The Missing Moment

Book Description

In THE MISSING MOMENT a distinguished molecular biologist explores the nature of time and argues for a radical rethinking of how time affects our sense of self, our mortality, and the future of science and medicine. Only in the past few years have we learned enough about the brain for this remarkable book to be written. We know now that our brains continually filter the present through memories and emotions of the past. In fact, strictly speaking, we live in the past: since it takes the brain a second to process perceptions, what we think is the present actually happened a second ago. We also know where and how the unconscious operates and how painful memories are repressed; repression is not a psychological defect but an evolutionary necessity for our species. All thought, even the most rational, is permeated with unconscious feelings, fears, and emotions. Scientists, like the rest of us, make choices for reasons they don't understand. Thus the direction of scientific research is driven by private demons, not public needs. We can see this in medical science, where doctors develop the tools to diagnose genetic diseases they cannot cure, bringing pain rather than comfort to patients. Today science can do more good than ever before, and it can also do more harm. The time has come for scientists and others to abandon the notion that there is any such thing as the disinterested pursuit of truth. Instead, they must strive for a therapeutic self-awareness of their unconscious agendas and work for larger goals than personal immortality.

Customer Reviews:

A true thinker's delight!.......2003-10-23

This book is truly a thinker's delight. It challenges traditional notions of science and examines our 'scientific' pursuits in relation to our own consciousness. This is a book that is instrumental in our evolution as we develop into more self-conscious beings in the future. Another delightful book that discusses this phenomenon so clearly and interestingly is 'The Ever-Transcending Spirit' by Toru Sato. It explains this material in relation to human relationships as well. I must say that both books are quite astounding if you are a true thinker.

On-target entreaty tainted by Freudian psychobabble.......2002-08-11

Pollack's fascinatingly presented--and infuriatingly argued--book makes two contentions: that medical science spends most of its efforts on defying the inevitability of death (rather than preventing disease and alleviating suffering), and that the reason for this lopsided strategy is a collective unconscious fear of death by most health professionals. "The Missing Moment" of the title refers both metaphorically to the gap between knowledge and wisdom and literally to the half second during which unconscious machinations affect and transform the thoughts and actions of everyone--including scientists.

Pollack's first argument is expertly and cogently presented in, strangely enough, the second half of the book. The author discusses infectious diseases, cancer, and aging; he convincingly (and rightly) shows that the medical establishment has come to rely too heavily on antibiotics to cure infection (rather than vaccines to achieve deterrence), risky and painful procedures to treat cancer (rather than behavioral and environmental changes to prevent it), and attempts to delay death (rather than efforts to improve the quality of one's remaining life). The informative notes are not to be skipped, and a must-read appendix outlines Pollack's views for a more humane medical agenda.

In the first half of the book, however, Pollack dilutes the force of his appeal by waving a Freudian wand and suggesting that health professionals are blinded by a collective unconscious desire: their own fear of death. Although Pollack discusses some fascinating aspects of how the mind works and how it affects human behavior, he is not a psychotherapist and--more to the point--he did not examine the scientists he is analyzing in anything resembling a clinical setting (other than, I gather, to read their publications and mingle with them at conferences).

Completing lacking from his analysis is either proof that the research conducted by most scientists is motivated primarily by an unconscious fear of death (rather than any of a dozen other intentions) or--more important--a causal connection between that fear and their research. There are dozens of possible, obvious reasons the medical establishment pursues its death-defying agenda--and Pollack simply ignores all of them. For example, a cynic would cite the profit motive: after all, the amount of money made on preventing or curing smallpox last year was exactly $0.00, while trillions were made by corporations on medicines that treat or cure (rather than prevent or eradicate) most other diseases. Or, alternatively, an idealist might point out that devoting the resources of the last two decades to finding an AIDS vaccine would barbarically have required doctors to abandon the hundreds of thousands of people whose immune systems were already compromised. As Pollack himself points out in his appendix, "the purpose of medicine [is] to alleviate or cure the suffering of a person already here among us"--by concentrating first on the development of protease inhibitors and other treatments, isn`t that exactly what scientists did (however myopic it might seem to us now)?

