Read an E-Book Week – E-Book and E-Reader Information.
Read an E-Book Week educates and informs the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically.
Cover Up
4 March 2010You see them everywhere you know those magazines yeah I’ve bought a few they show you everything
so many news stands as I’m passing by but rows and rows of you are bound to catch my eye
now everyone can gaze upon your body its good for you – I guess you have no shame
I never knew if how I acted would make you seek revenge and now I know and you’re in magazines
–Duncan Sheik “Magazines”
I was in my twenties. The marriage had been ill-advised; all passion and no maturity. She had left months ago after a fling with an older guy. I had crashed, burned and found myself more lost than I had ever been.
My brothers tried to cheer me up by dragging me to a science fiction convention. Star Trek, Star Wars–all kinds of geeks, comic lovers and sci-fi addicts wandered the massive hall. We were perusing the tables and came across about 40 copies of a paperback book on “B” horror movies. Gracing the glossy cover was a pretty girl in a B-horror flick scream pose.
It was my ex-wife.
She stared up at me from the book cover, mouth open, all scantily clad and beautiful and most painfully: no longer mine.
Now belonged to anyone who bought that lousy book. A guy next to me in a Darth Vader t-shirt picked up the book, flipped its pages and pointed at the cover. “She’s tasty.”
My stomach rolled over. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes. My fists balled up at my sides.
My brothers–busy buying Star Trek action figures–finally came over to see why I was loitering at that specific unmanned table.
“Oh no,” my older brother said, his eyes wide.
“Oh shit,” my younger brother said.
I closed my eyes, wiped the tears away with my fists.
“Let’s go,” my older brother said.
I couldn’t make myself move.
My younger brother quickly began turning over the books, hiding my ex-wife’s image. My older brother firmly squeezed my upper arm. “Let’s go.”
“Couldn’t she wait before she got on with her life?” I said to no one in particular. “Couldn’t she wait for me?” I whispered.
The rest of the day was a blur. I don’t remember meeting the guy from Deep Space Nine at all.
I was so very young.
but is it really you in the empty world I shouldn’t be surprised you’re an ambitious girl
with all that naked skin as sweet as honey Maybe you just really needed money
I wondered if I would be punished for my voyeuristic pleasure
and now I know and you’re in magazines
Lloyd Blankfein And Goldman Sachs Represents Wall Street PR Crisis
28 February 2010Tiger Woods is trying to fight his way back to life in the wake of a sex scandal linking him, by some accounts, to more than a dozen other women. Akio Toyoda is scrambling to salvage the auto-manufacturing firm his family founded, apologizing yet again to customers and the public in a humiliating appearance before the House Oversight Committee this week. Neither man, however, is likely to voluntarily switch places with Lloyd Blankfein, the Goldman Sachs CEO who rapidly became and remains the symbol of Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, and thus one of the most hated men in the country. And nothing he and Goldman's formidable PR team try to do seems able to change that.
More: Lloyd Blankfein And Goldman Sachs Represents Wall Street Pr Crisis – Industry News – Portfolio.com.
Back in the Groove?
28 February 2010Well, I made a change in my life that may just see me back on the path to getting my groove back. Too soon to tell, and there’s a lot more to say. Watch this space for more.
Tax Rates For America’s Top 400 Earners Fell As Income Soared In 2007, According To IRS
17 February 2010Tax Rates For America’s Top 400 Earners Fell As Income Soared In 2007, According To IRS.
The oligarchy continues.
Seth Godin on What it Takes to be a Linchpin
14 February 2010Seth Godin:
Well, you know, I get a lot of e-mail everyday — a couple hundred letters — and I saw in the last year or so the tone of it changing. What was happening is, you know, it’s fun to talk about strategy. It’s fun to talk about organizational concepts. But what I discovered that made me quite angry is that a large number of people had been brainwashed and abused, and tricked, and found themselves on a dead end because they had believed something about the system that just wasn’t true. And I felt like I had this moment in time where I could speak up and talk about this shift, and try, maybe just for 5 or 10% of the people who read the book, to push people to make a choice. And that’s all the book is about, is making a choice to stand out as opposed to fit in. Because what I’m seeing everywhere I look is that the people who are making that choice, not only are they more rewarded, but they’re happier.
via Seth Godin on What it Takes to be a Linchpin [INTERVIEW].
I Know, I Know
3 February 2010I know. I know.
I’ve been very sporadic lately–mostly because I think I am on the verge of getting my groove back. Stay tuned please. Really.
For more updated material, you can still find me on Twitter: @simonsgroove
But I will return. Promise. Stick with me, as I have much to tell.
Why do people often vote against their own interests?
30 January 2010 Leave a Comment - View Comments » No Comments YetHow America Can Rise Again
23 January 2010Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future.
via How America Can Rise Again – The Atlantic January/February 2010.
We are running out of time. I implore you to read the article and pass it around. Our “leaders” need to hear our concern and demands for change.