Review: Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

Last night I finished Anthony Everitt's Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome. This is actually the second time I've read one of Everitt's books; the first time being several years back when I attempted to read Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician. I was hoping that giving Everitt a second chance would improve my opinion somewhat, but it didn't. The fact is, I find Everitt's writing to be phenomenally sloppy and boring, and I take issue with him as a scholar.

My most overwhelming beef with Everitt's work is that, at the end of the book (at least in the case of Hadrian; I never made it to the end of Cicero) I inexplicably feel as though the author's treatment of the subject has made the subject seem less important, rather than more important. Any good work of history or biography ought to be enlightening the reader as to the larger impact of the subject matter in the grand scheme of things. Everitt's premise did seem to be that he thinks Hadrian's reputation was given a raw deal by contemporaries, but none of the body of the work did much to back that idea up. In fact, by the end I felt more as though I supported Hadrian's detractors!

Everitt's inability to showcase his subject matter is certainly not my only complaint, however. The narrative in Hadrian, as in Cicero, reads like a vast collection of disjointed, loosely-related snippets. The writer is unable to transition smoothly between segments, leaving the reader feeling as if being jerked from point to point and topic to topic. In addition, many of the quotations used (presumably to support the author's points) seem to say nothing of any purpose at all. There are also many grammatically awkward moments throughout the book where one must read backward and forward a few sentences to figure out to whom some ambiguous pronoun refers. These factors come together to give the impression of careless, haphazard writing.

My final complaint against Everitt's work (again, in Hadrian as in Cicero) is what comes across as a lack of responsible scholarship. When real evidence is lacking, Everitt seems to enjoy giving way entirely to the realm of imagination, and then analyzing his guesses as if they are fact. He also has no qualms about questioning the reliability of a source and then in the next sentence basing his opinions on the very same questionable source material. When multiple rational hypotheses may be readily apparent, Everitt is content choosing one that may or may not even be the most plausible, and treating it as though it is reality.

I was sincerely hoping that I would go into Hadrian and formulate a completely different opinion than what I was left with from my time with Cicero, but sadly, that didn't happen. My previous opinions of Everitt's merit as a writer and historian were completely confirmed. I can say with relative confidence that I won't be venturing into this author's work again. His books seem to be relatively popular, so I wish I could give them more credit. Maybe other people see something in this guy that I just don't see (if you do, more power to you; I'm not judging and we don't need to argue about it). It's entirely possible, since I seem to be much more persnickety in my book choices than most of my acquaintances are. Personally, though, I just wish he would stop writing on subjects that I'm interested in, so that I would know that I wouldn't have any future temptations to torture myself with his work.

Review: Persian Fire

Last night, about midnight, I was exhausted, but I only had 50 pages left in Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West and I could not allow myself to go to sleep until I finished it.

Overall, I thought this book was great. Holland has a very eloquent writing style (one of my few complaints is that in some spots it was almost too eloquent), and a knack for portraying people and events so vividly as to draw them through the centuries to the here and now and make them live again. He does a wonderful job of illustrating the complexity of the motivations of the major players on both the Greek and Persian sides of the conflict, and does an equally great job of placing all events within a solid framework of cultural and political context. Indeed, I gained a depth of understanding of Persian, Spartan, and Athenian social and cultural development that none of my history classes have ever given me. And perhaps most importantly, the work read less like a dry history textbook and more like a great historical epic. All of the great information in the world means nothing if it's so horribly boring that no one can wade through the book, but this was assuredly not the case with Persian Fire.

As I mentioned before, I have few complaints about the book. There were a few moments, typically when introducing a new point, where Holland seemed to wander off into tangents. He generally seemed to be attempting to introduce his point by way of some analogy, but on more than one occasion the attempt seemed a bit forced and clumsy. In addition, the last 15-20 pages of the book were a bit difficult to get through; they contained such an abrupt, hasty, and anticlimactic summary of postwar events that I almost felt as though Holland had gotten to the end of his material and was at a loss for how to wrap the thing up. While somewhat puzzling, neither of these faults was enough to materially damage my opinion of the book as a whole. A very worthwhile read.

Review: A History of Pagan Europe

Moving right along in my autumn reading spree, I just finished A History of Pagan Europe by Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick.

I'm going to start right off with the book's major weakness: Because so many centuries and so much territory was crammed into a relatively short volume, the text had a tendency to degenerate into a list of dates and events. Also, for the same reasons, the book was able to do little more than summarize traditions and pantheons, without giving more depth to cultural context. In addition, some of the illustrations were downright irrelevant. Their captions offered little information, and many of them were never even mentioned in the main body of the text, so they served no purpose.

