Purple Book Review

BOOK & ARTICLE REVIEW

Susan Jacoby
“The Age of American Unreason”

This impassioned, tough-minded work of contemporary history paints a disturbing portrait of a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the past four decades and now threatens the future of American democracy. Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with America’s heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern knowledge and science. With mordant wit, the author offers an unsparing indictment of the ways in which dumbness has been defined downward throughout American society—on the political right and the left. America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic.

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Introduction

Dr. Mohammad Yunus
“Banker to the Poor”

Grameen:

The Grameen model emerged from the poor-focussed grassroots institution, Grameen Bank, started by Prof. Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh.
It essentially adopts the following methodology:

  • A bank unit is set up with a Field Manager and a number of bank workers, covering an area of about 15 to 22 villages.
  • The manager and workers start by visiting villages to familiarise themselves with the local milieu in which they will be operating and identify prospective clientele, as well as explain the purpose, functions, and mode of operation of the bank to the local population.
  • Groups of five prospective borrowers are formed; in the first stage, only two of them are eligible for, and receive, a loan.
  • The group is observed for a month to see if the members are conforming to rules of the bank.
  • Only if the first two borrowers repay the principal plus interest over a period of fifty (55) weeks do other members of the group become eligible themselves for a loan.

Because of these restrictions, there is substantial group pressure to keep individual records clear.

In this sense , collective responsibility of the group serves as collateral on the loan.

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Dr. Mohammad Yunus

Author: Dr. Maoshing Yi

January 5, 2008

Dr. Maoshing Yi (otherwise known as Dr. Mao) is a 38th-generation doctor of Chinese medicine and an authority in the field of Taoist anti-aging medicine with patients including Hollywood celebrities and politicians.

He is co-founder, past president, and current Chancellor of Yo San University in Los Angeles, where he teaches both students and practitioners.

Dr. Mao has lectured internationally and has been featured on radio and television as well as on the pages of the New York Times, L.A. Times, and many other publications.

More - Top 5 Habits to Increase Longevity, Dr. Mao

Author: Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

October 25, 2007
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Italian Community Center

Dr. Dyson was the Keynote Speaker at the Symposium on Poverty, sponsored by SDC/Social Development Commission.
www.cr-sdc.org

BIO Intro
On July 3, 2007, a press release was issued announcing his departure from the University of Pennsylvania where he was the Avalon Professor of Humanities for 4 years, to serve as a University Professor at Georgetown University, where he will teach theology, English, and African-American studies.

A University professorship is said to be the highest position that a faculty member can have at Georgetown, which is the nation’s oldest Roman Catholic and Jesuit university. Dyson also previously taught at DePaul University, Chicago Theological Seminary, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University and Brown University.

Dyson holds a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University. He is an ordained Baptist minister.

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson has again placed his hand between the flint and the stone. In his latest book, Come Hell or High Water, the “hip-hop intellectual” champions the issues plaguing the disenfranchised in America.

Dyson recently appeared on a wide array of local and national television and radio programs with his New York Times best seller Is Bill Cosby Right?, but never before has there been a subject closer to Dyson’s heart than what happened to the black poor in New Orleans following the emotional, economic and cultural devastation that was Hurricane Katrina.

Stories about Katrina victims continue to make headlines today for good reason: the victims of Katrina are still suffering and in desperate need of help and attention, but have no voice.

Dyson comes to their aid by giving them a passionate voice—a voice during a time when the government and many Americans have seemingly forgotten that race and class continue to divide the United States.

----What’s your review? If you haven’t read this book, read it. Let us hear from you @: mgurbanicongroup@yahoo.com

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Last edited by Mary. Based on work by mary.  Page last modified on March 05, 2008

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