Review: The Kuřim Case: A Terrifying True Story of Child Abuse, Cults & Cannibalism

The Kuřim Case: A Terrifying True Story of Child Abuse, Cults & Cannibalism by Ryan Green
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A brief account of truly awful child abuse - sort of on par with the crimes covered in The Basement: A True Story of Violence in an American Family. These crimes are more wholly adult-on-child and have the unusual true crime flavors of being in the Czech Republic, multiple dysfunctional family members and shady persons, international connections, years of activity. The connections to Christian sect The Grail Movement are really only a distraction it seems and this particular audiobook suffers from lack of detail and mediocre narration.

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Review: Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Twain never authored and ordered a complete and organized autobiography. He allowed himself to be distracted from the project periodically and when he did engage, he was often purposefully discursive and tangential. The scholarship and detective work that went into volume one of this monumental presentation is a welcome part of the work - discursions upon discursions. Along the way I become gladly become re-acquainted w/Twain's wit, humor, and cynicism and understand better the world he lived in and where was at in life during this writing.

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Review: The Use and Misuse of Language

The Use and Misuse of Language by S.I. Hayakawa
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a sometimes interesting anthology of articles and talked from a journal on General Semantics and the body's meetings. Especially the talks seem to have lost sparkle in the transcription. Maybe a quality issue to be explained by a general semanticist?

Editor Hayakawa has said, "My deepest debt [[book:Language in Action|15792683]] is to the General Semantics ('non-Aristotelian system') of Alfred Korzybski. I have also drawn heavily upon the works of other contributors to semantic thought..." Comments and criticisms on Korzybski are interesting here, but are only a seasoning. "SEMANTIC DIFFICULTIES IN. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION" by Edmund S. Glenn is very interesting for parsing an actual day in the life of the UN Security Council and the subtleties of meaning transformed after passage through the admittedly highly effective UN translators. Hayakawa himself provides, for me, and probably as a music enthusiast, the most engaging piece, "Popular Songs vs. The Facts of Life". He concluded that "The blues tend to be extensionally oriented, while. Popular songs tend to exhibit grave, even pathological intensional orientations." OK, I am still trying to understand that. What will stick with me is the application of speech pathologist Wendell Johnson IFD cycle: I, unrealistic expectations and ideals, lead to F, frustrations, which discourage us, and may delude us with even less realistic expectations or ideal; the IFD can quickly become viciously circular. Probably the IFD cycle affects almost everyone to some degree and Hayakawa uses this to analyze blues songs from W. C. Handy, Bessie Smith, etc.

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Review: The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes, and Eternal Hope

The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes, and Eternal Hope by Joe Drape
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Written largely in bright, engaging prose this is a fascinating and detail looked into thoroughbred horse racing desirous of the rare triple crown. This story largely winds it was from recent history to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000 Kentucky Derby and the victory there of winning horse Fusaichi Pegasus, the first betting favorite to win the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979. Pegasus represented the buying one's way into winning and short of the triple crown - as is also Godolphin Racing covered here - and was indeed out of trying the time of the 2000 Belmont Stakes where Commendable won the day thanks to the training of D. Wayne Lukas, representing the traditional and more purist side of the sport. Lukas is practically treated as a career biography subject here.

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Review: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

NIcely narrated by Martin himself, this is a very good artist's biography. I was especially impressed with the progressive and even confrontational nature of his earliest stage comedy - refusing to let the audience have a punchline and release the tension built up.

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Review: Growing Up Digital

Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have never read about about the sociological impact of technology of such vintage that still seems so prescient, considered, and relevant. Built around interaction with actual 11 - 15 year-olds (mostly), there is a lot of first-hand "N-gen" experience here, as the author labels the generation born and growing up digital. Admittedly as a non-parent much of this is not targeted at me directly, but I find the many situations presented and observations made entertaining and even enlightening. For me, judging such a book come inevitably from grading its predictions. This one has a good list toward the end of Chapter 9:


Real Estate: I find much of this book's insight demographic, centered around the bump up in youth numbers in the Baby Boom Echo. Still, these N-Geners I find want mobility not ownership and needing "wired" homes, etc.? Well, the author missed the wireless transformation...
"telework centers": I wish...
Community gardens and whatnot ...I see that. Missed the whole Whole Foods thing where this gets sold back to the N-Geners
"They'll want the car to be a place for entertainment" Yup.
"Clothing. This is a generation with a strong sense of style." I see that.
"cyberbank" Check.
"N-Geners love to play" They sure do!
"Education... delivered to them on the Net" Yes
..and more accuracy, like the growth in UPS etc. for Net-ordered goods. Totally missed all that pirated digital media, though...


In this postTo Catch a Predator times it really seems the dark corners of the Net are downplayed: "pornographic images represent less than one half of one percent of images on the Net." More recent data suggests that "30 percent of Internet content is porn" and that "90 percent of boys and 60 percent of girls are exposed to Internet porn by age 18."

The author does warn about "dataveillance" with foresight and accuracy in regarding the privacy debates and commodification of identity that happens today.

As a footnote, the author recommends Virtuous Reality.

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Review: Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy

Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy by Russell Humke Fitzgibbon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Subtitled "An Informal Survey of the Switzerland of Latin America", this review of the country wedged betwixt Argentina and Brazil is based on the author's visit there, basically for a year around 1951. The travelogue aspects of the country's sights read like that of someone that experienced them firsthand. The author also examines the country structurally for its regional role, the heavily populated capital Montevideo vis-a-vis the largely herding interview ("Capital versus campo"), and the country's role in conflicts "The Great War"( the Paraguayan War), and World Wars I & II.

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