Review: Underground Buildings–More Than Meets the Eye

5 Star, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Underground BuildingsPhenomenal, Practical, Superb Photographs, Detailed,

February 23, 2007

Loretta Hall

At $29 or less, this book is being given away. This is a museum-quality book in terms of the paper, the photographs, the lay-out, and the cover.

I bought this book in part because land is becoming extremely scarce around the great universities and the central business districts, and I was looking for something to help me think through how to persuade a university to let me put a building into a hill or under a playing field.

This book does that. It is a very fast read, the photographs are priceless–worth 10,000 words each as the Chinese would say–and the only thing I did not find in this book were architectural specifics and photos of underlying infrastructure (pump rooms, air cleaning rooms, etc.)

If you are contemplating the need for squeezing a building into an area that is down to the “do not disturb” green space, or if you are contemplating how to exploit existing mines, caverns, or other underground options, this exquisite book is not only useful as a tool for reflection, it will help you “make the sale” to skeptical others you have to get on board.

The author provides a list of 50 places to visit with addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites, a fine resource section for more reading, and an excellent index.

This is an all-around world-class book that is easily worth $49 or more.

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Review: Earth-Sheltered Houses–How to Build an Affordable…

5 Star, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Earth HousesInspires Confidence, Crystal Clear, Makes the Option Very Attractive,

February 23, 2007

Rob Roy

I went to some trouble to survey books centered on both underground or into rock dwellings, and also earth sheltered homes, and this book is the best I could find. It has proven to be everything I had hoped for.

This book deals with earth-sheltered homes, which are homes generally built on the ground, and then covered with natural dirt and growth on the roof only, or on the roof and the berms of earth piled against at least two of the sides after the fact of building.

This is a really excellent offering. 12 chapters, 4 appendices, and an annotated bibliography. A number of really nice color photographs on eight pages in the middle of the book, many black and white photos as well as really excellent understandable diagrams.

Take-aways include the need for extremely careful but not over the top load planning, radon as a factor to take seriously, and ANYONE CAN DO THIS.

The book covers waterproofing, insulation, and drainage, to include waste drainage where gravity rather than pumping is strongly recommended. It does not cover electrical and plumbing installation. It covers energy in relation to sunlight and windows and heat retention curtains, but does not include coverage of skylights (except as an energy loss factor), interior lights and other “plumbing.

The bottom line in the book is that a solid earth-sheltered house can be built for $10K to $20K inclusive of appliances, plumbing and so on, which makes it a lot cheaper and greatly more sustainable than a double-wide trailer home, and better in most respects than your average rambler.

With Peak Oil now upon on, the energy saving features of the earth-sheltered home are not to be taken lightly. The author document going without a need for heat from wood burning for almost an entire winter, and documents getting through any winter with 2-3 cords of wood. The home is cool in the summer without airconditioning, in part because of the natural respiration and evaporation of the earth roof with grass, moss, and wildflowers.

I want to end with praise for the publisher. Five or six times now I have bought boooks based on my interest in their content, only to find that New Society Publishers is the provider. They now rank with Wharton Publishing as one of my favored publishers, and I will be keeping an eye out for anything bearing their imprint.

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Review: Global Inc.–An Atlas of the Multinational Corporation

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Capitalism (Good & Bad)

Global Inc.First Rate Visualization, Can Be Applied to Everything,

February 21, 2007

Medard Gabel

I was trained in the 1970's, and did my undergraduate thesis on “Multinational Corporations: Home and Country Issues.” I could have used this stellar book back then. It does for multinational corporations what “Global Reach” by Richard Barnett did, in the 1970's, but with a powerful method adapted from “State of the World” atlases.

This book could easily be converted into an online interactive serious game for change useful not only to students, but to governments. The book not only charts where and how much the multinationals are doing, but it goes into direct impacts (both benefits and external diseconomies), concluding with an absolutely brilliant section on effects of both governments and multinational corporations across the economic, health, environment, technology, culture, education, and law sectors.

The graphics are in a class by themselves, the notes are effective and to the point (if you're over 50 as I am, you may need granny glasses for some of the fine print), the overall layout is very well done, and the sources as well as the index are top-notch.

