Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers

I read this book in its entirety last night, which means I found it pretty compelling. I've read Malcolm Gladwell's two previous books, Blink and the Tipping Point, and I liked both of them and the author's manner of presenting scholarly research in a rich, vibrant style with lots of anecdotes and personalized stories. This book takes a look at what factors determine wild success stories, as well as the role of culture as it impacts success in certain endeavors. His chapter on why Asians succeed in math was especially fascinating. There were a few dull sections, and some of the conclusions about education I think are way removed from the real world, but overall this is a fantastic read.

Stuff for sale

I have some dvd box sets for sale. All original of course, all in excellent condition. Email me at turbittj@yahoo.com if interested:

The Wire Complete Season One $35
The Shield Complete Season One $20
24 Complete Seasons One and Two $20 each
NYPD Blue Complete Season One $15
Entourage Complete Seasons One, Two, Three Part 1 $40 for the three sets

Also I have Polanski's The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby, as well as the original Halloween from John Carpenter. Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, Secret Agent and the Lady Vanishes, all on one disk. Each of the four are $5 a piece.

I have a Digitech BP 200 Bass Effects Processor for sale. While this is designed for bass and that is of course its ideal purpose, I'm sure a guitarist could get some cool sounds and use from it as well. $95

I have a small army of books to go. I think I played a small role in the revitilization of Amazon stock in the last five years. I'll call them $5 each. Check Amazon for the summaries.

Armed Madhouse, Godzilla versus Bambi: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Into the Wild, Hey Joe, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes, Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond, Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs, Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria, Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, Classic French Cooking, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, The Education of a Coach, Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help from Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live, The Mad Dog 100: The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Psychology for Dummies, Year 501: The Conquest Continues, The Schools We Need And Why We Don't Have Them, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics, Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the '90s, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies, So What: The Life of Miles Davis, Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef, The Best and the Brightest, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, Practical Pentatonics: An Introduction to Pentatonic Patterns, Theory & Usage, The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation, Walden, Fatland: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, Ugly Americans: True Story of Two Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivilized, Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, Bush at War, State of Denial, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, The Scuba Diver's Travel Companion, Grammar the Easy Way.

Random Musings

Today I turn 35, or as I like to call it, the 14th anniversary of my 21st birthday. I remember turning 30 like it was yesterday, and fretting about that, but now I'm closer to 40 than 30. I think you are taken a bit more serious post 30, so it hasn't been bad at all. I've got a lot of things at 35 I didn't have at 30: a wife, two kids, a graduate degree, six years experience as a teacher, an apartment with an oceanview and a greater wealth of life experiences. I'd like to get published in a major publication, put together a short standup routine and perform it in a comedy club and drop about 20 pounds, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with life right now.

There are a few good signs about a change in political attitude that are very encouraging. The Democratic Party chairman came out in support of the increase in minimum wage. Jesse Santos from Kagman spoke out against the fight against the minimum wage. Tina Sablan's manifesto laid bare many points that needed to be made, and those people had island names, which I think helps. I'm optimistic somebody like Angelo, who is becoming a real island leader if he isn't already, is smart and social enough to improve this place dramatically.

I recently read the Tipping Point from Malcolm Gladwell, and the book is about how a small group, or even one person, can start a trend that has major implications. Part of this is the broken window theory of crime, used in New York, which says small violations of crime send a message of lawlessness that spreads to worse crime.

I can sense that the Beautify CNMI movement might tip, and the volunteers and the goals might spread rapidly. In fact, I've been so moved, I'm getting off my butt and I'll be helping out as well on the next clean up. I'm going to also find a way to enlist some students as well as my family. On the negative side, I was off island three weeks and went for a walk on the Oleai Beach Path and there is an enormous amount of graffitti in that area all of a sudden. Now that it is there, I would expect it to get worse unless it is cleaned up quickly. There are some people who are not getting the message.

I saw a similar group of hoodlums at the post office the other night trying to get money from the stamp machine, and generally hanging out inside there. I'm sure nothing good was on their minds. In addition, these kids were way too young to be left alone. Between the awful food selections, the messing around with fireworks at too young an age (one of my students lost use of his eye this way), the general lack of supervision and another awful phenomenon: parents discouraging and sometimes flat out preventing their high school graduate children from going off to college, I feel there is a lot of bad parenting in the CNMI. It is very hard for me not to call up the parents and lay into them when one of my seniors tells me mom or dad doesn't want them to go to college and won't let them leave the island. Yes, technically they can't stop them, but few 18 year olds are capable of defying mom and dad to that degree.

Spanking the Donkey

Matt Taibbi is about the best political writer to come along in a long while. He is funny, honest and most importantly, devoid of kneepads. No one captures the phoniness and spinelessness of the political media, and the politicians they cover, better than this guy. I've heard the Hunter Thompson comparisons, but I tend to think of Taibbi as more of a modern Mencken type without the snobbery, racism and ethnocentrism. Maybe the scariest part of what I see in these reviews here on Amazon, and society at large, is the fact that people feel obligated to label Taibbi a "liberal" -- as if that were some type of disease to be avoided at all costs. Liberal basically means free thinking, and looking to change things. Who wouldn’t want to think freely and change this sham system of ours? If liberal is so bad, then please stop reading and go buy another new Ipod, watch more TV, eat more McDonalds and go practice your cheerleading stunts before your brain accidentally shifts into second gear.

It is also amazing to me that so few people are unable to see through the charade of the media and the political process. Taibbi is part of the literate minority that seems to wonder, and try to understand, why so many people are so easily duped into ideological agreement, and vehement support of, a system that mostly serves a connected, corporate elite that rapes the average person’s pocket and exploits their patriotism. He shows how the media, far from being an honest broker, lets this happen in the cases of the shamefully dishonest reporting on the pre-Iraq invasion protests and the candidacy, and utter dismissal of, a sensible, serious guy like Dennis Kucinich. Taibbi's book cuts through all that nonsense, and even tries to understand the uncritical, sycophantic majority that make up my estranged fellow Americans. As long as these shifty candidates continue to get elected by offering enough platitudes on God, guns and gays, expect more of this Bush style parade and rule of the mediocre. I would urge the educated, bewildered, free-thinking minority to take a few hours of refuge in a book like Spanking the Donkey