Touch the Screen  

                                         i

Books, CDs, VHS, DVDs   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0-9
It's the Media, Stupid by John Nichols, et al.

Why the media won't report substantively on important issues.

 


Business / Management 

           The Innovator's Dilemma innovat.gif (7201 bytes) by Clayton M. Christensen

"In a sea of mostly worthless business books, this is an upside surprise--sharply written and rigorous enough to be predictive. Christensen's thesis: Great companies blow it precisely because they do everything right. He explains why top companies that had listened hard to customers and invested like crazy in new technologies still lost their market leadership when confronted with disruptive changes in technology and market structure. Poor managers are not to blame. Nor are bureaucracy, late technology or tired executive blood. The culprits are size and a company's best customers....The Innovator's Dilemma could be the wake-up call you need." (Richard Karlgaard, Forbes)

Businesses, like people, get in a rut. Christensen brilliantly makes the point that poor management is not always the cause of company failure. Often, even top-notch management is insufficient for survival in a technology environment. The Innovator's Dilemma is an incredibly accurate analysis of the way business ACTUALLY works.

The depressing part is that, if you believe the author, there doesn't appear to be a lot that can be done within an established company to deal with "disruptive technology" other than to fold up your tent and move elsewhere.

Bestsellers

        In America by Susan Sontag In America - Sontag

In 1876, a group of Polish immigrants flee the Russian authorities that control their native land. They establish a commune in Southern California. The person behind the journey is Poland's leading actress, Maryna Zalewska who has given up the stage to be with her husband and son in America...

In America shows Sontag in top time-traveling form. What's more, it illuminates her motives for glancing so persistently backward. "Almost everything good seems located in the past," she notes in a first-person prologue, "perhaps that's an illusion, but I feel nostalgic for every era before I was born; and one is freer of modern inhibitions, perhaps because one bears no responsibility for the past." There's nothing, it seems, like the age of innocence - a golden moment before we moderns had the curse of self-consciousness brought down on our heads.

 

              I Know This Much Is True  I Know This Much... by Wally Lamb

Dominick Birdsey, the antihero, narrator, and bad-juju magnet of I Know This Much Is True is a 40-year-old housepainter, horrifically abused, with an identical twin --Thomas-- who is a politically motivated psychopath who believes in public self-mutilation.  This  912-page tome tells the story of one man's search, denial, and acceptance of self. A no easy aim for Dominick, considering his grandfather seemed to take parenting tips from the SS and his grandmother was a probable teenage murderess, his stepfather a latent sadist, and his brother being a paranoid schizophrenic. Dominick continues the family tradition with rape, a failed marriage, a nervous breakdown, SIDS, a car crash, and a racist conspiracy against a coworker.

"Lamb clearly aims to be a modern-day Dostoyevsky with a pop sensibility." (New York Times Book Reviews)
Highly recommended!

Music books

            Pink Floyd: In the Flesh IM007614.gif (10625 bytes)

Hits

          cd935.gif (1106 bytes) Indigo Girls - Come on Now Social
          Ry Cooder- Into the Purple Valley Ry Cooder

"...Cooder gets off some incredible slide guitar licks...he's still doing those terrific, uncanny things with his instrument..." (Rolling Stone)

A wonderful mixture of rock 'n' roll, folk and blues.

                                                           The tracks: 

1. How Can You Keep Moving (Unless You Migfrate Too)
2. Billy the Kid
3. Money Honey
4. F. D. R. In Trinidad
5. Teardrops Will Fall
6. Denomination Blues
 7. On A Monday
8. Hey Porter
9. Great Dream From Heaven
10. Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Us All
11. Vigilante Man

International 
          Inti Illimani - Canto Para Una Semilla: Homage to Violeta Parra

Wonderful tunes from Chile. Violeta Parra was one of the most representative voices of her country, before the blooded takeover of the militars. 

          Inti Illimani - Fragments of a Dream

          Itchy Feet / Brand Loyalty  I Know This Much... The Blues Band

"Talkin Woman Blues", "Maggie's Farm", "Turn Around", "I Can't Be Satisfied", "So Bad"... 28 tracks.

franc'O'brain & Transputer Qasar. 2002.
Email: francobrain@angelfire.com.
17588