It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us, …
— Opening passage of “A Tale of Two Cities”
Charles Dickens’s famous first sentence — “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … " — described the era of the French Revolution. The sentiment also fits perfectly to America’s holiday season, from Thanksgiving through the first days of the new year.
While most of us are filled with joy and gratitude as we unite with our families and friends, this is also the time when many persons experience dark thoughts, depression, and profound loneliness.
If you need help of any kind, do not hesitate to tell someone: a family member, a friend, or a neighbor. You are loved and cared about far more than you imagine.
If you cannot think of anyone who can help you, you can call your local Suicide Prevention and Crisis hotline. In Ithaca, their web page says: “Are you confused, overwhelmed, upset, or need someone to listen? Call the Crisisline at 607-272-1616 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).” They offer free, confidential crisis counseling available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Pay attention to the people around you: your family, friends, students, co-workers. People are skilled at hiding their true feelings. The poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, titled “We Wear The Mask”, explains the problem of seeing into other persons.
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Watching the 1946 film “It’s A Wonderful Life” always fills me with strange and remarkable ideas. The remainder of this message is for those of us who are reasonably happy and are able to provide help.
I was wondering what might happen during these holidays if each one of us reached out to someone — someone who we suspect may need a friend, or need someone to talk with. Suppose we reach out to someone by saying: “Do you need anything?”; or “How can I help you?”; or “Some time soon, let’s sit down with some coffee and let’s talk.”
Ithaca has been ranked as the USA’s best place to live, largely due to economic factors. Yet what matters — more than the quantifiable and measurable — is the invisible and unmeasurable: the happiness and well-being of each one of us.
Some people will argue that there is not very much that one person can do to improve the happiness of another. It is equally true that we can help others by the simple acts of listening sincerely and by giving them words of encouragement.
And it is a remarkable fact of human existence that “No drop of kindness is ever wasted.”
Michael Pastore
Epublishers Weekly
2010 December 08
Ithaca, New York
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Holiday Wisdom: Pay Attention to Your Family, Friends, Students and Co-Workers
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Change The World: Read Books About Utopia
Oscar Wilde, in one of his less cynical moods, wrote:
"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing."
Wikipedia is strangely lacking in its page about Utopian novels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Utopian_novels
Here is a longer list from the blog, Best Colleges Online.net:
http://www.bestcollegesonline.net/blog/2010/20-essential-works-of-utopian-fiction/
Dozens of other captivating works about Utopia could be added, including The Blythedale Romance (by Nathaniel Hawthorne); Watch the North Wind Rise (by Robert Graves); The Adventures of Mr Marigold (by Michael Tobias); and Thoreau Bound: A Utopian Romance in the Isles of Greece (by Michael Pastore).
We can shape our destinies: we can change our personal lives, we can change the direction of our world. What is the value of these utopian works? ... In addition to being a joy to read, these books expand our imaginations, and give us positive models of societies that are designed so that the first priority is the genuine needs of each individual. A healthy culture supports our lifelong growth and development into creative, caring and compassionate human beings.
Michael Pastore, Editorial Director
Epublishers Weekly
http://www.EpublishersWeekly.com
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Are The New Gadgets Cutting-Edge Tools or Dangerous Distractions ?
This article from the New York Times highlights the raging battle between the Internet and the Book.
Most young people today are choosing the Internet, and the many gadgets that access the Net.
The great problem of our era is the problem of education and technology:
How can use our advanced communication technology for education, enjoyment, personal growth and a deep connection with others --
instead of burying ourselves in the lonely emptiness of cyberspace ?
The image in this post is from the WikiMedia commons, here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Addicttv.jpg
and reproduced with a CopyLeft license.
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Free Knowledge from the Best Universities in the World
"Knowledge is power," wrote Will Durant, "but only wisdom is liberty."
Nevertheless, knowledge -- when combined with compassionate intelligence -- is a very good thing.
Many of the world's leading universities are now offering their courses online, in the form of lecture notes, audio recordings, and even videos of the lectures.
