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Jan 19, 2016
it was amazing
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. - Louis D. BrandeisIt
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. - Louis D. BrandeisIt has been a consistent element of modern life in the USA that the public polls as more progressive than our elected officials. Given that in a democracy one would expect representatives to more or less reflect the views of the people who make up the population, and not speak in opposition to them, this seems surprising at first blush. Yes, we have our extremist elements, but by and large, the political position of the majority of the nation is a bit left of center. And yet, there has been a remarkable shift in the nation's political direction. At least the political direction of the professional political class, elected officials, lawmakers, government executives, members of the judiciary, political operatives, lobbying organizations, interest groups. This pushing of the political gauge, this redefinition of what constitutes the center in American political thought, can only be understood by looking below the surface at actions that have been going on for decades, stealthily, effectively, dangerously.
Jane Mayer - from WashingtonNote.com
There is a cancer on American democracy. It began with the accumulation of unimaginable amounts of capital in a few hands. It spread through targeted application of that money to the political process, under the fig leaf of philanthropy, and has metastasized into a life-threatening malignancy. It does this through the application of billions of dollars to stealth organizations, set up specifically to propagandize against government programs and policies that the uber-rich oppose. It does this through the application of billions of dollars to tar political candidates who are not with the program, regardless of party affiliation. It does this through application of billions of dollars to programs promoting the redrawing of voting districts to minimize and eliminate, where possible, the chances that candidates with any respect for democracy might be elected to public office. It does this by applying untold millions to target those who expose their secret doings, whether that means going after whistle blowers, within their own organizations, whose consciences have outgrown their need to earn a living, their fear for their personal safety, or following, investigating, smearing and attempting to intimidate journalists who dare to speak (and document) truth to power. The only question at this point is whether it is, even now, too late to prevent the oligarchs from amassing total power within the USA, and beyond. Is democracy already at Stage 4? If it is, it will be no problem identifying those guilty of democricide. Of course it will be impossible to prosecute them, as they have gained considerable control of the courts that were once upon a time a barrier to the dismissal of the national interest by the uber-wealthy. Consider, even now, how none of those responsible for the economic meltdown have seen the inside of a cell. The truth is becoming ever more stark, ever more frightening. There is no law, only power. And the big money group has the biggest army in town, having gained control of Congress, and the judiciary, and they are very much hoping to get their greedy paws on the presidency. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Charles Koch - from USA Today
So how did this dire state of affairs come to be? Jane Mayer digs through history and shows us, stage by stage, how fanatical right wingers with vast sums, have moved from the political fringes to the mainstream, not by, themselves, shifting, but by using the gravity of their money to pull the mainstream closer to their far-right positions, positions erstwhile right-wing centerfold William F. Buckley once called "Anarcho-Totalitarianism."
David Koch - from artnews.com
There are two parallel tracks in Dark Money. One looks at the mechanisms by which the oligarchs have converted their money into political power, and thus into even more money. And the other is the personalities behind this movement. Although calling it a movement may be offering more credit than is due. It is less a movement than a well planned putsch. Think of the dark-hearted spouse who feeds an ailing partner increasing doses of poison, evading suspicion, and then inheriting an entire estate.
There are plenty of billionaires on display in Dark Money, but the primary focus of the book is the brothers Koch, particularly David and the leader of the pack, Charles. We peek into the family history, which includes providing significant material support to Stalin and that other moustachioed European dictator as they ramped up for WW II. The brothers' father, Fred, was so smitten with what he saw as the German work ethic that he hired a German nanny for his sons. Think Nurse Ratched, complete with white uniform and pointed cap. Freud would have had a heyday with this one. She made the boys defecate at the same time every day, and if they did not produce, it was cod-liver oil and enemas. And read them stories from sundry cruel German children's books, including Der Struwwelpeter, which includes warnings about horrifying things that might happen to misbehaving children. These include being burned alive, starving to death for refusing to eat a particular kind of soup, and having ones thumbs cut off for the crime of sucking on them. It is the sole place in the book where one can actually feel sorry for these kids. Excited about the Nazi conquest of France, this anti-Poppins spit-spotted back to Germany to join in the celebrations. Papa Fred was not one to spare the rod, and physical abuse of his children was a significant feature of their less than joyful upbringing.
Frederick Koch the elder was certainly a dark force. Ever eager to bring the joys of fascism home, he was an ardent supporter of the fanatically and paranoiacly anti-Communist John Birch Society. (In 1978, he declared, "Our movement must destroy the prevalent statist paradigm." - p3). Charles embraced the Birchers as an adult, but it may have been just to suck up to his old man and gain a favorable seat at the inheritance table. However, while his allegiance to the Birchers may have less than whole-hearted, he does appear to have incorporated much of what they stood for. Charles was much taken with a nutjob named Robert Lefevre, who established what he called The Freedom School. Notable among its teachings was a view that the robber barons were heroes. LeFevre was basically opposed to any form of government. Charles seems similarly inclined. The Brothers Koch have also had their own power plays within the family, dragging each other through lawsuits, and even threatening to out one brother suspected of being gay. Other members of the billionaire (mostly) boys club and their political fellow travelers come in for a look as well. Richard Devos, head of Amway, for example, and Richard Mellon Scaife. And there does seem a considerable proportion of these folks who suffer from significant mental illness and/or substance abuse issues. But the peregrinations of the Kochs is the primary focus on the personality side.
Of far greater interest is learning what these people want and how they have gone about building a massive machine to manufacture it.
In 1980 David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party line.
The party's platform was an almost exact replica of the Freedom School's radical curriculum. It called for the repeal of all campaign-finance laws and the abolition of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It also favored the abolition of all government health-care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. It attacked Social Security as "virtually bankrupt" and called for its abolition too. The Libertarians also opposed all income and corporate taxes, including capital gains taxes, and called for an end to the prosecution of tax evaders. The platform called for the abolition too of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, and the CIA, among other government agencies. It demanded the abolition of "any laws" impeding employment—by which it meant minimum wage and child labor laws. And it targeted public schools for abolition too, along with what it termed the "compulsory" education of children. The Libertarians wanted to get rid of the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, seat belt laws, and all forms of welfare for the poorThis is what they want. And this is how they have gone about getting it.
[In the late 1980s, Richard Fink], after studying the Kochs' political problems for six months, drew up a practical blueprint, ostensibly inspired by [right-wing icon, economist Friederich] Hayek's model of production, that impressed Charles by going beyond where his own 1976 paper on the subject had left off. Called "The Structure of Social Change," it approached the manufacture of political change like any other product. As Fink later described it in a talk, it laid out a three-phase takeover of American politics. The first phase required an "investment" in intellectuals whose ideas would serve as the "raw products." The second required an investment in think tanks that would turn the ideas into marketable policies. And the third phase required the subsidization of "citizens" groups that would, along with "special interests" pressure elected officials to implement the policies. It was in essence a libertarian production line, waiting only to be bought, assembled and switched on.In the same way that those seeking to promote war use mercenaries, so that voters need not be concerned about Johnny becoming cannon fodder in some pointless foreign adventure, the warfare that is politics has likewise been outsourced. Prevented by law from contributing mass quantities to your favorite tax cutter? Not to worry. Just set up a non-profit foundation and have the foundation redirect your contributions to Astroturf political creations where foundation money is magically transformed into a paid-in-full army of attack ads. And this is legal? Democracy? We doan need no steenking democracy.
The Kochs broke new ground in political gamesmanship, showing impressive creativity. In 1996, for example, they used tax-exempt non-profits as cutouts to evade limitations on company campaign donations. This was a new thing. As part of the implementation of Fink's plan, they began funding stand-alone departments at universities. They gave them innocuous names, but the intention was to provide the intellectual underpinning (or fig-leaf construction) of their anti-government efforts. George Mason University was the first of these, housing The Mercatus Center. Once they had seeded enough such centers, particularly at Ivy League universities, the next phase was to build up a ground force. Thus the Tea Party.
