This iphone app will SAVE Western CIVILIZATION!!

http://books.google.com/m

There it is above- the Rosetta Stone of Western Civilization- 1.5 million classics of Western literature- BOOKS, if you will... books that describe and flesh out the bones of our civilization; the best books of all time! Free, convenient, and ready for your perusal!!

If you just go to the above Google site, and add google books as an app to your iPhone, you have access to 1 and a half MILLION books (currently), most in their original editions (I enjoyed the original Cruikshank illustrations to Oliver Twist), just in trying this thing out...

At first glance, it all seems like no big deal- books on your iphone? You can already get them at the library (after requesting them, checking them out, and/or waiting for them to arrive for days).

This is instantaneous! You're waiting in line, probably at some big-government agency, where they have cut back staffing to ridiculous levels, whilst simultaneously bloating the upper bureaucracy so much that the non-productive "managers" of said bureaucracy are getting in each other's way, bumping clipboards as they observe and track the civil service actual workers who really do the necessary work...

So, you are probably at the Post Office, or at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, or some such:
SO, fire up your GOOGLE BOOKS APP on your iPHONE!!!!!

You can explore Western Civilization at your LEISURE- maybe, as you read F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dickens, or Pericles, you can figure out how we wound up so FAR from the wellsprings of our culture,and the prisoners of our own bureacracy!

I really believe, that this app might... (drumroll!) save reading!!

When we read online, we don't really read- we just kind of... skim- scroll- bounce around like we're reading the newspaper. It's like hitting the memory button on an old radio, going from station to station until we find a song we like.

We never really listen to a single song from start to finish.

With Googlebooks, we are given the opportunity, AGAIN, in this modern frenetic age, to read a book from start to finish!! In bits and pieces...

You go to a book, choose it- and read a bit.

After the ONE postal window clerk, overburdened, has served several dozen customers, (whilst being observed and critiqued by 3 or four Postal managers with clipboards and unjustifiably bloated salaries), you will finally get to pick up your package at the window... AND, you will have read several pages of classic literature, to boot!!

The best part is this: the next time you are waiting at the Post Office, or perhaps the dentist's office... you can pick up right where you left off in the book!

Even if the light is dim, the well lighted iPhone display will pick up right where you left off!

I think this Google books is right there along with Guttenberg's moveable type.

But then, I'm just an old mailman.

And then, again: Pericles was just an old bureaucrat, as well.

We both think you should go to Google books, and get this app.

Not just for the future of Western Civilization: it's for YOU!!

Love,
Jay and Pericles

The Koreans come to Onalaska, Wisconsin!

Guess which one is the Korean girl?

For the record, I reveal here that the second redhead from the left is my daughter.. and the Korean is just to her right! (Heyrim is her Anglicized name).

Megan is to the left, and Brianne to the right...

Our Onalaska United Methodist Church sponsored, for the 2nd year, a large group of young Koreans visiting the USA! (Along with various older Koreans, including Teacher Chong, several other teachers, and a few mothers as well).

Many of the Koreans are Buddhists, and some have no religion whatsoever. Hopefully, by being exposed to midwestern, Christian hospitality and teachings, they are "drawn to the light".

The exchange DOES appear to be having effect!

At any rate, just having them here, and experiencing our Western culture, which they are EMBRACING as the future of THEIR world, as well as our own, bodes very well for the future of the world.... and WESTERN CIVILIZATION in particular!

The future of our world depends on Western Civilization and it's tenets, I believe.

Ironically, those of the Far East (Korea, for instance) have decided that Western Civilization is the future; (they are RIGHT in this assumption), and are surpassing all of us "Westerners" at our own game!

They work harder, (Classroom schedules last 12-16 hours per day), and they have no ideas of "political correctness" that "excuse" poor performance in tests.

Strangely, the future of the West is in....

the EAST!

Remember, the Greeks started Western Civilization.

The Romans took those ideas, and RAN with them!

Later, the Germanic barbarians that overran the Roman empire assumed the empire they had destroyed, and eventually revived it, and remade themselves in it's image.

America invented itself as a revival of Greek/Roman civilization. Concsiously, and with the intent of doing so.

And now, ASIANS are consciously, and with deliberate intent, assuming our Western Culture.
They realize they need to "back a Winner".

Western Civilization is the Winner of the World!

We have the winning template. Ironically, we are abandoning our own supremacy, and OTHER cultures, who recognize superiority, will ASSUME our role, by copying our own culture!!

It may seem extreme in an "old mailman" blog, but it is very true, nevertheless:

Western Civilization is the future of the world. The Orient knows it, but a sizeable portion of the USA hasn't a clue.

The only ones who have lost sight of this are US! (The U.S. and Europe)