On the other hand, the book had a few notable strengths. For one thing, this history of paganism was not offered through the lens of a Christian bias, yet doesn't seem to project modern Neo-Pagan concepts on ancient traditions. This is remarkably refreshing. Also, the book addresses more than simply classical Greek and Roman practices and Celtic practices. I found the second half of the book much more interesting than the first half because of its glimpses into societies and traditions that aren't covered ad nauseam elsewhere. Another virtue of the text is that, unlike many Christian-biased histories, it does not portray the displacement of official paganism by official Christianity as a simple clear-cut event; rather, the sometimes lengthy persistence of many folk practices through time is given proper acknowledgement (without being unduly portrayed as the continuance of a formal pagan priesthood through the ages). Lastly, the book illustrates the roots of some not-so-obvious remnants of folk religion in modern culture.

All-in-all, I would recommend this book as a basic overview for readers who have not already engaged in any in-depth study of pre-Christian religion in Europe. If you're pretty grounded in Celtic or classical Greco-Roman culture, the latter half of the book still has value for you as it addresses Germanic and Slavic religion and the interaction of those cultures with the better-known Celtic and Greco-Roman traditions.

Women's Bodies Are So Gross!

You Should Fear The Barbie Crotch | xoJane: Really, there isn't a whole lot I can add to this brilliant article, except that you shouldn't read it if you're squeamish about lady bits, and you should definitely read it if you own a set of lady bits.

Also, the woman that designed this stupid product has clearly never heard of how our paleolithic ancestors revered vulva for their life-giving power. If she had, maybe she wouldn't be so ashamed of her own that she has to try to make herself feel better by telling other women to be ashamed of theirs.

As for me, I can only strive daily to not buy into this culture of self-loathing. I can only tell myself as often as possible that there is nothing wrong with my face, hair, figure, or sexual organs that needs to be "fixed" by anything I can buy at a store. And if I'm going to cave on something, it's going to be a bottle of nail polish, not a designer anti-cameltoe apparatus.

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4 Reasons the United States Postal Service Blows

1) The Postal Service doesn't do the job. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone complaining about a package that was lost, bills delivered to the wrong house, or time-sensitive material arriving too late. If I'm the one who happens to be complaining, every single person I complain to can sympathize. I don't know a single person who thinks the Postal Service does a good job. Even most postal employees I know won't look me in the eye and say they think the USPS does good work. There are two kinds of people in relation to the Postal Service; people who know the post office sucks but that we should keep it because there's no alternative, and people who know the post office sucks and think we should give it the ax so we can create some good alternatives.

2) The Postal Service doesn't even care that it sucks. Have you tried to get some good customer service from USPS lately? Call their 800 number to complain that your carrier didn't even attempt to deliver your parcel. Leave a note for your carrier to please stop delivering mail that goes to the people who lived in your house five years ago. Go talk to the station manager at your local post office about how your carrier is a twit. It's like talking to a brick wall. The folks at the 800 number are more than happy to record your complaint, thank you for calling, and let you know that the manager from your local station will call you. Nothing ever happens, there's never any apology, and the station manager never calls. If you have one of the good carriers, which is about a 50/50 chance, leaving some sort of request in the box might get your issue at least somewhat addressed... until routes are re-assigned or it's your carrier's day off. That, I could live with. If you have the lazy twit carrier (of which there are many), you will be lucky if the worst thing that happens is that the carrier ignores your request. Some carriers will write back on your request with a snide remark. Some will continue delivering mail you have refused. Some will begin intentionally misdelivering or not delivering your mail (a federal offense IF you can prove it). The worst ones will actually damage your parcels (again, a federal offense IF you can prove it) or vandalize your property if they think you're troublesome or if you've been complaining about them (yes, I know of more than one actual occurrence of this). And complaining in person to a station manager? Generally useless, because station managers invariably speak to you as though your request is unreasonable or as though you're too stupid to understand the complex process of delivering the mail.

