Video Game Ban Reviewed by U.S. Supreme Court

In a test of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, the U.S. Supreme Court will make a decision about violent video game sales to children ("Court Evaluates Violent Video Game Case," PBS NewsHour, November 2, 2010). The case involves a 2005 California law never taking effect that "bans the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18" and pits the state against the Entertainment Merchants Association, a video game trade group. Check out the transcript of the PBS NewsHour report at the link above and the YouTube video below of the interview.

Review selected library titles related to video game violence at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Request" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to reserve for pick up at the library. Call the library at 281-290-3219 to check your PIN if you do not remember it. Use these subject words and phrases to find more in the library catalog:

• video games
  
• video games and teenagers
  
• violence in mass media

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell - Pantheon Books, 2010.
call number: 794.8 Bis
"Grand Theft Auto IV is both a waste of time and 'the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years' according to this scintillating meditation on the promise and discontents of video games. Bissell excels both at intellectual commentary and evocative reportage on the experience of playing games, while serving up engrossing mise-en-scene narratives of the mayhem." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Video Games edited by Laurie Willis - Greenhaven Press, 2010.
call number: 794.8 Vid
Includes essays on topic such as "violence in video games reduces violence in the real world" and "video games are not responsible for people's violent actions." - Table of contents excerpt

Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson - Simon & Schuster, 2008.
call number: 302.231 Kut
"Kutner and Olson's own study of some 1,300 middle-school gamers in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, while limited, produced interesting insights. Kutner and Olson advise parents to be involved with their kids' game playing, just as they should be with their other activities. While not profound, the authors, in a calm, evenhanded approach to a problem many parents find frustratingly difficult, address many social fears and make them less scary." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Cuba Changes Its Economic Course for Privatization

In a push to privatize businesses, Cuban officials said they will remove some one million state employees from the payroll ("Capitalist Storm Clouds Loom over Havana after State Cuts 1m Jobs," The Guardian, September 14, 2010). Workers in sugar, public health, tourism and agriculture will face the first layoffs followed by civil aviation and the ministries of foreign relations and social services. The unemployed will be encouraged to "form private co-operatives or set up their own small businesses." Still others will be moved toward jobs run by foreign interests.

Review selected library titles related to Cuba, its politics and economy at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Request" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to reserve for pick up at the library. Call the library at 281-290-3219 to check your PIN if you do not remember it. Use these subject words and phrases to find more in the library catalog:

• Cuba foreign relations
• Cuba politics
• Fidel Castro

Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know by Julia E. Sweig - Oxford University Press, 2009.
call number: 972.91 Swe
"Using a Q&A format, this most recent book in the publisher's "What Everyone Needs To Know" series is more about Cuba's relationship with the United States than it is about Cuba. Sweig (director, Latin American studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Inside the Cuban Revolution) is eminently qualified to write on Cuba, Castro, and the long, shared history with American political, strategic, and economic interests." - Library Journal review excerpt

That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution by Lars Schoultz - University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
call number: 327.73 Sch
"Schoultz, a University of North Carolina political science professor, offers an exhaustive study of the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba in the 20th and early 21st centuries. . .it's an approachable, deeply satisfying narrative with a clear-eyed and persuasive critique of U.S. policy toward Cuba and, more broadly, of U.S. policy toward any weaker nation that has ever stubbornly asserted its sovereignty." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington by Ann Louise Bardach - Scribner, 2009.
call number: 972.91 Bar
"Bardach doesn't skimp on the politics or the day-to-day obstacles of Cuban civilians living in grinding poverty. Bardach opens the window wide on the "diplomatic train wreck" that is U.S.-Cuban relations, including Miami's exile community, anti-Castro Beltway establishment members, and the history of U.S. attempts to remove Castro from power. . .Bardach's unmatched access to Castro and other major players makes this a thorough account of a long-lived world figure who, admired or reviled, is an undoubtedly fascinating subject." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Texas Still Struggles with Obesity

The obesity rate in Texas stands at 29 percent according to a study by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ("Texas Has 13th Highest Rate of Obesity in U.S., Study Says," The Dallas Morning News, June 29, 2010). Mississippi tops the list while Colorado is the at the bottom with the leanest adult population.

Review selected library titles related to obesity at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Request" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to reserve for pick up at the library. Call the library at 281-290-3219 to check your PIN if you do not remember it. Use these subject words and phrases to find more in the library catalog:

• food habits
  
• food marketing
  
• obesity

Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat by Hank Cardello with Doug Garr - Ecco, 2009.
call number: 616.398 Car
"The obesity epidemic in particular, he argues, is connected to food businesses that control "almost everything the average American eats." Drawing substantially on his professional knowledge, he examines such factors as marketing and product packaging, the recent controversies involving branded school snacks and beverages, the use of trans fat in restaurants, and the various food lobbies." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler - Rodale: distributed to the trade by Macmillan, 2009.
call number: 613.2 Kes
"Kessler (former FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton) describes how, since the 1980s, the food industry, in collusion with the advertising industry, and lifestyle changes have short-circuited the body's self-regulating mechanisms, leaving many at the mercy of reward-driven eating. Through the evidence of research, personal stories (including candid accounts of his own struggles) and examinations of specific foods produced by giant food corporations and restaurant chains, Kessler explains how the desire to eat-as distinct from eating itself-is stimulated in the brain by an almost infinite variety of diabolical combinations of salt, fat and sugar." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth: Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment edited by Linda Smolak and J. Kevin Thompson - American Psychological Association, 2009.
call number: 618.928 Bod
"Smolak (psychology, women's and gender studies, Kenyon College) and Thompson (psychology, University of South Florida) present empirical research on the assessment, prevention, and treatment of body image problems, obesity, and eating disorders in children and adolescents." - book summary excerpt

How Should Obesity Be Treated? edited by Stefan Kiesbye - Greenhaven Press, 2009.
call number: 616.398 How
Includes essays such as "A culture obsessed with thinness propagates misconceptions about obesity" and "A tax on high fat foods might modify poor eating habits." - Table of contents excerpt