OPINION -
Op-Ed: Mood and Conscience Strike Again
The novelist Fiona Maazel meditates on summer in a video accompaniment to her Op-Ed essay.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=1f99d3ca691c1396962ca96e532062b5396576da

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Hardcover Fiction

Published: June 8, 2008

New York Times Best Sellers

POI selections

4	THE FRONT, by Patricia Cornwell. (Putnam, $22.95.) A Massachusetts state investigator and his team from “At Risk” confront a rogue association of municipal police departments.

5	SNUFF, by Chuck Palahniuk. (Doubleday, $24.95.) An aging porn queen aims to cap her career by having sex on film with 600 men in one day.

7	PHANTOM PREY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $26.95.) The Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport investigates a string of murders of young Goths.

9	CARELESS IN RED, by Elizabeth George. (Harper, $27.95.) In Cornwall, trying to recover from his wife’s death, Detective Thomas Lynley becomes involved in a murder investigation.

SEE THE COMPLETE LIST AT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/bes
tseller/0608besthardfiction.html

'The Flash Press'

By PATRICIA CLINE COHEN, TIMOTHY J. GILFOYLE and HELEN LEFKOWITZ HOROWITZ
Reviewed by NICHOLSON BAKER

Three historians revisit an all-but-forgotten era when smutty newspapers flourished in New York.

----------------------------------------------------

Cookbooks

Reviewed by SAM SIFTON

Most cookbooks are failures, but there are some good ones out there.

Here are a dozen of the summer season’s most interesting.

Web Extra: 20 More Cookbooks

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'Dear American Airlines'

By JONATHAN MILES
Reviewed by RICHARD RUSSO

Jonathan Miles’s fine first novel takes the form of a letter from a stranded traveler,
who uses the time to digress on a lifetime of regrets and an impressive array of
cultural issues, large and small.

--------------------------------------

Kevin P. Casey for The New York Times

The Kindle can download books.

MORE AT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/books
/02bea.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

Moral Psychology, Volume 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness (Bradford Books)

Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Bradford Books)

The God Delusion

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Books: Forget It, Comrade. This Is Moscow.
By JANET MASLIN
Tom Rob Smith's tightly woven debut novel is a thriller set
in a Soviet era when serial killers didn't exist.
Officially.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntg
et=2008/05/08/books/08maslin.html&tntemail1=y

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Books: After Life in White House, No Place Feels Like Home
By JANET MASLIN
This book explores loaded subjects like Bill Clinton's
last-minute pardons, imperiled legacy, flashy billionaire
friends and business connections.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget
=2008/04/28/books/28masl.html&tntemail1=y

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Books / Sunday Book Review: The Catastrophist
By LEON WIESELTIER
In this collection of noisy, knowing writings about
theocracy and terror, Martin Amis denounces Islamism in
blunt and provocative language.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntg
et=2008/04/27/books/review/Wieseltier-t.html&tntemail1=y

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Books / Sunday Book Review: Patch Job
By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL
The human mind as a mess of parts, arbitrarily yet
effectively assembled.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=
tnt&tntget=2008/04/27/books/review/Paul-t.html&tntemail1=y

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Books / Sunday Book Review: Faith and Healing
By JEROME GROOPMAN
Is there a medical link between mind and body? A Harvard
professor examines the history behind the idea.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=
tnt&tntget=2008/01/27/books/review/Groopman-t.html&tntemail0=y

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Books: Styron's Essays Give Glimpses Into a Life Spent in Good
Company
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
The veneration of the printed word as a source of wisdom,
redemption and refuge animates many of William Styron's
essays in this volume.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=
2008/04/15/books/15kaku.html&tntemail1=y

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---------------------------

Author Laurie Viera Riglerâ€™s mind is so full of Jane Austen
text that three viewings of the film were needed before she
could see it as a film unto itself. Read Laurieâ€™s very
insightful review of "Sense and Sensibility"

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/03/the_complete_jane_austen_sense_1.html

-----------------------------------------------------

Program times listed below are for PBS's national schedule and may not be accurate
for your station - check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/whatson/

Broadcast times listed are in Eastern Time(ET).