3) The Postal Service is a money sink. In USPS new employee training, employees are trained to recite the mantra that the USPS has been self-sustaining since 1984. The reason that employees are trained with this little tidbit of knowledge, is specifically for the sake of arguing with customers who might accost the employee and accuse the USPS and its crappy service of being a waste of tax dollars. The employee replies to the accusation that actually, the USPS has been self-sustaining since 1984, and therefore wastes no tax dollars. The problem with this is, the USPS is always in the red and can't even raise enough revenue to pay all of its employees' salaries, so it operates on a massive line of credit from the federal government. That means tax dollars, folks. So even if you are really hardcore and boycott the USPS (which means not sending letters, not subscribing to publications, not ordering Netflix, paying more to send every possible thing by other means), they are still getting money from you one way or another. And they certainly aren't self-sustaining by any stretch of the imagination (though they are correct in saying that they have been legally mandated to be self-sustaining since 1984).

4) The USPS abuses its employees. Take a survey of postal employees someday and find out how many clerks and carriers there are that haven't had job-related injuries. Out of postal employees that have worked for the USPS for more than 10 years, find out how many aren't needing surgery from a permanent job-related injury. There aren't many. And why is that? Because the USPS bullies its employees into rushing when it isn't safe to do so, and into working when they're hurt. And once there is a serious injury, USPS supervisors try to find some reason to blame the employee for the injury and write them up (a letter carrier can get written up if they are the victim of a dog attack, for example). And then the supervisor tries to bully the employee into not filing a workman's comp claim. The supervisors pressure the employee to see the USPS-provided doctor (who is paid by the USPS and therefore will nearly always declare that the injury is not serious and that the employee can get back to work right away). And then, if the employee insists on filing a workman's comp claim and seeing a competent doctor, the supervisor will get in the employee's face and scream that the employee is obviously not really hurt and is trying to scam the USPS.

I think those are four pretty good reasons to hate the USPS. Congress should repeal the law that bans price competition with USPS, and then stop all government subsidies. The USPS would then be forced to become competitive in the areas of quality and customer service. The USPS would probably have to cut jobs in the process (they're doing that anyway), but the startups that would be jumping to compete with it would be creating jobs, many of which would end up going to experienced former postal workers anyway. And I wouldn't have to sit here writing rants against the freaking USPS.

Review: The Fossil Trail

I went on a birthday book-buying binge (oooh, alliteration!), so I expect to be writing up a few book reviews in the near future. The first one is now!

I just finished The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know About Human Evolution by Ian Tattersall, who is currently with the American Museum of Natural History. It's the revised edition of a book first released in 1995. I would rate the reading as being on the level of a college-level introductory paleoanthropology course. Having never done any previous reading on the subject matter before, I still found Tattersall's explanations relatively easy to follow.

One thing I noticed throughout the book is that it is rife with typos. The book otherwise seemed to be of pretty decent quality, but the missing letters and duplicate letters ran rampant throughout the book, and it got pretty irritating after a while. Tattersall also seemed to have a bit of trouble organizing his material, with a large number of instances of "more on that later," but that could simply be due to the complexity of subject matter being squeezed into one volume. It can also be difficult to keep up with the large number of fossil specimens specifically dealt with in the text. The additional chapters added for the second edition, though, did a pretty good job of bringing the text up to speed with current developments in the field, and I thought Tattersall's treatment of the subject matter was pretty enlightening and thought-provoking.

Some thoughts this book brought to mind:

1) I hadn't truly realized how young the science of paleoanthropology is, nor how arbitrary species classification is. Really, when I began to comprehend how much uncertainty riddles the field, I almost began to have some idea of how there are people in the world who can still militantly oppose the idea of evolution. I say "almost," because with some of those people, I'm pretty sure that even if there were no uncertainty in the field, they would be just as militant in their objections anyway.

2) The book addresses the fact that species classification is only possible because of gaps in the fossil record, which reminds me of an article I read some time ago that discussed offspring always being the same species as the parents... so presumably, if there were no gaps in the fossil record, there would theoretically only be one species from us all the way back to our point of origin. The same would be true of every other species on the planet. Then, theoretically, by this reasoning, if we all descended from some common single-celled organism, we would all have to be classified as the same species. That possibility puts me in mind of the Native American "all my relations" concept of all living things being our brethren. It was a profound moment in my reading. I had to sit the book down and process that idea for a minute before I went on. That one train of thought alone made it worthwhile for me to pick up this book on impulse off the table at Half Price Books.

Overall, I really enjoyed this read, and would recommend it to anyone who gets into science, anthropology, human evolution, and the like. I would particularly recommend it to folks who are interested in those topics but don't have a previous background in studying those topics. If you've studied the subject matter already, this overview of the development of the field of paleoanthropology may be a bit too basic for you.

