(Harper Collins, May 4, 2010)
Heart of the Game, by S. L. Price of Sports Illustrated, is a story about a talented athlete who followed his dream of playing professional baseball until the evening that dream was squelched for good by a foul ball.
Price takes readers through the life of veteran minor league baseball player, Mike Coolbaugh, as he pursues his ambition of making a living by playing professional baseball. The story is tragic in so many ways other than its ending. The story of minor league baseball is on display in these pages, and it’s not always hot dogs and apple pie.
Coolbaugh, regarded by some veteran scouts of Major League Baseball as a prospect, never could get over the hump of becoming an established Big Leaguer despite years of excelling in the minors as an all-star infielder. After finally succumbing to the realization that he would never enjoy more than the few “cups of coffee” he had in the Majors, Coolbaugh turned to coaching.
It was here that a fluke occurrence played out on the diamond: Coolbaugh was struck in the head with a foul ball that killed him instantly. Not only does Price describe scenes of the accident, with his years of experience writing and reporting readers get an inside perspective into what happened, how it happened, and how it ultimately affected everyone from the family of the player himself to the various organizations and players who knew and respected Mike Coolbaugh.
Heart of the Game has been lauded by one national sportswriter as the “best baseball book [he] ever read.” Price’s poetic, as well as stoically clear story, about life in baseball’s minor leagues is a sobering tale of both triumph and pain. Where there was hope, there was also a lot of despair, as readers get an insider’s view of how difficult it really is to become one of the lucky few who are fortunate enough to don Major League uniforms and get paid to do so.
Reviewer Tom Caraccioli is the co-author of Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America's Forgotten Hockey Team and Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Star Island by Carl Hiaasen
(Alfred A. Knopf, July 27, 2010)
In the celebrity crazed culture we currently live in, Carl Hiaasen’s newest novel, Star Island, fits right in. This is a world where a picture of a dead celebrity can bring millions and a photographer will do anything to get that “money shot.”
Enter Cherry Pye, once Cheryl Gail Bunterman, a child star turned pop sensation hoping for a comeback despite the fact that she can’t sing a whip. However, due to the availability of real singers to cover for her and the art of lip syncing, this is not a problem for Cherry—as long as she is conscious, which, often unfortunately is a problem since Cherry’s also desperately addicted to sex, booze, and almost any drug she can get her hands on. Since Cherry can be counted on to occasionally overdose and be out of commission, enter Ann Delusia.
Ann is a wanna-be actress who stands in for Cherry whenever Cherry’s “gastritis” acts up. Star parties, movie premieres, and A-list events all sound exciting, but Ann is usually relegated to a back room for an hour or so then rushed out just so an “appearance” is made and the paparazzi get their shot. Or at least they think they get their shot—and that’s what’s important to Cherry’s mom, her management team, and her entourage of attendants.
Speaking of paparazzi, the novel would not be complete without Cherry’s most devoted follower, Bang Abbott, a dubious photographer who follows the star 24/7, simply waiting for her eventual final OD and the ensuing pictures that could make him rich—that is until a surprise plane ride with sweet Cherry turns him into much more than your standard dirt bag pap. After that encounter, he’s out for revenge.
Hiaasen’s wild ride also includes a former Florida governor nicknamed “Skink” whom Hiaasen readers might remember from a previous book. Now he is turned rogue environmental conservationist who isn’t above kidnapping or assault with a sea urchin to protect the wetlands. Add in a creepy bodyguard with a unique arm appendage, and some other slightly fantastical plot twists, and you’ve got Star Island.
Basically, the novel’s central question is whether Cherry can keep up her career and lip sync her way back to stardom when she can barely stay upright or will Ann be outed as the fake “Cherry” after all those photo ops?
It’s a rollercoaster ride, loaded with Hiaasen’s signature twists and turns. In the end, although the brown-eyed Cherry lookalike Ann is the only character worth caring for, the rest provide sweet comic relief. And overall, though certain elements may strain credulity, Star Island provides enough pop cultural references and zany antics to make it a good read for adult Hiaasen fans and casual readers looking for an entertaining and humorous book.
Reviewer Courtney Webb is a former librarian and reviewer for Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library Reader’s Club and Book Hive: A Guide to Children’s Literature and Books.
In the celebrity crazed culture we currently live in, Carl Hiaasen’s newest novel, Star Island, fits right in. This is a world where a picture of a dead celebrity can bring millions and a photographer will do anything to get that “money shot.”
Enter Cherry Pye, once Cheryl Gail Bunterman, a child star turned pop sensation hoping for a comeback despite the fact that she can’t sing a whip. However, due to the availability of real singers to cover for her and the art of lip syncing, this is not a problem for Cherry—as long as she is conscious, which, often unfortunately is a problem since Cherry’s also desperately addicted to sex, booze, and almost any drug she can get her hands on. Since Cherry can be counted on to occasionally overdose and be out of commission, enter Ann Delusia.
Ann is a wanna-be actress who stands in for Cherry whenever Cherry’s “gastritis” acts up. Star parties, movie premieres, and A-list events all sound exciting, but Ann is usually relegated to a back room for an hour or so then rushed out just so an “appearance” is made and the paparazzi get their shot. Or at least they think they get their shot—and that’s what’s important to Cherry’s mom, her management team, and her entourage of attendants.
Speaking of paparazzi, the novel would not be complete without Cherry’s most devoted follower, Bang Abbott, a dubious photographer who follows the star 24/7, simply waiting for her eventual final OD and the ensuing pictures that could make him rich—that is until a surprise plane ride with sweet Cherry turns him into much more than your standard dirt bag pap. After that encounter, he’s out for revenge.
Hiaasen’s wild ride also includes a former Florida governor nicknamed “Skink” whom Hiaasen readers might remember from a previous book. Now he is turned rogue environmental conservationist who isn’t above kidnapping or assault with a sea urchin to protect the wetlands. Add in a creepy bodyguard with a unique arm appendage, and some other slightly fantastical plot twists, and you’ve got Star Island.
