Ernie The Attorney

Kindle update (minor problems, amazing realization)

Well, my Kindle had a small problem. The other day it ceased waking up from sleep. The only solution was to flip the little guy over on its back, remove the battery cover, and reset it with a paper clip. I had to do this every time it went into sleep mode.

Not cool, obviously.

I called Amazon support and they walked me through some steps and then concluded the device needed replacing. They sent me another one, which arrived today. After charging it I fired it up, and it took a few minutes to find the wireless connection. Then I registered it to my account. But, it had no books on it, even though I had bought a bunch already.

Turns out it was easy to get the books I had already ordered to 'come back' to my new Kindle: all I had to do was go to the "Content Manager" and select the books I wanted to re-download and, bada bing!, there they were. And the best part? When I opened each book it was exactly where I was when I was reading it before. In other words, the books you download are not only kept on Amazon (in case you need to re-download them) but Amazon also keeps track of where you were in the book the last time you were reading it.

I knew that they kept your bookmarks and highlights backed up, but I didn't realize they kept your place in the book backed up too. That means if your Kindle was ever lost or stolen, you could get a new one and replace all your books (for free) and open each one to the page where you last were. Nice.

I'm really glad my Kindle is back up and running. In the short period I've had it I've come to realize that it's not something I can easily live without. I'm reading a lot more, and more easily. The Kindle is now available for immediate shipment (i.e. no long waits anymore). If you like to read books then you should definitely get a Kindle; you'll be glad you did, especially if you read a lot while traveling.

Fundamentalism & Religious Delusion

Richard Dawkins' excellent bookThe God Delusion is currently #12 on the NY Times best-seller list for paperback non-fiction. Dawkins is a scientist and wants to let people know that it's okay to be an atheist, despite strong resistance to the idea of questioning religious faith. His criticism of religious beliefs is polite and thoughtful, but of course that does not appease the faithful. The 'faithful' might also be called 'fundamentalists.'

What's a fundamentalist? Someone who looks at all new information to see if it matches their beliefs (or principles) and ignores that which doesn't match. The more extreme fundamentalists don't simply ignore the information, they become agitated. And really extreme fundamentalists have been known to attack. So offering new ideas can be harmful to your health. Especially if religion is involved. Just ask Galileo.

And where isn't religion involved? Even today, it's everywhere—even in places that seem implausible. Two hundred years ago our founders created a Constitution demanding the complete separation of church and state, but today practical reality tilts in precisely the opposite direction. Polls show that most Americans will elect only those political leaders who believe in God. Dawkins' is not running for U.S. President, but he has an important message: it's okay, sensible even, to question things that are unsupported by evidence. And he thinks that there isn't any meaningful evidence of God's existence.

Perhaps, though, he misunderstands the essence of religious faith.

The nice thing about a belief in God is that it offers us comfort and security. Who cares if it's provable? If it provides security then it must be a good thing. Non-fundamentalists, such as Dawkins, question even this proposition:

Then there is the security created by man in the idea of God. Many people ask me whether I believe in God, whether there is a God. You cannot discuss it. Most of our conceptions of God, of reality, of truth, are merely speculative imitations. Therefore, they are utterly false, and all our religions are based on such falsitites. A man who has lived all his life in a prison can only speculate about freedom; a man who has never experienced the ecstasy of freedom cannot know freedom. So it is of little avail to discuss God, truth; but if you have the intelligence, the intensity to destroy the barriers around you then you will know for yourself the fulfillment of life. You will no longer be a slave in a social or religious system.

By the way, the above words weren't written by Richard Dawkins, the scientist. They were spoken by J. Krishnamurti, a supremely spiritual man. His message was also that people should examine things for themselves, without preconceptions or conceptualizations. To him, this was the essence of spirituality.

Krishnamurti didn't want any followers, but he wound up having some, and still does. You don't hear much about them because they don't attract attention. They haven't started any wars, or persecuted people whose views they disagree with. Maybe they're deeply examining the world around them, which distracts them from the noble task of foisting views on others.

