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What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe

Paul Halpern

What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe Paul Halpern Amazon Price: $10.17
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A playful and entertaining look at science on The Simpsons

This amusing book explores science as presented on the longest-running and most popular animated TV series ever made: The Simpsons. Over the years, the show has examined such issues as genetic mutation, time travel, artificial intelligence, and even aliens. "What's Science Ever Done for Us?" examines these and many other topics through the lens of America's favorite cartoon.

This spirited science guide will inform Simpsons fans and entertain science buffs with a delightful combination of fun and fact. It will be the perfect companion to the upcoming Simpsons movie.

The Simpsons is a magnificent roadmap of modern issues in science. This completely unauthorized, informative, and fun exploration of the science and technology, connected with the world's most famous cartoon family, looks at classic episodes from the show to launch fascinating scientific discussions mixed with intriguing speculative ideas and a dose of humor. Could gravitational lensing create optical illusions, such as when Homer saw someone invisible to everyone else? Is the Coriolis effect strong enough to make all toilets in the Southern Hemisphere flush clockwise, as Bart was so keen to find out? If Earth were in peril, would it make sense to board a rocket, as Marge, Lisa, and Maggie did, and head to Mars? While Bart and Millhouse can't stop time and have fun forever, Paul Halpern explores the theoretical possibilities involving Einstein's theory of time dilation.

Paul Halpern, PhD (Philadelphia, PA) is Professor of Physics and Mathematics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and a 2002 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He is also the author of The Great Beyond (0-471-46595-X).

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism

Arthur C. Brooks

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism Arthur C. Brooks Amazon Price: $11.26
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By: Basic Books
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Thought-provoking 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I first heard about this book on the Michael Medved show, and I was intrigued by the fact that this politically liberal professor had more concern for the nature of giving than he did for his own ideological peers. Many hard-line conservatives will, of course, use the material here to slam their liberal opponents, but in so doing, I think that they miss the point that Prof. Brooks was trying to make. Charity of any kind is a gift to the recipient and the giver, not a club to beat people with.

When I recommend this book to my politically liberal friends and family, it's because I want them to have a better understanding of the difference between private giving and government funding. Private giving is shown to be much more focused and beneficial to all concerned. Government funding taxes us, takes a cut for operational and administrative costs, and distributes the funds to the needy according to the dictates of those in power. Even if we put aside the argument over how much good is done this way, how much better off would the country and the world be if the more secular and liberal people simply matched the private giving of the more religious and conservative people?

When I hear a wealthy politician say that we need to raise taxes in order to help the underpriveleged, the first thing I wonder is "How much did YOU personally give last year?" It might be a good thing for anyone to ask as they debate the merits of public vs. private funding. While some of the statistical material in the book is pretty dry, the overall message is positive, and worth considering: Give, whether it's money, time, or simply a kind word. You'll be a better, happier person for it.

Editorial Review:

We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? In his controversial study of America's giving habits, Arthur C. Brooks shatters stereotypes about charity in America--including the myth that the political Left is more compassionate than the Right.

Brooks, a preeminent public policy expert, spent years researching giving trends in America, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he identifies the forces behind American charity: strong families, church attendance, earning one's own income (as opposed to receiving welfare), and the belief that individuals--not government--offer the best solution to social ills.

But beyond just showing us who the givers and non-givers in America really are today, Brooks shows that giving is crucial to our economic prosperity, as well as to our happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people.

Everything Bad Is Good for You

Steven Johnson

Everything Bad Is Good for You Steven Johnson List Price: $20.70
By: Allen Lane
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Total reviews: 91 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.

The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter.

Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, Johnson argues that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands.

Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.

The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice

Carolyn McVickar Edwards

The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice Carolyn McVickar Edwards List Price: $13.95
By: Marlowe & Company
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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Tales and Ritual Ideas to Enrich the Yuletide Season 5 out of 5 stars.
30 of 31 people found this review helpful.

I love this little volume of Winter Solstice tales from diverse cultures around the world. I believe that exploring the rich symbolism of the Yuletide season helps to make this joyful time of year come more fully to life. These clever stories are sure to further your understanding of the meanings of the holiday celebrations you have enjoyed all your life, adding new dimension to your future celebrations. They offer an opportunity to increase your sense of oneness with others who may worship and believe differently from yourself but who are none-the-less your sisters and brothers. There are tables at the back of this book which have short ritual ideas to use in your own celebrations and revels as well as some clever lyric revisions to well-known carols that put a Winter Solstice spin on them. I am a Wiccan Priestess and have used this book in crafting an annual public, ecumenical Yule ritual with great success. I recommend it for fireside reading as you wait up to greet the new born light.

Editorial Review:

Celebrating the solstices - particularly the moment of the sun's return at midwinter, on December 21 - is a nearly universal human urge, one that dates back thousands of years and has been identified in a wide variety of cultures. Now The Return of the Light makes an ideal companion for all who carry on this tradition, no matter what their faith. Twelve stories - from North America, China, Scandinavia, India, Africa, South America, Europe, and Polynesia - honour this moment, helping to renew our wonder of the miracle of rebirth and the power of transition from darkness into light.