An article in yesterday's (November 1, 2010) New York Times describes some of the course offerings, at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of Michigan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/world/europe/01iht-educLede01.html
Apple's iTunes University offers many free courses; you can begin exploring the jungle of knowledge here:
http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
http://www.openculture.com/2007/05/10_free_university_courses_on_itunes.html
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
Additional links to free online courses can be found on the web page of Zorba's Guide to Free Ebooks, here:
http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=818
--Michael Pastore, Epublishers Weekly
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
107-Year-Old Woman Plays the Piano Every Day
Alice Herz-Sommer is the world's oldest living survivor of the Holocaust. She plays the piano every day, and fills the world with music and optimism.
See her on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkUWrt2RFw
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Video: Tim O'Reilly Talks at Publishing Point
O'reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly gives a talk, on Publishing Point, about publishing, technology and innovation. Watch the first of 7 parts here; the other parts are easily accessed from the right-hand menu.
http://publishingpoint.ning.com/video/in-conversation-with-tim
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Just Published: 50 Benefits of Ebooks (2010 Edition)
50Benefits of Ebooks: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution has just been published in a revised and expanded edition by Zorba Press. The PDF and EPUB editions are available now; in the next weeks Zorba will release the paperback edition and other ebook formats including .AZW (for the Kindle) and an EPUB for the iPad sold at the iTunes iBookstore.
Learn more or buy the book at the Zorba site:
http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=142
50 Benefits of Ebooks
A Thinking Person’s Guide to The Digital Reading Revolution
Edition: October 2010
by Michael Pastore
Published by Zorba Press, ISBN: 978-0-927379-17-5
Companion blog site: www.EpublishingTimes.com
Paperback, 368 pages, Indexed, $ 20
Ebook versions (PDF, .AZW, and EPUB): $ 3.99
A revised and expanded book about ebooks, published today, is packed with information about how to understand, and enjoy, the digital reading revolution. The book, soon to be released as a 368-page paperback, is first being released in ebook editions — which contain all the same information as the paperback — yet sell for less than four dollars.
50 Benefits of Ebooks is a lively introduction to the brave new worlds of ebooks and electronic publishing. This revised edition (at 66,000 words) is 25% larger than the September 2009 edition, and contains ten new chapters. The ebook is priced at $ 3.99.
Written for a wide audience — from ebook newcomers to ebook experts — in 36 lively chapters, the book explores five essential aspects of ebook reading, writing and publishing:
A. Benefits of Ebooks and Paper Books
B. Reading Ebooks
C. Ebooks for Authors and Publishers
D. The Value of Reading; and
E. The Education of An Ebooklover (resources)
Ebook newcomers will find all the basics here. And ebook experts can debate and debunk the author’s wild predictions for the rosy and thorny future of ebooks, by reading the essay, “Reading the Future: Ten Tremendous Trends in 2011.” Authors will discover tips, tricks and resources for ebook publishing; and library professionals will enjoy the book’s glossary, index, links to leading-edge ebook sites, and sections about how and why ebooks are good for libraries.
A new chapter included in this edition is Pastore's essay The Depths: How Ebooks Can Fix Your Concentration, Increase Your Intelligence and Renew Your Distracted Brain.
“Ebooks are changing everything,” says author Michael Pastore. “We are now at the dawn of a seismic shift in the way that books are published, distributed, read — and even written. And the epublishing industry is changing so quickly and dramatically, even an updated edition of this book, published yearly, can hardly keep up. ”
One of the most significant benefits of ebooks is ecological: Ebooks are good for our environment. Pastore writes:
“How many trees are used to produce one week’s worth of paper in a Sunday New York Times newspaper? … One weekly issue of the New York Times consumes 75,000 trees. … One year of Sunday papers produced by the New York Times is responsible for the destruction and consumption of more than 3,900,000 trees.”
At the book’s companion website, the author urges: “Don’t buy the paperback. The 368-page paperback edition is $ 20, while the ebook version cost 4 dollars, saves trees, and contains all the same content as the paperback — except the paper!”