Basically, the novel’s central question is whether Cherry can keep up her career and lip sync her way back to stardom when she can barely stay upright or will Ann be outed as the fake “Cherry” after all those photo ops?
It’s a rollercoaster ride, loaded with Hiaasen’s signature twists and turns. In the end, although the brown-eyed Cherry lookalike Ann is the only character worth caring for, the rest provide sweet comic relief. And overall, though certain elements may strain credulity, Star Island provides enough pop cultural references and zany antics to make it a good read for adult Hiaasen fans and casual readers looking for an entertaining and humorous book.
Reviewer Courtney Webb is a former librarian and reviewer for Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library Reader’s Club and Book Hive: A Guide to Children’s Literature and Books.
Design Is How It Works by Jay Greene
(Penguin Publishing, July 29, 2010)
Jay Greene’s book takes its name from a famous quote by Steven Jobs who said that the iPod’s design is “not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” While one might expect Apple to feature prominently in this book, it’s actually only really discussed in the introduction, with the balance of Design focused on case studies of eight companies that adhere to Jobs’ philosophy, whether they consciously realize it or not.
Moreover, these eight case studies have both the usual suspects—such as Porsche, OXO, and Nike—as well as some you might not expect to make it to Greene’s short list: such as Cliff Bar, REI, and LEGO. With each case study, the author lays out his argument that these companies are successful because they each address a personal need for the company’s individuals. By doing this, the companies, in turn, create an experience that their customers also value. Porsche, for example, focuses on the driving experience, while OXO focuses on the shortcomings of such mundane products like spatulas and vegetable peelers. Yet along the way, they pick up not only design awards but also rabidly faithful customers.
The idea, Greene repeats throughout his book, is for a company to cater to its own needs via excellent design and through that address the “unspoken desires” of its customers. In that way, design becomes an integral part of how a product works, rather than an afterthought to make something look pretty.
Therein lies the deeper meaning of Jobs’ quote and Greene’s title: that, at its core, design is about creating desire because something works exceptionally well, such as OXO’s staple remover; or responds to a particular need, such as REI’s Quarter Dome Tent; or is just plain cool, like LEGO’s robot kit, Mindstorms NXT. It’s noteworthy to mention that all of the aforementioned are best sellers in their categories. And they’re best sellers exactly because they address the itch that the companies themselves felt needed a scratch: the staple remover that didn’t rip paper, the tent that could withstand 25-mile per hour winds, the toy that could teach about something as esoteric as robots.
Greene manages to weave these common elements through his eight case studies. Still, he acknowledges that some—ACE Hotels in particular—may be so cutting edge with regards to design as to be potentially too forward-thinking, much like former technology innovator Bang & Olufsen, which Greene discusses in his introduction.
What the author does not do, for better or for worse, is delve into particulars as to how each company achieves its design goal. In that sense, Design is, at best, an introduction regarding the intersection of design and business. However, Greene handles it well and those that want to know more about how companies incorporate design into the fiber of their businesses would do well to begin here.
Reviewer Logan Lo is a small business consultant under the guise of an intellectual property attorney and a certified general real estate appraiser. He is currently an associate at the commercial litigation firm Woods & Lonergan in their Intellectual Property and Real Estate Practices.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Brown Dwarf by K. D. Miller
(Biblioasis, April 1, 2010)
Think back to your childhood friendships. Did you ever do or say anything that resulted in the death of a childhood friend? In K. D. Miller ‘s novella Brown Dwarf, just such a sense of culpability has haunted Toronto mystery writer and Hamilton, Ontario, native Rae Brand, neé Brenda Bray, ever since the death of her friend Jori Clement when they were twelve in 1962. The narration alternates between chapters entitled “Brenda” that are told in the third person about the twelve year old girl, and others entitled “Rae” that are addressed to Jori by the adult woman Brenda becomes.
Both girls are bookish, only children. Brenda’s mother Annie, a bigoted depressive prone to violent mood swings, is the widow of a bus driver who died when Brenda was eighteen months old. During her mother’s bouts of madness that Brenda calls “hurricanes,” Annie berates Brenda for being fat, but during her calmer days Annie pushes high caloric food in front of her daughter. Before Jori transferred from an elite private school to Brenda’s public school at the start of seventh grade, neither mother nor daughter had any friends. Even Annie’s mother, Thelma, will initially have nothing to do with her daughter and granddaughter because Annie was pregnant with Brenda just before she married her husband, Art.
Jori’s parents, an avuncular university professor and a brittle medicated faculty wife, are open-minded inquisitive liberals who treat their daughter almost as a peer. Jori mistakes Brenda’s social isolation at school for elitism and befriends her assuming she is a like-minded snob. One visit to the Clement home makes Brenda realize her mother’s lack of taste. Just as Brenda dominates and manipulates her parents, Jori is also the dominant partner in her friendship with Brenda.
Brenda is grateful for Jori’s friendship but resents her pretentiousness and is not entirely comfortable with their sexual experimentation; Jori is clueless to Brenda’s ambivalence. Jori may be precocious, but Brenda finds her obsession and infatuation with escaped child molester/murderer Clarence Frayne weird and disturbing. Brenda initially plays along with Jori’s scheme to capture Frayne in the cliffs and crevices of the Niagara Escarpment traversing their city of Hamilton, but comes to realize that Jori’s grasp of reality is no better than her mother’s.
The title of the story comes from astronomy, in which a brown dwarf is a celestial body much larger than a planet that lacks the requisite combustion to become a star. In detective fiction a brown dwarf is a dull, unassuming character whom no one suspects to be the criminal. Brenda sees her mother as the social equivalent of the astronomical brown dwarf, and fears she herself fits the fictional definition.