But back to Dawkins' book. Why is it called The God Delusion? It has to do with what the writer Robert Pirsig once observed: "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."

Amen to that, Brother Pirsig. Amen.

Kindle - preliminary review

My Kindle arrived safely on Monday, and I've had a chance to start using it so I thought I'd post some preliminary comments.

Initial use
The device is easy to use, but it does require charging on first use. I charged it for about 2 hours and then started playing with it. The Kindle is lightweight and comfortable to hold, although the much-discussed problem of accidentally hitting either the Next Page or Last Page buttons did occur. I'm sure that Amazon will fix this in the next version, but I quickly got used to learning how to handle the device and now I rarely have the problem, which is only a minor inconvenience.

Downloading and reading
Downloading books takes about 30 seconds, max. I started by downloading some sample chapters, which is free. The ability to turn pages with a press of the finger is much better than flipping pages in a book (not something you can easily do with one hand, much less one finger). The text is easy to read, although at first it takes some getting used to. After one day I no longer noticed the 'digital page turn.' I love how easy it is to move from page to page, and the way the text looks. So, at this point I'm completely sold on using the Kindle as a way of reading that is in almost every way superior to ordinary books.

Buying books, magazines and newspapers
The wireless feature of the Kindle makes buying books ridiculously simple. I immediately went on a spree and bought a couple of books. If you've reached the end of one of the free sample chapters you are prompted to purchase if if you want. I downloaded a copy of Stephen King's On Writing after reading the sample chapter, a book I never would have bought if I hadn't gotten drawn into it.

I subscribed to two magazines and a couple of newspapers too, using the 14 day free trial option. Every day at 3 am (so I'm told) the NY Times is wirelessly delivered to the device. When I pick it up at around 7:00 am the paper is there ready to read. I had been reading the NY Times online using my laptop for free. So how is it different on the Kindle? Well, the screen is black & white so there are no fancy photos, in fact no photos at all. But, there are no ads either and reading articles is much less distracting. I find myself reading more articles, more quickly on the Kindle than on my computer. So the next question is would I pay the monthly fee ($14) for the New York Times? I don't know, but I'm tempted. Individual editions can be bought as well, so maybe I'll just buy the Sunday edition every once in awhile. I subscribed to the trial edition of The Atlantic, and since that's only $1.25 per month I may get that magazine.

Miscellaneous observations
I love the ability to bop from book to book (or newspaper or magazine) and return to find myself in the exact same place I was when I left off. I decided to renew my effort to read the Bible from time to time because of this feature. I downloaded a King James version for about $2.50. Sweet.

Because it's easy to store lots of books on the device I can see myself putting reference books on it. I also tested the feature that lets you email yourself a document that you want on the device. I had a book that was in PDF form that I wanted to move over. The Kindle doesn't read PDFs, at least not yet. So I converted the PDF to a Word document and emailed it to my special Kindle email address. About 3 minutes later it showed up in the Kindle and was formatted perfectly. Bing!

The Kindle's battery lasts for 2 days without recharging if you leave the wireless feature turned on. If you leave it unattended it goes to sleep. When the sleep mode kicks in the device generates a screensaver picture (apparently there are many stored in the device). Some of the screensavers are pretty interesting, i.e., pictures of famous artists or architectural wonders.

Traveling with the Kindle will be a joy. No longer will I struggle to decide what books or magazines I want to stuff into my backpack. I can take hundreds of books and magazines, and snag more on a whim from the invisible internet connection.

Conclusions
Overall I'm completely sold on the Kindle. From the time I was a kid I had always read a lot of books, but for some reason it became harder to do after law school. Encountering the Kindle is a lot like when I first tried an iPod. I sense that I'll be reading a lot more books, and enjoying reading a lot more because it's so convenient. I've heard some people criticize the Kindle, but most of the criticism focused on the appearance or the user-interface (which obviously can be improved). I read books for the word contained in them, and when I'm absorbed in reading I don't notice the book itself which is exactly the same experience I get with the Kindle. As more titles become available for the Kindle it will continue to find more happy customers. Since most "Kindle books" are at least 50% less expensive than their paper counterparts I predict that the device will have paid for itself in less than a year.

