Sunday Blog Edition

It has been a good week here, beginning on Sunday, when Matt McLennan reviewed, from Verso's Revolutions series, Simon Bolivar and the Bolivarian Revolution, and Jason Smith discussed the origins of sustained growth. On Monday, Jose Saramago called the Bible a manual of bad morals. Tuesday I posted a reading list, and on Thursday I reviewed Roberto Bolano's The Skating Rink. It's actually the first review I've ever written about a work of fiction. Then, later that afternoon Matt shockingly revealed that his mom is reading Alain Badiou's The Century. Which is a worthy read in my humble opinion.

Finally, on Friday, I posted my first lecture on Schelling. I can't say how the class felt about it, but they now know what speculative philosophy is like. The second part will be up on Tuesday.

Until then, it's time for the Sunday review. This week is a special edition, dedicated to the blogs I read. To tell you the truth, it's not that many, and they don't usually talk about book reviews. One is the Tao of Stieb (written by a friend of mine), which is dedicated to all things Toronto Blue Jays, (and I'm no Jays fan...) and the other is Doc Nagel's All-new Life and Times. Doc is currently a prof at CSU Stanislaus, and he directed an independent study for a few of us, many years ago, about Hegel. I don't know what happened to the other two students, but something tells me that they didn't write their dissertations on German idealism. I also read Verso's blog to keep up on the news about their books. Here's a link to each:

• Doc Nagel talks the politics of CSU Stanislaus, and that public universities are a good thing.
  
• Tao of Stieb, from a few months ago, talking about the depressing state of baseball journalism. It includes a damn cool photo.
• And Verso discussing how their sales have increased 33% in the first half of 2009. Part of their success is attributable to books like this one.
• Occasionally, I also look at the Ottawa Film Review.
• And, one review: David Hadju reviews R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis in the New York Times, even if the last paragraph reveals how Hadju misunderstands Crumb.
  

And, what is more important, is I want to know what other people are reading. Let me know in the comments.

Sunday on Thanksgiving Weekend

This week was a bit slower here at the Notes Taken. I dug up a review of Guy Debord's Panegyric, we talked Nobel Prizes, and went book shopping. Next week, I will have a new reading list, and hopefully a few new contributions from a few new writers.

If you can only read one piece today (it is, up north, Canadian Thanksgiving), read James Bamford's piece on the National Security Agency. You might want to know just why:

Based on the NSA's history of often being on the wrong end of a surprise and a tendency to mistakenly get the country into, rather than out of, wars, it seems to have a rather disastrous cost-benefit ratio.

If you liked my piece on brains, belief and religion, you might want to read Nicholas Wade's review of Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth. However, I must admit that the NYT reviews have been leaving me indifferent lately. Wade does a bit of quarreling with Dawkins' about the meaning of theory, and concludes that Dawkins is dogmatic in tone if not substance, but I can't exactly say that's news.

Finally, and I'm testing who is reading these days, we are one step closer to one of my friend's desire to see a Dodgers/Angels World Series. I almost thought I would see some more recent schadenfreude-posts, but I guess things are professional over there.