Signs Books

This book, if discovered by enough people, will be recognized for what it truly is: A tremendously important historical and religious revisionist source, worthy of a modern era of humanity, that thinks adequately enough and dares to question its rusty and outdated indoctrinated belief systems. Besides being truly thankful and utterly impressed...I want to understand what motivates intellectuals, like Mr. Siamak Akhavan, to expend so much energy and effort to enlighten us with no material benefit to themselves. I guess the world needs their kind to grow... I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH TO EVERYONE...READ THIS BOOK, DON'T MISS IT. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BOOKS OF THE CENTURY, IF NOT EVER!!!

Urban Graphics Entertainment, by Wayne Hunt, is an excellent resource for professionals and educators in the field of graphic design and interactive signage. Filled with crisply photographed examples of the latest in interactive graphics, traffic signage, exhibition design and point of purchase visual media, Urban Graphics Entertainment builds a strong case for such works as a free-standing area of specialization for designers of all backgrounds.

As with most sample/idea books targeted towards graphic designers, UGE enthralls the reader with vivid imagery but does so without overwhelming the reader. Each example is presented with descriptive text providing insight into why and how the design came about. While it is not a thorough revelation of the design process that went into creating each example, it is enough to allow the reader to develop some understanding of the designers intent and if they were successful.

Signage and interactive kiosks related to entertainment and sports venues are the one of the fastest growing areas of interests among graphic designers - and it is easy to see why after reading this book. A must have for practicing graphic designers and students.

Mitch Walker is the author of several very important books on queer life and is a psychotherapist and queer spiritual teacher and shaman. He was co-founder with Harry Hay and Don Kilhefner of the Radical Faerie movement in 1979 and was the first writer to propose a gay-centered Jungian psychology in his 1975 Master's thesis, "Gay Depth Psychology."

Since then he has continued to explore gay archetypal truths as a queer shamanic psychologist in his writings, practice and a growing community of people engaged in gay-centered inner work.

Visionary Love: A Spirit Book of Gay Mythology and Transmutational Faerie (Treeroots Press, 1980) is a little book of barely a hundred pages. But, oh! What treasures are buried within those pages, what globe-encircling and decade-spanning memes given rise to! This is a book about rebirthing within ourselves and within one another as queer men that alchemic power to transform the world and everything in it that a heterosexist, pleasure-denying and oppressive cutural matrix has sought to stifle, to silence and to rob. It is a wonderful companion to that other great work of Queer spirituality, Judy Grahn's "Another Mother Tongue," and the two serve admirably as complements to each other.

This little book has been out of print for many years, but it played so epochal a role in the revivification of the Queer Spirit, that wild faith of the Faeirie, that it needs to be not simply widely read, but widely learned and loved.

This book offers an organized discussion of the use of visual training in lipreading, including an examination of the value of television for instruction.

Vital Signs supplies a critique which is both generous and absolutely devastating to contemporary discourse on sexuality and gender. Shepherdson carefully engages the cultural construction/biological determinism debate, arguing that psychoanalysis engages a paradigm which is radically different from either side of that division.

As the author makes clear, this does not mean that psychoanalysis becomes some kind of theoretical mashing-together of nature and culture. Rather, in rejecting both the biological and historical account of human nature, it demonstrates how human subjectivity is exiled within a system of signification and yet irreducible to that system; the symbolic is founded on the premise of its own failure. In his chapter, "The Role of Gender, the Imperative of Sex," the author engages this concept vis-a-vis a careful explanation of Lacan's concepts of the Symbolic and the Real and their relation to sexual difference. Here Shepherdson convincingly demonstrates that we are severed from any natural access to the body; through social discourse we repeatedly encounter the body within a system of signification, one that seeks always to capture and fully contain it. But unlike other social concepts--like "democracy or monarchy"--our bodies are not created by those discourses that conceptualize them. Rather, Vital Signs argues that sexual difference, for instance, is the hard rock that all signifying efforts run against--a resistant kernel to which discourse inevitably returns and yet, in its attempt to grasp it discursively, fails necessarily. The body divided by sex is not the success of the ideologies that seek to capture and define it, but is rather the failure of those interpellations, proof of the inability of any signifying system to resolve it into discourse. Sexual difference is a traumatic remainder, an empty bar that all of the competing, performative dimentions of gender try to "fill." As Shepherdson writes: "the subject in psychoanalysis is conceived in relation to this 'cost,' this traumatic residue that remains, even in not belonging to the symbolization that seeks to pacify and regulate it" (90).