In his 1894 novel, The Red Lily Anatole France wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Were he writing today he might have added "and permits the poor as well as the rich to contribute unlimited amounts in support of political causes." The biggest tumor of all on the body politic is the Citizens United decision. By removing limits to campaign giving, the highly partisan Supreme Court put American democracy up for sale.
Total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs – Isaiah BerlinAnd the highest bidders have created a diverse political network that rivals and in many ways exceeds that of our major parties.
There is clearly a pathological hunger afflicting the super-rich. No matter how much money, property, or power they accumulate there remains a compelling need for more, ever more. And in seeking ever more, the affects their actions have on the rest of us is of no concern. We are all what notorious real-estate dragon lady Leona Helmsley once called the "little people." We do not matter to them. They do not care if they destroy the environment. (The Kochs in particular are notorious scofflaw polluters) They do not care if they destroy the economy. (Banksters, anyone?) They feel no obligation to contribute to the common welfare (the above-noted Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, convicted tax-evader, and poster girl for nastiness, was best known for saying,"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes") They do not care if people starve while they feast. (Cake, anyone?) They do not care if they have many mansions while millions go homeless. They are murderers, not just of people, but of our natural environment. They are destroyers. They do not care if children go uneducated, so long as they do as they are told. They do not care if the sick cannot afford to get medical care. They do not care if the life expectancy of the "little people" declines. They would probably see the conditions Dickens portrayed as too good for the poor, who, to their damaged minds, clearly have brought their poverty on themselves. This may be a form of mental illness, but at some point, the concerted actions this group of people take, primarily in the interest of increasing their already obscene wealth, crosses the line from madness to monstrosity. Charles Koch, and people of his ilk, are not unwell, they are evil, and such large-scale evil cannot be tolerated, no matter how much they might also contribute to sundry benign non-profits.
Wars have been fought to destroy, or at least to fend off, different forms of darkness. The Civil War was fought to cleanse the nation of the dark stain of slavery. World War II was fought to put down the mad dog of fascism. Another war will need to be fought to treat the cancer of oligarchy. The question is whether that war will be one of ballots or something more kinetic. The rule of the oligarchs is ushering in nothing less than a new form of slavery, a new form of fascism. Is it possible to slow the progress of this disease by exposing it to the light? Jane Mayer has been doing her part to shine her beacon on the history and activities of this group. Maybe if we know this devil and show the world what he has been up to, we can find a way to oppose him. Hopefully, by shining enough light, the dark forces that are at work will scurry back into the shadows. Of course it is possible that photodynamics will not do the trick. There are people who are immune to truth, people who will cling to their illusions and misconceptions despite the existence of scientific proof, birthers, climate change deniers, racists, and plenty more. But the patient is in the ER, suffering from the effects of the disease. Whatever resistance exists and whatever resistance grows, it had better get moving and show some success (replacing Scalia with a sentient, not entirely corrupt human would be a good start) before democracy flatlines completely. At that point it will be mourning in America for real.
Published – January 19, 2016
Review posted – February 19, 2016
Links to the author's personal, Twitter and FB pages
In the normal course of preparing reviews I look for author on-line presence. Usually this includes Facebook, Twitter and a personal page. Mayer's web site, Janemayer.com, is noted on the inside flap of her book. But when I tried to access it directly, it was not found. I then tried her Facebook page, and there was a place where one could request access to Mayer's personal web page. Certainly this suggests that the free flow of information we all need is under threat. I expect that Mayer has been besieged by the sort of on-line jack-booted trolls that are employed by the monsters she portrays in her book, necessitating this sort of screening. I included Jane-Mayer.com here as her personal page, but it really is not. It is a Random House page. Just so's ya know.
More from Mayer - New Koch - The billionaire brothers are championing criminal-justice reform. Has their formula changed? - from The New Yorker Magazine – January 25, 2016
A Mother Jones piece (1/21/16) by David Korn on the perils of telling the truth – How the Kochtopus Went After a Reporter - In Jane Mayer's new book, she reports how the conservative machine sicced private detectives on her. - Hail Hydra!
A Gawker article on a smear campaign against Mayer
May 10, 2016 - An interesting Op-Ed in the NY Times, by Kathleen M. Donovan-Maher and Steven L. Groopman - Why Dark Money Is Bad Business - a recommendation for shining some sunlight on corporate political spending, for the benefit of investors
Notes are private!
Feb 05, 2016
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 05, 2016
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015
it was amazing
We often forget how fragile a creation democracy is—a delicate eggshell in the rough-and-tumble of history. Even in the cradle of democracy, ancient
We often forget how fragile a creation democracy is—a delicate eggshell in the rough-and-tumble of history. Even in the cradle of democracy, ancient Athens, rule by the people could barely survive for a couple of centuries. And throughout its brief history, Athenian democracy was besieged from within by the forces of oligarchy and tyranny. There were secret clubs of aristocrats who hired squads of assassins to kill popular leaders. Terror reigned during these convulsions and civil society was too intimidated to bring the assassins to justice. Democracy, Thucydides tells us, was "cowed in mind."Who killed JFK?
In The Map That Changed the World, Simon Winchester wrote about William Smith, an 18th century canal digger who discovered that beneath the surface of the earth there were hidden layers of fossils, earth and stone that rose and fell connecting one to another and forming an understructure that told a tale of the earth's history. He spent more than two decades gathering the information to prove his theory and eventually created the map of the book's title. David Talbot entered into a considerable effort of subterranean digging himself, and has drawn a map of unseen layers that cross the planet and affect everything, a map that shows some of the hidden structures that lie beneath the world we think we know, the history we think we have experienced. The fossils in this case are pieces of evidence showing a history of secrets. When you look at the mass of dark deeds perpetrated by the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, there is one man, more than any other, who appears, Zelig-like, over and over again, Allan Dulles, the evidence of his deeds buried in the fossil accretions of our public and foreign policy past. His older brother, John Foster Dulles, would become a Secretary of State and wield considerable influence on his own. The pair formed a two-headed monster of foreign intrigue while in office at the same time. But the focus here is primarily on Allen Dulles
David Talbot - from Talbot's FB pages
The Devil's Chessboard reads like a riveting spy novel, peeling back layer after layer as it races to its climax. Dulles was a partner in an international law firm. Foster was chairman. Allen Dulles spent considerable swaths of time in government service, as a diplomat and spy. As such he made contacts all across Europe that would come in handy later.
Foster Dulles became so deeply enmeshed in the lucrative revitalization of Germany that he found it difficult to separate his firm's interests from that of the rising economic and military power—even after Hitler consolidated control of the country in the 1930s. Foster continued to represent German cartels like IG Farben as they were integrated into the Nazis' growing war machine, helping the industrial giants secure access to key war materials.Nazi, schmazi. Foster kept the Berlin offices of the company, Sullivan and Cromwell, open until, in 1935, his partners forced him to shut it down, fearful of horrendous PR problems.
Consider some nuggets dug from the accretions of Allen Dulles's history:
---WW II – he tries to arrange a separate peace with Nazi Germany despite specific orders from FDR to do no such thing, thus undermining the alliance between the US and Soviet Union, and contributing to suspicion between the Allies.
