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Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, by Jerry Mander
Neil Postman presents one good argument as to why television is not the bestthing since sliced bread. Mander presents four, developped at greater length. There is less of a lively pace, and the argument gets weird some of the time, but it still produces thought-provoking and serious arguments as to why television should be eliminated. Among the excellent comments may be found, "The programming is the packaging; the advertising is the content." If you watch more than an hour of TV a week, take half an hour of your regular TV time and devote it to reading this book.
45 Effective Ways or Hiring Smart! How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game, by Pierre Mornell, et al. (Author has also written another excellent title, for job hunters: Games Companies Play)
Written for people who hire others, this is a book on how to read people. It seems to me to do a good job of living up to its rather large title.
Foundations of Cognitive Science, ed. Michael A. Posner
This is my favorite textbook; it presents an interdisciplinary field, cognitive science, and is fascinating reading.
Galileo, Science, and the Church, by Jerome J. Langford
I make it a personal rule not to reccommend a book I haven't read, and this book justifies breaking that rule.
I, and I suspect you, have heard in science classes a moral fable about a heroic natural philosopher named Galileo who was martyred by the evil, oppressive, and censorious Church. It is a beautiful story -- showing, as well as any morality play, that being a scientist is good, and the Church and its concept of orthodoxy are demonspawn (sentiments that are echoed in, for example, the Oxford Companion to Philosophy having an entry for persecution of philosophers, but no reference to persecution by philosophers -- not the faintest reference to the bloodbath that culminated the siecle des lumieres with cleaning ladies and eight year old children guillotined as much as clergy and statesmen, with patriots standing at the foot of the guillotine to be sprayed by the blood of the unfortunates and then eat their still living flesh; nor any reference to the hundred million lives lost, and the blood that has flowed like a river every single time people have taken Marx's philosophy as a good basis for a political order). But the Galileo fable has no connection with fact.
Among other points may be mentioned that Galileo scientifically produced garbage -- no experimental data and no particularly good interpretation of those results -- that Galileo was friends of the Pope but alienated him and made a number of enemies by being a jerk, and that Galileo was preceded in his heliocentrism by nearly half a century, and that by a cardinal. The only reason the story is told is as part of the process of brainwashing people to worship science and despise the Church.
The Game (movie)
Q: What do the following three things have in common?
A: They all share something with The Game, and the effect in that movie is stunning.
Gather (hymnal)
This is a lively, modern hymnal of the sort that achieves several dishonorable mentions in Why Catholics Can't Sing. That stated, it has a number of songs that I cherish and that were new to me, including "Canticle of the Sun," "Gather us in," and "The City of God."
This is the songbook used by Koinonia at the Newman Foundation at the University of Illinois, and for that reason I cherish it -- I purchased a copy when I had almost no money, just to be able to have those songs. I used a few of its songs to improvise on in my second recorded tape.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher et al.
This is, as far as I know, the best book for dealing with conflicts where another party and you can't yet agree on something. I don't think that this is the substance of life, but conflicts are bound to happen, and knowing this book will be immeasurably helpful in dealing with some conflicts.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas E. Hofstadter.
This book is one of the most stunning displays of intellectual fireworks I have read. It relates art, music, stories, and mathematics, along with wit, witticism, and clever dialogues. It started out as a little pamphlet, and Hofstadter soon realized he was writing more than just a pamphlet explanation of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis
This is just a great book, useful for nurturing the reader in Christian wisdom -- and one of the most beautiful I've ever read. I got a lot more out of this than out of the parts of La Divina Commedia that I've read.
Guiding the Gifted Child: A Practical Source for Parents and Teachers, by James T. Webb et al.
Being very smart does not just mean more of the same kind of intelligence most people possess; it means possessing a different kind of mind. When I first read this book, it seemed to me to be part of the cult of giftedness; my estimation has since changed to recognizing a special needs population, with its strengths and weaknesses, and providing insight into things such as an unusual sense of humor and special moral concerns.
Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, by Peter Kreeft
Hebrews catalogues what a few giants of faith did, and then says (11:13-16, RSV):
These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Christians have historically placed a major emphasis on Heaven and the hope that is there, and today Orthodox believers give a high place to bringing Heaven down to earth. For beauty's sake, I wish to quote another passage, one that is very close to my heart (Rev. 22:1-5):
Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Kreeft's book could as well be entitled, "Heaven: The Heart's True Home." I consider it to probably be the most profound and one of the most beautiful books on this list, and would deeply recommend it. It both speaks of Heaven -- the sort of reason why, on a young adult retreat where a getting-to-know-you question was "If you could visit one place, where would it be?", I answered in perfect seriousness, "Heaven," giving not a physical 'where', but an infinitely greater spiritual 'where'. It also tells how to listen with your heart -- something very, very important in life.
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Jonathan's Canon
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