It took this reader fifty or so pages to get into this 143-page book. At first the intended target audience is unclear: Is it adult or juvenile fiction? And the fact that the story was about 12-year-old girls would normally be less than interesting to an adult male. But the reader with these doubts is in for a pleasant surprise. Brenda turns out to be a psychologically more complex character than the unhappy fat girl we meet in the novella’s opening chapters. This reviewer recommends Brown Dwarf to all readers, especially parents of tweens.
Reviewer David Cooper is the author of two poetry ebooks, Glued to the Sky and JFK: Lines of Fire (PulpBits, 2003), and the translator of Little Promises by Rachel Eshed (Mayapple Press, 2006). He also covers the New York Jewish culture beat for examiner.com.
Think back to your childhood friendships. Did you ever do or say anything that resulted in the death of a childhood friend? In K. D. Miller ‘s novella Brown Dwarf, just such a sense of culpability has haunted Toronto mystery writer and Hamilton, Ontario, native Rae Brand, neé Brenda Bray, ever since the death of her friend Jori Clement when they were twelve in 1962. The narration alternates between chapters entitled “Brenda” that are told in the third person about the twelve year old girl, and others entitled “Rae” that are addressed to Jori by the adult woman Brenda becomes.
Both girls are bookish, only children. Brenda’s mother Annie, a bigoted depressive prone to violent mood swings, is the widow of a bus driver who died when Brenda was eighteen months old. During her mother’s bouts of madness that Brenda calls “hurricanes,” Annie berates Brenda for being fat, but during her calmer days Annie pushes high caloric food in front of her daughter. Before Jori transferred from an elite private school to Brenda’s public school at the start of seventh grade, neither mother nor daughter had any friends. Even Annie’s mother, Thelma, will initially have nothing to do with her daughter and granddaughter because Annie was pregnant with Brenda just before she married her husband, Art.
Jori’s parents, an avuncular university professor and a brittle medicated faculty wife, are open-minded inquisitive liberals who treat their daughter almost as a peer. Jori mistakes Brenda’s social isolation at school for elitism and befriends her assuming she is a like-minded snob. One visit to the Clement home makes Brenda realize her mother’s lack of taste. Just as Brenda dominates and manipulates her parents, Jori is also the dominant partner in her friendship with Brenda.
Brenda is grateful for Jori’s friendship but resents her pretentiousness and is not entirely comfortable with their sexual experimentation; Jori is clueless to Brenda’s ambivalence. Jori may be precocious, but Brenda finds her obsession and infatuation with escaped child molester/murderer Clarence Frayne weird and disturbing. Brenda initially plays along with Jori’s scheme to capture Frayne in the cliffs and crevices of the Niagara Escarpment traversing their city of Hamilton, but comes to realize that Jori’s grasp of reality is no better than her mother’s.
The title of the story comes from astronomy, in which a brown dwarf is a celestial body much larger than a planet that lacks the requisite combustion to become a star. In detective fiction a brown dwarf is a dull, unassuming character whom no one suspects to be the criminal. Brenda sees her mother as the social equivalent of the astronomical brown dwarf, and fears she herself fits the fictional definition.
It took this reader fifty or so pages to get into this 143-page book. At first the intended target audience is unclear: Is it adult or juvenile fiction? And the fact that the story was about 12-year-old girls would normally be less than interesting to an adult male. But the reader with these doubts is in for a pleasant surprise. Brenda turns out to be a psychologically more complex character than the unhappy fat girl we meet in the novella’s opening chapters. This reviewer recommends Brown Dwarf to all readers, especially parents of tweens.
Reviewer David Cooper is the author of two poetry ebooks, Glued to the Sky and JFK: Lines of Fire (PulpBits, 2003), and the translator of Little Promises by Rachel Eshed (Mayapple Press, 2006). He also covers the New York Jewish culture beat for examiner.com.
Lights Out: Ten Myths About (and Real Solutions to) America’s Energy Crisis by Spencer Abraham with William Tucker
(St. Martin’s Press, July 6, 2010)
Spencer Abraham is the former U.S. Secretary of Energy who now serves as the chairman and CEO of the Abraham Group, an international business/strategic consulting firm. The book jacket is plastered with blurbs of praise from the former CEO of Ford, the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Director of JPL, and a former astronaut who is currently the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
This book is recommended reading for everyone and anyone, as the issues are important to every American. The book provides a good overview of the current U.S. energy policy (or lack of), but also contains one or two glaring absences and inconsistencies (which will be pointed out in this review).
Spencer Abraham was an interesting choice to serve as Secretary as Energy for George W. Bush, as when as senator he cosponsored a bill to eliminate the Energy cabinet post. He was appointed with the proviso that he had changed his mind on that issue, which he had (unlike Bush’s appointment to the UN, who actively sought while in office to diminish the UN). Spencer Abraham admits that “energy is a very complex topic,” but this book has been clearly and ably written.
Abraham is not shy with myth-busting as he believes the “propagation of these myths have proved fatal to the development of good energy policy.” The Ten Myths are provided to the reader in bold print on the first page of the first chapter of the book:
1. We can achieve energy independence.
2. If gas prices rise abruptly it must be due to an oil company conspiracy.
3. Global warming is a complete hoax
4. Nuclear plants are just as unsafe as they were at 3 Mile Island.
5. Renewable energy is universally popular and completely safe for the environment.
6. We are entering the age of natural gas that will follow the ages of coal and oil, and it will largely solve our energy problems.
7. Raising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards 30% will produce 30% reduction in oil consumption.
8. Electrical transmission lines cause cancer.
9. All you have to do is to choose the right energy technology and subsidize it.
10. All we need is a new Manhattan Project to solve our energy needs.
It would be impossible to cover everything but a few key points in this review. Myth #1, American oil peaked in 1970, when we produced 10 million barrels per day. World peak oil discovery happened in the 1960s, and peak production from conventional sources around the world occurred in 2006. Today we consume 14 million barrels per day and 60% of it is imported. It appears that we can’t replace oil in U.S. as an important source of energy for the foreseeable future. Even if we drill-baby-drilled in Alaska, there might be only two years’ worth of oil there (at 1M barrels/day).
