I can't believe it's been a year since the president of my company said, "Mike, you must go to TED." TED 2006 starts next week

in Monterey, CA, and today, I got the last shipment from their year-long book club:

What We Believe but Cannot Prove : Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty, edited by John Brockman. This book title's question was posed on Edge.org (an online intellectual clearing house), challenging more than 100 intellectuals of every stripe—from Richard Dawkins to

Ian McEwan—to confess the personal theories they cannot demonstrate

with certainty. The results, gathered by literary agent and editor Brockman, is a stimulating collection of micro-essays (mainly by scientists) divulging many of today's big unanswered questions reaching across the plane of human existence.

The Untied States

of America : Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future, by Juan Enriquez, who is a former Mexican government official and fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs. He says growing political, racial, and economic divisions in the U.S. could provoke secessionist movements in the South and New England.

Control Room

(2003), a documentary on perception of the United States's war with Iraq, with an emphasis on Al Jazeera's coverage.

Infinite Vision: Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy. This is a documentary on Dr.

V, the legendary eye surgeon from South India who made it his mission to restore sight to the blind and whose work has resulted in one of the world’s most extraordinary models of service delivery.

The video on Dr. V was 35 minutes long, just right for watching while I ate a sandwich at the National Building Museum. His is a deeply inspiring story.

- mike lee - washington, d.c.