The More Words You Write, the Better the Chances That Some Don't Suck

What It Takes To Write Like Francis Ford Coppola | The Write Practice: A good tidbit of advice to keep in mind, for those of us who beat ourselves up daily for our creative failings. I'm going to have to pin this up on the wall and meditate on it daily... when I'm not busy writing all those millions of words, of course.

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Placebo Effect: Power of the Mind

The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect: There have been tons of studies about the Placebo Effect, and it always shocks me that people ignore the obvious. Researchers always find the results weird and baffling, and many people ridicule folks who are "tricked" into thinking they're feeling better because of a placebo. But new-agers and pagans out there don't so much as bat an eye at things like this. Is it because they're cuckoo, or because they simply accept the power of the mind to manifest an outcome? And while we're on the placebo topic... Do conventional medicines become less effective if the patient is told that it's a placebo? I'd like to know if any of the success medicines enjoy is because we believe docs when they tell us a medicine will work.

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Up With Cholesterol, Down With Iron

New Study: Women With Higher Cholesterol Live Longer | AnthonyColpo: Aside from the article being both informative and humorous, it brings to mind a few thoughts.

1) We as a society are so into polarity and extremes, that we are destroying ourselves with it. Everything is either soooo awesome, it's a miracle cure and you should eat it every meal every day; or it's horribly bad, causing cancer and you should never allow it into your home. In most things, I'm not given to this sort of extremism, as I haven't experienced anything in the world to be so black-and-white. Moderation is the key to health and happiness.

2) Putting your faith in a quick-fix pill for ANY kind of health problem is almost always a mistake. Many pharmaceuticals have side effects worse than the symptoms they're designed to treat. And make no mistake, pills do just that: treat symptoms. They do not cure underlying causes or rectify the imbalances that caused your problem in the first place, so even if a drug seems to be "working," you've likely just stuck a Band-Aid on your problem. Nothing replaces improving your health through lifestyle changes.

3) Doctors do not always know what's best for you. Passively accepting everything a doctor tells you and popping the little pills is doing yourself a serious disservice. Yes, doctors are trained specialists. But there is more to know about health and medicine than can be squeezed into any one doctor's head. And health knowledge changes at a pace that no one can adequately keep up with. You certainly can't expect your doctor to have all the latest and greatest info about every little thing that's ailing you. You should be your own best health expert. Besides, most doctors these days are ruled by the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies. Listen to what your doc has to say, but then apply your own reason and research.

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Some Bloggers Are Hard to Follow

OK, most people who blog, also read a lot of blogs. And it can be really hard to keep up with all of those blogs. Everybody has a favorite method of doing so. I feel that subscribing by email is sort of old-peopleish, but some folks really love it and won't have it any other way. So why, WHY, would any blogger only offer one method of following when there are so many different methods available? Most are relatively easy to implement on your blog, too (at least, I have had NO trouble implementing the desired tools on Blogger or on my self-hosted Wordpress blog). Here on my Blogger blog, I had gadgets set up within about 5 minutes that let people follow via email, RSS, NetworkedBlogs, or Google FriendConnect. On my self-hosted Wordpress, I found a number of plugins, or was able to copy and paste code into text widgets, for people to follow me via Facebook, Twitter, RSS, email, and NetworkedBlogs. It's so easy, and by neglecting the available options, a blogger effectively limits their loyal readership. Even if your readership is pretty steady, why would you not want more?

Christian Politics On the Defensive

Rising atheism in America puts 'religious right on the defensive' | World news | The Observer: Well, I think these folks are half right. I think Christianity is on the defensive as the predominant, ruling faith of this country. And for some folks, the words "Christianity" and "religion" seem to be synonymous. They're really not, though. And I have to disagree with the idea that the answer to Christianity's desire to force itself on everyone, is to remove all vestiges of religion from the country completely. What is needed here is true freedom of religion, which includes the right for people to be religionless if they so desire. This means that at some point, Christian politicians and atheist ones alike have to realize that they must separate their spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) from their political agendas.

