28/02/2013

Books, nutrition for the soul

"Books are nutrition for the soul.

When creative participation is required, imagination engaged, the experience reaches beyond dubious sustenance to gourmet richness.

Reading is fundamental. Fundamental to learning, yes; but also to thinking. To creativity and imagination, as applied in a very practical sense to life, to work, to growth.

According to the National Literacy Trust, regular book readers have not only better vocabularies, but also more confidence and greater understanding of other people, issues, and cultures. Reading also benefits society; book readers are also more likely to engage in their communities and be better decision makers."

More: http://m.cdapress.com/columns/sholeh_patrick/article_f75c53b8-2123-504d-9b34-504af35261b3.html



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

27/02/2013

Bibliotherapy

The "Center for Fiction—a nonprofit that holds readings and events, gives writers office space and promotes the general celebration of literature—called A Novel Approach, in which writers and editors involved with the center (“bibliotherapists”) will give you a 45-minute consultation dealing with the life crisis of your choice and prescribe a year’s worth of reading to help you get through it. ...

people who consider themselves serious readers believe that reading is “making their lives better, and that they are becoming better human beings through reading".

From: http://observer.com/2013/02/how-literature-saved-my-psyche-attending-a-book-themed-therapy-session-at-the-center-for-fiction/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

The Dirty "S" Word

The dirty S word is back, and gaining popularity. Young Americans (ages 18 -29) are growing disillusioned with the capitalist system post 2008 crash, and look more favorably upon... socialism. The ideas put forward by Karl Marx are back in mainstream. Listen to podcast: http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/shows/2013/02/24/is-marxism-facing-a-rebirth/

The survey by Pew Research indicates shift in perception on social policies, despite decades long propaganda war of vilification:

"powerful and wealthy private interests and special interest groups have taken almost full control of most democracies, their money and influence increasingly dictating the political and social agendas for these nations, agendas beneficial to them alone.

All democratic governments to some extent, but again primarily the US, have essentially abandoned their responsibility as “managers” of their nations and societies, have lost the thread of “management for the people”, and instead have relegated their nations to a condition of “management for the benefit of private interests”. ...

The management of these nations for the benefit of special interest groups has become so embedded that 'socialism', which is nothing more than a concern for the overall welfare of the nation and its people, has become a dirty word.

As evidence, most Americans are energetically, and sometimes almost violently, opposed to socialism though few appear to have any understanding of the term's actual meaning.

Socialism – caring about the people of a nation and about their welfare, is equated in the American mind to a hateful dictatorship with no rights or freedoms – in fact, to the precise opposite of the term's real meaning. Such is the power of propaganda." From: http://www.spyghana.com/democracy-and-income-inequality-america-the-worlds-richest-banana-republic/



21/02/2013

The Need for Book News

"We know the top songs on the radio and the movies in theaters. Why don’t we know what books are the latest on the shelves? ...

Imagine if books were discarded because of lack of readership. We wouldn’t be left with many books and the ones we would be left with would be “Twilight” fan fiction. “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I’m referring to you. Quality literature and peoples’ interest in it is fading fast.

We have become a society that is focused on watching images on screens instead of allowing images to be formed in our minds from words. In my opinion, it is important to know what is going on in the world in terms of news and pop culture. However, most news doesn’t seem to include books. Many of today’s movies and TV shows are based off of novels, showing the impact they have beyond the literary scope. People may feel weighed down when they read page after page in a book, but without good writers to write screenplays for movies and scripts for TV shows, there wouldn’t be any. The basis for everything stems from the ability to write and to write well. This is why we need to enlighten ourselves and acknowledge the work that is going unnoticed in the book industry."

From: http://www.dailycampus.com/focus/the-dog-ear-contemporary-authors-matter-1.2993410#.USabJ3JMLC0

SpyWriter Jack King, author of Agents of Change and WikiJustice

Smart Meters. Cancer. Privacy.

Smart meters. They are installed by water companies, and electricity providers.