As to Myth #2, The price of oil today matches the rate of inflation, and as to oil company conspiracies, Abraham admits that at the time of California’s power outages, he hadn’t followed the goings on at Enron as well as he should, which negates the busting of this particular myth.
As to Myth #3, Abraham believes in science, which put him (quietly) on the opposite side of the president who appointed him.
For Myth #4, his claim is that science and technology have advanced well beyond the events of 3 Mile Island in 1979; that half of our current fleet of 104 working nuclear plants had been completed after 1979.
In regards to Myth #5, the claim is that for any renewable source, there can be found a lobbyist squarely against it. For example, wind mills produce an annoying hum, can cause death to birds and bats that fly into them, and alter scenery to the worse whether placed on mountain ridges or off the coast.
Myth #6, LNG exploitation is in its early stages; natural gas is better for cooking or heating than for replacing coal. Gas turbines that produce 20% of our energy are 39% of our capability. Gas turbines are mainly used for peak power as they are easy to start and stop but expensive to run. And anyway it’s too soon to tell as estimates tend to be optimistic. Are there 60 years worth of LNG or only 15 years?
In Myth #7, auto mileage improvements only reduce the rate of energy consumption, but will never reduce the total amount used. If miles per gallon improve, people will simply travel more. (Abraham does not address the role of public transportation in reducing oil consumption, a serious oversight.)
Myth #8 has long been argued as flawed by science. But to explain the reason why, Abraham does not mention science’s explanation, the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, perhaps because that would counter his argument favoring greater numbers of nuclear plants.
Myths #9 and #10 are based on the limits of science. There is no clear-cut technology winner to back, and the Manhattan Project was a feat of engineering, not science. “There is no game-changing source of power waiting around the corner.”
For future policy, Abraham proposes a mix of energy sources, what he calls the 30-30-30 plan. 30% renewable, 30% nuclear and 30% clean coal plus LNG by 2030.
Abraham addresses each element of the 30-30-30 plan in turn. Today, only about 3% of our energy needs come from renewable sources—and the unanswered question is how to grow renewables from 3% to 30% (except by additional funding for research). The current sources for renewables come from solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, tides, and hydrogen (maybe). There are immense obstacles to increasing the amount of energy from these sources in a short period of time. Hydroelectric can’t be really expanded (6% of U.S. total energy) as most every useable location has already been dammed. Ethanol has been shown by recent attempts to scale up to be not terribly effective as an energy substitute. The problem with wind and sun is that these sources are intermittent, and efficient storage of electrical energy on the large scale remains an open problem in science. Mechanical storage has been solved, for example, by raising and lowering water levels in a reservoir, but this solution suffers from NIMBY, Not In My Backyard.
And what of CO2 in the environment? The amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere are as high today as they were 650,000 years ago, the data coming from ice samples from Greenland. That there is a need to reduce our carbon footprint, reduces the likelihood of licensing new coal fired plants. The point of the cap-and-trade policy was to take the paying for carbon sequestration out of the hands of the government (through taxation) and placing the responsibility into the hands of the pollution producers. Costs would then be paid for indirectly (by you and me in increased prices). Cap-and-trade failed politically due to the uncertainty in effectiveness of “offsets.” Offsets allows a carbon polluter to offset pollution rather then remove it directly by paying someone else to do the carbon sequestration, for example by planting trees. Are carbon emissions produced by coal plants in Europe offset by planting trees in Africa? Is the whole concept a shell game? No one knows, and cap-and-trade as a policy goes into political limbo.
Abraham claims the only way to reduce greenhouse gasses effectively is to transition from coal to nuclear power. Nuclear power currently provides approximately 20% of U.S. energy needs, but no new licenses have been given since 1980. Abraham wants to grow the number of nuclear plants by 50% (50 new plants in 20 years) and in exchange reduce the equivalent number of (dirty) coal-fired plants. The issue unaddressed is that 50 new nuclear plants have to be placed somewhere, into someone’s back yard. But what about nuclear waste? The proposal to house nuclear wastes at Yucca flats is in political limbo. Abraham then puts his foot in his mouth in arguing that there is no such thing as nuclear waste by defining “waste” as something else, a manner of semantics that might remind the reader of a different politician’s parsing of the word “is.”
Note that oil being more problematic is not addressed at all in the 30-30-30 plan, and further on Abraham addresses the difficulties inherent in the politics of oil, but does not offer any solution. In fact the problems related to oil are worse than they appear, there have been no new oil refineries build in the U.S. since the 1970s, and the bottlenecks to increasing the U.S. energy supply have been as much in infrastructure, that is, new refineries and transmission lines as much as they have been in maintaining or growing the oil supply.
Cracking shale for oil has shown 10% growth per year since 2006, but there is a question as to how long these reserves will hold out, ranging between 15 and 65 years. Coal contains contaminants that include sulfur and mercury. There have been attempts to bring power plants in line with environmental regulation to remove these contaminants before they get into the environment. Old facilities are grandfathered in and do not have to follow new regulation, while new plants must fully comply. Repairs of old plants thus become a judgment call. If the cost to repair an old plant is high, the facility would be considered a new plant after repair and full regulation would apply. So rather than upgrade, utilities instead skimp on repair. We all know where that tactic can get us. One new technology towards clean coal is coal gasification. Clean coal, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) converts coal to methane and the pollutants come out of the process. IGCC is still in its infancy, and methane does still produce greenhouse gasses.