Inside the Supreme Court - A Great Book

I just finished Jeffrey Toobin's book about the Supreme Court, called The Nine. Wow! What an unexpected treat. If you're a lawyer you have to read this book, and if you're not a lawyer but just interested in government then you should read the book too. But, for now let me speak to the lawyers in the audience.

The book follows the shift of the court from the Reagan era forward, showing how it is now on the verge of completing a shift to ultra-conservatism. But the presentation is made interesting by its discussion of key cases that were decided in the past decade—e.g Bush v. Gore and other important constitutional cases. Toobin weaves in, at appropriate points, detailed profiles of each of the Justices. And his examination of the Justices is very personal and touching, or at least for most part. He explains how Sandra Day O'Connor became more centrist than conservative, and how Anthony Kennedy developed an interest in international law (and how that influenced his judicial outlook). David Souter is a quiet man who eschews all use of technology (doesn't use computers or TVs, and doesn't have a cellphone) and yet he was the author of the Grokster opinion on file-sharing.

Reading this book is like taking a CLE course in Constitutional Law, except that it's presented in a highly engaging way. Toobin went to Harvard Law School, so it's no surprise that he's adept at explaining the nuances of the law. If you want to see an interview he did recently at Google check this out.

Here comes my Kindle

I just got word from Amazon that my Kindle is being shipped and will arrive next Monday. I'm very excited. I would have ordered this e-book reader long before now but, for some reason, I was put off by poor reviews that some bloggers offered. I keep forgetting that most product reviews are formulaic (e.g. point out the most obvious flaws in order to appear knowledgeable, when in fact the reviewer is just lazy). Blogger reviews are often no better. The exception are reviews by folks who've actually used the product for a fair amount of time, preferably a blogger who isn't an attention hound.

So called micro-celebrity Robert Scoble lambasted the Kindle because, among other things, it didn't have any social networking features. He also said the user-interface 'sucked.' As I've mentioned before, I think that Scoble's reviews are built for speed, not thoughtfulness. I don't care what the device looks like (yes, it's ugly) and don't want to use it to expand the reach of my online reputation. I just want to read text like I do when I open a book. I don't need the device to be revolutionary, just functional. Still, the Kindle represents a major shift in e-books.

Here's what's revolutionary about the Kindle: It has built-in EVDO, which is a high speed cellphone network wireless system. This means you can download books pretty much anywhere that you can get Sprint cellphone access. And why is this important? Well, if you are riding the subway and decide you wan to read a book that you just saw on the NY Times best seller list you can download it in about 30 seconds. Or let's say you want to subscribe to the New York Times paper every day. The Kindle will automatically get download it at 3 am so that when you wake up it's already on the device. No matter where you are (e.g. at home or in a hotel room). And while one would normally pay a stiff per monthly charge for EVDO access, Amazon builds that charge into the price of the Kindle.

Nice.

The device has internal storage that allows you to store about 200 books. And it remembers where you are in each book, so if you are reading more than one book at a time (which I often do) it's easy to switch back and forth. Or at least I'm assuming it's easy. Perhaps it won't, but Scoble's review didn't cover that so I don't know for sure.

If you want to store more than 200 books, you can add external memory. And if for some reason you delete a book from the device you can re-download it from Amazon. They keep track of what you buy and you can always access it again from them in the future. Apple iTunes doesn't let you do that with the .99 cent songs you buy, so I give Amazon credit for doing this.

And the books that you purchase for download are typically only $9.99. Granted the selection of Kindle books is not as vast as the ordinary selection from Amazon, but that will change over time. Can you imagine being able to carry hundreds of books on a device that only weighs 10 ounces? I can and I can't wait to experience the reality of it. I would love to pare down my library to just a few really treasured books (e.g. reference books and certain keepsake volumes). I'd love to be able to take a trip and have all my reading material on one small portable reading unit, and it would be even better if I could have travel guides loaded onto it.

No, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to like the Kindle. True, if the user-interface is cumbersome that will be disappointing. But as long as it works reasonably well then the benefits will outweigh the detriments. The only thing that would be a deal killer is if the thing was completely unreliable—like Windows Vista, for example. Otherwise, I expect to be very pleased.

Either way, I'll post my observations after I've used it for a fair amount of time.

(Incidentally, when you order the Kindle they say it may take 6 weeks. If mine arrives on Monday that will be a delay of less than 4 weeks. And they didn't charge my credit card until it shipped).

Rethinking libraries

Sudden and monumental change serves a purpose, or at least it should. In the aftermath of such change we shouldn't unthinkingly rebuild things back the way they were. We should pause to consider what unique advantages have surfaced. We should consider if certain foundational assumptions need to be abandoned altogether in order to create a more lasting foundation.

Last Saturday I drove my son out to St. Bernard where he and 1,000 other college kids were spending their spring break rebuilding houses at the Habitat Camp Hope project. The drive was bleak. There were a few spots of commerce, improbable little strip malls amidst miles of forsaken houses. My eyes brightened when I saw a small white trailer with a sign that proclaimed the presence of a public library. And yet it was a simple little trailer. What kind of library could be housed in such a structure?

As I drove closer I saw a large sign outside of the library: "FREE WIRELESS INTERNET". For the past few days I've been thinking about the strange implications of this simple little sign.

St. Bernard was completely inundated by floodwaters from Katrina. And the people of St. Bernard are not folks who spend a lot of money on technology. You won't see any Starbucks out there, that's for sure. Home Depot has a store the size of the Pentagon, and beyond that it's just little mom and pop stuff. The most exotic business I saw was a Planet Beach tanning salon. I guess that's why I was intrigued by the library Wi-Fi sign. It seems like if you live in St. Bernard and want to use some free wifi you have to go to the library (well Camp Hope, where my son stayed with the 1,000 college students, has free wifi too).

Today, the Times Picayune has an article about a new $650 million 'Library Master Plan' for the city. The story doesn't say anything about wireless internet. Perhaps that is an oversight by the author. Then again maybe there is a larger oversight. Maybe wireless internet isn't part of the new master plan at all. Of course, the libraries of the future aren't all about wireless internet access.

So what should they be about?

Here's how a progressive Northwest city envisioned this question:

"Seattle's public library...was designed to be a downtown hangout, with something for everyone, as if you crossed Starbucks with a mega bookstore." FN1

In other words, the idea was to use the library as a community gathering place. Wow! What a great idea. Needless to say, an idea like that isn't borne by thinking of libraries in a traditional way. It was borne by asking fundamental questions:

Why do so many people hang out in large bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble? Why do people go to Starbucks to hangout? What kind of architecture is conducive to hanging out in public places?

The folks who are rebuilding New Orleans' public libraries are about to spend a lot of money. I hope that they have asked these questions, and that their vision includes some novel thinking. If they haven't then I suggest they start by reading Mutating Libraries by Jenny Levine, a forward-thinking librarian who references a Slate slideshow entitled: Borrowed Time: How do you build a public library in the age of Google? Ms. Levine takes some issue with a statement by Ross Dawson that libraries will extinct by 2019, but she agrees that " libraries are about a lot more than just books or study carrels," which is why she believes that "there’s room for things like gaming in today’s library."

I wish that Jenny Levine had been in charge of our library project because then I wouldn't have to wonder whether we were acting with the proper vision. Somehow I fear we are not.

FN1: Quote is from the 7th slide in the Borrowed Time slideshow.