---Post WW II - he is instrumental in helping known Nazis and Nazi supporters hold on to their ill-gotten treasures and cash, and helps many either evade punishment or get reduced sentences and improved accommodations from the Nuremberg Courts
---He manages a ratline, an underground railroad through which Nazis escape punishment and find comfortable resettlement in other parts of the world
---Dulles uses some of these upstanding citizens to create an intelligence network
---He creates an armed force in France, ostensibly to be used against an imagined Communist takeover, but ready to act in support of an anti-deGaulle coup fomented by generals angry at the government's decision to step back from the Algerian conflict
---Dulles is instrumental in staging the anti-Mossadegh coup in Iran, installing a reluctant Shah, who had to be dragged back into the country to take over
---He goes ahead with the Bay of Pigs invasion, knowing it will fail, but expecting that the failure would force JFK to commit the USA military to the plot
The list goes on, and on. Talbot proceeds like a prosecutor, laying out the details that set up the final argument. The litany of specifics, of events, of secret, illegal actions, is stunning.
As you might expect, Allan Dulles was a person of questionable human quality., even to his family. His wife, in her diary wrote:
"My husband doesn't converse with me, not that he doesn't talk to me about his business, but that he doesn't talk about anything…It took me a long time to realize that when he talks it is only for the purpose of obtaining something…He talks easily with men who can give him some information, and puts himself out with women whom he doesn't know to tell all sorts of interesting things. He either has to be making someone admire him, or to be receiving some information worth his while; otherwise he gives one the impression that he doesn't talk at all because the person isn't worth talking to."He subjected his war-damaged son to bizarre medical treatment in a secret mind-control program he has established. He married his daughter off like a political bargaining chip.
Allen W. Dulles - from Oathkeepers.org – Funny, he doesn't look like a psycho-killer
But it is in his foreign intrigues, and in illumination of his ties to the rich and powerful, that the way is paved for the book's payoff. It is David Talbot's contention that Allan Dulles, acting in league with members of America's business and military elite, orchestrated the murder of JFK. Kennedy was seen as particularly soft on foreign nations who dared to nationalize property owned by Dulles's peeps. There were many in the military who were eager to get the next war on, the nuclear one, and Kennedy would not play. (Doctor Strangelove had nothing on these guys.) JFK had decided, because LBJ had failed to deliver the Southern votes he had promised, that he would find a replacement VP for his second term, so Johnson, beholden to Texas oilmen, and looking at the potential termination of his political life, was on board. JFK had also sacked Dulles for his insubordination. Not only was the Dallas murder a political hit, there had been an earlier attempt, in Chicago, in November 1963, that did not come off. The Warren Commission was set up not to investigate the killing but to cover it up. Bobby Kennedy knew this, but also knew that unless he could be elected to the Oval Office, the truth would remain cloaked. It is likely his determination to find the truth that got him killed too. The details Talbot offers to back his claim are compelling. I expect that the usual suspects will raise a hue and cry of that old favorite pejorative, "conspiracy theory." But as we all do, or should know, sometimes there really is a conspiracy. I'm with Talbot on this one.
The details of the sundry plots and executive actions, the coups, planned, executed, or foiled, the breadth of Talbot's gaze make for gripping reading. And I didn't even go into the CIA's work in the mind-control biz, an early example of extraordinary rendition, or any of the juicier bits about our old friend Tricky Dick Nixon, or Castro's stunning political success story in New York City. This is a compelling must-read, filled with colorful characters, intrigue, and a look at the creation and persistence of a mechanism by which an undercover foreign policy is implemented. You will wonder if, today, the White House has any more control over the intelligence apparatus than it did back then. It will change forever how you view history.
During a 1965 tour of Latin America, Robert Kennedy—by then a senator from New York—found himself in a heated discussion about Rockefeller influence in Latin America, during an evening at the home of a Peruvian artist that had been arranged by [Richard] Goodwin [an RFK aide]. When Bobby brashly suggested to the gathering that Peru should "Assert [its] nationhood" and nationalize its oil industry, the group was stunned. "Why, David Rockefeller has just been down there," one guest said. "And he told us there wouldn't be any aid if anyone acted against International Petroleum [a local Standard Oil subsidiary]."There is no law, only power. Bobby Kennedy should have known that. We all need to know that. Rule by sociopaths is definitely not the way to go, whether the morally-challenged sit on corporate boards, manage branches of government or direct elements of our military. With The Devil's Chessboard, David Talbot has written an eye-opening and devastating look at modern American history. Your move.
Review Posted – October 16, 2015
Book Published – October 13, 2015
Links to the author's Twitter and FB pages
An interesting site on keeping up with developments re the JFK hit
Talbot interview in Mother Jones
Lest anyone think the CIA is not in the business of killing, here is the CIA manual on assassination 101 – A Study of Assassination. There will be a quiz.
Amy Goodman interviews Dulles on Democracy Now - Thanks to Natylie for the heads up on this one
Talbot interview with Tavis Smiley - November 16, 2015
Notes are private!
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015
really liked it
Atticus Finch as racist. There it is. Tough to swallow, isn't it? Atticus Finch, the embodiment of decency, brought to life in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch as racist. There it is. Tough to swallow, isn't it? Atticus Finch, the embodiment of decency, brought to life in To Kill a Mockingbird, widely considered one of the greatest novels in American literature, magnificently brought to cinematic life by Gregory Peck in the film, defender of the powerless, dispenser of wisdom, a hero to generations of readers and movie-goers, spouting opinions that do or should make most folks cringe. Here are a few samples:
…You realize that our Negro population is backward, don't you? You will concede that? You realize the full implications of the word 'backward' don't you?So what are we to make of this?
First, let's step back from the this version versus that one controversy and consider the book on its own. Jean Louise Finch (JLF) is returning to her home town for the fifth time since moving from Maycomb, Alabama to New York City. She sees the place where she grew up more clearly this time than she ever had before. She professes, based on her experience of having been brought up with exposure to all sorts, and having never been overtly taught to be a racist, to be someone who is color blind. That makes her unique in Maycomb, as everyone else has been very much aware of color all their lives. What comes as the biggest shock for JLF is seeing that her sainted father, a man everybody loves, and other people she cares for, despite their positive qualities, hold views that are shocking. JLF struggles to come to terms with this realization. The crux of the story is how she deals with this. While she is already physically an adult, Jean Louise must cope with coming-of-age truths. She realizes that when it comes to her appreciation for the people of Maycomb, dad included, she has been, as Jem describes in Mockingbird, "a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon." The watchman of the title is taken from a biblical quotation, (Isaiah 21:6), and refers to conscience. JLF tries to reconcile her conscience with what she now sees, and realizes had been present all along. She is anguished by her internal conflict. With amazing memories of her childhood in this town, it is a huge part of who she is. In facing the possibility of rejecting her father and the place in which she became the person she is, she is faced with rejecting a part of herself and that is the core conflict of the story.
Harper Lee - from Smithsonian.com
Set in a time when Brown vs the Board of Education had recently and unalterably changed the legal and social landscape, many in the South perceived changes mandated by that decision as nothing less than another war of northern aggression. One of the biggest strengths of the book is how it communicates the locals' feelings about and arguments against Civil Rights, and particularly the activities of the NAACP. There is real insight here into the local psyche, from a true local. Another strength of the book is the clear voice of JLF, Scout as a kid, particularly in her recollections of a glowing childhood. The voice of Scout will take you by the hand and lead you through. It is the same voice that appears in Mockingbird, warm, familiar and welcome. I enjoyed JLF's relationship with her uncle Jack, a character absent from Mockingbird. Jack offers a perspective that is definitely homegrown, but is also decorated with the baubles and gewgaws of an advanced education and unusual interests. The affection between JLF and Jack is palpable. Her interaction with Henry, a friend since childhood, was kludgy. There are moments of real connection between the JLF and the young man who wants to marry her, but so much of their conversation is peppered with excessive use of "honey" and "sweet" that it was distracting from the content of the interaction. It felt forced. The scenes in which JLF confronts Atticus are powerful and even upsetting, but she lays into him without even asking what was up. I do recognize that many people, and particularly the young, jump to conclusions, but I wondered whether Scout, who is portrayed as a pretty bright person, would really be so close minded as to form an opinion, particularly so strong an opinion, based on unexamined evidence.