What's baffling about Pollack's attempt at collective psychotherapy is that it is not essential to his basic agenda--changing the priorities of the world's health systems. The net effect is that his intriguing and humane entreaty is undermined by the alienation most of his colleagues must experience when reading his blanket condemnation of their motives.

Captivating.......2000-06-28

The Missing Moment is a fascinating book. It sweeps through different areas of biology and psychology with all the excitement a professor giddy about his field can muster. The book begins by laying a theme of the human condition's impact on where science is going and where it's been. He goes into a an interesting description of the senses and the roles they play in our interaction with the world, while also touching on the "magical" half-second delay (better explained in books like Tor Norretranders' The User Illusion). After this, he delves into a little more psychology and tries to show explicitly why science is handicapped (or bolstered, he lets the user decide for himself) by the brain's unique perspective of the world.

Amazon.com

It's an axiom of fiction as well as real life that a phone that rings in the middle of the night rarely portends good tidings. For Andy Gulliver, the protagonist of Evan Hunter's gripping new novel, it usually means that his peripatetic twin sister, Annie, is gone again, along with her tenuous hold on reality. Annie has been disappearing with no warning and reappearing just as unexpectedly ever since her adolescence, when she ran off to Sweden to find her first love, a boy she met on an earlier trip abroad with her family. However, the real, if unconscious, object of her search, as Hunter makes clear, is the father who abandoned the Gullivers years before. Annie's occasional postcards and letters from places as far-flung as Nepal and New Guinea offer just enough reassurance to enable Andy and their mother to maintain the illusion that there's nothing really wrong with her. Annie's increasing mental deterioration, like her family's implacable denial, is brilliantly depicted, and drives the narrative to its heavily foreshadowed but still shocking conclusion. Hunter, a master of suspense, is the author of 20 novels as well as countless police procedurals and detective stories, all of which are marked by the psychological acuity that suffuses this, his latest. --Jane Adams

Book Description

It's two o'clock in the morning when Andrew Gulliver gets a phone call from his mother, who tells him his twin sister, Annie, is gone. This is not the first time. Ever since she was sixteen, she's been taking off without notice to places as far distant as Papua New Guinea, then returning unexpectedly, only to disappear yet another time, again and again and again.

But this time is different.

Last month, Annie got into serious trouble in Sicily and was briefly held in a mental hospital, where an Italian doctor diagnosed her as schizophrenic. Andrew's divorced mother refuses to accept this diagnosis. Andrew himself just isn't sure. But during the course of a desperate twelve hours in New York City, he and the Gulliver family piece together the past and cope with the present in a journey of revelation and self-discovery. Recognizing the truth at last, Andrew can only hope to find his beloved sister before she harms herself or someone else.

The Moment She Was Gone, a shattering novel of a family confronting its collective secrets, marks the high point in a writing career spanning almost five decades.

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"It's two o'clock in the morning when Andrew Gulliver gets a phone call from his mother, who tells him his twin sister, Annie, is gone. This is not the first time. Ever since she was sixteen, she's been taking off without notice to places as far distant as Papua New Guinea, then returning unexpectedly, only to disappear yet another time, again and again and again. But this time is different. Last month, Annie got into serious trouble in Sicily and was briefly held in a mental hospital, where an Italian doctor diagnosed her as schizophrenic. Andrew's divorced mother refuses to accept this diagnosis. Andrew himself just isn't sure. But during the course of a desperate twelve hours in New York City, he and the Gulliver family piece together the past and cope with the present in a journey of revelation and self-discovery. Recognizing the truth at last, Andrew can only hope to find his beloved sister before she harms herself or someone else. The Moment She Was Gone, a shattering novel of a family confronting its collective secrets, marks the high point in a writing career spanning almost five decades. "

Customer Reviews:

A bit of mis-step from one of my favorite authors........2005-11-05

THE MOMENT SHE WAS GONE is a book trying to tackle an unusual subject and bring it to a human, understandable level. It is about a very mentally ill young lady, and the devastating effects her illness has on her family. Annie and Andrew are twins, and as children, they were very close, as twins are. When Annie becomes a teenager, and meets a young man she becomes enamored with while on vacation in Sweden, she begins to display some psychotic tendencies. The young man jilts her, and as her family shows her understandable sympathy, the reader sees that much of what Annie has experienced could very well simply be imagined...a fantasy.