Michael Lewis & The Great Gazoo

A few weeks ago I finished reading Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side, a book that starts quickly with a rapid-fire account of the 4.5 second play that ended Joe Theismann’s NFL career.  Theismann, you may or may not recall, was brutally smacked from behind by defensive end Lawrence Taylor.  Most people remember only the gruesome image of Theismann’s leg bone being snapped.   Football is a strange sport, Lewis observes, in that none of the players ever sees more than a narrow slice of action.  In football, as in other pursuits, what you can’t see can truly hurt you.   Few of us ever get a wide-angle view of circumstances, and only someone like Lewis can connect the dots to create a bunch of fascinating social observations. 

In addition to an aerial view of the evolution of football tactics, Lewis also provides an up close look at the improbable life of a 350 pound black teenager named Michael Oher.   His mom was a crack addict and he was homeless and illiterate, until his wayward path collided with that of a wealthy Memphis businessman named Sean Tuohy.  Long before it was discovered that Oher possessed the rare qualities needed to protect an NFL quarterback’s blind side, the Tuohys had essentially adopted him into their family.  An all out college recruiting war ensued but, in the end, Oher decided to attend Ole Miss (where Sean Tuohy had been a standout basketball player).  Getting Michael Oher into college was a miraculous achievement.  But it also turned out to be a problem, as Lewis reveals:

“If the Tuohys were Ole Miss boosters—and they most certainly were—they had violated every letter of every NCAA rule ever written.  They’d given Michael more than food, clothing and shelter.  They’d given him a life.”

And so the NCAA was called upon to investigate.  In contrast to the book’s fast-paced opening, chapter eight begins with monotonous formality:

“This is Joyce Thompson, assistant director or Enforcement at the NCAA. There are other individuals in the room at this time and I would like them to state their names for the record.” 

The only ‘other individuals' present were Sean Tuohy and Michael Oher.  Yet Lewis was able to provide an amazingly detailed account of the NCAA woman’s interrogation, filled with the same tension created when Jack Nicholson was cross-examined in A Few Good Men.  How did he do it?

The day after I read that passage I was having dinner with my friend Constance, and our conversation turned (as it invariably does when we are together) to the subject of great writing. I described the interrogation scene and explained that I was baffled by how Lewis could have made a rote NCAA investigation seem so exciting.  Naturally, we both agreed, he had taken poetic license (“art is the lie that helps us realize the truth” and all).  But a vexing question remained: How much license does someone like Lewis feel entitled to take?  I told Constance that I’d love to have the chance to ask him that question.

The next day Becky told me that the Tennessee Williams Festival was being advertised in the local paper.  My unenthusiastic reaction prompted her to also mention that Michael Lewis would be at the festival.  I immediately went online and authorized the festival promoters to deduct $32 from my bank account. On the appointed day I rode my scooter along Magazine street, then up Decatur, until I came upon a little maroon car that was creeping slowly as though the lone occupant was taking some kind of meticulous inventory.  I then spotted the bumper sticker that read: “I brake for historical markers.” 

Ah, New Orleans. So many small things to keep me smirking.

I applied my own brakes a few minutes later, parking on a sidewalk along Toulouse Street (great things, those scooters!).   I made my way to the hotel headquarters and along the way bumped into Rachel, who was also going to hear Lewis.  In the hotel lobby I came upon a registration desk for the “Electrical Apparatus Service Association.” I smirked my way over to the other registration desk, where I was issued a ticket and directed to The Historic New Orleans Collection on Royal Street.  That’s where Michael Lewis was to be interviewed by a fellow named Michael Sartisky.  Rachel and I found each other and took seats in the fourth row.

The hour passed quickly.  Lewis was charming, engaging, and witty as he explained why he was repeatedly drawn to the subject of societal disruption.  First, he said, it’s easier to analyze culture from the vantage point of pronounced change, just as it’s easier to discuss paintings in comparison to other paintings.  He downplayed his great talent by suggesting that he was motivated by laziness and indifference as much as by curiosity.  He said when he was young his father would make him recite the family credo: “do as little as possible, and that unwillingly.  For it is better to suffer a slight reprimand than to perform an arduous task.”