For contemporary theories that increasingly posit the body as an object of social construction, this book presents a devastating challenge. However, from Shepherdson's continual engagement with many of the philosophers who take that approach, it is clear that he does not want to simply reject one account for the other. His respectful and generous chapter "History and the Real: Foucault with Lacan" creatively reads both authors on the questions of power, genealogy, and transgression. This chapter, and his book as a whole, proves a real contribution to understanding both French psychoanalysis and historicism. Vital Signs is a powerful challenge to and engagement with gender and cultural studies, one that should not be ignored.

This book focuses briefly on subjects of great importance to all life on earth, mainly ours. It begins with reports of the world's harvest (grain,etc.) and ends with human life expectancy. Some of the information was a little difficult for me to believe, but as I read on I realized that the people who helped put all the facts together are concerned not only for our future, but that of Earth. There are no doubt publications containing greater detail regarding the topics discussed (rapid deforestation, pollution of waterways, unsustainable fish catches and the problems facing our farmers). This book and those of the series seems to be a starting point for us to investigate what's important to each of us. (There are 22 pages of reference notes). Many people put a lot of work into this on a continual basis. This book is good for pointing out how the future looks in 1994. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

In that most memorable of scenes from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843), the villain-hero Ebeneezer Scrooge has just been shown a vision of his desolate future. Like his partner Marley, he will soon be dead, buried unceremoniously, then completely forgotten -- save for the moments when his life is ridiculed, mocked as an example the greatest miser in the history of London town. Terrified of this abysmal future, Scrooge cries out:

"Spirit! Is this the shadow of things that MUST be, or only MIGHT be. Tell me, Spirit!"

Fortunately for Ebeneezer, it was not too late to change his stingy ways, give up the futile accumulation of money, and find true happiness by devoting himself to helping the less fortunate human beings around him.

Perhaps it is not unreasonable to say that our planet today resembles the troubled Scrooge. Our environmental predicament is perilous, yet it is not too late to save ourselves. We can improve our world if and only if we act, soon, with compassion and intelligence. In facing this crisis there is no place for these classic Dickensian spirits: Apathy, Panic, or Ignorance.

Obviously, Earth 2000 is a culture far more complex than the Victorian society of 150 years ago. Today we have easy access to mountains and megabytes of paper and electronic data. But how can we discern which peaks of these information mountains are reliable, trustworthy, and wise?

Accurate information and keen insights is why this yearly book from the Worldwatch Institute -- Vital Signs -- is a publishing event of the utmost importance. The facts throughout this book are categorized into trends in these areas: food production, agriculture, energy, atmosphere, economy, transportation, communication, health and social problems, and military issues.

The facts and the numbers are astonishing. For example: Last year the world endured 35 wars: except for the Kosovo conflict, all the others occurred in third-world countries. Cigarette smoking last year was responsible for the deaths of 4 million people, a number which is expected to increase 2.5 times, to 10 million, by the year 2030. In 1999, the total number of persons infected with HIV was almost 50 million. About 2.6 million persons died from AIDS last year (most of these in Africa), pushing the total cumulative death toll from AIDS to 16 million. World population last year increased by 77 million persons, as the total population of Earth swelled past the 6 billion mark.

