I read this book and thought This is a good book.I read this book and thought I've learned from this book.I read this book and thought Kit Lasch is the bomb.I read this book and thought Man can be as slippery as Saturday's soap.I read this book and thought Man can be as silly as Bugsy Malone.I read this book and thought This is a serious book, with serious thoughts, and serious insights, and here I am chewing gum and popping bubbles.I read this book and thought I really like this book. It's aces.I read this book and thought This book mirrors a society a mile wide and an inch deep.I read this book and thought My mirror shows splintered eyes haunted by failure.I read this book and thought This looks to be another let's see year for the Nucks.I read this book and thought Thanks to —————, I haven't had a decent dump in six goddamn years.I read this book and thought Man is like me, severely constipated.I read this book and thought And when it comes out, it's hard and it hurts.I read this book and thought Why can't I accept finitude?I read this book and thought Ol' Kit fucking nailed it. He fucking nailed me.I read this book and thought Why does everybody talk about me?I read this book and thought And if they aren't, why?I read this book and thought Are my lungs expelling septic stink?I read this book and thought We've seen better days.I read this book and thought Better days can still be had.I read this book and thought Salad days and tart vinaigrette.I read this book and thought My daddy didn't cry, so neither do I.I read this book and thought Not even when he beat me.I read this book and thought I'm lying, he never actually beat me.I read this book and thought But if I was hypnotized, I might think that he did.I read this book and thought I've read most of Kit Lasch's books. They are smart but gloomy, tempestuous like my stomach.I read this book and thought My stomach after Harvey's at the airport.I read this book and thought I loved this book. Does the book love me?I read this book and thought Good stuff, Kit. Merci beaucoup.I read this book and thought In Vancouver the sun can hide itself away for months on end.I read this book and thought Despite this, the suicide rate in Vancouver hovers around the national mean.I read this book and thought I haven't yet erased my map.I read this book and thought I once saw a woman jump to her death.I read this book and thought Cracked me inside like a beat-up eggshell.I read this book and thought To a chicken, an eggbeater is a rooster accused of child abuse.I read this book and thought With that and Woody Woodpickle, I'm always armed.I read this book and thought But I've got lots and lots of books to go.I read this book and thought This is a solid four stars.I read this book and thought Everybody should read this book.I read this book and thought I did.

Blood In My Eye was completed only days before its author was killed. George Jackson died on August 21, 1971, at the hands of San Quentin prison guards during an alleged escape attempt. At eighteen, George Jackson was convicted of stealing seventy dollars from a gas station and was sentenced from one year to life. He was to spent the rest of his life -- eleven years-- in the California prison system, seven in solitary confinement. In prison he read widely and transformed himself into an activist and political theoretician who defined himself as a revolutionary.

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen?Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.

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