******************************************
ARTS and LITERATURE
******************************************
MASTERPIECE
The Complete Jane Austen: "Sense & Sensibility" (Part Two)
Sunday, April 6, 2008 9 - 10:30 pm
The death of their father throws Elinor Dashwood and her sister
Marianne virtually penniless onto the marriage market. But then
three handsome and apparently well-heeled men come courting.
Part 2 of 2. (CC, Stereo)

--------------------------------------------------

Author Margaret Sullivan subcontracts out her writing duties to
Austen characters Miss Anne Steele and Master Henry Dashwood
for a fun review of The Complete Jane Austenâ€™s "Sense and
Sensibility"

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/03/the_complete_jane_austen_sense.html

REMOTELY CONNECTED

Author Laurie Viera Riglerâ€™s mind is so full of Jane Austen
text that three viewings of the film were needed before she
could see it as a film unto itself. Read Laurieâ€™s very
insightful review of "Sense and Sensibility"

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/03/the_complete_jane_austen_sense_1.html

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Keeping reading alive

The Big Read comes to Volusia County this week and continues for several weeks. The nationwide program, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, will explore censorship, zeroing in on Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" -- the 1953 sci-fi novel about a book-burner that was made into a movie in 1966. Book discussions, movie viewings, plays and essay contests are among the scheduled events. For details, click on "The Big Read" at volusia.org .

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ON LONG ISLAND, NY

Greetings,

The March 2008 issue of the CFI Community of Long Island INQUIRER is now available here: http://http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/march2008newsletter.pdf
___________________________________________________________

Join CFI-NYC Program Director Susan Jacoby to celebrate the publication of her latest book, "The Age of American Unreason," with her lecture at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library. Ms. Jacoby's new book, which picks up in the early 1960s where the historian Richard Hofstadter left off in his classic work, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," dissects the rise of anti-rationalism in every aspect of American culture and politics during the past 40 years.

Susan Jacoby is the author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism," in its tenth hardcover printing (Metropolitan Books) and just out in paperback. Freethinkers was hailed in the New York Times as an "ardent and insightful work" that "seeks to rescue a proud tradition from the indifference of posterity."

Named a notable nonfiction book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, Freethinkers was cited in England as one of the outstanding international books of 2004 by the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian.

The author began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post. She is the author of six previous books, including Wild Justice: The Evolution of RevengeHalf-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past (Scribner, 2000). A generalist in an era of specialization, Jacoby has been a contributor for more than 25 years, on topics including law, religion, medicine, women's rights, and Russian literature, to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Book World, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Newsday, Harper's, The Nation, Vogue, and the AARP Magazine, among other publications. They have been reprinted in numerous anthologies of columns and magazine articles. (Harper & Row), a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Susan Jacoby has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Since the publication of Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby has been interviewed on NOW with Bill Moyers, The O'Reilly Factor, and the Dennis Miller Show. She has been a guest on numerous National Public Radio programs, including the Diane Rehm and Tavis Smiley shows, as well as regional NPR programs broadcast from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia, and Madison, WIS.

Ms. Jacoby is also program director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York, a rationalist think tank with offices at 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 2700, New York, NY 10020.

____________________________________________________________________________

Visit our featured blogspots & websites!
Go to:
Gerry Dantone: http://journals.aol.com/lisechum/GerryDantoneblogspot/
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci: http://www.rationallyspeaking.org/
Dr. Don Ardell: http://www.seekwellness.com/wellness

Susan Jacoby: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/susan_jacoby/

___________________________________________________________________________

Blogger Jessica Emerson takes the reader on a journey from
Cluelessness to Self-Awareness in her thoughtful post on The
Complete Jane Austen â€œEmmaâ€

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/03/the_complete_jane_austen_emma.html

--------------------------------------------

Author Erica Perl prefers South Park to Gosford Park, but found
herself hooked by Emmaâ€™s complex, edgy characters.

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/03/the_complete_jane_austen_emma_1.html

· Book review for politically obsessed

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PBS PARENTS
Get Ready to Read Across America

Read Across America Day is almost here, and millions of kids
and adults are busy planning for the nation's largest reading
celebration on March 3. Parents and other volunteers will be
guest readers in classrooms across the country, so use our
Bookfinder to select a book that the whole class will enjoy.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/bookfinder/

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Video and Music

Minor Waltz

Suggested videos to watch from the menu:

In the Menu at the bottom of the video clip
you will find the Pussy Cat song.

Vulgar sexual innuendos.

