“That’s my fear. Once you’ve learned to speed read, can you shut it off?”. Yes you can. Speed reading is not a dark side of reading (Unlimited POWER!!!). It’s an ability,a tool, just like a hammer. You probably posses a hammer, that doesn’t mean you use it- right?

“Next thing: Beethoven at triple speed. Doesn’t appeal to me either. I treasure every minute with a really good book.”
I love music and Beethovens sonata D-dur for two pianos is really gr8. Still reading is really more like watching paintings than listening music.

“This strikes me as being akin to walking quickly through an art gallery not stopping to look at each of the works there, but only glancing at them quickly(…)”
Reading is like watching pictures! I concur. But when watching a painting we don’t have to name tree a tree to know it’s a tree- right? Than there are some people who watch more carefully, and other who don’t like this kind of art.
Same goes for the books. You read carefully what you want to spend more time with, and go faster where you need to read more in less time.

For me- I started to notice the quality of writer, when I started to read faster. When i had no time to enrich each word with emotions the true quality came out. Still I’m not fond of reading poetry fast- it just misses the point.

One more thing on speed reading as such. To learn how to read 10 times faster you really need to keep your brain fit. It needs good focus, motivation, and some training. The fact that I can obtain an ability which few people can is really something. I like self development and in speed reading there is always space for development.

Guess what? Do you realize that macroevolution is impossible?

And do you realize that you are a moron because you believe in something (spontaneous generation) that cannot happen?

And did I mention that you’re a moron?

Please, humans are not apes. Humans are humans. Deal with it.

Have you read Snooki’s book?

That’s a serious question.

The number of people who watch the Late Late Show is much greater than the number of people required to get an author on the best seller list. I read somewhere that publishers and publicists will encourage celebrities to write books. There is already a following for the author and a publicity mechanism exits to promote the celebrity author’s book.

Personally I don’t mind it if it, like Oprah, goes to increase the number of people who’ll turn to a book for entertainment. However the problem comes when the “celebrity book” takes dollars from the new and unknown authors. The fiction writer who’s yet to publish a book is kinda stuck in the back waters. No one knows them. Unless something startling happens to them or they’re taken under the wing of some “power’s that be’ or an editor with foresight, why would a publisher take the risk on them? It’s just more cost effective than trying to promote an author no has ever heard of.

Again I’ll ask, “Have you read Snooki’s book?”

Even people who’d not watch Jersy Shore might buy a copy just to see what in the heavens she’s got to say that she’s not said on tv.

Funny. I’ve watched Mr. Ferguson’s show and read his first book. The LateLateShow has alot of authors as guests. Mr. Ferguson will include mentions of authors in his monologues and interviews. While I’m sure that the book was a very shrewd effort of timing and the titled designed to take advantage of Mr. Ferguson’s new citizenship, I’m willing to bet that he’d also agree that the current crop of “celebrity” novels and bios isnt’ near as good for writing or writers as Oprah and her book club.

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That’s all I would like to comment on regarding NDE’s.

I also recommend the Manga Messiah comic book Bible series. It help my friend’s son get through cancer. Although it’s not specific to a condition, it works wonders! I bought these books from bibleleague.ca because they are also a Christian charity and the money will be spent wisely.

Today’s condemnation of “elites”, the glorification of the anti-intellectual (Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin), and a petty populism are enduring All-American traits.

For those interested in a more detailed and balanced account of American’s westward expansion try “A Country of Vast Designs”, which captures the ongoing arguement between big-government/small-government, as well as the racial component of Manifest Destiny.

The headlines today are not much different that those of the past: Should the United States be “exporting” its version of democracy to the “uncivilized world”? What is the best way for the United States to “nation-build” those parts of the world devoid of white faces? The Imperial Cruise focuses on American nation building in the dark-skinned Caribbean and Phillipines and yellow-skinned East Asia of a hundred years ago — but subsequent history could apply those same questions to our continuing involvement in Korea, our tragic experience in Vietnam, or the ongoing stories of Iraq, and Afghanistan,…. and who knows what other black and brown countries will be added to the list in the future: Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria ….

The Imperial Cruise is history in broad strokes — and it’s certainly not flattering to the crowd that believes in American exceptionalism. But it holds a mirror up to those who parrot those sentiments today. From the comments posted here it seems there are few are courageous enough to gaze into that mirror. For the faint-of-heart, just keep watching Fox News so that your closed-minded sensibilities won’t be disturbed.

Kipling sums up the theme of this book in his ode to Aryan superiority: “The White Man’s Burden”. But even Kipling could admit to the nobility of other races: “you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din”. That’s a sentiment I’ll wager Teddy Roosevelt never voiced — nor will many Americans today.