There is also some wonderful, and playful use of language, although the content reflects some of the very not 2015-politically-correct zeitgeist of the era. There are also beautiful passages that reflect the attachment Harper Lee, through her avatar, feels to her native soil.
The political views on display are appalling, paternalistic, racist, sexist, homophobic, and do reflect the attitudes of the time and place depicted, I expect. But it galls to have characters portray their dark views as accepted wisdom and have far too much of that accepted by a character who should know better.
In short, as a stand-alone there is much to like here, including some strong characters, a wonderful feel for place and a willingness to take on serious and controversial subject matter, but there are plenty of flaws as well. Go Set a Watchman is no classic.
Of course Go Set a Watchman would not have become the literary event of 2015 had it not shared DNA with a novel widely regarded as one of the best American novels ever written, To Kill a Mockingbird. And just in case you are newly arrived on our planet, perhaps are recently thawed out from an extended cryogenic holiday, or have just come to after a nasty crack on the head in 1960, Mockingbird recounts, through the eyes of the grown-up Scout, a time when she was six years old and her father, Atticus Finch, was called on to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. It offers a view of a golden childhood and a principled father taking on the bigotry of a deep South town in service of justice and decency. If you have not yet read it, go, scoot, scram, take a hike, go find a copy, and come back when you are done.
Ok, read it? Good. There has certainly been a lively reaction to Go Set a Watchman. Would that reaction have been different if there had never been a Mockingbird baseline against which to compare this version of Atticus? That is something we can never know. But it is helpful to think of To Kill a Mockingbird as the second and final version of Nelle Harper Lee's (Yes, Harper is her middle name) seminal novel. Go Set a Watchman was Mockingbird 1.0. Harper Lee sold her book to the publisher JB Lippincott in 1957. But it was deemed not ready for prime time. I do not know the specifics of what editorial direction Lee was given by her editor, Tay Hohoff, other than to focus on the time of Jean Louise's childhood. Racism is taken on very powerfully in 1.0. There is less telling and more showing in Mockingbird. The childhood recollections here, while wonderful, do not occupy as much of the stage as they do in version 2.0, but you can certainly see how an editor might laser in on those as strengths to magnify when trying to improve the book. And if one is then going to re-set the primary stage to the time of Scout's childhood, it makes sense to make Atticus more purely heroic. In fact Mockingbird was intended to have been titled Atticus.
There is danger, of course, that this original depiction of Atticus will forever tarnish the gleaming ideal of a man we admire so from Mockingbird. Why splash racist graffiti over a cherished icon? Actually the racist element was there from the start, in this 1.0 version. It is instructive to see how Atticus evolved in the writer's molding from the crusty first version to the graceful, fine character that illuminates Lee's ultimate masterpiece.
There is no need to overstate Atticus's racism in Watchman. In reviews and commentary some elements have been taken out of context and misrepresented. The KKK thing, for example. Atticus states that his purpose in joining was to find out who was behind the masks, not to further the organization's agenda. Another item pertains to a racist screed handed out by a lunatic and found by JLF in her father's home. Atticus agrees that the author is a nut, and that he had been granted the right to speak at the town council, as any other nut might have. Atticus does not subscribe to the views in the pamphlet. He subscribes to enough, though, to cause all who know where his character ends up in version 2.0, to take a large step back. You can get a taste of that in the quotes at the top of this review. It continues on, with nastiness about the NAACP, legalistic hogwash about SCOTUS violating the 10th Amendment, a general sense of feeling under assault by outside forces, and a paternalistic notion that all would be just fine if those northern rabble-rousers would just let Negro advancement proceed at a more measured pace. This is crucial, I believe, to one of the strengths of Watchman. While the views held by the residents of Maycomb, as represented by Atticus, Henry and others, may not receive a universal welcome in 2015, I believe they do fairly represent the beliefs of most educated southern whites during this era. The book might have been instructive to northerners, had it been released in its original form, as to the nature of the strident opposition the civil rights movement faced. As such, Watchman offers a valuable guide to a time and place, where even folks most at the time would consider pretty decent, like Atticus, maintained views that, while they remain widespread among some segments of our population today, are now generally seen as abhorrent.
There are other interesting elements that come from a consideration of the novels set side by side. What remains? What is lost? The courthouse where Scout watches Atticus heroically defend Tom Robinson in Mockingbird is a real place in Monroeville, Alabama, Lee's birthplace. In Watchman it is a scene of horror as Jean Louise sees a racist propound his views in a public forum in which her father and friend are principal players. Calpurnia, the Finch housekeeper in Mockingbird plays a major role in Watchman as well. In one particularly chilling scene, Jean Louise, who had seen Cal as a nurturing force her entire life, now wonders if Cal ever really cared for her or, instead, saw her only through a racial lens. Dill, her avatar for childhood pal Truman Capote, is present in both novels, but Boo Radley was added in Mockingbird. Henry is gone from Mockingbird. JLF's brother, Jem, a major character in Mockingbird, is much less of a presence in Watchman.
Go Set a Watchman may occupy a place in the shadow of what was to come, but it does offer insight into the author, her take on the world in the late 1950s, and into her characters. As a blood relation to one of the greatest books in American literature, it is most definitely worth reading.
Published - 7/14/15
Review – 7/24/15
Harpercollins has made a FaceBook page for GSaW
Robert McCrum's review in The Guardian is quite informative - Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee review – a literary curiosity
A Charles Leerhsen article in the June 2010 Smithsonian is also worth a look - Harper Lee's Novel Achievement
A nice bit of extra intel on Tay Hohoff, Lee's editor in this article by Emma Cueto on Bustle.com, Harper Lee's First Editor, Tay Hohoff, Had A Lot To Do With Creating 'To Kill A Mockingbird', So Here's What You Should Know About Her
The reading group guide is now available here
2/19/16 - Nell Harper Lee passed away today - her contribution will be live forever
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really liked it
Dead Wake is named a 2015 notable non fiction book by the Washington Post
The track lingered on the surface like a long pale scar. In maritime vernaDead Wake is named a 2015 notable non fiction book by the Washington Post
The track lingered on the surface like a long pale scar. In maritime vernacular, the trail of fading disturbance, whether from ship or torpedo, was called a "dead wake."On May 7, 1914, only a few years after that most famous of ocean-liners had had an unfortunate encounter with an iceberg on its maiden voyage, RMS Lusitania, popularly referred to as "Lucy," having already crossed the Atlantic dozens of times, this time carrying 1,962 souls, was sunk by a German U-boat off the Irish coast. Almost 1200 people perished. Erik Larson casts his perceptive eyes on the event, looking for explanations. Why was the ship sunk? Had it been possible for the ship to have avoided its fate? What were the global circumstances at the time and how did those effect the disaster? Who and what was on the ship? Why? What was the big deal about the Lusitania? Other ships had been sunk by U-boats during this conflict. How did the sinking of the Lusitania affect American entry into The Great War?
The New York Times headline - From PBS
We all have preconceptions, notions that hardly seem worth examining. I expect for most of us, the details of the sinking of the Lusitania are clouded by the fog of time. We might believe that, as with the sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba, the national response was immediate and violent. Turns out the reality was far different.
Artist rendering of the sinking - from Cinewiki.wikispaces.com
Larson looks at events in several threads. Mostly he follows the events on the Lusitania and on the German sub (U-20 - U-boat is an abbreviation of Unterseeboot, or undersea boat) that would bring it down. In parallel, he looks at the politics involved in, not so much the causes of World War I, but in the stages between the commencement of hostilities and the eventual drawing of the USA into the war. He looks at the milieu in which American president Woodrow Wilson existed, politically and personally. He looks at the people involved in making tactical decisions, and at a special, secret intelligence gathering location in the UK. He stops, also, for a look at the sad accumulation of the victims in Ireland.