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RIFT 1.5 Brings Add-Ons to the Game

RIFT - RIFT 1.5 - Dynamic Fantasy MMORPG: I've been mulling this over for a few days, and I'm still annoyed about it. Ok, most of it, I really don't care about, but just scroll down to the end of the notes. There it is. Add-ons beta. Seriously? Rift has always been a WoW-clone as far as gameplay is concerned, has always been a leveling grind followed by a gear grind, with overly simplistic crafting on the side, but at least up until now, it hasn't been saturated with add-ons. Inevitably, once add-ons are allowed, a change happens. The hardcore elite equip themselves with every add-on possible so that their group can raid as efficiently as possible and go home with the loot as quickly as possible. People who don't use the add-ons can't function at nearly the level that the add-on folks can, so the non-add-on folks are eventually no longer welcome in raid groups. Eventually, the add-on usage is so prevalent in the game, that there is virtually no one (especially at endgame) who isn't using add-ons. At that point, the game is a completely different game than it would be without any add-ons. And then the developers have to go forward under the assumption that everyone is using add-ons, and design the game around add-on usage. At that point, the game has gone from "add-ons allowed," to "add-ons required." And it pisses me off.

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For Health, Listen to Your Body

'Health' Rules You Can Break - 1 - MSN Health - Nutrition Slide Show: OK, so I typically find most of these MSN articles to be pretty shallow and obvious. But a lot of the info in this one really makes a point that many of us have forgotten in our society. We are so obsessed with what Dr. Whoever says we're supposed to be doing, that we have forgotten to do what's really good for us, which is to listen to our bodies. We're obsessed with experts around here. We always think there is some brilliant, super-educated person who can give us the definitive answer that will make us look and feel terrific. But there is no one-size-fits-all health and fitness protocol. Every body is different. What we need most is to stop and listen to our bodies; something we are never encouraged to do. But it would solve a lot of problems. It's amazing how different you can feel just by asking yourself, "Am I going to the pantry because I'm hungry, or because I'm bored or upset?" or "Do I feel better after doing yoga for an hour or after doing circuit training for 20 minutes?" or, "How do I feel after eating this much bread?" Yes, there's lots of good expert advice out there that shouldn't be ignored, but don't follow the prevailing health dogma at the expense of what an equally important expert, your own body, has to say.


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The Problem With Anti-Capitalist Propaganda

So, the image that seems to have gone viral today, at least in my Facebook news feed, is this:

I can't really comment on whether or not capitalism is or isn't working for any given person or group of people, because as another friend pointed out, "I might agree if we actually had a capitalist system in place instead of a corrupt corporatist one." Not to mention, I daily become more convinced that there can be no pure, uncorrupted economic or political systems outside the realm of theory. But I do feel that there are some logical problems with this poster that do stuff it neatly into the "propaganda" box (where it can hang out with other anti-capitalist propaganda, pro-capitalist propaganda, and all sorts of other propaganda).

1) Emotional appeals aren't very well-respected in the realm of persuasion. They work by playing on the audience's fears, hopes, and sympathies rather than building a rational, logically-sound argument based on facts. Emotional appeal is ALL this poster offers us. "There are starving children somewhere. There are obese children somewhere. Therefore, capitalism isn't working," is not a valid argument. Of course, we are to infer that the starving folks are in a non-capitalist country, which appears to be somewhere in Africa. And we are supposed to infer that the obese children are in a capitalist country, which I suppose is the U.S., where childhood obesity is becoming a serious problem. Unfortunately, "There are starving children in Africa. There are obese children in the United States. Therefore, capitalism isn't working," is also a logically invalid argument.

2) A country's economic systems do not exist to support people in other countries. A country's economic systems develop in order to meet the commercial needs of the culture in which they exist. Though we are more and more heading toward becoming a truly global economy, it simply isn't true that a free market in one country is the cause of starvation in another country.

3) Obese children are not the product of capitalism. They are the product of parents who don't say, "Turn off the video games and go outside," or, "No, we're not going to eat fast food 15 times a week." Or parents who do say, "You're never allowed to leave the table unless you eat everything on your plate, regardless of whether you're actually hungry."

4) If you really want to pick on the thing, the images in this poster say, "People in non-capitalist societies are starving, and people in capitalist societies are not starving," which actually would imply that capitalism IS working (though I would have to pick nits with a poster to that effect as well, because it's also logically invalid).

Doesn't matter what side of the argument you're on, but at least have an argument, and not just a bunch of propaganda posters. Which brings me to my other beef:

Social networking sort of lends itself to spreading propaganda. For hours and hours every day, we can sit around seeing pics like the one above, making snap emotional judgments, and before any further thought enters our minds, we've shared it with our hundreds of friends, many of whom will then share it with theirs, thus perpetuating the process. The folks who create this tripe must be tickled that it's easier than ever to get people mindlessly fired up. When you can share everything with the merest click of a button, thus laying open to hundreds of people the brilliant cleverness of your social viewpoints (which you have copied from other people), there is no incentive to think through the over-simplified junk you're staring at before re-posting. No one is forced to ask themselves, "Who made this? What do they want? Is it true? Does it make any sense? IS IT WORTH KEEPING IN THE UNIVERSE BY RE-POSTING?"