The thing the book does very well as it shows us Annie's various descents into madness throughout the decades, is to demonstrate the manner in which those nearest and dearest to Annie (mother, siblings) kid themselves that she is basically okay.

The book starts just shortly after her brother Andrew has had to fly to Sicily to retrieve his sister from a mental institution there. She had been brutally assaulted (or so she claims) and caused a bit of trouble when she becomes unhinged. Annie comes back to NYC, and after a few weeks living with her mother, disappears again. But this time, her state is so disjointed that no one can credibly deny that she is very ill and very much a danger to herself and others. As the family members talk to each other, they begin to piece together a story that makes it quite clear they have been very blind to Annie's need.

The book is brief, and Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) is sparse and convincing with his prose...particularly his dialogue, which has always been stellar in the extreme. He writes with such seeming ease.

It is a book suffused with sympathy for the plight of all concerned. However, to me, there were some weaknesses. First, Annie does not manage to garner much sympathy. Everyone in the family loves her, of course, but as "outsiders" we do not learn to care. Yes, she's very ill, and thus very frustrating. She can't be reasoned with. She doesn't really show much caring for the people around her. She's dangerous at times. She's greedy, foul-mouthed, stupid, belligerent (not all at once, but in turns). It may be a realistic portrayal, but it sure isn't pleasant. Second, the book has a weak structure. Much of it is told in flashback, but Hunter, who has done similar things before quite successfully, doesn't quite pull it all together. It feels a bit haphazard. It isn't that the book can't be followed, but the structure isn't compelling.

Hunter (and McBain) is a fantastic writer. One of my all-time favorites...and his recent death is a huge blow, particularly for those of us who love the 87th Precinct. And this book has many of his trademark strengths. But I just didn't find it compelling enough to give a hearty recommendation. You won't feel your time was wasted, but it isn't Hunter's strongest by a long shot either.

Who cares when she left, they ALL stayed too long!!!!.......2004-03-13

I stopped reading half way through the book. I realize the characters were supposed to be confusing, yet mysterious enough to keep us intrigued; instead the family members were little more than caricatures of every disfunctional family ever imagined. Some novels are character driven, others rely on plot.This book is devoid of both. Mr. Hunter has great abilility, but this book seems more like a rough draft; that needs a stabilizing narrator the reader can identify with; then a finished work. Extremely disappointing, I want my time and money back.

Hard to put down.......2003-10-06

I checked this book out on the basis of the author having written "Blackboard Jungle." I was not disappointed. Hunter, in spare, cogent style, offers a sensitive, realistic view of a condition difficult for families to face. The author covers various family member reactions such as denying, ennabling and defying.

Evan Hunter is The Master at just everything he attempts.......2003-10-03

Mr. Hunter won me over for the umpteenth time with this one, given that I've been reading - and loving - for a good thirty years the work of this extraordinary author, both as Evan Hunter and as Ed McBain (I pride myself about not having skipped any title whatsoever in McBain's own nearly fifty-year-old 87th Precinct police procedural series, a never ending stream of genial and inventive writing which has been ripped off by virtually anyone, especially TV shows, without ever achieving results which can be remotely compared to its original brilliance).

The first Evan Hunter novel I ever read was Second Ending (1956), and it greatly affected my teenage years. I read it and re-read it so many times that my old paperback copy is by now nearly destroyed. The latest Hunter to grace my bookshelves is, of course, this melancholic, somewhat elegiac and yet achingly realistic-feeling gem, The Moment She Was Gone. I caught some intriguing analogies between these two Hunter masterpieces.