Larson offers a view of the Lusitania that might not be obvious to those of us looking back a hundred years. We might, for example, think of it as a relatively slow moving ocean liner, but it was the fastest civilian ship of its time. Its exceptional speed was a major selling point. There is plenty more detail about the ship, the different sorts of lifeboats, with their potential benefits and downsides, the unusual hull it used. Lucy carried a relatively inexperienced crew, due to so many able-bodied seamen having been drawn into the military. New, unusual life vests were used on the ship, and training in their use was lacking, as was training in using the lifeboats.
The sinking was used for recruiting – in Britain and the USA
On the other side, it is remarkable how fragile U-boats were, and the limitations they faced in pursuing their mission. Larson offers us a look aboard the sub that did the deed, captain's log and all. How fast were these boats? What was their range? What was their mission, their command structure? What was the physical environment like for submariners? What could they not do? Where could they not go? How did they keep in touch with their land-based command? What were their orders? What was the mindset of the captain, of his crew? Lots to look at here, eye-opening stuff. Don't sign me up for life on a sub.
The wrecked U-20 after a failed attempt to scuttle - from Lusitania.net
And of course there was the interaction between militaries. How did the allies cope with the very effective plague the U-boats presented? Could they track them? If so, how did they track them? What were the capabilities of the super-secret Room 40? What was the decision process the German command used in deciding how to use this powerful weapon?
Room 40 - from Lusitania.net
One thing Larson does is follow the narrative of several of the passengers aboard the big boat. This brings the disaster away from technical details to actual human experience. You will get to know some of the passengers, and learn their fates.
There is a wealth of information in Dead Wake. For example, the biggest surprise for most readers, and perhaps the most controversial element in the book is the suggestion that Britain did not exactly do all it might have to protect Lucy from enemy attack, as there were some at the highest levels of government who believed that such an event might hasten the enlistment of the USA into the war. There were other factors for sure that contributed to why Lucy was where she was when she was, but most of those lack the bitter flavor of dark calculation. And maintaining the sour taste is a description of how shameless members of the admiralty sought to evade personal responsibility for the sinking by pointing fingers at a designated patsy. Despite the denials all around that the Lusitania was purely a civilian ship, the fact was that it was carrying a considerable supply of military materiel for use against Germany. Lucy would most definitely have had some 'splaining to do' had it been known that supposedly neutral America was using her as a military transport to support the Allies.
Erik Larson - from New Hampshire Public Radio
There is plenty of drama to go around here. Even though we know what will happen, Larson succeeds in instilling tension into the coming together of Lucy with her killer. The descriptions of life aboard the sub are compelling; information about the physical realities of the Lusitania is fascinating, and looking at the probable decision-making involved is enraging.
This is not to say that there are no rents in the hull taking on a bit of the briny. While it seemed clear that tracking individual passengers was intended to take the story from an emotionally removed overview down a bit closer to sea level, I found that most of these passages were not all that engaging. It also seemed not entirely clear that Woodrow Wilson's domestic situation was necessarily all that important in his reluctance to bring the USA into the war.
On the other hand there are bits that are depressingly resonant with more contemporary outrages, as left hands not keeping right hands informed of their actions contributed to the ultimate catastrophe. Information that could have identified a sub in a shipping lane was available, but was not put together in time. Very reminiscent of 9/11. Our species certainly seems well practiced in learning nothing from history. One contributing factor was a corporate cost-cutting measure that kept Lucy from making her best time across the Atlantic. Had she been allowed to use all four of her boilers instead of only three, she would never have encountered U-20. The Deepwater Horizon disaster, and many more such incidents remind us that pursuit of the almighty dollar/pound/euro/(insert your currency here) will always be assigned a higher value than human life or the safety of the environment for many of the people making such decisions.
President Wilson and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill
Germany actually posted newspaper notices in American newspapers, before the Lusitania set sail from New York City, that all ships entering what was considered a war zone were at risk of being sunk. It would not be the last time clear messages of intent from Germany would be ignored to our everlasting regret.
Dead Wake is a wonderful piece of writing, not only diving down into details of what is probably a murky subject for most of us, offering a greater understanding of the physical event, but providing a context within which we can achieve a greater understanding of the causes and implications of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. As a bit of historical reporting is it definitely a case of "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
Review posted – 7/3/15
Publication dates
-----3/10/15 - hardcover
-----3/22/16 - paperback
Links to the author's personal, Twitter and FB pages
Lusitania Online is a wonderful source for all things Lucy
Video from the National Archives of passengers arriving and Lucy embarking on its final voyage- the first 1:50 is mostly people getting out of cars, so feel free to skip ahead a bit
A 1918 animation of the sinking
Arthur Conan Doyle's story Danger! was written about 18 months before the outbreak of WWI. It anticipated in considerable detail the submarine warfare to come. You can read it on Gutenberg. In the preface to the 1918 collection in which it appears, Doyle noted that he attempted to present his notions to the government, noting that he:
…did indeed adopt every possible method, that he personally approached leading naval men and powerful editors, that he sent three separate minutes upon the danger to various public bodies, notably to the Committee for National Defence, and that he touched upon the matter in an article in The Fortnightly Review. In some unfortunate way subjects of national welfare are in this country continually subordinated to party politics, so that a self-evident proposition, such as the danger of a nation being fed from without, is waved aside and ignored, because it will not fit in with some general political shibboleth.If this reminds you at all of Bill Clinton and Richard Clarke trying to warn the incoming Bush administration of the danger presented by Osama bin Laden, it should.
Notes are private!
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really liked it
While a single volume cannot begin to right the grave injustice that so tragically marked Benga's life, it can help untangle the web of egregious fa
While a single volume cannot begin to right the grave injustice that so tragically marked Benga's life, it can help untangle the web of egregious fallacies that mark our historical record and dishonor his memory.When we think of people in cages some things are likely to pop to mind. Maybe extreme fighters going at each other for money, on TV and in arenas. Maybe Rikers Island, or any the many establishments of local, state or federal incarceration that blanket the nation, holding millions of people behind bars. Fans of Kurt Vonnegut might recall Billy Pilgrim on Tralfamadore in a display with Montana Wildhack. But at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century there was something other going on. It was a period in which western powers were drunk on celebrating Imperial gains in far off places.
Here in the USA, the Cincinnati Zoo invited 100 Sioux to live at their park for three months in 1896. In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a World's Fair in Saint Louis, put on a show intended to outshine the 1893 White City success of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but instead of featuring architecture and industry, the focus here was on imperial dominance and the superiority of the successful race. It was termed a "parade of evolutionary progress." Hey folks, look at all these nifty places we took over. Conquered native peoples were often labeled as primitives, despite having ancient cultures of their own. Many were put on display in Saint Louis. These included Igorot from the Philippines, Tlingit from Alaska, and Apache from you-know-where. Geronimo himself was present, selling autographs.
Displaying people for fun and profit was hardly unique to the USA. There were many instances of what were euphemistically called "ethnological expositions" extant at the time. Representatives of non-Western cultures were put on public display in such Podunk, one-horse towns as Amsterdam (Surinam natives were displayed near the Rijksmuseum in 1883), London (Nubians), Paris (World's Fairs in 1878 and 1889 featured Negro villages. Later French fairs displayed people in cages, sometimes in undressed states), Belgium, Moscow, Hamburg, Barcelona, Antwerp, Barcelona, and Warsaw. Human zoos, sorry, ethnographic expositions, were all the rage.
