Category: Reading

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Reading

Latest read: Chain of Command

One lesson: Abu Ghraib and Photography…just don’t mix. Seymour Hersh has provided the details and background to this scandal in great depth in the pages of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
chain of commandAs one who learned about this breakdown from traditional news sources Hersh provides criticism for the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld with a new insider view of the breakdown of command and control.

Clearly the treatment depicted in photographs now famous only harms future American interests and the war on Al Qaeda.

Acceptable Torture? Hersh has stated our actions (photos) have given the green light to our current and future enemies: a ready-made excuse to ignore Geneva Conventions. Don’t like where this goes…for our futures.

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Education Reading

Latest read: Against All Enemies

For some reason I picked up Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror and left it on my shelf. Once I started it was difficult to put down.
Against All EnemiesI decided to read Woodward’s Bush at War instead. Then for some reason I moved to a very lengthy book by Stephen Ambrose about Richard Nixon. Regardless after a couple of months it was time to read this book.

As Clarke reveals American intelligence, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush knew so much about Bin Laden & Al Qaeda before 9/11!  Clarke was unable to address terrorism threats to the Bush Administration (requested in January 2001) until September 4th.

I simply cannot explain how upset I became as more of Richard Clarke’s words were revealed…and could not put this book down either. I can only suggest others who have read this book state: everyone should read this book.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: 1968 The year that rocked the world

1968: The Year That Rocked the World. What a strange year…even from an American point of view. What do you remember? — I was two years old.

For most Americans 1968 was this series of events: The assassinations of MLK and RFK, The Prague Spring, USS Pueblo, Tet, The My Lai massacre, Civil Rights Act, Student protests, Apollo 6 & The death of Yuri Gagarin. The political election of Nixon, Wallace, McCarthy, Humphrey, Rockefeller, Reagan, Romney, McGovern and even Pigasus.

On a “smaller” scale: Onassis marries Kennedy, Saddam Hussein’s coup d’etat brings the Ba’tathists into power, US Army Deputy Operations officer Colin Powell wrote denials of initial reports regarding the My Lai massacre.
–Even Hypertext (aka – the web) was publicly demonstrated by Doug Englebart in 1968.

Clearly 1968 changed the world…
After finishing Mark Kurlansky’s book I realize the biggest global ‘event’ was the student protest movement. From France, Poland, Mexico, Greece, Czechoslovakia to America. –Where have all student protest gone forty years later?

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Education Reading Watergate

Latest read: Nixon Triumph of a Politician, 1962-72

Just finished noted historian Stephen E. Ambrose second volume on Nixon: Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972 and it’s quite a task.

nixon

Ambrose as at his best walking the reader from Nixon’s failed run in the California gubernatorial campaign where he famously stated to the press “Your not going to have Nixon to kick around anymore” to his landslide re-election in 1972 with Watergate just beginning to explode.

The details of Nixon’s inherited war in Vietnam are the most revealing. Vietnam cast such a long shadow on Nixon’s Presidency. However all things begin equal he could not escape the shadow of Johnson’s role escalating the war in Vietnam. Nixon himself destroyed the “Imperial Presidency” he so hungered to achieve.

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Milwaukee Reading Rich media Virtual Reality

Latest read: Assembling Panoramic Photos

Its been great getting this book to serve as a bit of inspiration: Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer’s Notebook (Designers Notebook)

Good VR photography and digital tools providing a fresh look, new approaches, and most of all inspiration. Want to grab my camera and fly to Venice.