Both novels show us the deep sufferings of frail young people - in Second Ending it was twentysomething heroin addict/former brilliant jazz musician Andy Silvera; now it's thirtysomething schizophrenic/former brilliant student Annie Gulliver.

Both novels offer riveting and layered portrayals of a badly damaged yet sensitive person, once full of promises, caught in the titanic struggle of coping with the very essence of his/her sufferings as well as with the nostalgia for a past which can't return. Then again, we actually see all of that mainly through the eyes of a sort of chorus (Andy's friends there, Annie's family here), and especially through the eyes of the one single person (Bud Donato there, Annie's twin, Andy, here) whose soul is closest than anyone else's to the suffering, struggling one.

In both novels the result is staggeringly beautiful, and also - in the end - powerfully cathartic. At the end of their (and our own) respective emotional journeys, we find that our "guides" - Bud Donato there, Andy Gulliver here - have grown dramatically, becoming better beings, more open-minded ones, more understanding ones, and they have to thank for that none other than their "flawed" loved ones. This is a beautiful concept.

What also strikes me in The Moment She Was Gone is Evan Hunter's uncanny ability to faithfully - yet emotionally - portray the life of a schizophrenic person's family like it actually is in reality.
I've known two girls who were exactly like Annie Gulliver. One, the sister of a male schoolmate of mine, committed suicide many years ago, in her early twenties, by jumping out of a window. It wasn't her first suicide attempt. She was an incredibly brilliant student, just like her brother, my friend.
The other girl is luckily alive, even though for years she refused to take her medications and transformed her mother's life into a permanent nightmare; she was a former classmate of my sister, and she had what everyone initially defined just "an artistic streak" - she made jewelry just like Annie Gulliver did, she wrote poems, she was also as beautiful as an angel ...

I saw these two girls closely mirrored in Annie Gulliver's struggle with her own inner voices, as well as I saw their families closely mirrored in Andy Gulliver, his mother, his brother Aaron, his sister-in-law Augusta ...

Evan Hunter delivers here a perfect blend of realism, craft and - most of all - overwhelming humanity. A must-read, and five stars out of five.

Everything about book is high quality,.......2003-08-22

Criminal Conversation by Evan Hunter is one of my favorite novels and in this book he shows the same writing and characterization that made me want to keep reading.

Annie is a bit crazy, and it is obvious to the reader. Unfortunately, no one in Annie's family has the guts to deal with it, except maybe her twin brother Andy from whom some details of Annie's past have been hidden to protect him.

Each story of Annie's past provides possible clues as to why she is crazy and each story reveals a bit about all the main characters as they all struggle in the present to find where Annie has ran off to this time.

Basically this novel is about Annie's family coming to terms with her craziness, and that covers about 208 pages. I believe Hunter could have added to this novel to make it better. This novel would have been a lot better if there had been a resolution to why Annie was crazy. Hunter definitely has the skill to throw in a plot twist about something dramatic in Annie's past that caused her to go insane, but he leaves us with a story of several people's lives and the book ends with them continuing to live. There really is no climax. I guess Hunter has earned the right to write whatever he chooses, but that still doesn't change the fact that this bare-bones novel could have been much better.

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Many of us missing seize-the-day moments.(as i see it): An article from: Mississippi Business Journal
Joe D. Jones
Manufacturer: Venture Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0009GOD1C
Release Date: 2005-08-01

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Mississippi Business Journal, published by Venture Publications on November 8, 2004. The length of the article is 926 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Many of us missing seize-the-day moments.(as i see it)
Author: Joe D. Jones
Publication: Mississippi Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 8, 2004
Publisher: Venture Publications
Volume: 26 Issue: 45 Page: A4(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Missing the Kairos moment? The U.N. World Summit comes up short.(POVERTY): An article from: Sojourners Magazine

