Arianna Huffington

Generally speaking, however you feel about their ideas, the Left are generally known as pretty good writers, whether they be semantic geniuses like Chomsky or humorists like Hightower. Being Comparative Lit geeks, rather than Economics or Business Majors, they can usually turn a phrase. As cloying as Michael Moore can be, even he can spin a pretty good yarn. I don't know if it's because Huffington is a reformed Conservative or if it's because English is her second language, but she honestly show more comes off sounding like the Liberal Ann Coulter. I mean, what's with all the superfluous question marks and explanation points???!!!!! Still, for all the "Oh, really?"s and "No shit, Sherlock!"s, she makes a few good points. Bush and his cronies really did lead us into a war based completely on lies and wrecked the economy in the process. Also, while she doesn't shirk from insulting the Right, she doesn't go in for the sort of "let's-fry-them-all-in-hot-oil" type of baiting that Coulter and Co. tend to favor. All-in-all, it's best said that she should leave the writing to her writers at HuffPost, but this was still mildly interesting. show less

How many times do you hear or say things like: "I'm tired." "I didn't get enough sleep last night." "I'll just stay up to get this done and try to sleep more this weekend." "Sometimes I try to sleep in, but it just doesn't happen." "It takes me forever to fall asleep at night."

These phrases are becoming increasingly common for us to say and hear--and even tell ourselves. And Arianna Huffington sets out a good case for what this all means. Without a doubt, we are in a sleep deprivation crisis show more as a society. With the pressure to do more and more in the same amount of time in a day, people are overextending themselves and giving up something essential to survival: sleep. As we are also more stimulated and connected by technology, it makes it that much harder to wind down at the end of a long day.

While we often dismiss this as okay, using some of the phrases above, it has health implications that we may not always know are there. Fatigue and exhaustion are just the tip of the iceberg. Sleep has been shown to have connections to healthy weight, blood pressure, and several other conditions.

But knowing we're sleep deprived is just the beginning. Especially since almost everyone would admit that they feel tired or sleep deprived on some level at some point in any given week. Where Huffington takes things a step further is offering some suggestions for how we can each start addressing the crisis in our own lives. Working on the issue starts with each person. Not only is this because society isn't going to shift until the people pushing for the shift reaches critical mass. It's also because the tactics and strategies for prioritizing sleep need to be determined on an individual basis.

This is an interesting read. Huffington has collected a great deal of research and anecdotes in one nice, tidy place. And while I don't think anything here is particularly profound or novel, it's a stimulating and thought-provoking read.

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.] show less

Huffington succinctly and intelligently discusses the disturbing decline of the American middle class in this short book. She discusses how this came about, the symptoms and possible solutions.

Some of the topics covered include: the fear that arises in the absence of economic opportunity and the insecurity of the current situation, how we define the middle class, capitalism without a conscience, our crumbling infrastructure, the state of our schools and education system, the corporate show more takeover of our democracy and the badly broken democratic process, the squandering of our resources – both natural and human- and the failure of the “free press” to serve the public interest (and the rise of citizen journalism) .

Of course, each of these topics is worth a book of its own, but Huffington is giving us the basics here. As her narrative moves forward one can feel the sense of urgency and passion. Somewhere around page 150 she moves to a call to action by urging us as a society to deal with our crises and challenges now, hold the powerful responsible, stop waiting for other to solve the problems – and for problems too monumental for individuals – support the raw power of government initiatives. Then she names just a few things that would make a big difference in the health of our society. The picture of America is pretty bleak and we have been loathe to really look at it. I think at one point she uses the metaphor of a middle-aged man refusing to see the thinning hair and crow’s feet, fantasizing that he’s still young….

But what I like best about this book is that Huffington doesn’t leave the reader despairing over the degradation of our society. “The greatest antidote to despair is action,” she declares. And so the last section of the book is a call to action for the individual. Huffington offers some practical actions one can take to overcome the bullies in our society, fight apathy, build community, exercise empathy and develop resilience. It’s very heartening and hopeful.

I’ll end with a quote she used by the social activist Geoffrey Canada:

If not us, who? If not now, when? show less

Arianna Huffington became an apostle of sleep after collapsing from exhaustion in her hotel room and breaking her cheekbone. She was a workaholic who burned candles at both ends who viewed sleep dimly, if not as disdainfully as some other famous people in her new book, The Sleep Revolution. After coming to realize how unhealthy and unsustainable her lifestyle had become, she made peace with sleep and recognizing that many Americans shared her proclivity for work and productivity above all show more else, became an evangelist for it. Her book diagnoses both a personal and societal issue. She catalogs the costs and externalities of lack of sleep (accidents, health problems, loss of productivity at work, etc.), provides a lot of scientific evidence about sleep's benefits, discusses dreams, and finally, in the second half of the book, gives some tips on how to get a good night's sleep. She covers a lot of ground, and she does so in a very readable way. However, partly because she is addressing both the larger societal issues, as well as those that may plague individuals, this book is less a self-help book for a person looking for specific tips (there is some of this, but it's not the focus) than a more general read. show less