean stars in a show called celebrity Pit Fighter.  He also has lots of enemies, one of whom he filmed kicking a dog.

There is murder, international intrigue, and spying in the story.  I very much enjoyed reading the story.

This morning, I checked the Twitter and Facebook for the library.

I read Billionaires and Ballot Bandits How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps by Greg Palast.  It is entertaining muckraking with a very leftist slant.  It even has cartoons by Ted Rall.  I rather like Ted Rall's political cartoons.  They are easy to follow and fit well with the writing style.

 Greg Palast is making various accusations about how people are being denied the vote.  This includes things like tying peoples names with felons, requiring identification cards to vote, voter intimidation, disqualifying ballots, looking for hanging chads, using hackable voting machines, and disqualifying people by race.

There are various accusations against people like Karl Rove, Harold Simmons, the Koch brothers and other republican political strategists.  Especially strong vitriol is reserved for the oil and waste management corporations. Greg Palast also mentions a few things about Bill Clinton to make things juicier.  There is even a bad prediction that Barack Obama will lose the election because the election is being rigged.  The book has a very sensational feel to it.  The feeling is one of a combination of infotainment and muckraking at the same time.

This book will appeal strongly to people who are on the left.  It will anger people on the right.  The writing is very charged with disclaimers that the author is being honest.  The author who is British even attacks the concept of balanced reporting in the United States saying that there is not enough research being done in the American news.  It is aggressive writing with an agenda.

This book was on the New York Times Bestseller list for trade paperbacks.