The biggest threat to U.S. energy use is the law of supply and demand. Economic growth is tied to affordable energy. That is why there is continual pressure to: drill in U.S. oil reserves, drill in protected nature areas in the Rockies and Alaska (ANWR—Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge), drill off the Gulf coast (where a significant portion of our seafood comes from), and in deep water, and other counter-productive tactics. But more drilling is not the long-term answer.
Oil is not a domestic issue but a geopolitical one. The dominant issue to date has been oil as import. Global energy demand is expected to increase much of which will go to India and China who will be competing with the U.S. We do get much of our natural gas from Canada and Mexico, but there are problems with transport, and their energy supplies are also up for global competition.
The two major questions to be asked are: “Does the amount of oil we import really matter?” and “Does it matter from whom?” The big risk is what would happen if the control of oil fell into unfriendly hands, (the prevention of which causing two wars with Iraq). Related to this is the fear of terrorist attack that can be used to drive up prices. As for cartels, OPEC may be a force for good or for evil depending on your point of view. Their intent is to produce market stability but they do this by manipulating the price (by varying the amount of oil they produce). If the U.S. begs for their help to reduce prices (by pumping more oil) this only increases our political debt, helping maintain their decidedly non-democratic regimes and increases the percentage we import.
Abraham also takes the time to point fingers and assign blame why not much has changed in U.S. energy policy in the past 30 years. Basically Americans are in a political stalemate of various inconsistent opinions. It is easier to do nothing, to complain and suffer the consequences than to do something and suffer the consequences. One problem with U.S. politics (and probably any government’s politics) is that it takes a crisis to get any attention at all. Abraham states, “When oil hit $145 per barrel, I remember thinking how absurd it was that we were once concerned about $30-a-barrel oil.” And concerns shifts from the environment to “drill-baby-drill” sound bytes.
The problem more or less is how to balance the concerns of U.S. energy needs, the environment and costs, and how to achieve this balance through energy policy. As to the policy itself, which energy resources to conserve and which to exploit, which technologies to use and which refrain from using, one needs to be able to predict the impact of any choice over time—which is near impossible. Simply raising taxes on energy use will certainly reduce consumption, but raising them will hurt the poorest first, and raising taxes are never the popular choice in politics. And to which technology will the tax dollars go?
And so we continue to have an inconsistent policy with no traction. Everyone should be concerned. As difficult as our choices are today, they will be more difficult tomorrow. At some point there will be no room to maneuver.
Reviewer Robert Schaefer is a Research Engineer at MIT Haystack Observatory.
Spencer Abraham is the former U.S. Secretary of Energy who now serves as the chairman and CEO of the Abraham Group, an international business/strategic consulting firm. The book jacket is plastered with blurbs of praise from the former CEO of Ford, the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Director of JPL, and a former astronaut who is currently the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
This book is recommended reading for everyone and anyone, as the issues are important to every American. The book provides a good overview of the current U.S. energy policy (or lack of), but also contains one or two glaring absences and inconsistencies (which will be pointed out in this review).
Spencer Abraham was an interesting choice to serve as Secretary as Energy for George W. Bush, as when as senator he cosponsored a bill to eliminate the Energy cabinet post. He was appointed with the proviso that he had changed his mind on that issue, which he had (unlike Bush’s appointment to the UN, who actively sought while in office to diminish the UN). Spencer Abraham admits that “energy is a very complex topic,” but this book has been clearly and ably written.
Abraham is not shy with myth-busting as he believes the “propagation of these myths have proved fatal to the development of good energy policy.” The Ten Myths are provided to the reader in bold print on the first page of the first chapter of the book:
1. We can achieve energy independence.
2. If gas prices rise abruptly it must be due to an oil company conspiracy.
3. Global warming is a complete hoax
4. Nuclear plants are just as unsafe as they were at 3 Mile Island.
5. Renewable energy is universally popular and completely safe for the environment.
6. We are entering the age of natural gas that will follow the ages of coal and oil, and it will largely solve our energy problems.
7. Raising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards 30% will produce 30% reduction in oil consumption.
8. Electrical transmission lines cause cancer.
9. All you have to do is to choose the right energy technology and subsidize it.
10. All we need is a new Manhattan Project to solve our energy needs.
It would be impossible to cover everything but a few key points in this review. Myth #1, American oil peaked in 1970, when we produced 10 million barrels per day. World peak oil discovery happened in the 1960s, and peak production from conventional sources around the world occurred in 2006. Today we consume 14 million barrels per day and 60% of it is imported. It appears that we can’t replace oil in U.S. as an important source of energy for the foreseeable future. Even if we drill-baby-drilled in Alaska, there might be only two years’ worth of oil there (at 1M barrels/day).
As to Myth #2, The price of oil today matches the rate of inflation, and as to oil company conspiracies, Abraham admits that at the time of California’s power outages, he hadn’t followed the goings on at Enron as well as he should, which negates the busting of this particular myth.
As to Myth #3, Abraham believes in science, which put him (quietly) on the opposite side of the president who appointed him.
For Myth #4, his claim is that science and technology have advanced well beyond the events of 3 Mile Island in 1979; that half of our current fleet of 104 working nuclear plants had been completed after 1979.
In regards to Myth #5, the claim is that for any renewable source, there can be found a lobbyist squarely against it. For example, wind mills produce an annoying hum, can cause death to birds and bats that fly into them, and alter scenery to the worse whether placed on mountain ridges or off the coast.
Myth #6, LNG exploitation is in its early stages; natural gas is better for cooking or heating than for replacing coal. Gas turbines that produce 20% of our energy are 39% of our capability. Gas turbines are mainly used for peak power as they are easy to start and stop but expensive to run. And anyway it’s too soon to tell as estimates tend to be optimistic. Are there 60 years worth of LNG or only 15 years?
In Myth #7, auto mileage improvements only reduce the rate of energy consumption, but will never reduce the total amount used. If miles per gallon improve, people will simply travel more. (Abraham does not address the role of public transportation in reducing oil consumption, a serious oversight.)