-----------------------------------------------

And see and listen to "Winning the War on Drugs"

========================================================

Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

Spanish Fly by Will Ferguson

A novel with its own soundtrack based on the characters and era of the book.
Listen to a track while reading and tell us what you think

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The Case for Ink

5 Reasons I Won’t Give Up Books

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, 12:10PM

http://www.pbs.org:80/mediashift/2008/02/the_case_for_ink5_reasons_i_wo.html

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Read seventeen-year-old high school student Seth Cassel's
(flamingnet.com) thoughtful post on "The Complete Jane Austen:
Pride and Prejudice."

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/02/the_complete_jane_austen_pride_1.html

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MEDIASHIFT
5 Reasons I Won't Give Up Books

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo makes the case for good,
old-fashioned paper and ink.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/02/the_case_for_ink5_reasons_i_wo.html

--------------------------------------------------------

Read seventeen-year-old high school student Seth Cassel's
thoughtful post on "The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and
Prejudice."

http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/02/the_complete_jane_austen_pride_1.html

-----------------------------------------------------------

A Walk with Jane Austen author Lori Smith writes on Jane Austen's "Mansfield
Park."
http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/01/the_complete_jane_austen_mansf.html

Author, blogger Diane K. Danielson "The Savvy Gal's Guide to Online
Networking
(Or What Would Jane Austen Do?) writes on Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park"
http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/01/post_3.html

Read blogger Laurel Ann Nattress post on "Miss Austen Regrets"
http://www.pbs.org/nights/blog/2008/01/the_complete_jane_austen_miss.html

Books: Editing of Frost Notebooks in Dispute
By MOTOKO RICH
A recently published compendium of Robert Frosts personal
notebooks is coming under attack from two critics who say
that the editor of the volume mistranscribed hundreds, if
not thousands, of Frost's words.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=
tnt&tntget=2008/01/22/books/22frost.html&tntemail0=y

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me & Garden: Anarchy Rules: The Dishes Stay Dirty
By PENELOPE GREEN
The punk house is lovingly chronicled in a new book of
photographs by Abby Banks, a 29-year-old artist.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=
tnt&tntget=2008/01/03/garden/03punk.html&tntemail1=y

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Business / Media & Advertising: Travel Book Publishers Try to Reclaim the Web
By ERIC PFANNER
The Rough Guides and Lonely Planet series of travel books
play catch up on the Web, after worries about giving away
content.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget
=2008/01/03/business/media/03guides.html&tntemail1=y

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Books / Sunday Book Review: Heil Woodrow!
By DAVID OSHINSKY
Jonah Goldberg argues that 20th-century Democrats are
fascists.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2007/12/30/books/review/Oshinsky-t.html&tntemail1=y

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Arts: Naked or in a Wolf Suit, Sex in Its Many Guises
By S. KIRK WALSH
"Do Me," an eclectic literary anthology dedicated to sex in
all its glorious, offers an entertaining if uneven read.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt
&tntget=2007/12/31/arts/31wals.html&tntemail1=y

---------------------------------------------

Jan 2, 2:36 PM EST

Tom Wolfe Has New Book, New Publisher

By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer

......His new novel, "Back to Blood," will be a "Bonfire"-like tour of Miami, taking on "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption, and ambition." Among the characters: a Cuban nurse married to a French sex doctor, a Haitian woman "who passes for Anglo" and "a freshman journalist on the trail of a Russian-mob-comes-to-Miami story."

Publication is scheduled for 2009.....

http://hosted.ap.org:80/dynamic/stories/B/BOOKS_TOM_
WOLFE?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS

by Lou Dobbs

Chapter 3

The Best Government Money Can Buy

POI excerpt selection:

===========================

.... Today, there are more than thirty-four thousand (lobbyists), and lobbyists now outnumber our congressmen, senators, and their staffs 2 to 1. From 1998 to 2004, lobbyists spent nearly $13 billion to not only influence legislation, but in many cases to write the language of the laws and regulations they sought....

page 36

Books / Sunday Book Review: One-Hit Wonder
Reviewed by JEREMY McCARTER
Andrew Lycett's biography and a new collection of letters
remind readers that Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to be
remembered for more than Sherlock Holmes. Too bad for him.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2007/12/30/books/review/McCarter-t.html&tntemail1=y

