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AUGUST 2009 READING SCHEDULE

United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)

DIGGING DEEPER meets every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

Since July 2004, United for Peace of Pierce County has been conducting “Digging Deeper,” a Monday-evening book discussion group, often in the form of a study circle. Topics have included peak oil, climate change, the corporation, torture, Iran, U.S.-Iran relations, the writings of Robert Baer, Islam, American immigration policy, Barack Obama and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Saul Alinsky’s life and writings, war and human nature, parallels between the U.S. and ancient Rome, the sustainability revolution, 9/11, energy geopolitics, the debt crisis, the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections, and the financial crisis, as well as abiding themes of war, peace, politics, and social change. Occasionally, the group has spent several weeks reading longer works, like Daniel Yergin’s The Prize or Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation.  --  Participation is free; anyone interested is welcome. Try King's Books (218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma) or other local bookstores for copies. More information: contact Mark Jensen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or see www.ufppc.org.

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August 3, 2009: DIGGING DEEPER XC – The ethnic cleansing of Palestine

—Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Doubleday, 2007). "In his latest work, renowned Israeli author and academic Pappé (A History of Modern Palestine) does not mince words . . . accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity beginning in the 1948 war for independence, and continuing through the present."  —Publishers Weekly.

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August 10, 2009: DIGGING DEEPER XCI – Ellen Hodgson Brown’s exposé of money

—Ellen Hodgson Brown, Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth about Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (Third Millennium Press, rev. & expanded ed., 2008; originally published July 2007).  "Ms. Brown has taken two subjects considered boring—history and monetary policy—and turned them into a book as thrilling as any Tom Clancy novel, except that this book is true. . . . If you are looking to have an understanding of the monetary mess we are in, this is an excellent historical overview." —John Tiffany, American Free Press. — "This book exposes important, often obscured truths about our money system and our economic past and future. Our money is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been privatized — taken over by a private money cartel. It is all done by sleight of hand, concealed by economic double-speak. Web of Debt unravels the deception."  —Book description.

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August 17, 2009: DIGGING DEEPER XCII – Womenomics

—Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success (HarperBusiness, 2009).  “Shipman and Kay review the depth of women's influence as consumers and earners, maintaining that their power gives them the right and the ability to ask for flexibility in their work lives, to negotiate assertively and effectively, to say no and to give up the guilt associated with getting their needs met. . . . [T]he authors make a convincing argument that with some mental and emotional effort, women can create their ideal work and home lives.  Filled with pragmatic and optimistic steps, this book will inspire readers to set in motion a flexibility-driven business revolution that can benefit all women and men, families and workforces.” —Publishers Weekly.

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August 24 & 31, 2009: DIGGING DEEPER XCIII – The health care debate

—Maggie Mahar, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much (Collins Business, 2006; paperback 2007). “Mahar, a financial journalist whose previous book (Bull!) tracked the history of the stock market from 1982 to 1999, here applies her keen analytic talents and economic savvy to America's complicated and increasingly dysfunctional health-care system. Mahar's diagnosis: our privately managed yet mainly publicly funded system produces the worst of both worlds—high costs, rampant inefficiencies and intense competition among providers that doesn't benefit patients. She traces how today's market-driven medical system emerged over the past century.” —Publishers Weekly.

—John Geyman, Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It (Common Courage Press, 2009).  “Written for lay readers, health care professionals, and policymakers alike, Do Not Resuscitate moves beyond books that decry our current problems to reveal what the trend for more than half a century of increasing costs and decreasing coverage really means. The situation for doctors, patients, caregivers, and even the insured will move from dysfunctional to a complete breakdown over the next decade.” —Book description. (The author is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington.)