Image from Jeremy Norman’s excellent historyofscience.com

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Julian Assange tells us in this FORA.tv video that Wikileaks is funded by the general public,  and accountable to it and Wikileaks sources; he says that he is personally motivated to both ‘crush bastards,’ and save "innocent lives." His take on military personnel? The same as Albert Einstein’s: "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."

Central debate in the fascinating rise of Wikileaks: does its activities serve justice by  ‘saving innocent lives,’ or does it destablize the world’s political/economic system, and jeopardize the lives of soldiers, diplomats and undercover operatives?

Here’s a garbled post..due no doubt to too much multi-media consumption this past weekend:

Technology: the Internet and HDTV and Youtube do dazzle…great gobs of it mesmerize the mindless, as diversion, distraction, entertainment. For these folk there are no worries, only which game, screen or tablet to buy next. These sleepwalkers treat technology as an ever improving drug.

For others, technology beguiles. It now delivers – to all with computer and Internet access -  a magnificent library of knowledge, a great diversity of communication channels. The quantity of ‘good’  free educational audio and video information now available – despite it being a fraction of what’s out there – is enormous.

But, because it’s so easily accessible, and digestible, it devours time previously devoted to more rigorous tasks: deep, serious reading and thinking for instance. On-going consumption of sexy short burst ( one hour and less), high octane audio and video material could well affect the brain’s capacity to concentrate for extended periods of time. Maybe the populace is becoming dumber as a result…more facts, less understanding…and maybe this means that politicians will have to make dumber and dumber appeals to get elected...admittedly a difficult task, given the current Tea Party parade…however, for all the damage it might be doing to our reading and thinking habits, and the implications this has on politics, if the Internet results in the world’s peoples communicating more often and effectively with each other, if injustice is more easily outed, and more jawing occurs than warring…if the planet becomes a more peaceful place…who cares if everyone is dumber.

To wit: (re: concentration) "It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer." Albert Einstein

Martin Heidegger

This from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains:

In the 1950s, Martin Heidegger observed that the looming "tide of technological revolution" could "so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be accepted and practiced as the only way of thinking." Our ability to engage in "meditative thinking" which he saw as the very essence of our humanity, might become a victim of headlong progress. The tumultuous advance of technology could…drown out the refined perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that arise only through contemplation and reflection. The "frenziedness of technology," Heidegger wrote, threatens to "entrench itself everywhere."

Legitimate point, however, look at all the war and genocide that has characterized (modern) technology-free history…filled with men of refined ‘perceptions, thoughts and emotions’. See next post.

Penguin Classics has partnered with . It will contribute 50% of the profits from the sales of editions to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. That’s one big plus. The other is the splendid manner in which they’ve drawn attention to type design…and how

it can augment and enhance

the presentation and reception

of content

W. Gordon Graham was born ninety some years ago in Scotland. He attended university in Glasgow and after graduation enlisted in the army; he was awarded the Military Cross and Bar for active service in Burma.

Graham started his postwar career as a freelance newspaper correspondent in Bombay writing for, among other publications: Business Week, Chemical Engineering Record, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Glasgow Herald. In 1950 he started augmenting his journalist’s income with part-time work as a College and Trade Traveller for the McGraw-Hill Book Company. Six years later he was appointed their International Sales Manager, based in New York. He subsequently moved to London to run McGraw-Hill’s European and Middle Eastern book business. In 1974 he left the company to become Chairman and Chief Executive of Butterworths, where he oversaw a  tenfold increase in turn-over.

He ‘retired’ in 1990, at which time he became the founder-editor of LOGOS, The Professional Journal of the Book World. I recently had the privilege of interviewing Gordon Graham at his home in England. Among other things we talk about his legendary career, and those qualities he thinks best characterize great publishers. Please listen here:

This interview is part of our  Book Publisher Series which focuses on the histories of important British, American and Canadian publishing houses, and how best to go about collecting their works.

Copyright © 2010 by Nigel Beale. www.nigelbeale.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Rolling Stones – Little Red Rooster -with Eric Clapton.

from William Nicholson’s The Square Book of Animals.

Despite its dearth of decent antiquarian booksellers (Blue Bicycle is a good community used bookstore with a sizeable selection of categories to choose from – not too deep in fiction or poetry though, and only a shelf or two of anything resembling rare or collectible books) Charleston the city (used to be the fourth largest in the States) is strong in antebellum and civil war history -  it

shows

in the

detail

I’d

say

wouldn’t

you?