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New York Region / The City: As an Age Recedes, a Craftsman Soldiers On
By RAPHAEL AHREN
Since 1951, Walter Schnerb has been repairing and binding
documents by hand in Washington Heights.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tnt
get=2007/12/30/nyregion/thecity/30germ.html&tntemail1=y

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Magazine: Literary Life
By CATHLEEN SHINE
A partnership that was bound in books.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2007/12/30/magazine/30stern-t.html&tntemail1=y

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Business / Media & Advertising: In His Own Magazine, an Editor Puts Himself Into an Elite
Group
By SARA IVRY
Talk about prestigious bylines: one new publication
includes Thucydides, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Osama bin Laden,
Pope Urban II, Lenin ... and Lewis H. Lapham.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntg
et=2007/12/31/business/media/31lapham.html&tntemail1=y

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The New York Times
My Alerts: Books and Literature
December 27, 2007 12:42 AM
--------------------------------------

New York Region: Offering Enlightenment, or Just a Little Peace
By LILY KOPPEL
Room 315, the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public
Library on Fifth Avenue, has a loyal cast of repeat
visitors.

Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tnt
get=2007/12/27/nyregion/27reading.html&tntemail1=y

---------------------------------

.....A new study, published in today’s issue of the German publication Unwirklichen Genetikjournal, does not challenge that assessment. But it does suggest that some men may be genetically predisposed to believe in evolutionary psychology, a finding that may well suggest future methods of treatment of the psychological malady.

Believers in evolutionary psychology maintain that feminism sets itself in opposition to millions of years of anthropoid evolution, and is thus futile and inhumane to men. Allegations made by believers include references to putative differences in math skills between men and women, a supposedly irresistible but entirely non-visually stimulated female attraction toward powerful and/or arrogant males, and the existence of a genetically preordained male right to multiple female sexual partners.

Many such men hold to these beliefs despite an absolute lack of supporting scientific evidence, says Dr. Ulrike Mann-Esser, chair of the sexual anthropology department at Universität Ulm and the study’s lead researcher. “But we had no way to determine why this was so until last year’s discovery of the locus taedius.”...

===================

Read An Inconvenient Book and you'll be saying it too: Draft Glenn Beck for President!

Among Glenn Beck's inconvenient insights:

	How the politically correct, don't-offend anyone mentality has turned into the Islamic jihadists' most powerful weapon
	How a savvy voter should regard all the public mud slinging and name calling that increasingly characterizes American elections
	Child molestation: why the problem is not that law enforcement officials don't enforce the law, but that the public doesn't take this crisis seriously
	How the U.S. originally got addicted to oil -- and what we can and must do about it now
	Political correctness: how its foundations were laid by none other than leading Marxist theorists -- and why it must die if our nation is to survive
	The Internet: how it is being used by Islamic jihad terrorists -- and how we can and must turn its power against them
	What the United Nations should have learned -- but didn't -- from the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990s
	Why America needs oil and gas prices to go up, and stay up
	The fatal flaws that make the most-hyped opinion polls untrustworthy
	How, over and over again, the private sector proves it is superior to the government
	The Don Imus scandal: why every American should find it frightening that a man can be fired based solely on pressure groups' guess about his intentions and innermost thoughts
	Why political correctness is a vicious circle, and the changing of words and expressions because someone thinks they're offensive sets a pattern that will never stop
	Saddam Hussein: how he managed to trade oil for UN votes
	The chief architect of the North American Union: why his denials that any such union is contemplated ring hollow
	John Edwards: how he has demonstrated that he doesn't really believe that every person should have an equal chance to succeed
	How basic capitalist principles could save our nation's universities -- and the quality of American education today
	Why the spurious claim by proponents of political correctness that they represent "diversity" have proven so effective in the American public sphere
	Why the answer to our nation's troubles is ultimately not in Washington, but in the local church, the community outreach, and the local neighborhood
	How Democrats are always clamoring about helping the lowest-wage workers, yet at the same time refuse to get serious about addressing the one issue that would help such people the most: illegal immigration
	Why, if we don't vigilantly defend our homeland and our freedoms, we will end up with neither

"Beck lays lighthearted siege to everything that makes the world worse. ...He's at his best when most absurd, and funniest when he's his own target (the father of four is little more than a flesh-and-bone jungle gym)….This should make a good read for conservatives." -- Publishers Weekly