One of the principal authors of this book, Medard Gabel, was associated with Buckminster Fuller when they conceptualized the World Game, which today is still an analog gtame with cards, token, and hard-copy maps. The author has moved on to found BigPictureSmallWorld, producing serious games on hunger and other topics, and he points with great respect to Real Lives, by his friend and colleague Bob Runyan, which can be downloaded such that your teen-ager can experience the real life of a Bangladeshi girl or an Iraqi teen-ager before the US invasion.

Not only is this book tremendous on substance, I believe it is, along with State of the World Atlas and other similar books that I have reviewed in the past, the first view of what a real-time live online Earth Game will look like, where individuals can “game” and learn and act at the zip code level, the state/province level, the national level, and the global levels, first setting their social values, then interacting with the ten high level threats, the twelve policies, and the eight major players other than the EU and the US. From such a game will come informed engaged citizens who will demand moral capitalism and honest democracy.

I don't want to over-sell this book, so take the following with a grain of salf: this book is to serious games as the printing press was to the democratization of knowledge. The next big leap for mankind is going to be the use of serious games for change to help individuals at every socio-economic level and in every ideo-cultural milieu, “make sense” of all information in all languages all the time. We are now ready for the Earth Game that will allow the people to complete with elites in publicly solving global problems, and it is my view, and I believe also the view of at least one of the authors of this book, that the people working within an open global game will soundly defeat the elites who have relied for too long on very expensive secret intelligence and the deception and manipulation of public opinion, while restricting public knowledge. That era is OVER, and this book is one of the building blocks for the new world of public intelligence in the public service.

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Review: Stokes Beginner’s Guide to Birds–Eastern Region

5 Star, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

BirdsPerfect for both novice and experienced bird lovers,

February 19, 2007

Donald Stokes

My oldest son gave me this for Christmas, and I absolutely love it. I have watched birds for years, and learned to attract them from my wife, knowledge that I transferred to my office with a deck overlooking a very large pond that has its own heron. This book sits on the office kitchen table overlooking the range of feeders (two suets, one peanut butter, one standard feeder, and three trays for bluebird worms, bluejay peanuts, and ground-feeder mixed nuts. Two water features, one of them running water.

This lovely little book has first-class photos (and as one reviewer pointed out, is organized by color with the color visible on the edge of the book), and provides short blurbs on appearance, song, preferred areas, and nests, as well as on attracting them–what to put out. Also a regional diagram that is helpful is distinguishing between birds common to the north east versus the south east.

We just participated in the national bird count, and this book surprised me with something I did not know: the difference between the downy woodpecker and the hairy woodpecker (only difference is the latter's longer bill).

This is a great portable reference and from my point of view, the best possible bird book to give to anyone with an interest in observing and attracting birds (provided they live in the Eastern United States).

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Review: Petrodollar Warfare–Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Country/Regional, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment

Petrodollar WarfareA summative work, focus on fall of dollar versus rise of euro,

February 18, 2007

William R. Clark

I was tempted to give this book only four stars, because as some reviewers suggest, it is mostly a summative work, drawing heavily on several books I have already reviewed, as well as a number of studies and article. In the end I decided to go with five stars because this is the only book I have found that really drew my attention to the turning point in US-Iraq relations: not Gulf I, but rather Iraq's declared intention to break the dollar monopoly and begin trading oil in Euros. Today of course we have Iran, Russia, and Venezuela trading in currencies other than the dollar.

First off, this is one of those rare books where in addition to carefully studying the table of contents, which is superbly devised, almost an executive summary on its own, you should also *first* read the End Notes and also the Afterword by LtCol Karen Kwiatkowski, now retired, who earned lasting recognition for resigning and challenging the lies coming out of the politically-appointed Pentagon officials.

Although this book is labeled by some (who would have us ignore it) as part of the “conspiracy” literature, I find myself reading more and more books in this vein, spanning 9-11, peak oil, corporate personality, and Wall Street-Washington corruption. I have to say, with all humility, if there is one privilege I would claim as the #1 Amazon reviewer of non-fiction, it is the privilege of stating clearly and on the record that this book, and other books in this vein, are NOT conspiracy literature, but rather the survivors, the vanguard that has avoided censorship. This book may not be perfect, it may overstate the case (personally I think Bush is as dim as Feith and did not understand the Euro issue while having a childish mind easily led by Dick Cheney), but it is part of an emerging literature that cannot be denied and must be given full attention.

