Monday, October 26, 2009

“Aaron Gross: Jonathan Safran Foer's Controversial New Book, Eating ... - AlterNet” plus 3 more

“Aaron Gross: Jonathan Safran Foer's Controversial New Book, Eating ... - AlterNet” plus 3 more

Aaron Gross: Jonathan Safran Foer's Controversial New Book, Eating ... - AlterNet

Posted: 26 Oct 2009 08:35 AM PDT

The Most Important Conversation in Our Lifetimes Might Just Begin with Jonathan Safran Foer's Latest Book

Over the next weeks Huffington Post will feature a diverse range of responses to Jonathan Safran Foer's controversial new work of non-fiction, Eating Animals. But these aren't your usual book reviews. They are the start of a conversation that some powerful people in agribusiness would rather we not have.

Imagine that tomorrow scientists report that a single action, something that most of us do every day, was discovered to be the leading human cause of global warming. And one of the top two or three causes of every other major environmental problem at the local and global level. Even more, this same action appears to have been a decisive factor in the development of the H1N1 "swine flu" and continues to stimulate the growth of pathogens resistant to antimicrobial drugs. Imagine further that this action causes billions of farmed animals annually to suffer in ways that virtually all Americans say should be illegal. And, finally, that this action has lead to the decimation of American farm communities from North Carolina to central California.

This is real. It is happening. And all these facts about the effects of eating factory farmed animals are thoroughly documented in Foer's new book.

Eating Animals is part personal journey, part modern muckraking and...

Click here to read the entire article...

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Zagat to Go '09 for iPhone - Industry Standard

Posted: 26 Oct 2009 08:00 AM PDT

For years, consumers have turned to the familiar red covers of the Zagat family of books for honest, practical reviews of local restaurants, nightlife hot spots, shops and hotels. Zagat To Go '09 for the iPhone updates the familiar Zagat reviews for the iPhone generation. You'll feel like a local with trustworthy reviews at the ready in your pocket.

The reviews in Zagat To Go '09 are familiar to anyone that has opened a Zagat review book. Reviews feature the famous Zagat 30 point rating system and a paragraph description of the establishment that often includes several short quotes in an easy-to-read style. Most reviews also include a phone number, street address, hours and the names of all lists ("Best Buys" or "Outdoor Dining" for example) upon which the establishment appears in the directory.

Developed by Handmark, Zagat To Go '09 includes reviews of restaurants, hotels, and more for most major metropolitan areas and even some "getaway" destinations like Martha's Vineyard and Palm Beach. A full list of included metropolitan and getaway areas may be found on the Zagat Website or on the Zagat To Go '09 page at the iTunes app store. Note that the cost of a paperback guide for just one city exceeds the $10 cost of the multi-city iPhone guide.

Let's say you're traveling up the East Coast this fall with stops in New York City; Mystic, Conn., and Boston. You've done a bit of preliminary research on restaurants in each area but are still unsure where you want to go until you get there. As you leave, you install Zagat To Go '09 on your iPhone. One of the best features about the app is how it uses your iPhone's location awareness feature. You can access reviews for eateries in your current location or some faraway location with a simple tap of a button on an options screen. As you grow closer to New York, you can read reviews on restaurants and shops in each neighborhood in the Big Apple. If you want to change the location to Mystic for a quick peek at restaurants along the Connecticut shoreline, you can do that, too.

To increase or decrease the number of reviews you see, you can change the "radius" from 1/2 of a mile to 50 miles from your current location. You can also filter reviews by a number of different criteria including food, decor and cost for restaurants and rooms, service and facilities for hotels. You can also filter reviews with keyword searches, type of establishment or by overall rating.

Zagat To Go '09 is a must-own application for any traveler or anyone interested in finding the top rated restaurants and shops in their area or any area. If you're looking for a great out of the way place or the hottest new spot in town, Zagat To Go '09 makes finding that information both easy and enjoyable.

[Brendan Wilhide is a frequent contributor to Macworld. He covers athletes and the sports industry on Twitter at Sportsin140.com.]

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Foxophobia, Triskaidekaphobia – Fickle Phantasms from the White ... - Reality Check

Posted: 26 Oct 2009 08:21 AM PDT

Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, and while it may seem silly to some then we discover friggatriskaidekaphobia which is fear of Friday the 13th. Superstitious, silly perhaps, but some people are stricken with real trepidation over them both. Here comes Foxophobia, what is a nation to do?