The Stuff of Thought

By Steven Pinker. A display of fiercely intricate intelligence.
Nobody with an interest in language should miss reading it

WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS

by Lou Dobbs

POI selected excerpts:

============================

.... Whether the issue is failing public education, corruption in Washington, rampant illegal immigration, the outsourcing of jobs to cheap foreign labor markets, massive U.S. . budget and trade deficits, a crumbling national infrastructure, voter fraud, or runaway costs of energy and health care, the principal victim is the same: hardworking, taxpaying middle-class Americans and their families and those who aspire to be part of the middle class..... --- pg. ix

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George W. Bush claimed through two presidential campaigns that America has become the "ownership society." I couldn't agree more. America has become a society by corporations and a political system dominated by corporate and special interests, and directed by elites who are hostile -- or at best indifferent -- to the interests of working men and women of the middle class and their families.

Corporate America holds dominion over the Republican and Democratic parties through campaign contributions, armies of lobbyists that have swamped Washington, and control of political and economic think tanks and media. ... -- pg 1.

-------------------------------------------------------

..... Most alarmingly, our federal government has become so dysfunctional that it no longer serves well the needs of the people, nor do our elected officials assert the common good against the power of money and capital...... ---- pg. 2

-----------------------------------------------------

... Whether the issue is a total lack of border security, an illegal immigration crisis, taxation, education, or jobs, big business and big government are unchecked in their attacks on the common good. Most of our elected officials, whether Democrat or Republican have bought and paid for through campaign donations from corporate lobbyists and other special interest groups. We've reached a stage where lobbyists no longer merely influence legislation, but write the actual language of what becomes law.....

---- pg. 3

‘Exit Ghost’

By PHILIP ROTH

“I'd been alone these past eleven years in a small house on a dirt road in the deep country, having decided to live apart like that some two years before the cancer was diagnosed.”

----------------

POI Hank comments:

I started reading 'Exit Ghost", tonight, Oct. 18, 2007 and am liking it.

I provide some excerpts from chapter 1:

... There it was: the tactless severity of vital male youth, not a single doubt about his coherence, blind with self-confidence and the virtue of knowing what matters most. The ruthless sense of necessity. The annihilating impulse in the face of an obstacle. Those grand grandstand days when you shrink from nothing and you're only right. Everything is a target: you're on the attack: and you, and you alone, are right....... page 48

That's me, that's me, don't you think?
And yet in the story, the person appraising the young man is 71 years old.
Well, although I am 70, I have not yet given up on my "vital male youth",
if only in desire, misguided introspection, and imagination. LOL -- hank

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

... New York was full of people motivated by "the spirit of inquiry" .... PG. 51

I'm from New York - hank

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

(Returning to New York, Mr. Zukerman, 71 yrs. old comments)

.... And I noticed the young women. I couldn't fail to. The days were still warm in New York and women were clad in ways I couldn't ignore, however much I wanted not to be aroused the very desires actively quelled through living in seclusion across the road from a nature preserve. ...college girls now exposed with neither shame nor fear, but the phenomenon didn't stun me until I got to the city, where the numbers were vastly multiplied and the age range expanded and I enviously understood tht women dressing as they did meant that they there only to be looked at and that the provocative parade was merely the initial unveiling...... walking around in tight shirts and low-cut shorts and enticing bras and with their bellies bare looks like it means that they're all available, they're not --- and not only not to me...... page 65

‘Exit Ghost’

By PHILIP ROTH

POI Hank proceeds with the book
and enjoys the second chapter:

Excerpts:

Mr. Zuckerman explains why he withdrew from reading about politics:

....After 9/11 I pulled the plug on the contradictions. Otherwise, I told myself, you'll become the exemplary letter-to -the-editor madman, the village grouch, manifesting the syndrome in all its seething ridiculousness: ranting and raving while you read the paper, and at night, on the phone with friends, roaring indignantly about the pernicious profitability for which a wounded nation's authentic patriotism was about to be exploited by an imbecile king, and in a republic, a king in a free country with all the slogans of freedom with which American children are raised. The despising without remission that constitutes being a conscientious citizen in the reign of George W. Bush... - page 69

------------------------------------------

........ The turn to the right in this country is a movement to replace political institutions with morality --- their mo