Asked if he planned to write a book about New Orleans and the Katrina debacle, he confessed to being intrigued by the possibility. But he was unable to offer any notion as to what he might say, because the story he would be best suited to tell—if there was one—might elude him. 

A Katrina based study of New Orleans would certainly allow him to highlight the strange virtues of a city that many outsiders seem to misunderstand.  But, as much as I admire Lewis’ magical abilities, it’s obvious that a story about our city’s overlooked value is not at all like a story about the Oakland Athletics or Michael Oher.  The Athletics’ value can be measured in the indisputable metric of ‘games won.’  Michael Oher’s exact value will be determined at some point in the future, but still has a calculable present value (some sports agents estimate he will earn $50 million dollars during his NFL career). New Orleans has value, but certainly not the kind that can be confirmed mathematically. How does one explain the value of New Orleans to a righteous person living in, say, Kansas City?  For starters, you’d have somehow distract their attention from the well-publicized rants of Mayor Ray Nagin, or Bill Jefferson's cash-filled freezer.

When the question-and-answer time came, I had to face the fact that mine was too unwieldy for the setting.  Rachel, however, had a nice compact question: she asked whether the prospect of writing a book about New Orleans might bring him back to live here again.  He said yes. Obviously Lewis loves this place and wants to help free it from the metaphorical wheel rut it’s been in for several decades.  He downplayed one questioner’s insistence that New Orleans is hampered primarily by political corruption.   The real villain, he said, is political ineptitude. 

Katrina provided us with a unique opportunity, but we didn’t have the right leadership in place when tragedy struck.   And, thanks to post-diluvian voter ignorance, the inept are still on the job. So are some crooks, but they too are mostly inept.   A devilish grin appeared as Lewis suggested Edwin Edwards would have been up to dealing with Katrina, even though he would have “stolen a good deal of money.”  I was sure I’d hear a guffaw from at least one genteel audience member, but no one disagreed.  In fact, someone gleefully recalled the popular bumper sticker that surfaced when Edwards faced a runoff with neo-Nazi David Duke: Vote for the Crook: it’s important.

Indeed.  If only Edwards had been able to sense the oncoming federal investigation that ultimately landed him in jail our current prospects might be better.  (Joe Theismann, Louisiana feels your pain).

When the interview was over Rachel and I made our way through the courtyard and down the street.  We agreed that it’d be wonderful if Lewis returned to New Orleans.  Could he offset the PR disaster created by Nagin and Jefferson?  Perhaps not, but it’d be nice to have him around for moral support.  Rachel walked away and I hopped aboard my scooter and strapped on my helmet.  I put the key in ignition and then realized I needed to listen to my voicemail messages.  As I pressed the cell phone to my ear, I spotted a lone figure making his way up the street.   

Michael Lewis was approaching. And so, it seemed, was an awkward last-chance opportunity to present my question.   As he reached me I became starkly aware that I looked more like a paranoid kook than a harmless bookworm.  But my unquenchable curiosity was greater than my fear of embarrassment and so I went ahead and engaged him. Amazingly, he was quite willing to speak. (A unique opportunity I suppose, to finally meet the Great Gazoo).

I told him that that I enjoyed his talk and offered a brief reminiscence about Isidore Newman –the prominent school from which he had graduated in 1979 and from which I’d been sternly asked to leave after barely making it through Fourth Grade.

At this point I faced a dilemma.  If I began to remove my ungainly headgear he would naturally worry that a slight exchange of pleasantries would become the arduous task his father had warned him about.  And, yet, the only reason I had embarrassed myself up to this point was to learn the elusive secret of literary license.  I told him I had one quick question that I had wanted to ask, and he politely remained in place.

I referenced the confrontation scene and then proceeded to state the obvious assumptions.  “I know you didn’t interview the NCAA investigator, and I know that neither Michael Oher nor Sean Tuohy could have provided you with the detail you provided us in the book. So...how’d you do it?” 