One of this year's most disturbing trends is the growing economic gap -- and the quality of life gap -- between the privileged persons and the poor. The World Health Organization has estimated that more than 1.1 billion persons are malnourished, at the same time that more than 1 billion persons suffer from health-related problems caused by obesity. Last year's edition of this book, in the section "Malnutrition Still Prevalent" shows that nothing has improved:

"Nearly 1 billion people worldwide do not get enough to eat each day, and several billion get enough calories but their poor diet falls short in providing basic nutrients. ... Regardless of the form it takes, malnutrition levies a heavy toll on human health, leading to increased susceptibility to disease, reduced levels of energy and productivity, and increased morbidity and mortality." As to be expected, the poorest nations, especially in South Asia and Africa -- Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Nigeria, Indonesia -- contain the highest numbers of malnourished persons."

If it all sounds like a nightmare of gloom and doom, take heart. In a number of areas, significant environmental progress is being accomplished. In the all-important realm of energy, the world is beginning to make the necessary shift from burning fossil-fuels (the major contributor to global warming) to non-polluting and renewable sources such as wind and solar cells. Organic farming -- without pesticides -- is thriving. More world treaties have been formed to control environmental degradation. Western Europe is now heavily taxing corporations who exceed pollution limits. Nuclear weaponry is shrinking; life expectancy is on the rise; and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) are growing in numbers of groups and volunteers, and already making an impact for positive social and environmental change.

The premise underlying Vital Signs 2000 is that the trends depicted here will shape the nature and quality of our lives in the coming years. Vital Signs 2000, the companion volume to State Of The World 2000, are the two most authoritative and insightful publications in their field. Everyone who wants to help to make this world a better place -- socially, economically, politically, sustainably -- should raise his own social and ecological awareness by beginning with these two books.

Michael Pastore, Reviewer

A product of The World Watch Institute, "Vital Signs" is the only book out there that attempts to provide the Big Picture of massive global trends - and succeeds. Unlike any other study, it gives a unique snapshot of the social, economic, and environmental trends that determine the quality of our lives and the future of our children's lives. It answers the question, "Where has development brought us?" And although we might not want to hear the answer, it is necessary if we wish to steer ourselves in the right direction. To quote the introduction, "a candied appraisal reveals disparities between rich and poor, mounting health challenges, battered ecosystems, and persistent social and political conflicts." More specifically, we see that the global temperature is rising; forests are fading; pesticide use is skyrocketing (as are pesticide-resistant pests); soda beverage drinking is up as with its concomitants, obesity and diabetes, and food-borne illness is widespread, among other things to numerous to mention. The "key indicators" Vital Signs focuses on are food and agricultural trends, energy trends, atmospheric trends, economic trends, transportation trends, communication trends, health and social trends, and finally military trends. The second half of this slim, compact, hard-hitting book focuses on "special issues." These include environmental features (like the deterioration of farmland and the increase of "unseen toxic wastes"), economy and finance features (from foreign spending to the cruise industry), resource economic features (the biotech and water issues, for example), health features (such as asthma and food-borne illness), social features (like persisting poverty and voter decline), and military features - in particularly, progress against landmines. As you can the see, the scope of the book is vast, but the presentation is clean and seamless. It won't bog you down and intimidate. A veritable resource treasure house. If you want global awareness or simply need to scrape together some important and up-to-date facts for a research paper, look no further. Baseline information for anyone interested in the future of the planet.

This volume, prepared on an annual basis by the World Watch Institute in cooperation with the UN Environment Program, helps the reader to grasp the big picture by identifying important trends shaping our future and progress towards ecologically sustainable development. It provides a snapshot of the world and is a respected source of facts and figures. "The year 2002 set numerous local and regional records for windstorms, rain intensities, floods, droughts, and temperatures. Economic losses from weather disasters worldwide approached $53 billion, a 93% increase over 2001 losses. The increase was due in part to the return of El Nino in mid-2002. The number of natural disasters totaled about 700; of these 593 were weather-related events. Windstorms and floods accounted for 98% of total 2002 insured losses from natural catastrophes." Many of the problems arise because of the gap between the rich and the poor - the wealthy impose the heaviest toll through their materials-intensive, pollution-laden lifestyles while the poor live in the worst conditions and over tax cropland, forests, and water resources. Experts and activists are putting forward proposals, expressed at government level by the Millenium Goals and the Plan of Implementation declared at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, to meet the major challenge of our times - improving the lifestyle of billions of people without wrecking the delicate balance that sustains all life on the planet. While a minority enjoys plentiful food, mobility and cutting edge technology, a large majority worries about daily survival. Hunger is widespread, not because of a shortage of food, but because many lack money to buy grain used to fatten livestock so the wealthy can eat meat. Deep disparities between rich and poor is found between countries but also within countries. The growing economic divide translates into unequal educational opportunities, unfunded social programs, vulnerability to disease and natural disasters, and exposure to armed conflict and human rights violations.