Myth #8 has long been argued as flawed by science. But to explain the reason why, Abraham does not mention science’s explanation, the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, perhaps because that would counter his argument favoring greater numbers of nuclear plants.
Myths #9 and #10 are based on the limits of science. There is no clear-cut technology winner to back, and the Manhattan Project was a feat of engineering, not science. “There is no game-changing source of power waiting around the corner.”
For future policy, Abraham proposes a mix of energy sources, what he calls the 30-30-30 plan. 30% renewable, 30% nuclear and 30% clean coal plus LNG by 2030.
Abraham addresses each element of the 30-30-30 plan in turn. Today, only about 3% of our energy needs come from renewable sources—and the unanswered question is how to grow renewables from 3% to 30% (except by additional funding for research). The current sources for renewables come from solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, tides, and hydrogen (maybe). There are immense obstacles to increasing the amount of energy from these sources in a short period of time. Hydroelectric can’t be really expanded (6% of U.S. total energy) as most every useable location has already been dammed. Ethanol has been shown by recent attempts to scale up to be not terribly effective as an energy substitute. The problem with wind and sun is that these sources are intermittent, and efficient storage of electrical energy on the large scale remains an open problem in science. Mechanical storage has been solved, for example, by raising and lowering water levels in a reservoir, but this solution suffers from NIMBY, Not In My Backyard.
And what of CO2 in the environment? The amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere are as high today as they were 650,000 years ago, the data coming from ice samples from Greenland. That there is a need to reduce our carbon footprint, reduces the likelihood of licensing new coal fired plants. The point of the cap-and-trade policy was to take the paying for carbon sequestration out of the hands of the government (through taxation) and placing the responsibility into the hands of the pollution producers. Costs would then be paid for indirectly (by you and me in increased prices). Cap-and-trade failed politically due to the uncertainty in effectiveness of “offsets.” Offsets allows a carbon polluter to offset pollution rather then remove it directly by paying someone else to do the carbon sequestration, for example by planting trees. Are carbon emissions produced by coal plants in Europe offset by planting trees in Africa? Is the whole concept a shell game? No one knows, and cap-and-trade as a policy goes into political limbo.
Abraham claims the only way to reduce greenhouse gasses effectively is to transition from coal to nuclear power. Nuclear power currently provides approximately 20% of U.S. energy needs, but no new licenses have been given since 1980. Abraham wants to grow the number of nuclear plants by 50% (50 new plants in 20 years) and in exchange reduce the equivalent number of (dirty) coal-fired plants. The issue unaddressed is that 50 new nuclear plants have to be placed somewhere, into someone’s back yard. But what about nuclear waste? The proposal to house nuclear wastes at Yucca flats is in political limbo. Abraham then puts his foot in his mouth in arguing that there is no such thing as nuclear waste by defining “waste” as something else, a manner of semantics that might remind the reader of a different politician’s parsing of the word “is.”
Note that oil being more problematic is not addressed at all in the 30-30-30 plan, and further on Abraham addresses the difficulties inherent in the politics of oil, but does not offer any solution. In fact the problems related to oil are worse than they appear, there have been no new oil refineries build in the U.S. since the 1970s, and the bottlenecks to increasing the U.S. energy supply have been as much in infrastructure, that is, new refineries and transmission lines as much as they have been in maintaining or growing the oil supply.
Cracking shale for oil has shown 10% growth per year since 2006, but there is a question as to how long these reserves will hold out, ranging between 15 and 65 years. Coal contains contaminants that include sulfur and mercury. There have been attempts to bring power plants in line with environmental regulation to remove these contaminants before they get into the environment. Old facilities are grandfathered in and do not have to follow new regulation, while new plants must fully comply. Repairs of old plants thus become a judgment call. If the cost to repair an old plant is high, the facility would be considered a new plant after repair and full regulation would apply. So rather than upgrade, utilities instead skimp on repair. We all know where that tactic can get us. One new technology towards clean coal is coal gasification. Clean coal, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) converts coal to methane and the pollutants come out of the process. IGCC is still in its infancy, and methane does still produce greenhouse gasses.
The biggest threat to U.S. energy use is the law of supply and demand. Economic growth is tied to affordable energy. That is why there is continual pressure to: drill in U.S. oil reserves, drill in protected nature areas in the Rockies and Alaska (ANWR—Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge), drill off the Gulf coast (where a significant portion of our seafood comes from), and in deep water, and other counter-productive tactics. But more drilling is not the long-term answer.
Oil is not a domestic issue but a geopolitical one. The dominant issue to date has been oil as import. Global energy demand is expected to increase much of which will go to India and China who will be competing with the U.S. We do get much of our natural gas from Canada and Mexico, but there are problems with transport, and their energy supplies are also up for global competition.
The two major questions to be asked are: “Does the amount of oil we import really matter?” and “Does it matter from whom?” The big risk is what would happen if the control of oil fell into unfriendly hands, (the prevention of which causing two wars with Iraq). Related to this is the fear of terrorist attack that can be used to drive up prices. As for cartels, OPEC may be a force for good or for evil depending on your point of view. Their intent is to produce market stability but they do this by manipulating the price (by varying the amount of oil they produce). If the U.S. begs for their help to reduce prices (by pumping more oil) this only increases our political debt, helping maintain their decidedly non-democratic regimes and increases the percentage we import.
Abraham also takes the time to point fingers and assign blame why not much has changed in U.S. energy policy in the past 30 years. Basically Americans are in a political stalemate of various inconsistent opinions. It is easier to do nothing, to complain and suffer the consequences than to do something and suffer the consequences. One problem with U.S. politics (and probably any government’s politics) is that it takes a crisis to get any attention at all. Abraham states, “When oil hit $145 per barrel, I remember thinking how absurd it was that we were once concerned about $30-a-barrel oil.” And concerns shifts from the environment to “drill-baby-drill” sound bytes.
