Some random notes, as long as I'm here...

--I'm reading this fucking mindblowing book right now, a couple of chapters at a time whenever I'm at Borders, called The Case for Democracy by Nate Sharansky. Sharansky, for those who don't know, was a famous Soviet dissident in the 1970s and 80s, one of those cause celebrities (I don't think I'm spelling that right) who was jailed for decades for supporting human rights and human freedoms behind the Iron Curtain (specifically, the right for Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel). And then after the Soviet Union crumbled, Sharansky did indeed make his way to Israel, and ended up holding a whole series of government positions, including a stint as that country's deputy prime minister.

Now, please note (especially all you Israeli readers) that I have no idea what kind of politician Sharansky actually was; he could've sucked as far as I know, and I apologize in advance to my Israeli readers for talking about him in such great terms here if he did. But man, his book at least is amazing - it is simultaneously one of the most complex and one of the most illuminating essays on democracy I've ever seen, and gets into the nitty-gritty of this particular form of government in a way that I think all Americans need to read. I haven't gotten enough read yet to do the book full justice here, but one of his main tenets is something I think all of us in the Industralized West really need to spend more time thinking about - that, as the leaders of the global democracy movement, it is of absolute moral imperative that we stop supporting monarchies and tyrannies when they serve our purposes. In other words, nothing in the Middle East is ever going to change, and not a single person there is ever going to take the concept of democracy seriously, as long as we are espousing opinions like, "Okay, the unquestioned high ruler of Iraq has to go, because he's unfriendly to US business interests, but the unquestioned high ruler of Saudi Arabia can stay, because he lets us park our planes in his country, and lets American companies start up factories there." Sharansky does this amazing job in his book of showing just what a farce such two-faced attitudes about non-democratic countries is, and how it is directly because of such two-faced attitudes that nobody in the Middle East takes the idea of a free-market democracy seriously.

Anyway, much more on the subject once I'm finished with the book; for now, though, go out and read it yourself! Now!

--Oh, and speaking of books, the newest issue of Bookslut has an interview with Banana Yoshimoto, one of my favorite contemporary authors. Which is just so great, because you hardly ever see English-language interviews with Yoshimoto, even though she's apparantly a fucking superstar over in her native Japan. (Supposedly she has sold more books than almost any other female writer in the entire history of Japan; I, of course, cannot confirm this myself.) I mean, sure, the interview itself is bizarre and funny, in that "I wonder if Banana's actually understanding the questions being asked of her" kind of way; but still, it's always a great thing to see another English-language item about her on the web.

--I've got some geeky news that might please some of you; for the first time in three years, I've decided to add another new format to the list of electronic-book options you have here at the site. Specifically, starting with the next design update of GAD Publishing (the basement press I run in order to publish my own books), readers will be able to download my eBooks in the LRF format, designed for the brand-new Sony Librie, a new electronic-text reader which (based on what I've read, anyway) might finally be that fabled "iPod for books" I've been predicting for years. I mean, yes, okay, the Librie is only available in Japan at this point, and is still horrifically expensive; but it will be bleeding into the European and American markets eventually, and sooner rather than later, and I just have this feeling that it's going to be This Really Huge Thing here when it does. (For those who don't know what the big deal is, the Librie is the first-ever commercial eBook reader based on "virtual paper" technology - where the screen itself is more like a piece of paper than a computer screen, but can be dynamically updated and animated just like a normal computer screen. The big promise is that you can then stare at the thing for hours at a time, like you would a piece of paper, without your eyes going all crazy bug-eyed like what happens when staring at a computer screen for hours at a time.) Anyway, once again, more later as I get closer to actually redesigning the GAD site.

--Did you hear? In an effort to save money, the executives at Wired magazine recently laid off almost their entire writing staff, and announced that the award-winning "Wired News" will henceforth consist mostly of reprinted articles from the Associated Press.

Executives at Wired acting like fascist, reactionary pricks? Oh, that can't be.