The first key indicator is in food trends where grain production is dropping at the same time as meat consumption is growing. The second key indicator is in energy and atmosphere trends. "Measurements taken at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii show an 18% increase in CO2 levels from 1960 to 2002. Scientists estimate that levels have risen 31% since the onset of the Industrial Revolution around 1750. The current concentration has not been exceeded in at least 420,000 years - and likely in 20 million years. In May 2002, ocean buoys in the central Pacific started reading warmer-than-average temperatures, heralding the onset of El Nino, which persisted into 2003, sharply changing patterns of rainfall, temperature and winds in some regions and contributing to, for instance, droughts in India, Australia, and Africa and floods in Europe. Scientists believe that this El Nino may help push the global temperature to a new high in 2003." "Long-term trends make it clear that for most islands, as for the world in general, the sea is rising. In the 20th century, global sea level rose 10-20 millimeters per year. The sea level rises from melting continental ice masses and from expansion of the oceans due to climate change."

Economic trends are the third key indicator; there is slow economic growth, foreign debt is declining, advertising spending is flat, tourism growth is shaky, and world heritage sites are rising. Between 1960 and 1995 the disparity in per capita income between the world's richest and poorest nations widened from 18 to 1 to 37 to 1. In addition the inequality gap in most countries is even more pronounced. In the US CEO remuneration grew to 350 times the average factory worker, about ten times higher than in other industrial countries. Farm subsidies of $300 billion per year undermine farmers in developing nations by exporting at 25% to 50% below the cost of production leaving the poor little alternative but to turn to drug crops that are in high demand in wealthy nations. Economic inequities mean that the poor cannot afford drugs for AIDS where the high death rate worsens poverty. Orphans worldwide are increasing with children who have lost one or both parents projected to be 25 million by 2010. While hunger and poverty persist, the number of hungry people worldwide has declined 15% from 1970 and debt forgiveness by the World Bank has increased. Global wind capacity has tripled since 1998 and remains the fastest growing power source.

Other areas tracked are transportation and communication; health and social trends and military trends. The second half of the book is devoted to five features where there is much information that you might not expect in such a volume. "Traditional and alternative medicine are increasingly used in part because of accessibility and affordability. People in poor nations obtain them for free by gathering plants in forests and jungles or by growing them in gardens or between crops. In rural areas, traditional healers are also more readily accessible than doctors. In Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, the ratio of TM practitioners to the population is 1 to 200 or 1 to 400 compared with 1 to 20,000 for doctors trained in more modern medicine."

In a small volume the reader has access to a wealth of reliable information composing the most important trends regarding our world today. There is progress in many important areas but there is still much to be done. "Vital Signs" keeps track of these trends and helps to identify where we must put renewed effort. Everyone should be aware of this valuable book and insist on it being purchased annually by the local library.

Lester Brown and the World Watch Institure have revisited Vital SIgns in 2005 (they skipped 2004) and with it, again capture the key trends shaping our quality of life and economy.

This book is a requirement for anyone planning and hoping to benefit, rather than be in conflict with, worldwide trends. Specifically, business folk, insurance, and those investing in the future would clearly benefit. I also refer to it when planning my career, advising others or if Im presenting and it has information I can draw from.