The problem more or less is how to balance the concerns of U.S. energy needs, the environment and costs, and how to achieve this balance through energy policy. As to the policy itself, which energy resources to conserve and which to exploit, which technologies to use and which refrain from using, one needs to be able to predict the impact of any choice over time—which is near impossible. Simply raising taxes on energy use will certainly reduce consumption, but raising them will hurt the poorest first, and raising taxes are never the popular choice in politics. And to which technology will the tax dollars go?
And so we continue to have an inconsistent policy with no traction. Everyone should be concerned. As difficult as our choices are today, they will be more difficult tomorrow. At some point there will be no room to maneuver.
Reviewer Robert Schaefer is a Research Engineer at MIT Haystack Observatory.
Freeing the Breath: Health, Relaxation and Clarity Through Better Breathing by Leslie Kaminoff [Audiobook]
(Sounds True, July 28, 2010)
What happens when humans breathe? When we inhale, do we pull or push the breath? Neither! When humans breathe, air is pushed into the body by atmospheric weight. What we do is create space for the atmosphere to fill. Although the breath is automatic, it follows, and is affected by, physical and psychological patterns in life. In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff presents two sessions (about two and a half hours) of guided practice for better breathing.
Both sessions are introduced with brief and pleasant background music. Then Kaminoff’s clear, steady voice delivers concepts to guide the exploration of the breath and the body as a whole. He offers simple, understandable explanations of breathing anatomy, brain actions, and the Sanskrit yoga terms he uses. He gives easy-to-follow instructions in movement and self-observation, and encourages the listener to discover and explore their own pace of practice. He repeats instructions when appropriate and allows plenty of time for the listener to experience the practices.
First, Kaminoff discusses the fundamental life forces of prana and apana (inhalation and exhalation), how they support the intake of nutrition and the expulsion of waste, and how they relate to sukha (permeability, ease) and stira (stability) in the cells and the body. He begins the breath exercises with an observation of the path of the breath in the body.
Next, he explains the body’s breathing patterns. Kaminoff defines breathing as shape change in the abdominal and thoracic cavities. He illustrates how the abdomen (like a water balloon) has a flexible shape, and the thorax (like an accordion) changes shape and volume, shifting the pressure of the air in and out of the body. Exercises continue, illustrating three-dimensional breath in the body: top to bottom, into the sides, into the front and back of the body.
The listener begins to learn that the primary purpose in breath training is not to control or master the breath, but to uncover learned patterns that interfere in the body and in life. Becoming conscious of habits, some learned in infancy, is essential in freeing the body to respond appropriately now.
In session one, numerous exercises continue, boosting one’s ability to observe the movement of the breath in the body. The exercises begin with simple awareness and gradually add various postures, movements, visualizations, and breath manipulations from the abdomen or throat. One learns to notice how the body, breath, mind and emotion respond to each other. According to Kaminoff, it’s all about reduction of effort. Less work plus more relaxation equals better breathing, and better breathing can break patterns of tension in the body.
Session two incorporates exercises from session one into several guided practices done in seated, standing, and reclining positions, according to the time of day, and in relation to what one will do following the practices. For example, if one practices at bedtime, one might start in a standing posture, transition to sitting, and conclude in a reclining posture. Body alignments for all postures, and focal points for gazing, are well instructed.
In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff teaches not only breath consciousness and training, but the importance of letting the breath flow freely and naturally, uncontrolled. He suggests the experience of being at an ocean shore, enjoying the sound of the waves’ rhythms without controlling them. Likewise, one can let the breath go, wait, feel the body’s need for air, and allow the inhalation to arise again on its own. It happens differently with each breath in each individual.
In stressful situations, one tends to hold the breath. Instead, one should remember to breathe! This awareness can be taken successfully into the workplace, the home, or into relationships with others. For example: when the phone rings, when there is a repetitive task or a contentious person to deal with, one can become aware of the breath, take another breath, and then respond. One can practice a simple visualization or movement with the breath, as a way to transform the quality of a relationship in a stressful moment. Noticing the breath, and remembering to breathe, can improve eating patterns, too.
Everyone has a choice in their relationship with prana, the fundamental life force. Freeing the Breath is highly recommended for those who seek a greater sense of well being and want to take the first steps toward better breathing for better health.
Reviewer Birgit W. Patty is proprietor of Apex Yogic Living in Apex, NC. She is a perpetual yoga student and a certified Integral Yoga teacher.
What happens when humans breathe? When we inhale, do we pull or push the breath? Neither! When humans breathe, air is pushed into the body by atmospheric weight. What we do is create space for the atmosphere to fill. Although the breath is automatic, it follows, and is affected by, physical and psychological patterns in life. In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff presents two sessions (about two and a half hours) of guided practice for better breathing.
Both sessions are introduced with brief and pleasant background music. Then Kaminoff’s clear, steady voice delivers concepts to guide the exploration of the breath and the body as a whole. He offers simple, understandable explanations of breathing anatomy, brain actions, and the Sanskrit yoga terms he uses. He gives easy-to-follow instructions in movement and self-observation, and encourages the listener to discover and explore their own pace of practice. He repeats instructions when appropriate and allows plenty of time for the listener to experience the practices.
First, Kaminoff discusses the fundamental life forces of prana and apana (inhalation and exhalation), how they support the intake of nutrition and the expulsion of waste, and how they relate to sukha (permeability, ease) and stira (stability) in the cells and the body. He begins the breath exercises with an observation of the path of the breath in the body.
Next, he explains the body’s breathing patterns. Kaminoff defines breathing as shape change in the abdominal and thoracic cavities. He illustrates how the abdomen (like a water balloon) has a flexible shape, and the thorax (like an accordion) changes shape and volume, shifting the pressure of the air in and out of the body. Exercises continue, illustrating three-dimensional breath in the body: top to bottom, into the sides, into the front and back of the body.
