Count Down by Steve Olson

The math teacher of my daughter lent us this book and the title in full is Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World’s Toughest Math Competition by Steve Olson. The book follows the 6 kids that were chosen in the US to represent the country to compete in the International Math Olympiad in 2001. The competition originated in Romania in 1959 with 7 countries in Eastern Europe and the US has never wanted to participate because it didn’t want to pit its students against the formidable Russians and Eastern European. But in 1974, it took the first step. Contrary to what every US educator fear, the US came in the top 5 every year and often battling for first position against the Russians and has its share of wins.  So how do they do it when US students fail in math standards so miserably in general math tests compared to their international counterparts?

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood

This book entitled Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children by John Wood is about him leaving Microsoft as development manager in Asia to set up Room to Read, a charitable organization, that donates books to poor countries and help them set up libraries and schools since the late 90’s. In it, you could read a funny excerpt of Bill Gates visiting China and everything organized the the last second. John Wood started off sending books to the Nepal when he first started and it grew to Vietnam, Burma and expanded to scholarships for girls. You could read about his fund-raising efforts over the years including for the tsunami in South Asia. Basically, many people prefer to donate to his lean organization because they see tangible results and not have to worry how much of the donation went to paying high salaries of the administration. In the first few years, he didn’t take a salary and he saw his savings dwindle everyday and worry constantly if he could meet payroll for the month. Yet there are always newcomers who volunteered the time to make things happen. The richest donors are Silicon Valley and Hong Kong. Interesting book. I suppose the world needs more of these philanthropists. Here is his official website Room to Read where you could learn more about their work and how to volunteer.

Reblogged from an earlier blog dated February 6, 2008.

Culture Warrior by Bill O’Reilly

I wrote this review back in January 2008 and to this day, I still agree with the author about the downward spiral of our national ethics.

This is another must read book for those who live in the US. Bill O’Reilly is the ABC program host for the O’Reilly Factor which investigates and exposes the hypocrisy of politicians and the harmful agenda they are voting for. This entire book, Culture Warrior, details many cases of how America is being manipulated by the secular-progressive movement made up of far-left politicians, judges, NBC, CNN, New York Times, in fact, the majority of the media outlets of America that would destroy America. Among them, the ACLU American Civil Liberties Union is the most powerful proponent. I spent 3 hours reading every word of this book and it is a must read for yourself and your children. If the secular-progressive movement wins one day, here would be the commandments as quoted from the book:

* Thou shalt not make any judgment regarding most private personal behaivor. Man/Woman is the master/mistress of the universe and his/her gratification is paramount. (O’Reilly quoted cases one of which is where ACLU defended a rapist that the rapist has a disease (of the mind) to be treated and the judge allowed him to walk out of jail after 30 days. Poor 6 year old who has been continously raped for 4 years.)

War on the Middle Class by Lou Dobbs

This is the type of book that American politicians and voters have to read. The book’s long title is War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back by CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs should be the president instead because he has the full grasp of the problems our country is faced with.