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Missing the Kairos moment? The U.N. World Summit comes up short.(POVERTY): An article from: Sojourners Magazine
Debayani Kar
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Sojourners Magazine, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 662 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Missing the Kairos moment? The U.N. World Summit comes up short.(POVERTY)
Author: Debayani Kar
Publication: Sojourners Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 34 Issue: 11 Page: 8(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Missing Muller: Heiner-Muller-Memorial-Monument-Moment-Mimesis (Merlin Theater)

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Missing Muller: Heiner-Muller-Memorial-Monument-Moment-Mimesis (Merlin Theater)
John von Duffel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3926112719

Book Description

New edition of the classic account of the struggle to create and preserve Olympic National Park.

This is the first comprehensive history of the heavily visited park.

A case study of the need for citizen action to protect our natural areas

A provocative chronicle of intrigue, political chicanery, and citizen activism, this first comprehensive account of the struggle to create and preserve Olympic National Park provides an eye-opening history of forestry in the Pacific Northwest, from 1890 to the present. Illustrated with maps, charts, vintage political cartoons, and historical photos, and updated to include recent events.

Customer Reviews:

An astounding history of Olympic National Park.......2007-10-17

This book provides an incredible example of an agency failing to follow its own mandate as well as ignoring the will of the public. For several decades, the National Park Service (NPS) not only allowed, but encouraged, loggers to cut down old-growth forest inside Olympic National Park. It also fought to reduce the boundaries of that park to increase the amount of timber available to the local logging industry. Even when found out, important people in the NPS remained determined to cut down the old-growth timber in the park wherever it thought local sawmills would benefit, and on any land that the NPS didn't want in the first place.

When I had first heard this story, it was presented as a couple of loose cannons getting away with tree murder. However, Lien's book provides so many smoking guns - - or should I say, "smoking chainsaws" - - that there is an obvious policy problem here.

Lien's ultimate explanation of this history remains somewhat unsatisfactory to me. He argues that the NPS has a weak management culture and unclear mandate (both true) and that it is also eager to compromise with anyone who makes demands on it - - including loggers looking for old-growth timber. I'm not sure that wimpy acquiescence is the dominant NPS norm, since it does resist certain types of demands, such as those of horse outfitters, hunters, and in some parks, mountaineers. The case of hunters is particularly interesting, since elk hunting in Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain, bison hunting in Yellowstone, and deer hunting in many eastern battlefield parks would solve a number of other policy problems, and there *is* public demand for such hunting. So, the NPS doesn't simply acquiesce to everybody, and that part of Lien's argument can't be right.

Lien grounds this story in a brief history of the U.S. Forest Service and the NPS, and how Pinchot's "conservation" eventually alienated preservationists such as John Muir and public opinion more generally. These chapters provide, at best, an unconventional history of the USFS and NPS in the Progressive era. I think Lien overstates the preservationist element of public opinion, and is too eager to see preservationism even among the elites of the Theodore Roosevelt era.

Criticisms aside, this is one of the most remarkable national park histories out there.

Thorough, heartbreaking, but..........2003-04-18

Mr. Lien's book is one of the most thoroughly researched works on the state of national parks in America. His experience working at Olympic National Park, and serving as a sort of intern with Mrs. Edge gives us a rare insight into many of the personalities that shaped - and continue to influence - the fate of OLYM. Mr. Lien's documentation is highly impressive. However, I'm concerned that his passion for the park - and his apparently wholesale mistrust of the National Park Service - has lead to some critical mistakes.
For example, Stephen Mather was chosen "on the personal whim" of Secretary Franklin Lane. Lane knew more about Mather than Lien claims. Mather should hardly be remembered as "Saint Stephen" as so many in the NPS are anxious to do, but to dismiss him as someone chosen so cavalierly as Lien suggests is a dangerous underestimation of the man.
Second, it is unfair of Lien to put former NPS Director Newton Drury in essentially the same category as Fred Overly. Drury's tenure was that of a caretaker, and though his legislative skills were nil and his administrative abilities only slightly better, his focus and his integrity are things for which we should all be grateful. Drury was an outsider and he fought the good ol' boys: Overly, Albright and Wirth, to bring some measure of scientific integrity and conservation ethic to a deeply troubled park service.
Lien's breadth of scholarship is impressive. Unfortunately, his passion - while inspiring and insightful at times - has clouded his interpretation of early NPS history, and of the role of Newton Drury, a devoted, if sometimes uninspiring, conservationist.