The listener begins to learn that the primary purpose in breath training is not to control or master the breath, but to uncover learned patterns that interfere in the body and in life. Becoming conscious of habits, some learned in infancy, is essential in freeing the body to respond appropriately now.
In session one, numerous exercises continue, boosting one’s ability to observe the movement of the breath in the body. The exercises begin with simple awareness and gradually add various postures, movements, visualizations, and breath manipulations from the abdomen or throat. One learns to notice how the body, breath, mind and emotion respond to each other. According to Kaminoff, it’s all about reduction of effort. Less work plus more relaxation equals better breathing, and better breathing can break patterns of tension in the body.
Session two incorporates exercises from session one into several guided practices done in seated, standing, and reclining positions, according to the time of day, and in relation to what one will do following the practices. For example, if one practices at bedtime, one might start in a standing posture, transition to sitting, and conclude in a reclining posture. Body alignments for all postures, and focal points for gazing, are well instructed.
In Freeing the Breath, Kaminoff teaches not only breath consciousness and training, but the importance of letting the breath flow freely and naturally, uncontrolled. He suggests the experience of being at an ocean shore, enjoying the sound of the waves’ rhythms without controlling them. Likewise, one can let the breath go, wait, feel the body’s need for air, and allow the inhalation to arise again on its own. It happens differently with each breath in each individual.
In stressful situations, one tends to hold the breath. Instead, one should remember to breathe! This awareness can be taken successfully into the workplace, the home, or into relationships with others. For example: when the phone rings, when there is a repetitive task or a contentious person to deal with, one can become aware of the breath, take another breath, and then respond. One can practice a simple visualization or movement with the breath, as a way to transform the quality of a relationship in a stressful moment. Noticing the breath, and remembering to breathe, can improve eating patterns, too.
Everyone has a choice in their relationship with prana, the fundamental life force. Freeing the Breath is highly recommended for those who seek a greater sense of well being and want to take the first steps toward better breathing for better health.
Reviewer Birgit W. Patty is proprietor of Apex Yogic Living in Apex, NC. She is a perpetual yoga student and a certified Integral Yoga teacher.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Complexion Perfection by Kate Somerville
(Hay House, March 15, 2010)
Complexion Perfection offers a fair amount of useful information for people who are interested in making their skin look better. Not a dermatologist but a paramedical esthetician, Somerville shares her years of experience helping people of all skin types achieve healthier, more beautiful-looking skin.
In the introduction, the author begins by relating events from her childhood and her ordeal dealing with severe eczema while growing up. In the story she stresses the relationship between a positive mental attitude and healthy skin, and talks a bit about the dangers of stress. The reader learns how the author grew from an insecure young girl to a successful esthetician and owner of a popular clinic sought out by celebrities.
The core of Somerville’s method rests on her Skin Pyramid, which consists of protecting, hydrating, stimulating, feeding, and detoxing the skin as a way of achieving a healthy complexion. The author describes various skin problems such as Sun Damage, Melasma, Pigmentation, Acne, Scarring, Redness, Rosacea, and Aging, and proceeds to offer helpful advice on how to address these issues.
Daily skin care includes the right diet (food and supplements) as well as adequate treatments for the skin. The treatments range from laser/light to injectables to pharmaceutical products to professional peels. Though most of these treatments are too expensive for the average person, Somerville states that there’s something for every budget. Particularly informative is the section on ingredients found in different products, what to look for and what to avoid depending on one’s skin type. Toward the end of the book there are many before-and-after photos highlighting the various skin types and issues mentioned.
Complexion Perfection is written in an engaging, interesting style. The prose is light and straightforward, making this book an easy read. The author’s approach is encouraging and motivational, giving the reader the feeling that healthy skin is accessible to everyone who follows her advice, tips, and suggestions. This reviewer particularly enjoyed the chapter on diet and supplements, as well as the author’s list of top 15 beneficial foods for the skin. Readers interested in how to improve their complexion will find this book useful.
Reviewer Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She’s had over 300 stories, articles, interviews, and reviews published.
Complexion Perfection offers a fair amount of useful information for people who are interested in making their skin look better. Not a dermatologist but a paramedical esthetician, Somerville shares her years of experience helping people of all skin types achieve healthier, more beautiful-looking skin.
In the introduction, the author begins by relating events from her childhood and her ordeal dealing with severe eczema while growing up. In the story she stresses the relationship between a positive mental attitude and healthy skin, and talks a bit about the dangers of stress. The reader learns how the author grew from an insecure young girl to a successful esthetician and owner of a popular clinic sought out by celebrities.
The core of Somerville’s method rests on her Skin Pyramid, which consists of protecting, hydrating, stimulating, feeding, and detoxing the skin as a way of achieving a healthy complexion. The author describes various skin problems such as Sun Damage, Melasma, Pigmentation, Acne, Scarring, Redness, Rosacea, and Aging, and proceeds to offer helpful advice on how to address these issues.
Daily skin care includes the right diet (food and supplements) as well as adequate treatments for the skin. The treatments range from laser/light to injectables to pharmaceutical products to professional peels. Though most of these treatments are too expensive for the average person, Somerville states that there’s something for every budget. Particularly informative is the section on ingredients found in different products, what to look for and what to avoid depending on one’s skin type. Toward the end of the book there are many before-and-after photos highlighting the various skin types and issues mentioned.
Complexion Perfection is written in an engaging, interesting style. The prose is light and straightforward, making this book an easy read. The author’s approach is encouraging and motivational, giving the reader the feeling that healthy skin is accessible to everyone who follows her advice, tips, and suggestions. This reviewer particularly enjoyed the chapter on diet and supplements, as well as the author’s list of top 15 beneficial foods for the skin. Readers interested in how to improve their complexion will find this book useful.
Reviewer Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She’s had over 300 stories, articles, interviews, and reviews published.
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