The Gooner Forum

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Just finished reading this.

Without degradig the man himself his "lack of education" is probably the reson this is such an easy to read biography. No big words or over use of english to sound cool, he just says it like it is.

There are definate 3 phases to this book. The first being his early life and his days hustling to make ends meet (some good tips in there too regarding the psycology behind techniques), the second being his incarceration and subsequent "awakening" into Islam and the latter his days as a preacher of the 'word'.

Written by the man himself up to the point (2 weeks) before he was assassinated it starts as a biog and leans towards the diary type of book.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autobiography-M ... 224&sr=8-1

Reading "Black Hearts" at the moment. Investigates and tells the story of a platoon of 101st Airborne troops that went through some serious shit in the "Triangle of Death" South of Baghdad. It details the atrocities they witnessed and the constant deaths of their friends led to a rapid breakdown in command, self respect and unit effectiveness.

Four of the unit took their revenge by raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and then murdering her mom, dad and baby sister. It's pretty graphic at times but it is made a better read by the brutal honesty of the author.

DB10GOONER wrote:Reading "Black Hearts" at the moment. Investigates and tells the story of a platoon of 101st Airborne troops that went through some serious shit in the "Triangle of Death" South of Baghdad. It details the atrocities they witnessed and the constant deaths of their friends led to a rapid breakdown in command, self respect and unit effectiveness.

Four of the unit took their revenge by raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and then murdering her mom, dad and baby sister. It's pretty graphic at times but it is made a better read by the brutal honesty of the author.

How close is this kind of thing to a common criminal writing their story and profiting from it?

I am just wondering about the moral boundaries...

marcengels wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:Reading "Black Hearts" at the moment. Investigates and tells the story of a platoon of 101st Airborne troops that went through some serious shit in the "Triangle of Death" South of Baghdad. It details the atrocities they witnessed and the constant deaths of their friends led to a rapid breakdown in command, self respect and unit effectiveness.

Four of the unit took their revenge by raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and then murdering her mom, dad and baby sister. It's pretty graphic at times but it is made a better read by the brutal honesty of the author.

How close is this kind of thing to a common criminal writing their story and profiting from it?

I am just wondering about the moral boundaries...

Far from it on this occasion. The author isn't one of the troops involved, just a journalist that investigated the story (that the US military had initially tried to cover up but then jumped on the bandwagon when they realised it was going public). The troops involved all got life sentences and no money from the book. It is vital that all such attrocities are made public and those involved prosecuted in the hope that it may contribute to it happening less in the future (it'll never be stamped out completely, war by it's nature is a brutalising and dehumanising experience).

I take your point though. I think it is very wrong for a vicious little twat like Mad Frankie Frazer to profit from "writing" about how he slashed some bloke up.

DB10GOONER wrote:

marcengels wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:Reading "Black Hearts" at the moment. Investigates and tells the story of a platoon of 101st Airborne troops that went through some serious shit in the "Triangle of Death" South of Baghdad. It details the atrocities they witnessed and the constant deaths of their friends led to a rapid breakdown in command, self respect and unit effectiveness.

Four of the unit took their revenge by raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and then murdering her mom, dad and baby sister. It's pretty graphic at times but it is made a better read by the brutal honesty of the author.

How close is this kind of thing to a common criminal writing their story and profiting from it?

I am just wondering about the moral boundaries...

Far from it on this occasion. The author isn't one of the troops involved, just a journalist that investigated the story (that the US military had initially tried to cover up but then jumped on the bandwagon when they realised it was going public). The troops involved all got life sentences and no money from the book. It is vital that all such attrocities are made public and those involved prosecuted in the hope that it may contribute to it happening less in the future (it'll never be stamped out completely, war by it's nature is a brutalising and dehumanising experience).

I take your point though. I think it is very wrong for a vicious little twat like Mad Frankie Frazer to profit from "writing" about how he slashed some bloke up.

OK, fair enough mate. In that context then of course it should be publicised for the reasons that you state.

Was Frankie Frazer from Dublin?

marcengels wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:

marcengels wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:Reading "Black Hearts" at the moment. Investigates and tells the story of a platoon of 101st Airborne troops that went through some serious shit in the "Triangle of Death" South of Baghdad. It details the atrocities they witnessed and the constant deaths of their friends led to a rapid breakdown in command, self respect and unit effectiveness.

Four of the unit took their revenge by raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and then murdering her mom, dad and baby sister. It's pretty graphic at times but it is made a better read by the brutal honesty of the author.

How close is this kind of thing to a common criminal writing their story and profiting from it?

I am just wondering about the moral boundaries...

Far from it on this occasion. The author isn't one of the troops involved, just a journalist that investigated the story (that the US military had initially tried to cover up but then jumped on the bandwagon when they realised it was going public). The troops involved all got life sentences and no money from the book. It is vital that all such attrocities are made public and those involved prosecuted in the hope that it may contribute to it happening less in the future (it'll never be stamped out completely, war by it's nature is a brutalising and dehumanising experience).

