Join the cause

Judge Orange County.

Wondering Why All This Matters?

A draft of the President's plan to combat the H5N1 strain of influenza estimates that upwards of 2 million people could become infected and more than 200,000 would die. (ABCNews.com)

The plan calls spending $7.1 billion to fight the disease:

The request includes $251 million to detect and contain outbreaks before they spread around the world; $2.8 billion to accelerate development of cell-culture technology; $800 million for development of new treatments and vaccines; $1.519 billion for the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense to purchase influenza vaccines; $1.029 billion to stockpile antiviral medications; and $644 million to ensure that all levels of government are prepared to respond to a pandemic outbreak. (White House Fact Sheet)

Since release this draft of the report, the government has set up a website to help the country prepare for the disease. http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

Status Shift!

Just to make sure everyone is paying attention -- I'll draw your attention to the growing list of members to the right. Looking good so far. Though, we're still in need of some female readership.

Also, at the request of our newest member Chris Coletta, (blogger invitation still waiting to be accepted), we will officially call ourselves a literary society. Not a book club. Book clubs are a bit too Oprah for Chris.

Procedure for Book Discussion

The individual who picks the book under consideration by the group will write a 750 word response to begin discussion. The response can take any direction the reviewer likes, but in the written response, the individual who chose the book must answer the question: "Why was the book important for the Project to consider?" The initial response is due within one month of the day the book pick is announced.

In the days following the initial posting, each participant in the 270 Mile Project who has chosen to read the book under consideration is expected to post his or her own response as a reply. In each secondary reply, the reviewer is expected to describe his own reaction to the book under consideration and in doing so, formulate a response to any reviews that proceeded his own. A secondary reply can take any tack the reviewer likes, but she also must answer the question, "Why was the book important for the Project to consider?"

The window for reviews will be open for 14 days. After that time, the initial post and all subsequent replies will be locked and archived.

Recommendations

You got a book to recommend for next month?

Add a comment here, and I'll put it in the official "Up next?" wishlist from Amazon.

First Book

This is how it starts...




The Great Influenza
by John M. Barry.

What's in a name?

This is an experiment in distance, and we realize it. Book clubs aren't supposed to be like this. They're supposed to be intimate. They're supposed to be close. In book clubs, relationships are formed and strengthened around discussing words and ideas, and for some reason, that just works better when people can see each other.

It's why people will travel for miles to hear a lecture. It's why kids from all over the state come to Chapel Hill for college. Correspondence courses have been around for years, and the internet makes that kind of relationship even easier, but nine times out of ten, we choose to learn in person. As if the physical presence of a mentor, a teacher, a friend makes it easier for us to process information, to learn.

We're turning that relationship on its head. We're in different places, doing different things. That's true. But for the first time, for as long as we can remember, we aren't in school. There's no structure, and no one's forcing us to continue our intellectual development. Thus, we are choosing to forgo the traditional way of things because we refuse to go it alone. We are going to use the resources at hand to do something special.

Which brings us back to a name. 270 miles is the physical distance between Linda's Bar and Grill in Chapel Hill and Hank's Oyster Bar in Washington, DC. And the choice to have our book club bookended between two bars is a conscious decision. Bars and book clubs aren’t that different, when you think about it. Each is an iteration of the idea that socialization is what pulls us up and makes us humanity.

Like coffee shops were for England in the Enlightenment, so too this place will be for us. A place to meet, a place to learn, a place to know each other.