Watching the primitives at the St Louis Exposition
One of the big attractions at the Saint Louis Fair was a group of African pygmies. Among that group was a young Mbuti man who stood 4'11, had dark brown skin and whose teeth, as was customary in his culture, had been filed to points. His name was Mbye OtaBenga, and his journey in America was far from over. (His name went through various gyrations during his time in the USA, but for this review "Ota Benga" will be used)
Ota Benga - from The Daily Mail
He was returned to Africa following the St Louis fair, but things did not go well for him there and he was brought back to the USA by the man who had brought him the first time, Samuel Verner. This time, after a stay at the American Museum of Natural History on Manhattan's Upper West Side became problematic, Ota Benga's next stop was the New York Zoological Garden, or the Bronx Zoo. In 1906, he was put on display in the monkey house, in an enclosure with an orangutan. He was accompanied by a chimp named Polly that Verner had also brought back from Africa. What happened here was of a cloth with outrageous activity that was extant across the Western world. The idea was that the pygmy represented a primitive stage in the advancement of the human race to the glorious advanced state of those then in charge.
Outrage ensued, although not nearly enough of it in high places. The NY Times basically wondered "What's the big deal?"
Author Pamela Newkirk, a journalist, National Press Club Award winner, and a director of undergraduate studies at New York University, uses the inhuman presentation of Benga as a springboard for a look at a variety of contemporary people and issues. She pays particular attention to Samuel Phillips Verner, the man who had brought Benga to America. Not exactly the most upstanding of citizens, Verner was a missionary (when convenient), businessman, diplomat, collector, adventurer, and whatever he needed to be to get what he wanted. He's an interesting character, although far from a laudable one. We get to meet some of the people who were involved with the efforts to shut down the dehumanizing monkey house exhibition, and many of the people who tried to help Benga have a life in America. Her portrayal of Benga's personal journey is particularly moving.
Pamela Newkirk - from NYU
Newkirk pays particular attention to Congo, which, at the time of Benga's departure, was under the cruel yoke of King Leopold of Belgium. For a fuller look at that place and time I recommend Alan Hochschild's horrifying depiction of institutionalized cruelty, King Leopold's Ghost. But Newkirk's description of Congo will give you some appreciation for the horrors of the age.
She also looks, through the lens of Benga's public display, at the attitudes of some of the city's leading lights. Who were the people who put Benga in the monkey house? What were their motivations? How did the black community in New York respond to this act? What role did the media play in the controversy?
Benga's story of man's inhumanity to man has provided source material for both fiction and non. The most well-known example is the character of Ngunda Oti in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Ota Benga: the Pygmy in the Zoo, another account of the events was published in 1992. The book was written by Verner's grandson, Phillips Verner Bradford, so may take a kinder view of his forebear than does Newkirk, who gives us a picture of Verner as a scoundrel.
As someone with a garden variety exposure to black history, Spectacle fills in a few of the many gaps in that knowledge for me. I imagine that it will do the same for most of us who are of the Caucasian persuasion, and many who are not.
The story of Ota Benga is a sad one, a man treated like a beast, then struggling to find his place in the world. It shows us the cruelty of the time, but also offers a look at some of the positive forces at work in the early 20th century. There were people who stood up to the unspeakable exhibitors. There were people who tried to see that Benga was treated decently. Newkirk shows Benga's attempts to chart his own destiny and reports on the people who tried to help him. This entails giving us a look at Weeksville in Brooklyn, and Lynchberg, Virginia, both places where being black was not the disadvantage it was in most of the USA.
The author strikes a balance between looking at Benga's trial and the larger picture. You will learn a bit about the conduct of imperial rule in Africa in the early 20th century, the dramatic racism inherent in how non-Caucasians were perceived, the efforts to build black political and social strength, and plenty more. Sadly, over a century later, racism persists, despite the growth in our scientific understanding of the physical diversity of the one race we all belong to, homo sapiens. And, while we remain barbaric to one another across the world, at least we no longer put people on public display, labeling them as primitive because of their ethnic makeup. (Reality TV does that quite well, using other criteria) Pamela Newkirk's Spectacle is an engaging and enraging read that will teach you some history and touch your heart.
Review posted – 5/29/15
Publication date – 6/2/15
Links to the author's personal, Twitter and FB pages
A Washington Post by Ann Hornaday about the role her great-great uncle played in displaying Benga at the zoo - A Critical Connection to the Curious Case of Ota Benga
A 2006 NY Times article by Mitch Keller - The Scandal at the Zoo
A Lilliput Town was constructed in 1934 in Vienna, to be inhabited by midgets for the amusement of fairgoers.
The Human Zoo – Science's Dirty Little Secret – a video including interviews with Verner's grandson
April 8, 2016 - I came across this poem about Ota Benga this morning Ota Benga at Edankraal by Yusef Komunyakaa ...more
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it was amazing
…this whole entire scene says the same to me as it says to every other knucklehead who ever thought bad thoughts across this whole city: now's your f
…this whole entire scene says the same to me as it says to every other knucklehead who ever thought bad thoughts across this whole city: now's your fucking day, homie. Felicdades, you won the lottery! Go out there and get wild, it says. Come and take what you can, it says. If you're bad enough, if you're strong enough, come out and take it. Devil's night in broad daylight, I call it.At 3:15pm on April 29, 1992, a Simi Valley jury found the police officers who had beaten the crap out of Rodney King, on what was certainly one of the first viral videos, not guilty. At 6:45pm, as news of the verdict spread, Los Angeles exploded with rage. For most of the next week large swaths of the city burned, almost four thousand buildings, with property damage in excess of a billion dollars. Stores were looted. Dozens died, and when the LA Police Department was unable to stem the violence, the National Guard was called in. In many cases police and security personnel stood around as stores were torched and/or looted, a close-to-home reminder of what US troops in Baghdad had done in 1991 when the locals were making off with sundry public property and untold national treasures. Rioting is messy. Stuff happens. The prolonged unrest, called an uprising by some, was a reaction not only to the jury's decision, but, for many, to a lifetime of duress.
Cops beating Rodney King – from the Guardian
Ryan Gattis, who, among other things, is part of a street art project in LA, got considerable insight into what had gone on in 1992 from other members of that group, folks who had been present for the experience. The result is a stunning piece of work, as Guernica was for the Spanish Civil War, so All Involved is for the LA Uprising, a complex, horrifying, moving portrait of a city at war with itself.
Picasso's world-famous mural depicts the horrors of the Spanish Civil War
The book is divided into six parts, one for each day of the riot. Each part is sub-divided into two or three chapters, one for each the 17 characters whose tales are told. The primary character in each chapter is presented in first person, and Gattis does an excellent job of preserving their individuality.
Ernesto Vera, a food worker with a sophisticated palate, aspires to opening his own restaurant. Straight arrow. Keeps his nose clean. Is kind to the less fortunate. A good, no, a very good guy. That does not matter to some. What matters is that he is brother to Ray, aka Lil Mosco, who is very much not a very good guy. Ray managed to shoot a woman while trying to kill someone else. Since Ray cannot be found, since direct revenge cannot be taken by the woman's family, Ernie will have to do. From this spark the fire grows.
Ernie lived with his sixteen-year-old sister, Lupe, and Big Fe, the leader of a local gang. Big Fe is the general, the warlord, and justice for killing Ernie will be meted out. We see each of the players as they wend their way through this six-day-long drama. A bit player here is featured there. The parts connect. We get to see events from several angles. It is like looking at a holographic image. As you change perspective the image shifts. We are shown individual motivations. This event takes place because of a prior event, but the new event results in subsequent ripples. And on it goes.
Ernie's Last Ride – from Gattis's site
The primary media focus for the events concerned black rage at injustice. But the Latino population in 1992 was almost as large as the black population. Gattis focuses primarily on the former community here, in the Los Angeles County city of Lynwood. Add to the problems blacks have with the police the potential for many Hispanics who are in the country illegally to be deported. In The Divide Matt Taibbi offered a pretty detailed look at how the unequal treatment dealt out by the criminal justice system has created a large segment of America that has a lot more in common with the West Bank than it does with Beverly Hills. It is not surprising, that a prolonged violent reaction might take place in response to a dramatic legal slap in the face. But the conflagration of violence offered cover to many with other motivations.