The ebook editions will be released in three formats: PDF, AZW and EPUB. The PDF format is primarily designed for reading on desktop and laptop computers. The AZW format is for the Amazon Kindle. The new EPUB format is primarily for iPads, iPhones, iPods, and a number of PDAs and many ereading devices. “The EPUB format is the next big thing,” says Pastore. “It’s quickly becoming the industry standard, capable of being read on more and more software programs and hardware devices.”
Pastore is a strong proponent for the new EPUB standard for ebooks; and an equally strong opponent of DRM (Digital Rights Management), which he claims is a disservice to ebook consumers. He writes: “Ebooks were never meant to be hidden like the lost city of Atlantis, buried like the treasures of Monte Cristo, or guarded like the gold in Fort Knox.”
The author loves paper books, and hopes that they are never completely replaced by their electronic progeny. But Pastore is optimistic about the future of ebooks. He writes: “Every day, ebooks are growing in use, in sales, and in significance. After a dozen false starts over the past ten years, the Digital Reading Revolution is here at last.”
To buy the new book or ebook, readers can visit the the Zorba Press website for the book's web page:
http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=142
Release Schedule:
Available Now: ebook in PDF (from the Publisher's website)
Available Now: ebook in EPUB (from the Publisher's website)
Available Now: ebook in EPUB (for the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone) from the iTunes iBookStore
October 21: ebook in AZW for the Kindle
November 1: paperback (368 pages; 66,000 words; 6"x9")
About the Author, Michael Pastore
Michael Pastore is the editorial director of Zorba Press. He is the author of more than 20 books: novels and non-fiction works on various themes. His articles and essays have appeared in dozens of publications nationwide. He edits the blogs EpublishersWeekly (.com), and actively supports the causes of reading great books, independent publishing, and Amercia’s transition to a sustainable society. Currently he lives, cycles, reads and writes in Ithaca, New York.
About Zorba Press
A small, independent publisher in Ithaca, New York, Zorba publishes works by Michael Pastore, and a number of other authors including Dorothee Krahn, Rae Foley, Alicia Dattner, Lisette Rimer, Dr. Thanasis Maskaleris, and renowned author and film-maker, Michael Tobias.
For more information, contact Victoria Weise via this email: ebook AT care2.com
#
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sumo Wrestlers Get iPads Possibly With Sumi-eInk Screens
Sumo wrestlers need iPads, too!
Sumo wrestlers in Japan have a problem &mdash but I am not going to be the man to tell them.
When they try to send emails from a mobile phone or a personal computer, then can't do it very well thanks to their fat fingers, which push more than one key at a time.
The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) has purchased 51 iPads to distribute to their wrestlers, thinking that the larger keyboard on the iPads will solve the problem.
I am speculating that a new screen technology might be required: the sumi-eInk screen.
More information about this story is available at:
BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11082125
—Posted by Michael Pastore, EpublishersWeekly
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Fun With the Peerless iPad: An Article and A Cartoon from Time
Time Magazine online has two interesting pieces about the iPad. This is Harry McCracken's article (from his blog Technologizer), titled:
Will the First Real iPad Rivals Please Show Up?
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2018883,00.html
For a lighter view of Apple's revolutionary device, Time also offers this this earlier cartoon video
The Apple iPad and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,64025998001_1957653,00.html
Which brings to mind the hilarious work of Ted Avery; it's a pity that Avery's cartoons are not freely available for everyone to enjoy.
—Michael Pastore is a novelist, and the author and/or editor of a number of non-fiction books including The Ithaca Manual of Style, The Zorba Anthology of Love Stories, and 50 Benefits of Ebooks: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution. A new (2010) edition of 50 Benefits of Ebooks will be released on September 8, 2010. He blogs at Epublishers Weekly: http://www.EpublishersWeekly.com.
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Saturday, August 07, 2010
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (book review)
The Shallows:
What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Published by W.W. Norton
Hardcover, 276 pages, June 2010
ISBN: 978-0393072228
It takes great courage, as well as insight, to stand up against prevailing practices, to shout or whisper to the fad-following crowd that the way we are living is unhealthy for us.
