Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design – Page 10

I've had several translations of the I Ching Before, and this one is far superior to the rest. At first glance the advice in the various hexagrams may seem nearly the same, from one hexagram to the next; but the repetitions are examples of core Taoist philosophy, which tend to apply in almost any situation, like remaining calm, being flexible, and not letting ego battles determine one's course of action. That's what I like about this translation: it keeps reminding you to cultivate those qualities. In that sense it's almost like a Taoist master continually advising you. Of course it's not a master but the Tao itself that guides. The hexagrams simply alert you to qualities of the situation and the perspective of the Tao.

No one knows how the I Ching works, but it always seems to understand the exact situation you are consulting it about; or, that has always been true for me. Maybe it can give you insights into choosing your courses of action in the various endeavors of your life.

The I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life's Turning Points

For centuries, The I Ching or Book of Changes has been consulted for sage advice at life's turning points. When its wisdom is sought with sincerity and sensitivity, this Chinese oracle will help to promote success and good fortune and to impart balance and perspective to your life. Its everlasting popularity lies in the lessons that it teaches about how to use your positive qualities in order to attain life's greatest rewards-prosperity, understanding, and peace of mind.

The other book is “365 Tao: Daily Meditations,” by Deng Ming-Dao. Again, this book is extraordinary. I've read many books on the Tao, but none compare to this one, because the book is laid out in 365 different topics—one for each day of the year. But I haven't been reading it that way. I've been flipping through it and reading any topic that peaks my curiosity. So the book is from the position of a Taoist master discussing a range of topics. And I'm continually amazed that Taoism is essentially a philosophy of integral thinking. The ancient sages were seeing things from the perspectives of systems thinking and complexity thousands of years before contemporary Western science.

Most important about this book: it uses language that explains clearly the concepts that you and I and the other posters at phibetaiota are always trying to articulate but have difficulty putting into words. So it's an excellent aid in trying to articulate a systems perspective in respect to social issues. In that regard, I doubt there's another book like it.

Continue reading “Theophillis Goodyear: Two Books for Harmonization — The Way of the Truth, of Life, of Phi Beta Iota”

2013/10/242013/10/24

Review: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid [Updated 5tyh Anniversary Edition]

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Economics, Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

C. K. Prahalad

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobel Prize Material-Could Transform the Planet [But Most Seem to Have Missed the Point], October 24, 2013

There are some excellent and lengthy reviews of this book so I will not repeat anything that has already been said. This book review should be read together with my review of Stuart Hart's Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World (3rd Edition) which points to several other related books, and Kenichi Ohmae's book, The Next Global Stage: Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World (paperback) All three are published by Wharton School Publishing, which has impressed me enormously with its gifted offerings.

Here's the math that I was surprised to not see in the book: the top billion people that business focuses on are worth less than a trillion in potential sales. The bottom four billion, with less than $1000 a year in disposable income, are worth four trillion in potential sales.

In combination, Prahalad and Hart make it clear that business suffers from the same pathologies as the Central Intelligence Agency and other bureaucracies: they are in a rut.

I will end by emphasizing that I believe this author merits the Nobel Peace Prize. As the U.S. Department of Defense is now discovering, its $500 billion a year budget is being spent on a heavy metal military useful only 10% of the time. Stabilizization and reconstruction are a much more constructive form of national defense, because if we do not address poverty and instability globally, it will inevitably impact on the home front. This author has presented the most common sense case for turning business upside down. He can be credited with a paradigm shift, those shifts that Kuhn tells us come all too infrequently, but when they come, they change the world. It may take years to see this genius implemented in the real world, but he has, without question, changed the world for the better with this book, and make global prosperity a possibility.

Continue reading “Review: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid [Updated 5tyh Anniversary Edition]”

2013/10/202013/10/20

Review (DVD): Powerbody: Advanced Russian Kettlebell Workout with Phil Ross

Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Reviews (DVD Only)

Phil Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars Single Best Value — Better than any book, October 20, 2013

After reading through Kettlebells For Dummies I have to conclude that this DVD by itself is vastly more useful than any book. This is a complete package offering 45 minutes of perfectly displayed instruction for a routine that can be completely in 30 minutes.

Introduction. Basics include flat shoe or barefoot. Chalk up and hydrate but you must complete the exercise in the allotted amount of time to achieve the optimal benefit. Do not settle for anything less than a cast iron single piece kettlebell. This stuff is DANGEROUS if you are not warmed up, trained up, and ready to do the relatively coordinated actions such as swinging a kettlebell up, letting go the handle, and catching it the palm of you hand. What impresses me about this advanced version is that it clearly is a full-body work out where bending of the knees, a straight back, flexible hips, and balance are essential.

Tutorial. In this section a series of exercises are demonstrated with ample words, ending with the towel halos using a single sixteen pound RK and swinging the RK around in a manner that is clearly a full body work-out. And dangerous. If you are not good at this you could let go and hurt someone — or be hurt by others not yet ready for this exercise.

