Nothing we think we know - NOTHING - is likely to be correct. If Ignorance is Bliss, We Should All Be Ecstatic explores the limitations of knowledge and argues that neither reasoning nor direct observation can be trusted. Not only are they unreliable sources, but they do not even justify assigning probabilities to claims about what we can know. This position, called radical skepticism, has intrigued philosophers since before the birth of Christ, yet nobody has been able to refute it. Fred Leavitt uses two unique methods of presentation. First, he supports abstract arguments with summaries of real-life examples from many and varied fields, which make the arguments much more convincing and compelling. He cites more than 200 studies from psychology, mathematics, chaos theory, quantum mechanics, evolutionary theory, history, the corporate world, politics, the military, and current news reporting. Second, Leavitt's writing is user-friendly, even when dealing with complex issues. Whether answering the telephone, turning on the TV, talking with friends, or munching on an apple, we expect things to happen predictably. These expectations, paired with radical skepticism, exemplify cognitive dissonance at the highest level.

This Book Eight of the Earth Manifesto contains incisive essays, including "A Clarion Call for Common Sense Action" and "Climate Change Considerations", along with provocative Pope Francis-inspired "Views on High from an Angular Unconformist", and "Sad Implications of the Two Dueling Santa Claus Strategies in Political Economics". It also contains renewed assessments of optimum economic and social planning for the United States and nations around the world. Among other contents, it includes the essay "Thirteen Main Methods Used to Increasingly Concentrate Wealth and Power", which assesses the pathological causes of extreme inequality that are having such deleterious impacts on the world during terribly hard times for tens of millions of Americans during the on-going coronavirus pandemic.

A companion volume to the Emmy Award–winning PBS® series—interviews with “an essential voice in our national conversation” (Brian Williams, MSNBC anchor). This “provocative” and “absorbing” (Star Tribune) companion book to Bill Moyer’s acclaimed PBS series invites readers into conversations with some of the most captivating voices on the scene today, in what Kirkus Reviews calls “a glittering array of discussions.” From Jon Stewart on politics and media to Michael Pollan on food, The Wire creator David Simon on the mean streets of our cities, James Cone and Shelby Steele on race in the age of Obama, Robert Bly and Nikki Giovanni on the power of poetry, Barbara Ehrenreich on the hard times of working Americans, and Karen Armstrong on faith and compassion, Moyer’s own intelligence and insight match that of his guests and their discussions animate many of the most salient issues of our time. With extensive commentary from Moyers, marked by his customary “respect, intelligence, curiosity, humor, and graciousness,” here are the debates; cultural currents; and, above all, lively minds that shape the conversation of democracy (Booklist). “In an era of much instant and ephemeral talk, it is a pleasurable thing to hold this ‘book of ideas.’” —Publishers Weekly “[Moyers] has always been about something beyond the moment. Or put another way, while everyone else in the media has been exploring topography, Moyers has been exploring geology.” —Los Angeles Times

In the beginning, butterflies were free A rose was a kiss that Earth blew to the Sun just to say thanks . . . then we came along . . . Michael Tanner, playboy-politician-philanthropist, finds himself in an Eastern European missile silo, perplexed as to why he’s just flicked the switch in a scheme to end all life on Earth. As he becomes aware of the enormity of his deed, a power beyond his grasp compels him to document the process that led him there, for his own understanding or for a posterity that may never be. Obsessed to put the pieces of his fragmented mind together, his fingers fly across the keyboard. How did this happen to him? How could a person dedicated to getting high or getting elected become the lone horseman of the Apocalypse? These questions assault and consume him as he loses himself in stream of consciousness writing hoping to understand the metamorphoses he has undergone. Tanner’s escapade began when he and his girlfriend, Ginny, were speeding in his Ferrari to a play in Manhattan. After a clogged fuel line forces them to sputter into a New Jersey diner’s driveway, a chance encounter with a tattooed waitress named Maya sets the course for events to come. An admitted ass-man, Tanner becomes blindsided by his fixation on Maya’s derriere. His life goes into a tailspin when Maya’s ex-lover, a convicted terrorist, Gabriel Durango, enters the diner following his prison break. Durango, the leader of a 1970s worldwide nihilist group called the GODS, takes the unlikely trio hostage in a Soviet-era bomb shelter. During his ensuing confinement, through forces beyond his understanding, Tanner becomes brainwashed into enthusiastically resurrecting the GODS’s long abandoned plan to annihilate humankind. The coke snorting would be governor and his bimbo girlfriend are ready targets for the wiles of their manipulative, charismatic captor. In spite of her prior relationship with Durango, Tanner becomes romantically involved with Maya. Early on in their captivity, Tanner learns that Maya is a former parapsychology professor and member of the GODS. Unending TV news updates, transmitting filtered streams of characters and events, force Tanner to keep in touch with the outside world. After continuous revelations of Ginny’s past and his family’s dark secrets, via the newscasts, Tanner experiences a crisis of conscience. This plays into Durango ́s intricate manipulation of Tanner’s perception. In The Wind explores the subtle yet overwhelming power of suggestion and its potential in achieving personality transformation. The novel demonstrates how the phenomena known as Stockholm Syndrome can effect drastic changes in behavior of an unwary victim. It shows the frightening possibility of how even a tycoon and political rising star like Michael Tanner might be converted to a radical accomplice of fanatics determined to eradicate humankind for a greater good. The question remains; did Michael Tanner take on the purpose of another or might he simply have become in touch with his true self?