They think it's sad, some kind of thoughtless, primal rage thing. It's not. It's mostly planned and it's one of three things—grudge, mayhem, or insurance…It's grudge if one guy doesn't like the other guy for whatever reason, so he takes advantage of the chaos to do something about it, so even the race stuff, like what the blacks are doing to the Koreans, goes here. It's mayhem if you're deliberately setting it for the heck of it, or if you're trying to cover a crime, or using it as a distraction to draw emergency assistance elsewhere so you can commit a crime somewhere else, which the gangs definitely do…. The last and likeliest, it's insurance of you've got a business in a run-down part of the city and it's not making as much money as you want but you do have fire insurance and you've been paying hefty premiums on that policy for damn near too long and then one day the racist cops get acquitted and all of a sudden up pops the opportunity to torch your own premises and get away with it—all you have to do is blame gangs or looters, so why not?Wars are fought in the smoke-filled nights, personal, gang-related, mindless-rage-based. Ordnance fills the air like Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, L.A as Walpurgisnacht, with witches and demons of all sorts throwing flames, dousing with accelerant, and casting dark spells. A place where it is not uncommon for firefighters to find bullets on their rigs, where a police escort is needed to keep them from being shot while putting out fires. There are scenes that are reminiscent of Mad Max, as those driving fire-trucks know better than to stop when someone walks into their lane. Any rig that does will come under immediate assault. One attack on firefighters is resonant with the real world attack on Reginald Denny. You are there.
So how, in all the mayhem, in all the violence, in all the death and destruction can we find some humanity? Gattis may have created a dark portrait of a time and place, but his people are much more than kindling. He takes time with each of his many characters to build, to show where they came from, how they got to where they are, to understand their motivations, their dreams. It is true that for some, all they want is to become even more dangerous than they already are. But there is profound humanity on display as well. A tagger is shown as an artist, a nurse dreams of love, a gang member with CSI skills wonders what else there might be for him in the world. Other gang members connect with old cinema, surprising music, one with his cat, Teeny. There are plenty of pure black hats to go around, but Gattis mixes large dollops of color as well. There are people you can feel for here, and not just the studly Dudley Do-right fireman, or the compassionate nurse. Not all the burned can be healed. Some, as awful as they seem, shouldn't be. Others might be true citizens if given a chance.
Ryan Gattis from his site
Gattis drops in relevant information through various means. Intel on the number of guns in L.A. is truly alarming, or should be. Information on the number of gang members versus the number of police is frightening. Gangs do not come into existence in a vacuum. Where safety is assured, and enforced, where the population feels protected, attended to, respected, gangs cannot flourish. It is when there is inadequate protection that people turn to other forms of self-preservation. The growth of gangs in Los Angeles and other cities is a testament to the failure of law enforcement to do what is needed, and reflects also the failure of political leaders to provide the resources public safety departments need to do their jobs, the failure of leaders to nurture a vision of the future with educational and career opportunities of the legal sort.
There's a helicopter overhead—looks like Channel 7—shining a light down on us like we're at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. The people who live around here, they know what that actually feels like. They know how ugly life can get. Everybody else, the people sitting at home, watching this unfold on television, they have no idea. Those are the people shocked by the riots. They can't comprehend them because they don't understand the other side. They don't understand what happens to people with no money who live in a neighborhood where crime is actually a viable career path when there are no other opportunities, and I'm not excusing it or condoning it or saying it can't be avoided, but I'm saying that's how it is.Ryan Gattis has written a masterpiece. A soldier-by soldier, bullet-by-bullet, Molotov-by-Molotov look at a recurring tragedy in American history. You will smell the smoke, feel the heat and get an urge to bolt the doors and slip into some Kevlar. All Involved is one of the hottest books of the year. It is not to be missed.
Review posted - 4/24/15
Publication date - 4/7/2015
Links to the author's personal and Twitter pages and to his transmedia work
This is a 30 minute chunk of the audio version, with a small bit of interview with Gattis at the front
There is a bounty of musical links on the author's site, but you will need to be signed in to spotify to listen. Here are a couple from that list available on youtube:
Ride of the Valkyries
Star Wars – Burning homestead on Tattooine
These were not among the items on the author's playlist
Disco Inferno
I Love LA
You can see 1:23 of the 12 minute Rodney King tape on George Holliday's (the guy who shot it) site
The NY Times review by Michiko Kakutani is worth a look
Notes are private!
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liked it
He pointed out that "a strong lack of conscience" is one of the hallmarks for these individuals. "Their game is self-gratification at the other perso
He pointed out that "a strong lack of conscience" is one of the hallmarks for these individuals. "Their game is self-gratification at the other person's experience," Hare said. "Psychopathic killers, however, are not mad, according to accepted legal and psychiatric standards. The acts result not from a deranged mind but from a cold, calculating rationality combined with a chilly inability to treat others as thinking, feeling humans." - the author quoting Robert Hare, author of a book on PsychopathyCall me Will. Some years ago, a lot, don't ask, I thought I would see a bit of that northern rival city. It was wintry, snow on the ground. Accommodations were meager. No, I was not there alone, and the journey was not without portents. But I was spared a room-mate of the cannibalistic inclination. I still feel the pull, on occasions. Maybe stop by to see relics of Revolution, fields of dreams crushed and fulfilled, walk spaces where giants once strode. So I was drawn to Roseanne Montillo's latest. In her previous book, The Lady and Her Monsters, she followed the trail of creation blazed by Mary Shelley as she put together her masterpiece, Frankenstein. In The Wilderness of Ruin, Montillo is back looking at monsters and creators. This time the two are not so closely linked. The monster is this tale is all too real, the youngest serial killer in US history. The artist in this volume is Herman Melville (and, of course, his monster as well, but the killer is the primary monster here) . Montillo treats us to a look at his life, or at least parts of it, and offers some details on the elements that went into the construction of his masterpiece, Moby Dick. A consideration of madness, in his work and in his life, and public discourse on the subject of madness links the two. A third character here is Boston of the late 19th century, as Montillo offers us a look at the place, most particularly in the 1870s. I am sure there are parts of the city remaining, in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, for one, where a form of madness is regularly experienced.
Before the infamous serial killers whose names we know too well, before BTK and Dahmer, before Bundy and Gacy, long before the Boston Strangler, Bean Town was afflicted by a particularly bloody small-fry with particularly large problems. Jesse Pomeroy was a sociopathic little beast who, as a pre-teen, preyed on small children, kidnapping, assaulting and cutting them. He was even known to have taken a bite. As a teen, after a spell in juvie, he graduated to murder. The book calls him America's youngest serial killer. A drunken, abusive lout of a father played a part, but was Jesse born a monster or was he made? Of course, he would probably not fit as an actual serial killer, as currently defined, but he was definitely a multiple murderer, generated considerable terror in the area, and was certainly sociopathic.
The young Jess Pomeroy and Herman Mellville
Montillo offers us a look at the mean streets of Boston in the 1870s. Her descriptions are filled with illuminating, and sometimes wonderful details. It was a very Dickensian scene with poverty widespread and in full view. Child labor was usual, housing was cramped and susceptible to conflagration. Class lines were sometimes demarcated quite clearly. Montillo tells of one in particular, Mount Vernon Street, that marked where well-to-do South Slope ended and working class North Slope began. It was also known as Mount Whoredom Street for its concentration of bordellos. My favorite period detail concerns a World Peace Jubilee that took place in 1872, following the end of the Franco-Prussian war. (The mayor was trying to spruce up the city's image.) Johann Strauss played Blue Danube, and one hundred fifty firemen took the stage of the newly constructed Coliseum to perform a piece of music by pounding on 150 anvils, which probably makes Boston the birthplace of heavy metal (sorry).