More than 50 years ago, Aldous Huxley, interviewed by a cigarette-smoking Mike Wallace, warned:
“We must not be caught by surprise by advances in technology.”
Other eloquent warnings about technology's dangerous side effects have come to us from the works of Lewis Mumford, Erich Fromm, Neil Postman, Sven Birkerts, Mark Slouka, Theodore Roszak, and Bill Joy. A famous debate about this issue, "What Are We Doing Online", (from a 1995 edition of Harper's Magazine), thoughtfully explores the Internet's benefits and harms.
The latest voice speaking against the sacred cow of our technologies comes from Nicholas Carr, in his extraordinary book "The Shallows." Carr is not a Luddite; he uses technology capably, and acknowledges his appreciation of the Net. Carr, however, is concerned that there are losses along with the gains. Thanks to the Internet — the most sophisticated and useful tool for communications ever invented — we are losing our ability to concentrate and to think deeply. Carr cites indisputable evidence to show that the passive activity of using the Internet for short, skimming searches and shallow reading, is creating measurable changes in the structure and development of our brains.
Musing on the classic passage by Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose calm reflections were interrupted by the strident noise from a passing locomotive, Carr writes:
"The problem today is that we're losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we're in perpetual locomotion."
Like Neil Postman in Technopoly, Carr shapes his book not to point to solutions, but to illuminate the problems -- and he has done this work expertly. Despite his confessions that his powers of attention have been diminished by the Net, Carr's book is always thoughtful, and often captivating and profound. He cites Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL the computer shows more feelings than the human characters. Carr's concerns, that begin with the loss of our powers of attention and concentration, conclude with worries that too much Internet and too little reflection may lead to a loss of our humanness.
We need computers, we need the Internet, we need quick access to the latest information — but we need it in the right amounts. All told, The Shallows is a superb starting point for the kinds of face-to-face discussions that might help us to break our collective addiction to screens, and to renew our interest in the slower, more personal, and more profound realms of our inner lives.
—Michael Pastore, Epublishers Weekly
Author of
50 Benefits of Ebooks:
A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution.
Story Links
Get a sample of Carr's book by reading his essay in the Atlantic:
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
Carr's Blog Rough Type ... http://www.roughtype.com/
What Are We Doing Online?
Ironically, this fascinating and deservedly-famous debate (which first appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1995) is not easily findable online -- the link from Kevin Kelly's website is now broken.
Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace in the early 1960s:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous.html
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Dr. Michael Tobias To Speak at TEDx in Munich - 2010 June 7
Dr. Tobias will talk about "A sustainable society for a global future."
We will post a link to Tobias's talk soon after it becomes available from TEDx.
To visit the event's website, click HERE.
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Sell Your Book on the iTunes Store, Read it on the iPad
Sell your book as an ebook, readable on the
Apple iPad.
You set the price (it has to end in 99 cents), and keep
70% of the profit. And your book will look gorgeous on the iPad -- if
you format it correctly.
Sell Your eBook on iTunes
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Friday, May 28, 2010
The 12 Greatest Prison Escapes in History
http://listverse.com/2008/08/27/top-10-amazing-prison-escapes/
Casanova: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casanova
Papillon (Henry Charriere) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Charri%C3%A8
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Friday, May 14, 2010
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Six Free Websites for Learning About Science (from Mashable.com)
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Children are born Good
At last! ... The academic world may be grasping
the important idea that children are born "good".
New York Times article about babies and morality.Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Professor Strogatz Articles about Math (New York Times)
This is one in a fascinating series of
articles about mathematics, by a superb Cornell professor.
Chances Are -- Opinionator BlogRead more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
A Very Happy Baby Laughing ( You Tube video )
Start your day with a good laugh ... and
another good laugh ... and another ..
You Tube Video of Laughing Baby.
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)
EPW Feed (Atom) 
Posts
