Category: Reading

Latest read: The Way of the World

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 7, 2009

Ron Suskind has written a revealing novel about the Bush Administration‘s attitude towards terrorism and American politics in The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Suskind won the Pulitzer for A Hope in the Unseen and sets a pretty level playing field for the Bush Administration’s War on Terrorism revealing new insight to the strategy used by Bush/Cheney to “secure” war against Iraq.
Suskind brings many issues of concern to the forefront regarding the Bush Administration’s actions in taking the country to war. I believe Suskind has clearly documented actions by Cheney as lessons learned from Nixon’s Watergate. Cheney served Nixon as White House Staff Assistant in 1971 and Deputy Assistant to the President from 1974–1975.

During Watergate Nixon’s inner circle kept the President “in the know” but as Vice President Cheney has acted to deliberately keep W. Bush out of the loop for political and potentially legal reasons. Suskind details the odd relationship developed by Bush in order to protect himself.

The 2% rule.
What does a sitting President do with a 2% approval rating with African American voters in a post-Katrina America? With midterm elections on the horizon Bush simply extended (a bit early) the voting rights act. That was the most strategic advice the GOP could offer? Did they want to hit….say 4%? This proves to be an excellent example of the political extremism underway in the Bush White House to show how the story and plans for war would be developed to further a political agenda.

Knifing the baby
Immediately following 9/11 Bush became accustomed to getting his political way with America, the mainstream media and government. History has shown this leads Presidents down dark paths. When British intelligence (MI5 & MI6) notified the US that a plan was underway by Al Qaeda to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic Bush asked British PM Tony Blair to give up the terrorists to American authorities. Blair refused saying British Intelligence had 2,000 operatives working this case for over a year. They were eavesdropping on their ring of terrorists and looked to grab higher players within 30 days.

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Latest read: America Alone

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 24, 2009
2 Comments on Latest read: America Alone

Mark Steyn has written a clever book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. In a post 9/11 world America, according to Steyn must “go it alone” against the impact Muslims have in today’s world. A lot of his knowledge is coming from outside the mainstream of US media organizations and many will be surprised to learn the real state of affairs between a fading Anglo-America and a rising Muslim world.

Steyn begins simply with demography as the basis for his argument that Islam will outgrow the Anglo-American world. The American birth rate is 2.4 while Muslim countries like Pakistan have a birth rate of 4.5 and given time some countries like England and Spain which have rates under 1.5 will simply fall off the earth in the next century.

He points out that eastern European countries like Russia have abortion rates as high as 70%, and acknowledges that countries are killing themselves in the long run while Muslims are set to flourish for the next two to three generations.

At the same time the medium age in some parts of the Muslim world is just 15. Steyn argues that this very young minority will grow to see democratic countries and institutions will shift to the law and culture of Islam.

Is the Muslim world gaining political strength in a post 9/11 world? Steyn writes about how the growth of Muslim populations in Europe still lead to isolation, not assimilation in their Anglo-countries and slowly over time how Governments have begun to accommodate their growing communities. Want proof?

The recent release of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi the Lockerbie bomber made headlines around the world. Freed from jail by Scotland al Megrahi returned home to Libya a hero. Was it all for cheap oil? The US Government condemned this release. But who is holding power here?

Tags: America Alone, Mark Steyn, education, Muslim, Demography, culture, trends

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Latest read: Groundswell

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 11, 2009

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. This book is a great primer for social media. If your new to social media this book is for you.
However if you have been working with blogs and wikis for more than five years this book is a bit too elementary but a great quick read nevertheless.

The Groundswell is the powerful movement of our networked society. Basically the book breaks the “groundswell” into gaining insights from what social networks say about your company, your products and the people representing your company.

We have reached a point on the modern internet that personal voices will grow via social media tools never before available. This will help to drive new marketing plans, business reach to both existing and new customers. This can drive new media to tell stories about products and community movements.

Blogs help talk to your communities, and buzz helps energize the groundswell and the new ability to utilize “customers” as collaborative team members. In the end its Groundswell is about person to person relationships.

Groundswell’s blog

Tags blogs, buzz, collaborative team, great primer, groundswell, insights, Network, networked society, person to person, relationships, social, social networks, society, technologies, Technology, wikis

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Latest read: The Lost Symbol

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 5, 2009

Just finished Dan Brown’s latest The Lost Symbol and was amused at the placement of Twitter in the book. I wonder if Robert Langdon is finally tweeting? It was a nice quick departure from my usual reading habits.

As usual Langdon finds himself wrapped in another mystery now focusing on the symbols of the Freemasons.

Never dull and boring Langdon sheds light on the role of religion in the U.S. Capital, George Washington portrayed as a God, the impact of Freemasons and more importantly Noetic Sciences.

I have enjoyed all of Browns novels revolving around Langdon and feel the books are much better than Ron Howard’s movie interpretations.

Tags dan brown, freemason, robert langdon, the lost symbol, twitter

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Latest read: The Age of Turbulance

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date August 19, 2009

I finished Alan Greenspan‘s book The Age of Turbulence Adventures in a New World and learned it was more than I expected from the former Chairman of The Federal Reserve. And with the recession still in high gear it was also good timing.
The Age of Turbulance Beyond his sheer volume of knowledge regarding the economy, global markets and international finance I was most impressed with Greenspan’s simple yet immense observation: America needs an overhauled K12 educational system for our country to have a strong economy in 2030.

The impact of Technology, Globalization & Innovation as he outlines should not be overlooked regarding educational reform. I must admit the real interest for most readers would be to jump the chapter that addresses the recession. Its worth taking the time to read the book in full.

Greenspan’s impact in Washington, the economy and Republican politics spans Presidential administrations from Nixon to W. Bush. Greenspan has enjoyed a pretty interesting life. I was most struck not by his interest in music but rather his high school music partner Stan Getz. His comments about his role in Y2K for the government and financial markets and the impact of fiber optic networks were welcoming for any geek or fanboy.

There is just a huge amount of economic learning you can pickup from his 25 chapters. My favorite chapters surprisingly fall in a row:

19. Globalization and Regulation
20. The “Conundrum”
21. Education and Income Inequality
22. The world retires. But can it afford to?

There are some amazing things you can learn from an economist. His view of W. Bush’s administration and their loss of focus on the economy was eye opening. Bush never changed any economic plans beyond what he promised during his election campaign. W. Bush repeatedly ignored The Fed’s view of the sliding economy and needed changes over the close of his Presidency and handed his successor an economy with financial, housing and automotive markets in crisis.

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