July 2010 Entries
I like Glenn Beck but sometimes I don't like him for the same reason I dislike Jon Stewart. Most of my conservative friends don't like Jon Stewart because he is too liberal. I don't like him because he takes himself too seriously. If you are going to be an entertainer... entertain me but don't ask me to take you seriously. If you want to be taken seriously... then stop hiding behind humor and enter a serious dialogue. Glenn Beck isn't necessarily a humorist but he is firmly ensconced in the
A W Tozer is an interesting person and I would encourage anyone picking up this book to do a little research on the man before reading. In The Pursuit of God Tozer explores what it means to build a personal and meaningful relationship with God. With flowing prose he explores not just what it means to have this relationship but why we should have it and how we can get there. In just a hundred pages he covers more ground than you might expect.
I came across this book in a reference to former President Clinton. Apparently towards the end of his time in office this book came to his attention and upon reading it he began urging those around him to read the book. Robert Wright asserts that all of human history can be understood in terms of game theory. He builds on two very high level concepts from game theory: zero sum and non-zero sum games. His primary assertion is that throughout history, human interaction has by nature become mor
Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is a timely, practical and fairly well researched work that delves into the practical application of intrinsic motivation. Sprinkled with pop-culture references (TPS reports and Facebook) alongside the results of personal interviews with some well-known names (Deci and Csikszentmihalyi) the book is a quick and interesting read that pulls together a number of disparate ideas. I took a lot of notes in my read and this is just a sp
A Geography of Time: The temporal misadventures of a social psychology is a delightful and fascinating read by Robert Levine. Levine, a professor of social psychology, takes the reader around the world examining how various cultures and people's tell, interpret and use their time. In one of the chapters he takes a short diversion from the trip to examine a brief history of time and the telling of time. When I picked up this book I wasn't sure what to think of it but I am very glad I took the
The Tea Party craze lately has been bringing Libertarian politics to the forefront and at the same time Objectivist philosophy has been bubbling up here and there across our national conscious. I have a number of acquaintances and colleagues who consider themselves followers of objectivist thinking and they have encouraged me (it didn't take much) to learn more about the topic. Accordingly I borrowed a copy of Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and happened to get a copy of th