Mmmm, Pumpkin Beer

The History of Pumpkin Beer in America | KegWorks: I've rarely met a beer I didn't like, and I'm not sure I've ever met a pumpkin product I didn't like. It certainly is getting to be that time of year again (though you wouldn't know it here in central Texas, where it's still close to 100 degrees most days). Break out the pumpkin beer and raise your glass to autumn and an American tradition!

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Mists of Avalon Sucks... Or Does It?

So, after many years of other people talking about how much they just loooove The Mists of Avalon, I finally picked up a copy at Half Price Books last year. I had never felt the slightest urge to read it before, but after reading Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle over the winter of 2009, I found myself wanting to compare and contrast how the authors had chosen to weave the mythology together. So. Cheap copy of "Mists" procured, I settled in for what I expected to be an epic read.

Except that it sort of sucked.

1) The character development seemed half-assed. The behavior and motivations of the characters wouldn't always follow from circumstances, or would seem contrived.

2) The pacing... dear god, the pacing. I've noticed that this tends to be a problem in stories that cover decades and decades in a single volume, but the last 150 pages of this book just dragged. By the time I got through them, I felt like the story had ended ages ago and Bradley had just kept rambling for the heck of it.

3) There were some chronological inconsistencies that kept my brow furrowed through much of the book. I felt like Bradley had gotten confused by the length and complexity of her own story and couldn't get it worked out in the editing process. I really don't think she had any clear idea of her own timeline.

4) Much of the dialogue seemed to make no point, and do nothing to further the plot. It was as if it was there just to be there.

Anyway, by the end of the book, I couldn't wait to sell it back to Half Price Books and forget this whole incident ever happened. I left it at that for another year. But one day, I will become self-aware enough to know that if I start a series, I can't be satisfied until I've read the whole thing. So, library card in hand, I came back for more.

The Forest House was tolerable; the underlying story was good but the relatively shallow, unrealistic character development got me again. And I almost could not manage to force my way through Lady of Avalon. It took me eight weeks to read the book. I didn't think I could continue with this series. I was sure I had to quit. And then I found out something I hadn't been aware of before... Marion Zimmer Bradley died before the fourth volume was finished, and the book was completed by Diana L. Paxson.

And guess what? It was good. Paxson was able to do with Bradley's ideas what Bradley herself had not been able to do, which was to make a good story out of them. Paxson brings to the table all of the things Bradley lacked in writing style. Yes, I know there are some rabid Marion Zimmer Bradley fans out there, but as far as I can see, the woman was filled with great philosophical and metaphysical thoughts, but couldn't write worth a crap. Now that I'm into the volumes penned by Paxson instead, though, this series has taken on new life for me. I'm actually enjoying it. My advice to folks is to just skip the early volumes and start with Priestess of Avalon and go from there. While a couple of the books do overlap each other in timeline and characters, all of the stories stand alone. If you pick up "Mists" and find you can't stomach it, just skip ahead and read the good ones. If, on the other hand, Bradley's writing doesn't bother you... well, then, don't listen to me.

Google+ Business Pages

According to Technorati, the Google+ Business Pages are coming soon. And it's about damn time! I guess it's impatient of me to say so, since Google+ only recently went into open beta, but I feel like I've been waiting forever for the one feature that will finally allow me to ween myself off of Facebook.

While I of course will have to continue using Facebook at least a little bit for business purposes, I continue to grow more and more uncomfortable with the direction Facebook is going. I understand why they're going the way they're going; what was once no more than a social network has now been around long enough to be a major business with a big-time paying clientele. Facebook isn't there to be a social network anymore, but to perform market research for that paying clientele. While privacy may be a myth on the internet, I for one at least want to be able to harbor my delusions of privacy controls.

While I expect Google+ to add more features and functionality over time, I currently enjoy the simplicity of the interface and the user-friendly privacy controls. The very last thing stopping me from making the leap is that I follow a wide range of business fan pages on Facebook. As Google+ makes the business pages available, and as business start trickling in (mine included), I look forward to much less time on the old social network and much more time on the new one.

As the Google+ population grows and diversifies, I think I'll mourn the loss of the techie/nerd community from the field testing days, but I guess that's a price that has to be paid for Google+ to truly be competitive. Honestly, I would love to see the day when Google+ is to Facebook as Facebook was to MySpace.