"Feeling anxious about the high energy microwaves beaming out constantly from these deadly devices? Having nightmares about DNA damage, and fascistic intrusion from 'your' power company? ... In many states, the power companies send the police along with the installers to force you to submit... In many reports, the home owners are intimidated, roughed up, threatened, abused, and arrested for standing up for their rights against the minions of GUS and 'big power'. ... So what i will do is to put a little 'cap' of folded aluminium foil over the broadcast bulb of the smart meter. ... it shuts off the microwaves as a source of health degrading energies in my local environment." Read more: http://www.halfpasthuman.com/smartmeters.html

Smart meters may be not only deadly, they are also intrusive:

"Depending on the functionality of the meter, the smart meter may be able to track how much electricity is used within each room of the home, as well as how much is used by the various new smart appliances in your house. Just as the smart meters can communicate wirelessly with devices such as TV sets or tablets to show you your electrical consumption, they also communicate this information with the power company, which keeps records about the volumes and patterns associated with your daily life. The implications for personal surveillance are staggering." Read more: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/02/14/refusing-smart-meters-to-protect-your-health-and-privacy/

So, you want electricity but not cancer? You can wrap yourself, or the smart meter, in sheet metal. You can stop paying your bill, and maybe they will remove the meter. But, what then?

Some have found a solution:


18/02/2013

Books can transform lives

"The young people of today’s society are forgetting how important it is to read books for the basic benefit of expanding their minds.

Reading books can bring us into completely different mindsets and give us the perspective of someone who is experiencing something that we might not have understood unless we are reading it from an insider’s point of view.

Books take us to different worlds, times, perspectives and almost any place one could imagine, but without the writers who pull people into these novels, they will die out.

We need authors who can keep drawing people into books that can teach them how to be better people and not only see in black and white, but to look at the world with all of the colors of the rainbow."

More: http://m.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/guest-commentary/young-voices-books-have-power-to-transform-readers-lives/article_499170b3-4029-5752-8558-6fe77f632faf.html?mobile_touch=true



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

Population Surveillance

What every regime, regardless of ideology, fears the most is the people. In this respect Uncle Sam is no different from North Korea or East Germany, as evidenced by actions taken against its population: targetting peace activists, labor unions, students, etc. Today American citizens are the most spied on in the world, but this massive surveillance operation is nothing new...

"In a secret program called HTLINGUAL, the CIA screened more than 28 million first-class letters and opened 215,000 of them between 1953 and 1973, even though the Supreme Court held as far back as 1878 in Ex parte Jackson and reaffirmed in 1970 in U.S. v. Van Leeuwen that the Fourth Amendment bars third parties from opening first-class mail without a warrant. The program's stated purpose was to obtain foreign intelligence, but it targeted domestic peace and civil rights activists as well. In a 1962 memo to the director of the CIA's Office of Security, the deputy chief of the counterintelligence staff warned that the program could lead 'to grave charges of criminal misuse of the mails' and therefore U.S. intelligence agencies must 'vigorously deny' HTLINGUAL, which should be "relatively easy to 'hush up.'"

From: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-CIA-Burglar-Who-Went-Rogue-169800816.html?c=y&page=2



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

06/02/2013

Chick Lit bad for your health

"New research reveals that chick lit 'heroines' like Bridget Jones make women feel worse about themselves.

Most women assume that a dose of Bridget Jones can only make them feel better about themselves.But new research has revealed that spending time with self-scrutinising chick lit characters like 'our bridg' is actually more likely to have a negative effect on women's confidence and body image.

A study by Virginia Tech university has found that reading books in which the lead character worried about her weight made women uncomfortable about their own body image."

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2274368/Does-book-make-look-fat-Chick-lit-heroines-like-Bridget-Jones-bad-health.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

If Chick lit depresses you there are books that can help: http://spywriter.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/the-best-medication-is-a-book/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

01/02/2013

Reading fiction aloud is therapeutic

The "Liverpool-based charity The Reader Organisation ... seeks to bring about a "reading revolution" by encouraging people to read poetry and novels aloud to each other.

The Swiss linguist and thinker Ferdinand de Saussure describes language as a form of treasure that is shared with others when we speak. Treasure is also something that can be hoarded. If you keep all the good words – the rich, descriptive, wild long words – to yourself then you retain their high value. Share them with the masses and you end up ... with the linguistic means to create a society of equals, which is exactly what the hoarders of social and cultural capital don't want.

...the benefits of reading in company as described by one woman: "Doctors and stuff aren't always what you need. Other people can help too.

"The accumulated experience of peers and equals, all of whom have been in the same boat at one point or other, is shared to the benefit of everyone. It's hard to think of a more powerful, not to mention empowering, sentiment."

More: http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/01/reading-fiction-friends-therapeutic



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com