Blog Posts for Julia Stein

Ann Jones "Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan"

Julia Stein — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:33:54 -0800

Ann Jones has written a book that explains why the U.S. is losing in Afghanistan. She is a American journalist and photographer who went to Afghanistan in the winter of 2001 to help the country out as an aid worker and spent four winters there. Her book is part memoir of her time working with a feminist non-government agency (NGO) Madar which helps Afghan widows and also teaching English as a ...

Doctor Against the Health Care Bill

Julia Stein — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:12:23 -0800

Here's a doctor who teaches at Harvard arguing against the House of Representatives health care bill as a bad bill that will continue our too costly private health insurance system and give bad care. She says this health care bill is a private health insurance takeover of the health care system. She gives good alternatives too: just expand Medicare. First expand it to people 55 to 65. Then ...

P.D. James amazing detective novel "Death in Holy Orders"

Julia Stein — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:51:59 -0800

P.D. James 2001 novel Death in Holy Orders is much more than an enthralling mystery story. She is the Dostoyevsky of the English novel, making the mystery novel into a great piece of literature. Death in Holy Orders is set in a St. Anselm's, a small theological college on the east coast of England that trains Anglican priests; St. Anselm's has seen two suspicious deaths even before detective ...

French press, cloth napkin, metal coffee cup: reduce, reuse, recycle

Julia Stein — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:56:04 -0800

I started to use my French press for the first time rather than my coffee pot which uses paper filters, and the coffee from the French press was excellent. I stopped use paper napkins and started using a cloth napkin which worked very well. Also, I took my red metal coffee cup with me whenever I went out, and started use it whenever I ordered coffee or ice tea at a coffee shop or coffee house. ...

Understanding Afghanistan: Dr. Nadir Atash's autobiography "Turbulence"

Julia Stein — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:09:47 -0800

Dr. Nadir Atash's autobiography Turbulence is a book crucial to understanding Afghanistan. Dr. Atash has two parts to his autobiography. The first part describes growing up in 1960s Kabul full of hope for his country, but his hope ended when he found himself a refugee in 1979.The second part describes returning in 2001 as a successful Afghan-American professional eager to help rebuild his country ...

What's Happening in California

Julia Stein — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:53:06 -0800

According to Fall 2009 Volume 11 issue of FACCCTS, the advocacy journal of community college faculty in California, in the recent cutbacks of 2009, 250,000 students were cut out of community colleges; 40,000 cut out of California State University. Thousands of public employees lost their jobs and tens of thousands had pay cuts because of furloughs.The "budget crisis providing an opportunity ...

Afghani Malalai Joya is a Woman's Voice Among Warlords

Julia Stein — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:50:41 -0800

Afghani feminist/activist Malalai Joya has been gaining world-wide fame for speaking out against the warlords in Afghanistan. I heard her speak at a Code Pink lunch in West Los Angeles and just read her autobiography A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Women Who Dared to Raise Her Voice.At thirty years old she calls herself part of the war generation of Afghanis. Her ...

"Isaac's Torah," an amazing novel about surviving a thirty years war.

Julia Stein — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:53:33 -0800

My grandfather came from Galicia in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire like Isaac in the novel Isaac's Torah and also was also a soldier for the Austria-Hungarian Empire like Isaac but my grandfather Samuel Stein emigrated to New York before World War I while Isaac stayed in Eastern Europe rolled over by wars. Isaac's story is like that of my long lost Galician cousins.Angel Wagenstein has ...

Grayson Reads Numbers of Dead from Lack of Health Care in Congress

Julia Stein — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:26:40 -0800

Rep. Grayson (D-Florida) on floor of House of Representatives gave speech saying according to Harvard study 44,000 Americans die from lack of health insurance every year or 120 die/day. He read the list of the number of projected dead for next year for every Republican Congressional district in the country. The Republicans are totally opposed to any plans to expand health insurance. ...

P.D. James latest novel "The Private Patient"

Julia Stein — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:05:41 -0700

P.D. James latest novel The Private Patient with the detective Adam Dagliesh and his team solving two murders set in a manor house in Dorset is quite wonderful. She wrote the novel when she was 87 and published it when she was 88 in 2008. James artfully combines the old England and the new England. As for the old England, the novel ends not just with the two murders solved but with a wedding and ...