Filed under: reviews
Filed under: reviews
Filed under: reviews
I can't say any of the candidates really got me all that terribly excited, it was mostly an exercise of picking who I hated least. As for the initiatives the only one that I think is really super critical is City of Seattle Proposition No. 1 which is the school tax levy. Initiative 1183 really annoys the hell out of me and I hate CostCo for putting it out there (I especially like the tax loopholes they put in for themselves and the bans they put against their smaller competitors) but as I explain below our dear government has passed a lovely bill that I think is worse than 1183 so now I have to vote for 1183.
Initiative Measure No. 1125 - No
Initiative Measure No. 1163 - No
Initiative Measure No. 1183 - Yes
Senate Joint Resolution No. 8205 - Approved
Senate Joint Resolution No. 8206 - Rejected
County Directory of Elections - Mark Greene
Port of Seattle - Commissioner Position No. 2 - Gael Tarleton
Port of Seattle - Commissioner Position No. 5 - Dean Willard
City of Seattle - Council Position No. 1 - Bobby Forch
City of Seattle - Council Position No. 3 - Brad Meacham
City of Seattle - Council Position No. 5 - Dale L. Pusey
City of Seattle - Council Position No. 7 - Tim Burgess
City of Seattle - Council Position No. 9 - Sally J. Clark
City of Seattle Proposition No. 1 - Levy, Yes
Seattle Transportation Benefit District - Proposition No. 1 - Yes
Seattle School District No. 1 - Director District No. 1 - Sharon Peaslee
Seattle School District No. 1 - Director District No. 2 - Kate Martin
Seattle School District No. 1 - Director District No. 3 - Harium Martin-Morris
Seattle School District No. 1 - Director District No. 4 - Marty McLaren
Note: For brevity's sake I'm omitting any uncontested races.
(more...)Filed under: reviews
There is this idea in America that winners should be rewarded and that the rich are winners. And since the bankers on Wall Street are rich they must therefore be winners. But this is a lie. The bankers in this country aren't winners. They are simply the people who managed to leverage their cash into taking control of our government and using it as their own personal piggy bank and get out of jail free card. I realize this rehtoric sounds extreme but if you read Matt Taibbi's latest article in RollingStone magazine I think you'll finally begin to understand some of the mechanisms of how Wall Street steals from everyone else to make their profits.
Filed under: reviews
Finally, a short ballot! But still, an important one. Please, if you do nothing else, please vote REJECTED on Seattle Referendum 1. Let's do whatever we can to stop the insane tunneling project.
King County Proposition No. 1 - Veterans and Human Services Levy - Approved
Count of Appeals, Division No. 1, District No. 1, Judge Position No. 2 - Michael Spearman
City of Seattle Council Position No. 1 - Michael Taylor-Judd
City of Seattle Council Position No. 9 - Dian Ferguson
City of Seattle Referendum 1 - REJECTED
Seattle School District No. 1 Direction District No. 3 - John Dunn
Filed under: reviews
Inhuman Bondage - The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World by Dr. David Brion Davis is a summary of Dr. David's research into slavery in the "New World" (i.e. the Americas). Although wonderfully written the subject matter makes it a hard read.While I have no illusions about the barbarity of humanity reading the details is still a hard task. But a worthwhile one. What I give below is but the thinest summary of some of the key points made in the book. The book itself is incredibly rich with endless detail and anecdote to make the history come alive. I heartily recommend the book.
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Dr. Abuelaish, the author of the book, has suffered in ways that are awful to contemplate. The book explores the doctor and his family's history, how he achieved what he has, who his family was and how he has reacted to what has happened along with some ruminations on how the Israeli/Palestinian peace process can move forward.
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1491 - New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann explores what was known as of 2005 or so about the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. The book shows that just about everything I was taught about the Indians wasn't so much wrong as misleading.
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There have been plenty of books on the financial crises but most aren't quite as entertaining and, to be frank, potty mouthed, as this one. Matt Taibbi is a muck racking reporter for the Rolling Stone who, I suspect, will be the first up against the wall when our corporate overlords decide they can stop even pretending to care about the rule of law. The book lays out some of the facts about how exactly a bunch of insanely greedy evil doers destroyed our economy with the active help of 'our' government. I can't say these folks are criminals because we live in a criminal state where the evil doers simply have the laws changed to make their acts legal. In this blog article I look at the part of his book that deals with the mortgage crises.
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Anarchy Alive by Uri Gordon is an overview of the modern Anarchist movement. Dr. Gordon is an active member of the Anarchy scene and he wrote this book from his perspective as an activist. The book attempts to explain the characteristics of the modern Anarchist movement and the issues Dr. Gordon thinks it needs to address.
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What is free will? This book presents the views of four different philosophers on the topic. The book defines free will via a question - what are the prerequisites for someone to be held morally responsible for their actions? What is especially great about this book is that the authors could see each other's sections in the book so that as the book progresses each author can refer to what the authors in the sections before them said. Then at the end each of the four authors gets another chapter in which they can refer fully to what the other three authors said and respond. I especially liked the fact that the authors really engaged with each other's points rather than just throwing stones at each other. Below I explore the key points that each of the authors made and why I'm not fully buying any of it.
(more...)