NewsTrust - Books - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Aliteracy Anxiety

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Time Passing - By Lance Strate - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - Aliteracy may be the trend of the future. Reading limited to short bursts. Street signs. Restaurant menus. Headlines. Status updates and tweets. Short paragraphs online. And reading that is limited to the functional, reading for directions, for instructions, for getting tasks done. As opposed to reading for pleasure. And as opposed to reading as a cultural activity.

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Digital Textbook Startup Inkling Nabs ‘Multi-Million Dollar’ Investment From McGraw-Hill And Pearson

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Leena Rao - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - Inkling, a startup that develops an innovative digital textbook platform, has scored a ‘multi-million dollar investment from educational content giants McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Inkling’s technology delivers interactive textbooks that include the ability to collaborate, add multimedia and communicate within content. The startup adds another layer to online textbooks by adding 3-D objects, video, quizzes, and even social interaction within the content.

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Opinion: Books are better without pages

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Nicholas Negroponte - Sep. 02 (Opinion) - The paper book is dead. Long live the narrative. Kindle owners buy twice as many books as non-Kindle owners. Just one of the many signs that while the paper book is dead, the narrative will live on. If you are saying to yourself, “That sounds horrible. I hope books do not go away,” I ask you to consider the world’s poorest and most remote kids. The manufactured book stunts learning, especially for those children. The last thing these children should have are physical books. They are too costly, too heavy, fall out-of-date and are sharable only in some common and limited physical space. Paper books also do not do well in dampness, dirt, heat or rain. Not to mention that 320 textbooks require, on average, one tree and produce about 10,000 pounds of CO2 in manufacturing and delivery. This makes no sense. Kids in the developing world should not be sent physical books.

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Orwell and the Tea Party

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

the Millions - By Darryl Campbell - Jul. 31 (Opinion) - George Orwell never thought that his work would outlive him by much. After all, he considered himself “a sort of pamphleteer” rather than a genuine novelist, and confidently predicted that readers would lose interest in his books “after a year or two.” Yet sixty years later, Orwell endures, and I am not sure that this is a good thing.

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Shadow Elite: Are They Responsible For The Subprime Mortgage Crisis?

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jack Blum - Jan. 15 (Review) - Janine Wedel's breakthrough "Shadow Elite" shows why "anecdotal" evidence is essential to grasping what is really going on. As an anthropologist who has taken the time to examine how things really work, Wedel provides a bold new frame of reference for those of us who look at things as they are and relationships as they have evolved, as well as the tools to understand the complex interplay of people and institutions that make up modern government. Her framework demonstrates not only why the careful analysis of players' activities, roles, sponsors, and networks is so necessary but how, in the aggregate, these profiles form clear patterns. "Shadow Elite" identifies players who perform overlapping, mutually influencing, and not fully revealed, roles across government, business, think tanks, and national borders in pursuit of their own policy agendas ("flexians," she calls them, and flex-nets"--such players who work together in a network) as an important key to understanding how influence is wielded and why policy decisions are made.

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For The Shadow Elite Failure Often Guarantees Future Rewards

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Janine R. Wedel - Jan. 14 (Review) - When most of us fail, consequences are not widespread. When the shadow elite fail, it affects all of us because their power is pervasive and they are largely beyond accountability. For confirmation one need only look as far as two of the country's top economic helmsmen, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

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'Shadow Elite': Outsourcing Government, Losing Democracy

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Charles Lewis - Jan. 13 (Review) - Professor, Founding Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University James Madison famously wrote in the Federalist Papers (#51), "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." We've learned the hard way, most starkly in the Great Depression and now in the Great Recession, that men and women are anything but angels, and that government first and foremost must protect the American people from the unmitigated avarice of the private sector.

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Is the Internet melting our brains?

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Vincent Rossmeier - Sep. 20 (Review) - By now the arguments are familiar: Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We're facing a crisis, one that could very well corrode the way humans have communicated since we first evolved from apes. What we need, so say these proud Luddites, is to turn our backs on technology and embrace not the keyboard, but the pencil.