I braced myself to receive The Secret Method Of A Great Writer.  He smiled quickly and said “I was there when the interview happened,” conveying utter amazement.  “I sat through the whole thing, and she had absolutely no idea who I was.” I stood there, completely astonished by an obvious answer that I wasn’t at all expecting to hear.  And so, with a burning mystery now safely behind me, I thanked him for his time and we parted ways.  I'd been blindsided, but not seriously injured.

Although I did have a rather large smirk on my face.

Wanna be an Internet Media Mogul?

Steve Martin's early bit on how to be a millionaire and not pay taxes was goofy, but simple: "First, get a million dollars.  Then when the IRS comes and asks why you didn't pay taxes, repeat these two words: 'I forgot.'"  Nowadays, everyone is trying to figure out how to make money off the Internet.  YouTube got paid 1.6 Billion by Google.  How does this make sense?  Or, even if it doesn't: how can I do the same thing?

I've been wondering about this a lot, but then I came across this great blog post by Andy Kessler, which thoroughly explains the new media world.  Here's his ridiculously simple advice:

Want to be a Mogul? Think out all the free services never thought possible without lots of broadband and pieces you can pick and choose from to build it and you are on the right track.

Sound familiar?  It's good advice, but I'm not sure how valuable it really is.  Still, I have to say that Andy Kessler's blog post is a 'must-read.'  Definitely chock-full of value.

By the way, I'm also reading his excellent book, The End of Medicine: How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor, which explains the economics of the $1.8 Trillion dollar medical industry.  Kessler seeks the answer to a provocative question: how will the force of technological development revolutionize medicine?  Not surprisingly, he doesn't focus exclusively on the wizardry of technology, examining also the counter-vailing forces of political bureacracy and insurance-industry venality.  Here are some things I learned by reading the book:

• 70% of health care spending goes to treat chronic disease
• 5% of Medicare patients (the most ill) account for 47% of Medicare expense

I also learned that I don't really want to eat snowpeas anymore.

Book Recommendation - The Anonymous Lawyer

Jeremy Blachman's new book, The Anonymous Lawyer, is friggin' hysterical.  If you don't laugh out loud when reading this book then you (1) haven't been in the legal profession long enough to get jaded, or (2) you are only pretending to read the book while thinking about something else (i.e., why you ever agreed to become an associate in a 500 lawyer firm).

Seriously, if you have a sense of humor and an interest in the law, then get this book and read it.  But read it somewhere that you don't mind making a complete fool out of yourself as you snort and chuckle.  Last warning: you won't be able to put it down so don't bring it with you to work.

Shel Israel's new book

My friends Shel Israel and Robert Scoble have just released their new book, Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way Businesses talk with Customers.  It's available on Amazon, but the best thing to do is to follow the link from the Naked Conversations blog if you can.  Shel interviewed me and I think that interview survived the final edits, but either way it's a great book about how blogging is helping businesses.

Book Recommendation - Crimes Against Logic

I can’t recommend this book enough.  Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte seeks to ‘expose the bogus arguments of politicians, priests, journalists and other serial offenders.’  Mr. White lives in London, teaches philosophy at Cambridge, and is greatly disturbed by the shoddy reasoning that pervades everyday discourse.  But, instead of muttering to himself, he’s decided to write an exposé that catalogues all of the ploys used by people who care less for truth than they do about convincing you they are right.

You would expect such a book to contain sober narrative, and it does.  For example, consider Mr. Whyte’s analysis of our tendency (actually our journalists’ tendency) to rely on the opinions of victims in addressing certain social problems:

“No one wants to seem insensitive toward the victims of tragedies.  When the mother of a child rape victim sobs at a press conference that the death penalty should be applied immediately to a man recently taken into custody, it takes a single-minded devotion to jurisprudence to tell her then and there about the many shortcomings of her suggested course of action.  No one, however, should afford her words the weight of expert opinion simply on account of her anguish.  Nevertheless, this happens all the time.”