Men's Style: The Thinking Man's Guide to Dress

Russell Smith

Men's Style: The Thinking Man's Guide to Dress Russell Smith Amazon Price: $15.61
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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Guys don’t wear wolf pelts anymore, but not much else has changed in the world of men’s clothes: the right suit, or tie, or shirt, or shoes still projects mystery, erotic potential, and power. And to negotiate these hurdles with style and confidence, Men’s Style is indispensable---a valuable source of practical advice for how to dress in a world of conflicting fashion imperatives, and a witty guide to the history, trends, codes, and conventions of men’s attire.

 

In chapters and amusing sidebars on shoes, suits, shirts and ties, formal and casual wear, underwear and swimsuits, cufflinks and watches, coats, hats, and scarves, Russell Smith steers a confident course between the twin hazards of blandness and vulgarity to articulate a philosophy of dress that can take you anywhere.

 

Here you’ll find the rules for looking the part at the office, a formal function, or the hippest party---and learn when you can toss those rules aside. And you’ll find level answers to all of your questions. What color suit should a man buy first? Should socks match the belt, pants, or shoes? What tuxedos are always in, and which aren’t ever? And what’s required of ambiguous social situations like “dress casual” and “black-tie optional”? The answers are here, in a book that’s full of trivia, history, and guidance---finally, the perfect guide for brothers, fathers, sons, and selves.

The Orchid Thief

Susan Orlean

The Orchid Thief Susan Orlean List Price: $39.95
By: Random House Audio
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Total reviews: 166 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Susan Orlean's mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spite of the fact that he is missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare orchids they had stolen from a wild swamp in south Florida that is filled with some of the world's most extraordinary plants and trees. Laroche had planned to clone the orchids and then sell them for a small fortune to impassioned collectors. After he was caught in the act, Laroche set off one of the oddest legal controversies in recent memory, which brought together environmentalists, Native Amer-ican activists, and devoted orchid collectors. The result is a tale that is strange, compelling, and hilarious.
        
New Yorker writer Susan Orlean followed Laroche through swamps and into the eccentric world of Florida's orchid collectors, a subculture of aristocrats, fanatics, and smugglers whose obsession with plants is all-consuming. Along the way, Orlean learned the history of orchid collecting, discovered an odd pattern of plant crimes in Florida, and spent time with Laroche's partners, a tribe of Seminole Indians who are still at war with the United States.
        
There is something fascinating or funny or truly bizarre on every page of The Orchid Thief: the story of how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy; or how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida; or the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime. Ultimately, however, Susan Orlean's book is about passion itself, and the amazing lengths to which people will go to gratify it. That passion is captured with singular vision in The Orchid Thief, a once-in-a-lifetime story by one of our most original journalists.


From the Hardcover edition.

Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias

Andrew D. Blechman

Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias Andrew D. Blechman Amazon Price: $16.50
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

When his next-door neighbors in a quaint New England town suddenly pick up and move to a gated retirement community in Florida, Andrew D. Blechman is astonished by their stories. Larger than Manhattan, with a golf course for every day of the month, two downtowns, its own newspaper, radio, and TV stations, The Villages is a city of nearly one hundred thousand (and growing), missing only one thing: children. More than twelve million people will soon live in these communities, and to get to the bottom of the trend, Blechman delves into life in the senior utopia. He offers a hilarious first-hand report on all its peculiarities, from ersatz nostalgia and golf-cart mania to manufactured history and the residents’ surprisingly active sex life, and introduces us to dozens of outrageous characters. Leisureville is also a serious look at a major and underreported trend, only to get bigger as the baby boomers retire. Blechman travels to Arizona to show what has happened after decades of segregation. He investigates the government of these “instant” cities, attends a builder’s conference, speaks with housing experts, and examines the implications of millions of Americans dropping out of society and closing the gates on kids.

Uncommon Grounds : The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

Mark Pendergrast

Uncommon Grounds : The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World Mark Pendergrast List Price: $30.00
By: Basic Books
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Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in Abyssinia to its role in intrigue in the American colonies to its rise as a national consumer product in the twentieth century and its rediscovery with the advent of Starbucks at the end of the century. A panoramic epic, Uncommon Grounds uses coffee production, trade, and consumption as a window through which to view broad historical themes: the clash and blending of cultures, the rise of marketing and the “national brand,” assembly line mass production, and urbanization. Coffeehouses have provided places to plan revolutions, write poetry, do business, and meet friends. The coffee industry has dominated and molded the economy, politics, and social structure of entire countries.Mark Pendergrast introduces the reader to an eccentric cast of characters, all of them with a passion for the golden bean. Uncommon Grounds is nothing less than a coffee-flavored history of the world.

Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

David Brooks

Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There David Brooks Amazon Price: $10.95
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 186 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Horrible, unsourced, uninformed 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is absolutely horrible. Aside from an almost interesting brief history of bohemia (which was sketchy and obviously tailored to the conclusions the author wished to reach, much like the rest of the book) he simply goes into lauding a caricature of rich professionals and somehow equates that with previous bohemian movements - the equation seeming to be that reading Walden makes you a woodsman, and admiring the Beat Generation in college is the same thing as purposefully leading a life outside of consumer culture. He's trying to sell consumption as art, and doing a rather bad job of even that.

This book, supposedly of a sociological topic, contains absolutely no hard data. Basically it's a way for Brooks to convince himself that he and those around him can buy coolness and authenticity, hundreds of pages to defend replacing artists with lawyers and pretending there's no difference.

If you want something decent about counterculture trends go read either Naomi Klien or Nation of Rebels. If you want something about city trends try American Demographics or maybe Generations. But under no circumstances should you buy this book.

Editorial Review:

Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.

In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class -- those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.

Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut

PAUL R. MULLINS

Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut PAUL R. MULLINS Amazon Price: $16.47
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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Beloved and Detested Sweet Treat 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

"Tell me what you eat," said that philosopher of the kitchen Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you what you are." What would he make of a nation which has the doughnut as one of the foods the world knows it by? What does it mean that doughnuts are defined as a particularly American food? Perhaps an anthropologist could tell us, and in the surprising and enlightening _Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut_ (University Press of Florida), anthropologist Paul R. Mullins has done so. Indeed, he has found those who say that a Krispy Kreme shop makes them proud to be Americans, and those who regard a shop as a shrine with pilgrims and converts. "It may seem absurd," Mullins writes, "that an apparently innocuous doughnut could be wrapped in the flag and lent an air of religiosity, but few dimensions of our world say as much about us as food." We do, however, have mixed feelings about our doughnuts. We may like them, but even those of us who like them know they are not really good for us, and there are those who hate them because they represent decadence or foolish food choices. Doughnuts, then, have a disputed symbolism, and their marketing and consumption can be mined, surprisingly, for various insights into American life.

The book reproduces a 1627 still life painting by Juan van der Hamen y Leon which shows pastries of the torus shape anyone would now recognize. This particular shape had one of its first mentions in print in 1877. That the toroidal shape certainly pre-dates cookbooks or oil paintings did not prevent an American from claiming invention of the doughnut hole. Captain Hanson Gregory, a cook at sea, found that the soggy and greasy doughnuts he was making resisted becoming more digestible by changing their ingredients, but once he lessened the lumps of dough by cutting a hole out, changing the shape made all the difference. He was nominated to the National Doughnut Hall of Fame for his contribution; the nomination read in part that he "not only discovered the hole in the first place, but invented the proper process for enclosing the hole in the doughnut." The Doughnut Corporation of America thus in the 1940s attempted to certify the appeal of assigning the origin of the hole in the doughnut to a New England seafarer. This is the same company that produced what Mullins says is "an ideologically distorted 1944 account" which claimed that the Pilgrims themselves brought their treasured doughnut recipe with them to the New World on the _Mayflower_.

In 2005, Florida governor Jeb Bush tried to strike a blow for Republicans within blue collar workers, when he wanted to know how many tax cuts Democrats had proposed for "Joe Bag of Donuts." In this, he was able to avoid reference to the drinking habits of Joe Six Pack, but Mullins shows that the consumption of doughnuts transcends economic class. However, the great spokesman for the doughnut is that industrial worker Homer Simpson, who gets four pages of coverage here in acknowledgment of his addiction. Mullins writes, "In _The Simpsons'_ hands, doughnuts are an especially powerful mechanism to examine the limits of desire, since doughnuts seem to have no significant redeeming feature besides the pleasure their ingestion produces." This "bad" characteristic has been the focus of the moralizing about doughnuts as early as 1846, and the importation of American doughnut franchises to other countries has been called "`calorie colonialism' planned by corporate America". The moral connection links cops to doughnuts, too; perhaps doughnut shops encourage being frequented by cops to keep robberies down, and perhaps, as one policeman argued, doughnut shops are easy places for cops to meet to discuss and solve crimes. Perhaps also they get free doughnuts (although any police force has rules against this), but there is no perhaps that doughnut shops remind citizens of the policeman's reputation for sloth and corruption. On a lighter note, wedding cakes are made from Krispy Kremes; one such record-breaker weighed over a ton, but many brides opt for a smaller version. In Portland, Oregon, Voodoo Doughnuts has doughnuts for weddings, and since the proprietors are ordained ministers, they offer weddings in the store. Mullins, as you can tell from this little summary, has pulled many facets of a humble luxury food together in a serious but entertaining study that answers in diverse ways the question, "What does the doughnut mean?"

Editorial Review:

In Mullins's skillful hands, this simple pastry provides surprisingly compelling insights into our eating habits, our identity, and modern consumer culture.

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