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California - Central Coast Writer To Be Nationally Aired On WNB West on September 21st, 2009

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

NewsVine - By John Crippen - Sep. 07 (Press Release) - "The Sweet Smell of ASH in the Morning" will talk live about his book, a humorous dedication to Atascadero State Hospital and also talk about the difficult struggles of the healthcare system. This book also takes a lighter look at what it's like to be a Psychiatric Technician in the largest freestanding forensic mental Institution in the world."

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What Obama Should Read

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Monthly - Jan. 19 (Opinion) - A president who is a serious reader is of course likely to be shaped by what he reads, and we know a bit about what has been on Obama’s list so far. From interviews, we know that Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls made an impression on him as a young man. His campaign reading list—or at least the books he chose to be seen with on the trail—included Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment, Larry Bartels’s Unequal Democracy, Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World, and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. And we know that, at least in the case of the latter book, Obama’s choice of reading has already had some impact on his governing choices (or at least on how pundits frame them on the Sunday-morning talk shows). So in the hope that he’s willing to take a few more reading assignments, we asked a few of our favorite writers and thinkers to offer their suggestions on what the new president should have by his bedside.

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The 2008 Election in Verse

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By John Lundberg - Dec. 07 (Review) - Calvin Trillin, responding to Daily Show host John Stewart's impish description of his new book in verse on the 2008 election Deciding the Next Decider, joked, "You made me feel like one of those guys who's done the Palace of Versaille in beer cans." No, John Milton he isn't. Trillin is a comedic writer with a gift for light verse. And it was clear from last week's Daily Show interview that he understands that his latest project--chronicling politics in rhyming couplets--is a little goofy. He refers to his book in a tongue-in-cheek fashion as "epic" (it is, in fact, written in heroic verse). But while the author himself calls it doggerel, as you'll see from these excerpts on John McCain, his verse can be very biting:

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Groundbreaking 2-year backpacking odyssey across the 33 provinces of China

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

chinatravel.net - By Rebekah Pothaar - Nov. 11 (Interview) - A photographer, his camera, a backpack, two years, one country, 56 cultures, 1.3 billion people, 33 provinces and 56,000 kilometers.

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Raoul Felder: Alec Baldwin's "A Promise to Ourselves" Captures the Brutality of Divorce Wars

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Raoul Felder - Oct. 13 (Review) - Alec Baldwin is one of the walking wounded, a casualty of the divorce/custody wars. Written out of his pain, looking from the inside looking out, viewing events through the prism of that pain with all of a victim's perceptions and acuity

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The Book-Banning Double Standard

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Pajamas Media - By Mike McNally - Oct. 09 (Opinion) - While America’s mainstream media has spent the last few weeks obsessing about the imagined book-banning proclivities of Sarah Palin, news of a very real threat to Western values of tolerance and freedom of expression has gone largely unremarked upon by those same commentators. In London three men have been charged over a firebomb attack on the home of Dutch publisher Martin Rynja, who owns the UK rights to The Jewel of Medina, a historical novel by the American author Sherry Jones which tells the story of the relationship between Mohammed and his child bride Aisha. The novel is being likened to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in terms of its potential for inciting anger amongst Muslims. And sure enough, London’s resident mob of radical clerics has defended the attack on Rynja’s home and warned of more trouble to come.

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Start With the Facts: Start with the Facts About Mirella Patzer

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Start With the Facts - By Nikki Leigh - Jun. 22 (Interview) - Mirella Patzer visits with us and we're going to dig into some of the details about her latest book Bloodstone Castle. 1. How did you get interested in the topic that's featured in your book? Because I'm first generation Italian Canadian, I've always been interested in my roots and in Italian folklore and superstitions. I am also passionate about history, especially the medieval era. I love to tell stories about strong historical women. So I put my passions together and came up with Bloodstone Castle.