The book highlights and reminds that we have lost the Republic to four interacting influences: concentrated wealth including perpeptual compounded wealth concealed in corporations improperly given personality rights; a completely corrupt Congress serving corporations rather than the public interest; the end of a free press with five media conglomerates happily practicing perception management on an ignorant and inattentive public; and a Federal Reserve that is not part of the government and not acting in the public interest, but instead creating credit out of thin air, and selling that to the government at a price that is both dear, and unconstitutional.

Having come late to much of this literature, the term “proto-fascism” was new to me, but it fits: Wall Street wealth, plus political corruption, plus a military too eager to follow orders without thinking. I remind all who care to understand a military perspective that General Smedley Butler's book, “War is a Racket,” recounts his disdain for being a an “enforcer” for corporations.

The author of this book on petrodollar warfare does an excellent job of recounting the history of the dollar, setting the stage for both the end of the gold standard under Nixon, and the manner in which petrodollars from the 1970's were recycled as loans to the Third World.

There are two really superb charts from other sources in this book, one on page 105 showing “The Lie Factory” led by Dick Cheney and Doug Feith; and another on page 112 showing the claims by Cheney and others about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), both before (of course they do) and after (none found).

Today an attack on Iran looms. I have done everything I could as an individual citizen, including a protest package to the Senate, press releases, a fax to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and a posting at OSS.Net of Howard Bloom's memorandum on a potential nuclear ambush by Iran, and Webster Tarpley's powerpoint on the fragile ground supply line from Kuwait to Baghdad. I share his view that the Siege of Baghdad will make the Siege of Stalingrad look like mercy killings. Think Black Hawk Down times a million.

This is a very fine book. It took me a year to notice it, but I will be more attentive now. New Society Publishers is in my view a national treasure. I admire them and will look forward to reading and reviewing many more books that they publish for the right reasons: to inform citizens and improve society.

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Review: The Seventeen Traditions

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Education (General), Leadership, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

17 TraditionsA Gift to Newlyweds of Decency and Traditional Values,

February 17, 2007

Ralph Nader

This is an absolute gem of a book, and the PERFECT GIFT for newlyweds.

I read it in an afternoon, and I confess to it's being a long afternoon of nagging dismay, as I reflected on how many of these lessons we have not taught our three cyber-era teenagers.

The seventeen lessons cover listening, family table, health, history, scarcity, equality, education, discipline, simple enjoyments, reciprocity, independent thinking, charity, work, business, patriotism, solitude, and civics.

While very heavily leavened with autobiographical reflections, this absolutely beautiful, moral, intelligent, well-written book is a gift to us all. For many of us it is too late–if I were starting over my kids would be banned from computers much of the time, and I would have refused the grandparents gifts of a personal TV to each child.

Bottom line: this is a keep-sake book with an enormous amount of common sense and tranditional values with none of the pontifical sanctimony usually found in such books. This is a first rate piece of work and reflection, ably presented in elegant language, and the absolutely perfect gift for all newlyweds you know. Buy ten copies. This kind of decency does not come available very often.

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Review: Killing Hope–U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II-Updated Through 2003

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Essential Reference, Should be Updated to Include Drone Depredations

February 17, 2007

William Blum

Over-all, this is a very precious book, and an essential reference on the history of US intervention, both military and clandestine or covert. I consider it an essential reference, and would like to see a 2014 edition updated to include rendition, torture, and assassination by drone with 2% effectiveness, meaning 98% of the thousands killed by CIA drones are “collateral damage” — women, children, and other innocents.

As a former Marine Corps infantry office and former clandestine services case officer, and as an avid reader of non-fiction, I will gladly state on the record that this author has it largely right.

There are other books that complement this one–everything by Noam Chomspky, Derek Leebaert's “The Fifty-Year Wound,” Chalmers Johnson on “Sorrows of Empire,” Robert McNamara et al, “Wilson's Ghost,” the DVD “Why We Fight,” Ambassador Palmer's “The Real Axis of Evil” (on the 45 dictators we SUPPORT), and–with respect to the ignorance of America about reality, the two books, “Fog Facts,” and “Lost History.” See also Marine General Smedley Butler's short but hard-hitting work, “War is a Racket.”

While I take the author with a grain of salt and do not appreciate his collaboration with Phil Agee, who betrayed his oaths to the US, whatever his reasons, on balance this book is an essential reference for anyone who wishes to understand why the rest of the world is beginning to conclude that we are the worst of all evils in our foreign policy behavior and misbehavior.

Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century
Why We Fight
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq

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