In addition to a sober, straightforward tone, the book is also highly ascerbic.  In one chapter of the book, the author addresses the ways that people silence those who are making arguments that they disagree with.  The sub-chapters in this chapter (which is titled ‘Shut Up') are as follows: 'Shut Up—You’re Not Allowed to Speak', 'Shut Up—You’re Boring', and my favorite: 'Shut Up—You Sound Like Hitler'.  Here’s a passage from that sub-chapter:

“Mass murder is something of a lottery.  Lenin hasn’t done so badly.  I recently had a drink in the popular Lenin Bar in Auckland, New Zealand, decorated with red stars and black and white images of the great Communist.  Very fetching.  Hitler bars, on the other hand, seem to be in short supply.  Lenin is doing all right in the world of ideas.  Communism isn’t what it was amoung intellectuals, but you cannot yet dismiss a political or economic view simply pointing out that it was held by Lenin.   Hitler, on the other hand, is like a reverse Einstein.  If you can associate someone’s opinion with Hitler,  or the Nazi’s more generally, then goodbye to that idea.”

Overall, the book is tightly written and easy to digest. We need a catalyst to change the way we discuss important social issues, and this book could help. I suspect some of the people who need to peruse it most will scan my description and summarily conclude the book is flawed because it praises Hitler. 

Those sorts of people are highly informed and knowledgeable.  If you don't believe me, just ask them.

Book Recommendation - We the Media

Dan Gillmor's book, We the Media, is out and from the pre-release samples that he published I can guarantee this is a 'must read' for people who are interested in how the Internet is changing the structure of journalism. I've had the privilege of meeting Dan several times and I'm always impressed at how perspicacious he is. And down-to-earth to boot.

Book Review: Moneyball by Michael Lewis

In July of 2000 Baseball’s Commissioner, Bud Selig, assembled a panel of four experts to address the problem of payroll inequity in baseball. Three of the panelists, including conservative columnist George Will, concluded that the payroll disparities were hampering the small market teams. Perhaps some form of regulation was needed to restore order. The “logical solution” was to have the large market teams subsidize the small market teams. Paul Volker, a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was skeptical. He wondered how the Oakland A’s were able to win and improve year after year with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. How indeed? That is the multi-million dollar question.

Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game examines this thorny question in fascinating detail and furnishes a quite provocative hypothesis:

The rapidly expanding difference between the size of everyone else’s money pile and Oakland’s had no apparent effect. Each year the Oakland A’s seemed more the financial underdog, and yet each year they won more games. Maybe they were just lucky. Or maybe they knew something other people didn’t. Maybe they were, as they privately thought, becoming more efficient.

You don’t have to read very far into Moneyball to see that this book is not about the Oakland Athletics and baseball so much as it is about economics and market efficiencies (or more precisely market inefficiencies). It is a textbook study of how people, having adopted a certain way of looking at things, will resist new and better ways of looking at a problem, even if the new way leads to greater success and greater financial reward.

In the case of the Oakland A’s the ‘new way’ was statistics --more precisely, the rigorous analysis statistical information to achieve predictable benefits. For example, it was easily proven (through statistics) that drafting high school players was a fool's errand; and yet, year after year, many big-league teams made this mistake. Why weren't the teams able to learn from their past mistakes?

Statistics, which many regarded as the life blood of baseball, were actually viewed with suspicion by baseball regulars. Only a strange confluence of events created the atmospheric conditions that caused Oakland to use the power of math to spot opportunity. Meanwhile other teams blundered on, making decisions in safe and predictable ways that led to predictably mediocre results. And Oakland's success was based simply on exploiting the inefficient thought-process that the other teams (including the ones with boatloads of money) were using.

It has to make you stop and think. Obviously this isn't a problem that is confined to baseball.

Manipulating language with the best of intentions

Like most people involved in education, Diane Ravitch did not realize "that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive." If you care about language (and how it is manipulated by well-meaning but narrow-minded people) then you should read The Language Police. Fans of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 , a classic tale of censorship, will be shocked to learn how educators edited the book (without Bradbury's knowledge) to meet their own pedagogic objectives.