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In Detail With Mirella Patzer

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In Detail With Nikki Leigh - By nikki leigh, mirella patzer - Jun. 05 (Opinion) - Mirella Patzer is touring the blog-o-sphere this month to share information with people about her book - Bloodstone Castle. Today we'll dig into the details about Mirella and Bloodstone Castle...

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Melissa Alvarez ~ Ariana Dupre welcomes Mirella Patzer

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Melissa Alvarez Blog - By melissa alvarez, mirella patzer - Jun. 05 (Opinion) - Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Mirella Patzerà¥¤ I asked Mirella some interview questions which she has answered belowà¥¤ If you have more questions for Mirella just leave them in the comment section!

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Start At The Beginning: Bloodstone Castle - Chapter One

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Start at the Beginning Blog - By mirella patzer, nikki leigh - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - Bloodstone Castle Chapter One Genoa, Italy 965 A.D. The black stallion galloped hard. The thrash of Duke Amoro Dragone's crop landed solidly against the animal's haunches. Sparks flew at each rhythmic strike of horseshoes against the old Roman road. Sweat saturated the stallion's sleek coat. The creature's nostrils flared scarlet. Its breath streamed ribbons of mist into the cold air.

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Book promotion, writing and publishing talk radio show - Mirella Patzer Discusses Bloodstone Castle

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Book Promo 101 - Write, Publish & Promote Radio Show - By nikki leigh, mirella patzer - Jun. 02 (Opinion) - Bloodstone Castle by Mirella Patzer - Virtual Book Tour June 2008 ---- Bloodstone Castle stands sentinel on the shores of the Ligurian Sea. Secreted somewhere in its dungeons is an ancient Roman treasure of immense value. Contessa Morena of Bloodstone Castle possesses a mysterious bloodstone pendant, the only proof the treasure exists. For more information, visit http://www.mirellapatzer.com and http://mirellapatzer.blogspot.com

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Face Value

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Inside Higher Ed - By Barbara Fister - Feb. 18 (Opinion) - Corporations like Google and Facebook are worth a lot of money, which is a bit odd. They don't create their content, and what's there, they give away for free. They mediate the space where we go to express ourselves, and where find out what others think. Sure, we have to put up with a bit of advertising, but that's just a minor irritant for something that's free.

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The Health Industry's Secret History of Delaying the Fight Against Cancer

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:41:37 -0800

AlterNet - By Christine Wenc - Dec. 06 (Review) - In her new book, Devra Davis exposes scientists and government officials who have worked to downplay or dismiss preventable causes of cancer.

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Dumbledore Gay, Says J.K. Rowling

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:05:45 -0700

Outside the Beltway - By James Joyner - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members. She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love." "Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

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Google Library, The Lawsuits, and Is Charkin Barking Up the Right Tree?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:09:43 -0700

Oxford University Press Blog - By Evan Schnittman - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - Google interpreted copyright law in a search engine friendly manner and decided that the act of digitizing books found in libraries, indexing that content, and then displaying only the smallest "snippet" of that content (250 characters), was no different than what they do spidering the internet and displaying snippet results. This is where the world of the internet and book publishing collide culturally - Charkin sees this as theft, Google sees it as how they operate on the internet - indexing content in order to make it discoverable without having to ask permission. However, this is not the most disturbing aspect of the GL program. Had Charkin taken the laptop and given it to a third party - he would have been closer to what is going on with GL.

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Her life as a spy

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 09:08:11 -0800

Salon - By Laura Miller - Jan. 04 (Entertainment) - The life of Vera Atkins, a woman who helped run Britain's Special Operations Executive during the war, is every bit as fascinating and shot through with ambiguity as a spy novel.

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The Bebop of Baraka: A Review of Amiri Baraka's Tales of the Out & Gone

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 16:24:23 -0800

Op Ed News - By Ron Jacobs - Dec. 17 (Opinion) - Amiri Baraka has always played with the language and , by default, our minds. His poetry and his prose often reads and sounds like a jazz improvisation that Sun Ra and Coltrane could have created. Words become sounds and the sounds of the words take on meanings never before conceived.

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