A landmark book and invaluable resource.......2002-01-29

I read this book shortly after spending several months on Washington's Olympic Peninsula and hiking in the Olympic Mountains of Olympic National Park in 1993. I own the first edition when it was published by Sierra Club Books. In my opinion Olympic Battleground is one of the most important works relative to the environemntal movement, on par with "Silent Spring" and "A Sand County Almanac," though it is relatively unknown.

Lien tells the story of the Olympic Peninsula and how it was systematically logged by people of European descent in the late 19th century, through the creation of ONP in 1937, and the management of ONP through the 1950s (when Lien was there as a seasonal ranger) and beyond. Tells the story of how one overzealous development minded ONP manager named Fred Overly enthusiastically allowed LOGGING in the park. And not just salvaging downed trees off trails and roads, but systematically cutting the largest old-growth Douglas-fir trees that could be found! Later talking to a ranger at ONP, I learned that Overly also coached the supervisor of Mount Rainier National Park on how to get the cut out of that park as well. There is correspondance on record of this happening.

Olympic Battleground demonstrates that we can never be complacent, that the only way we will be able to preserve our most significant natural areas is through eternal vigilance. Lien's book recounts that during WW II, "patriotic" timber barons attempted to log ONP to "aid the war effort." Thankfully that initiative was thwarted. Olympic Batleground should be read by everyone interested in preserving National Park land, National Forest land, federal Wilderness Areas, etc. We should know our history.

When the Public's Guardians --ARE-- the Thieves.......2001-01-25

A rare and wonderful animal(not extinct after all), that holds secrets to cures, anti-venoms and facts behind unsolved mysteries has reappeared! Not long ago I encountered and purchased "Olympic Battleground" at a rare book store. It was out of print. No longer. It took but the first few pages to have me swallowing bile and bouncing hard objects off walls. So inflaming was the tale that it awakened an activism in me I had not felt since the Viet Nam War days. I sought out and interviewed the author who assured me that it had taken almost thirty years to write. Battleground is destined to become the definitive source in four areas: 1) It is a complete history of Olympic National Park(and indeed the founding of all National Parks),beginning in 1895 and now updated to today. Sound dull? Uh uh, not with the kind of intrigue, fraud, scheming and plotting that underlay the movements to keep the old growth timber OUT of the Park, ventures often aided and abetted by the very public servants whose jobs were to PROTECT it. It should be mentioned that the entire book is documented with painstaking primary sources. What happened and how it happened is inarguable; the barrels are smoking. WE BEEN ROBBED! Yo, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars of assets. 2) There is a treatise here of decades of activism. But for the lifelong battling of a core of three people;fighting against power and unrelenting greed, this book convinces us that there would not be one tree left standing. It is the definitive tale, the tangible proof of just how mighty is 'the power of the pen'. No advocate person or group should have a bookshelf without this book on it. 3) Were there any congressional investigative committees with the bajoongas to take on the timber companies,local politicians and even the Park Service itself, Mr. Lein's book would be the place to start. Inditements lie there in wait! 4) Fail not to hear the warning: ye who would protect and preserve our national Parks, wilderness areas, monuments and wildlife reserves. Pass over this book at peril to their future existence. Beware by learning how boundaries shift in the night and legal wording gets shuffled and forests vanish with the turn of a phrase and promise . The very words are in place in even the newest documents of our "roadless areas" and "forest reserves". For anyone with 'green' agendas, in fact, any kind of activist intentions, this book is an absolute must.

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