Continue reading “Review (DVD): Powerbody: Advanced Russian Kettlebell Workout with Phil Ross”

2013/10/202013/10/20

Review: Kettlebells for Dummies

4 Star, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Reviews (DVD Only)

Sarah Lurie

4.0 out of 5 stars Overkill — 50 pages fluffed to 342, October 20, 2013

If you ever wanted to get to know a Russian Kettlebell intimately, as well as its family going back 1000 years and every possible nuanced aspect of it, this is the book for you. For me it is total overkill and would more usefully be replaced by a 50 page illustrated guide and a single wall chart — or two, one for warm-up with jumprope and stick, the other a series of exercises. I watched Powerbody: Advanced Russian Kettlebell Workout with Phil Ross before going through this book,and now I am leaning toward reversing my conclusion that the Ross DVD was too advanced and one should start with this book. Given a choice between the two, I would dump this book and use the DVD as a complete package.

Bottom line: too much of everything. This is a doctoral thesis on pulling carrots out of the ground. This is a formula book on steroids. It certainly earns four stars — some might give it five (I mistrust most of the reviews, them seem to be very short and empty reviews from people doing the author a favor) — and the substance is worthy, but the overall “door stop” nature of the book is very off-putting. I could have distilled this book into 50 pages with two wall charts, and been happier with that at the same price.

Here are a few bottom lines from this book:

Continue reading “Review: Kettlebells for Dummies”

2013/10/182013/10/20

Review: Lee Camp Moment of Clarity – The rantings of a stark raving sane man

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Education (General), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Lee Camp

5.0 out of 5 stars SIX Stars — A National Enema with Champagne, October 17, 2013

Ten percent of the books I have reviewed here at Amazon make it into my six star group. This is such a book. I have been a fan of Lee Camp's outrageously spirited, funny, and profane social commentaries for years, through his videos. This book was given to me as a gift, and I have been laughing all morning with occasional tears of sadness for society.

Amazon's Look Inside the Book provides the Table of Contents, look at that if you have any doubt.

HUGE PLUS: Each short chapter has the YouTube URL at the top. Amazon also sells two audios for Lee, great for the car, but personally I value the combination of Lee's face and live delivery with his words, for now found only on YouTube.

The subtitle says it all: Lee is a stark raving sane man. Others have compared him to Carlin, I would go a step further, Lee is Carlin with class (smile). He's like a giant-sized Irish elf armed with an intelligence flame thrower capable of skewering any lie, any pretense, any crime against humanity — his book covers most of them.

I would certainly like to see a Lee Camp: The Movie but until that comes available, this book is a sane person's salvation. We who are sane are labeled crazy by the 1% and the sheep that listen to the 1%, this book is life-affirming, mind-altering, soul-strengthening righteous good stuff.

God Bless Lee, God Bless America, and as Winston Churchill once said, NEVER GIVE UP.

Radical idea: buy as many of these books as you can, and either put the books in toilets where the willing might still be saved, or cut the spine off and sprinkle Lee's individual stories around. This book is pixie dust for humanity.

Ten books, none funny, that reinforce Lee's sanity parade:

Continue reading “Review: Lee Camp Moment of Clarity – The rantings of a stark raving sane man”

2013/08/222013/08/22

Review: The Media Ecosystem — What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Antonio Lopez

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and timely integrative overview with many original insights, August 22, 2013

I received this book as a gift, and am glad that I did as I normally would not have noticed it, bought it, or reviewed it. I hope my review will inspire others to buy the book, and if not, provide a summary of some of the highlights that I consider quite timely, original, and useful.

This is a manifesto of sorts, on CRITICAL INFORMATION, or stated another way, on public decision-support needs and the urgency of restoring both integrity (tell the truth) and holistic soundness (report on everything, and on the cause and effect cost and consequences of everything in relation to everything). Of course modern media fails this test, and the author should be credited with providing a manifesto and high-level handbook of how we might proceed.

Continue reading “Review: The Media Ecosystem — What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice”

2013/07/202013/08/20

Review: Swarmwise – The Tactical Manual to Changing the World

6 Star Top 10%, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Rickard Falkvinge

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Authentic World-Changing Book , July 20, 2013

EDIT of 19 AUG 2013: Finish book, adding my new remarks at the top, dropping the preliminary review to the end.EDIT OF 13 AUG 2013: I have a 17 hour aviation trip coming up Friday-Saturday, will try to get the detailed review posted sometime in the days after I reach my destination. I regard this book as one of a half dozen essentials for hybrid public governance in the 21st Century — for participatory panarchy in which the public achieves consensus using collective intelligence methods that leverage ethical evidence-based decision-support that is transparent, truthful, and that produces TRUST as the “glue” for holistic ecologically and socially sound decision-making.

– – – – –

My last comment first: this book ends beautifully, and I am personally deeply inspired. Rickard Falkvinge has been and will continue to be a change agent, and this book is a form of persistent, ubiquitous sharing of insight that could help accelerate and broaden the emergent public bottom up demands for clarity, diversity, integrity, and sustainability.