I take your point though. I think it is very wrong for a vicious little twat like Mad Frankie Frazer to profit from "writing" about how he slashed some bloke up.

OK, fair enough mate. In that context then of course it should be publicised for the reasons that you state.

Was Frankie Frazer from Dublin?

He wouldn't last a day with our current gun-mad, trigger-happy, drug dealing scumbags!

olgitgooner wrote:I'm still reading Pity the Nation, by Robert Fisk.


Anyone else read it? And can the culprit who got me into it please step forward?

I have a feeling it might be DB10?

Fisk is seen by most Jews as being very Pro Palestinian over the years, and critical of Israel.

But the interesting thing with him is he stood up during the Gaza War 2008 and said that it was nonsense to describe Israeli military action in Gaza or Israeli policy to Gaza/Palestinians in general as "Genocide".

He then got accused by some Palestinian and Muslim interests as being paid off by Mossad to say that!


If people want to read more on the Iranian nuclear situation, I really recommend Ronen Bergman's "The Secret War With Iran".

It is easy to read, most should finish it inside 10 days.
Though Israeli, the author's standard and style of written English is excellent.

Again, it is an eye opener as to the sheer scale of the Iranian efforts to undermine the West, and of America, Israel and the UK's attempts to fight them in a "cold war" dating back to 1979.

Just finished reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking.

I was at his lecture the other week at the Albert Hall and it came with a free copy of his book. It is pretty simple to follow but its chock full of facts so it can feel like its too much information in one sitting to read more than a couple of chapters, i'm super smart so i don't get this problem

I suppose in essence its a brief background to the so far theoretical unification theory known as M-Theory.

Most of the "well known "theories are covered in the first few chapters ie Special and General relativity, Uncertainty principle the fact that at one point time was a direction, atomic phase. If your able to get your head round those this book should be quite an enlightening read.

If your a physicist or mathematician this would probably be too low brow for you.

12thGooner wrote:Just finished reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking.

I was at his lecture the other week at the Albert Hall and it came with a free copy of his book. It is pretty simple to follow but its chock full of facts so it can feel like its too much information in one sitting to read more than a couple of chapters, i'm super smart so i don't get this problem

I suppose in essence its a brief background to the so far theoretical unification theory known as M-Theory.

Most of the "well known "theories are covered in the first few chapters ie Special and General relativity, Uncertainty principle the fact that at one point time was a direction, atomic phase. If your able to get your head round those this book should be quite an enlightening read.

If your a physicist or mathematician this would probably be too low brow for you.

Sounds interesting. I've done physics in high school and a semester of astronomy at uni.

Really interested in this kind of stuff (astronomy in particular...ever since I was a kid) but not enough to suffer the maths involved with studying physics full time.

to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

12thGooner wrote:to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

And I wouldn't even have heard of it if you hadn't gotten a free copy at the lecture.

I wish Hawking would give a lecture at my university though. If he can't then I'd be happy enough to see David Icke.

12thGooner wrote:to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

you read Focus magazine, 12th?

DB10GOONER wrote:

12thGooner wrote:to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

you read Focus magazine, 12th?

Is that the BBC mag ? I've read a couple of them, but to be blunt i find it lacks depth , where as a similar subject in natioanl geographic would be rinsed in full. I think its a great 'did you know mag' before hitting google or a library to find out more. Plus ethically i think it should be free to all uk resisdents and cannot find it in me to further fund the bbc in such a manner.

12thGooner wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:

12thGooner wrote:to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

you read Focus magazine, 12th?

Is that the BBC mag ? I've read a couple of them, but to be blunt i find it lacks depth , where as a similar subject in natioanl geographic would be rinsed in full. I think its a great 'did you know mag' before hitting google or a library to find out more. Plus ethically i think it should be free to all uk resisdents and cannot find it in me to further fund the bbc in such a manner.

I was an avid reader before the BBC took it over and dumbed it down. It was really good before the beeb got involved. Have to admit it's not as good now though...

DB10GOONER wrote:

12thGooner wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:

12thGooner wrote:to be honest i wouldn't have read it had i not got a free copy at his lecture. This book is aimed at people like myself that have an 'interest' in it but no real advanced education in cosmology and theoretical physics. Its defiately worth a read.

you read Focus magazine, 12th?

Is that the BBC mag ? I've read a couple of them, but to be blunt i find it lacks depth , where as a similar subject in natioanl geographic would be rinsed in full. I think its a great 'did you know mag' before hitting google or a library to find out more. Plus ethically i think it should be free to all uk resisdents and cannot find it in me to further fund the bbc in such a manner.

I was an avid reader before the BBC took it over and dumbed it down. It was really good before the beeb got involved. Have to admit it's not as good now though...

I didn't want to say 'dumbed down' but i agree that it reduced the interlectual rquirement for its audience, in my opinion effectively turning it into a kids magazine.

For an informed view on the world try the national geographic, the content is less varied per issue but much more indepth.