Roger and Tom are joined by the excellent Patrick Beja from France. They discuss video games, foreign perception of the US, taxation, health care and gay marriage.

Get the show at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest141/eastmeetswest141.mp3

P.S. If you like East Meets West you’ll probably love Patrick Beja’s The Phileas Club podcast

Tom and Roger talk health care, education, racism, and Tom gets in a shot at the electoral college.

Listen to this podcast at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/RogerChangandTomMerrittEastMeetsWest140/eastmeetswest140.mp3

Tom has picked our next book! It is Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem. Here’s a bit of a summary:

Set in the distant future, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is the horrifying first-hand account of a bureaucratic agent trapped deep within the subterranean bowels of a vast underground military complex. In a Kafkaesque maelstrom of terrifying confusion and utter insanity, this man must attempt to follow his mission directives of conducting an “on-the-spot investigation. Verify. Search. Destroy. Incite. Inform. Over and out. On the nth day nth hour sector n subsector n rendezvous with N.”

But we have more than just that to talk about this week! Tom and I have also been reading Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, both by former S&L author William Gibson. Have you read either of them? What are your thoughts?

And we have sad news… author Michael Crichton has passed away. Join the discussion on the forums about his life and works.

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