President Obama's persistence in singling Fox News out for scoffing and scolding has generated more disbelief than relief for most Americans. It is hard for anyone to imagine a President using the advantage of the office of the President to single out any one individual, corporation, state or even other nations who were not known to be our mortal enemies. It is unprecedented but it is also un-presidential according to anyone's assessment of protocol.

The diagnosis modern psychiatry has used to explain phobias in general is that they are repressed anger. Some would say that the President is not fearful of Fox but he is angry with them for doggedly opposing almost all of his policies. To the rest of America the question is silly. We don't care which came first, the chicken or the egg, we do care that the President seems to be whining.

We know the brave young soldiers overwhelmed by insurgents in Afghanistan are very angry with the enemy that wants to kill them. Do they have a phobia that needs diagnosis? You could say they fear that they will be killed while the President dilly dallies with Fox and leaves them in the lurch without reinforcements. Is it unreasonable to think that Obama's anger at Fox is misdirected even as our troops have the anger of a vicious enemy directed squarely at them?

At the moment freedom of speech is still constitutional and the President will have to suffer the consequences of that. Fox still has a constitutional right to investigate and report what they find to the public. He doesn't have to like it but we can give him the same advice the networks give us when we complain about the trash they offer for programming and the mire and muck we are afraid our kids might see: shut it off!

Most Americans cringe when their freedom of speech is questioned, curtailed or outright denied because it is the only way to get to the truth of a matter. If we are all required to speak only the 'party line' then we might want to stop calling it 'the main stream media' or even the 'old media' as some are now saying and rename it Pravda. Didn't that already fail?

It is because of freedom of speech that we now know what Acorn has been doing with taxpayer's money. It is the means by which we see that Obama's unconstitutionally appointed czars have ideas and plans for America that read like the dark passages of Sartre. It is the reason we are given a chance to compare the findings of the budget office against the absurd projections of the Obama administration on the cost of health care. It is the reason that news organizations like Fox will always be listened to, loved and depended upon to break out the other side of the story. Fox is clearly the offspring of the constitution not an unwanted stepchild of the present administration and those who love the truth will never see it any other way.

Dare we say 'grow up Mr. President?' Yes we dare and in fact it may be long overdue. We tend not to trust the media that say Palin is a loop de-loop but are delighted with Michelle's use of the Hula Hoop. We don't think the regulatory czar's idea of abolishing marriage is a reasonable answer to the question of protecting the sanctity of marriage and we don't mind one bit that news outlets like Fox are warning us that your czar's have these kinds of ideas. We welcome it.

We weren't always labeled as republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives we were once referred to only as Americans. We suspect that when our constitution was framed that was foremost in the minds of the framers.

We believed this through two centuries of history, two major wars and countless fears and calamities and we still believe it today. We welcome Fox into our homes daily because they remind us of this, we are Americans not socialists, health care reform rebels or Obama policy haters; we are still only Americans. We are no more ashamed of that than we are of Fox news and we are saddened to hear that you are.

We don't want our sons to fall in the streets of some foreign land and we don't want truth to come under siege and fall in the streets at home. "And judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. (Isaiah 59:14) We want to go to any source we can find for the truth not just those pre-approved by the present administration.

http://www.americanprophet.org is the place for news, articles, movie and book reviews and other insights for life. Rev Bresciani is a columnist for online and print publications and has over three million readers and counting.

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Book Reviews - Daily News

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 04:21 PM PDT

October 21, 2009

Katherine Hall Page, creator of the Faith Fairchild series, has another delicious mystery with a poignant Christmas theme in her latest work, "The Body in the Sleigh" (William Morrow, 256 pages). Caterer Faith Fairchild has had a difficult autumn. Her husband, Tom, suffered an acute attack of pancreatitis triggered by gallstones. After his release from the hospital, the couple decide to spend Christmas recuperating and, hopefully, relaxing at their cottage on Sanpere Island in Maine. But their dreams of a Merry Christmas are quickly dashed when Faith discovers the body of a young girl in an old sleigh that is part of the holiday decorations in front of the island's Historical Society. The girl appears to have overdosed on heroin, but the staged scene suggests foul play. The mystery is a nice twist on the Nativity Story, complete with a child found in a manger on Christmas Eve. In the Biblical story, the lowly shepherds are the first to adore the Christ Child.

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