The Coliseum in the World Peace Jubilee
Montillo also tells of the sort of political shortsightedness which has plagued governments everywhere. The Fire Chief had taken note of the unpleasantness endured by Chicago in 1871 and urged the city government to do some infrastructure investment to prevent a similar outcome. Think the city did it? Of course, after the conflagration, the media, indulging in their usual investigative acuity, somehow focused blame on the one guy who was trying to prevent catastrophe. Same ole media.
Baked Beantown - from Library of Congress
Melville had to endure some troubles of his own. We in the 21st century may regard Moby Dick as one of the masterpieces of American literature, but it sold like three-day old fish. Melville earned less than $600 for his effort, which labors took a considerable toll on his health and maybe on his sanity. Imagine you are Herman Melville and are working on your Opus Magnus, in a place (Arrowhead, in Pittsfield, MA) that is heavy with family, visitors, screaming children, constant distraction, and your family is trying to get you to stop writing, because, of course, it is the writing that is making you nuts. It is amazing to me that Melville did not take a page from Pomeroy's book and reduce his distractions a notch. It will come as no surprise that he was quite interested in the notion of madness. It was a widely discussed issue of the day. There was direct applicability of the madness discussion to matters like sentencing. If a prisoner is considered insane, would it be ok to execute him? Montillo goes into some of the thought at the time and the thinkers making their cases. Melville's interest in madness was certainly manifest in his book. Ahab has…issues.
Another treat in the book is some more back story on where and how Melville got some of his material. I had thought it was the tale of the Essex that had been the sole white whale inspiration. Turns out there was an earlier one. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the whaler…. I am not aware of the name of the aged whale that took out the Essex, but the earlier one was named Mocha Dick, Mocha for the island near where it was sighted, and Dick as a generic appellation, like the Joe part of GI Joe. It does, however, sound like an unspeakable beverage not on sale at Starbuck's, so far as I am aware.
Cover of J. N. Reynolds story Mocha Dick or the White Whale of the Pacific
Due to the joining together of a city and a multiple murderer, The Wilderness of Ruin does bear a base similarity to Erik Larson's outstanding book, The Devil in the White City. Both tell of an awful killer, and depict a major American city at a time of great change. However Wilderness… does not deliver quite the punch of the earlier book.
First, the link between the killer and Melville lies not in their having anything to do with each other. It is in the fact that madness is associated with both of them. And that is a fairly thin tether with which to connect the two. There are added links having to do with perception of relative skull size and skin color, but I thought those were a stretch. Given how magnificently Montillo had delved into the underpinnings of Mary Shelley's great work, I believe she would have been well served to have offered up another on Melville. It is possible, of course, that she did not have enough new material with which to populate an entire volume. And there is no shortage of material on Melville out there already. (a Google search of "Melville biography" yielded 9,460 results) Of course, I expect the same might have been said for Mary Shelley. Don't know, but the linkage felt forced.
Second, there is not really much of a hunt for Pomeroy. He spends most of his time in the book well contained behind bars, attempting to escape his come-uppance legally, and with digging tools, unlike the devil in Chicago, who remained at his dark task for most of that tale.
Third, the title may suggest something to the author, (terminology used to describe the aftermath of the Chicago fire, perhaps) I did not really get a clear image of the stories being told from the title. I suppose Pomeroy creates his fair share of ruin, and Melville endures far too much, and, of course, the city goes all to blazes, but the title just felt off to me.
However, there is still plenty to like in The Wilderness…. That one can come away from this book with a Zapruder-like mantra, "There was a second white whale," is almost worth the price of admission on its own. For those who have not already availed of material on Herman, there is enough here to whet one's appetite, without going overboard. Some of the details of 19th century Boston (Yes, the parts may not have been legally part of the Boston of the era, but they are part of it today) are fascinating. There is a nugget on the origin of a famous Poe story, from when he was stationed in Boston. The discussion on madness is certainly worth listening in on. As is an exchange of ideas about the benefits of solitary confinement. Finally, there is cross-centuries relevance to how government and media function. It will certainly come as no surprise to anyone living in 21st century America that lily-livered politicians would rather take a chance on their districts burning to the ground sooner than spend public money to protect them. And were you aware that Boston had suffered a catastrophic conflagration only a year after Chicago? (excluding you folks from the Boston area. You know about this, right?) And it will come as no surprise to anyone with a radio, television or computer that substantial portions of the media are dedicated to dimming the light by increasing the temperature. The book may not be equal to the sum of the parts, the linkages are a bit frayed, the hunt for and serial designation of the killer may have been exaggerated, but the parts are still pretty interesting. It is always a good thing to visit Boston.
Posted – 1/9/15
Publication date – 3/17/15
The author on Twitter
Moby Dick for free on Gutenberg
Billy Budd for free on Gutenberg Australia
Here is a wiki on Mocha Dick , and here the text of the Knickerbocker article in which that tale is told.
A wiki piece on the World Peace Jubilee
Notes are private!
Dec 22, 2014
Jan 2015
Dec 22, 2014
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014
really liked it
"If the central government doesn't stay together," he said, "I'll have to find a way to protect my people."
"If the central government doesn't stay together," he said, "I'll have to find a way to protect my people."There is a lot to like in journalist Kevin Sites's latest report from the front, Swimming with Warlords. Sites takes us from point to point on his journey through geography and history, offering a look at the Afghanistan of 2001 as compared to the Afghanistan of late 2013. He spends considerable ink on warlords, but not enough, IMHO, to justify the title of the book. And this is just as well, because the other elements he finds to report on are even more interesting. He notes the extant miseries, for sure, but also finds some flowers blooming in the rubble, offering the fragrance of hope. He looks at the condition of women, notes gains and losses, bright spots and expectations maybe not so bright as we might hope. He looks at what is likely to happen when the US leaves. One major element here is the conflict between former allies within Afghanistan. Of course, he has been back to Afghanistan several times in between, but it is the bookend experience on which he focuses here. What has changed between the time when American forces attacked in the wake of 9/11, and today, as US troops prepare to depart in 2014?
Sites has certainly seen a lot during his many years in the field, across the war-torn planet, working for major news organizations like ABC, NBC and CNN, and newer entries like Yahoo! News and Vice. He has written two books, In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars (2007) and Things They Cannot Say (2012). His bona fides are impeccable. He even teaches journalism these days in theUniversity of Hong Kong journalism and media program.
There are plenty of villains in Sites's depiction of what has become a more-or-less permanent war zone, but there are a surprising number of heroes as well, some ambiguously so, others not. The place we know today as Afghanistan, which has been called "the graveyard of empires," has endured seemingly constant invasions and internal conflict, from the days of Alexander the Great to the present. It seems like the entire place is a huge stadium in which Premier league teams have battled it out among themselves and with the locals, with some notable modern matches having been during the Great Game days of the British empire, the Soviet invasion of the 1970s and 1980s during the Cold War, and most recently, the Western invasion to oust Osama bin Terrorist and his Taliban hosts after 9/11. And it is a favored pitch in which Pakistan does its best to make trouble for India.
"The Taliban is really from Pakistan; they came here to destroy our country. That is clear to everyone," said Jilani [a former Taliban member]. "In the beginning, I thought it was jihad against international troops, but I found out we were fighting for Pakistani interests—we were getting orders from Pakistan. Most of the leaders are not religious; they want to come to Afghanistan and tax the locals during the time of the harvest and take the money back to Pakistan. There is no jihad." Jilani said.I imagine banners being hung from the bullet-pocked remnants of rafters noting local
The US entered the playing field in the 1980s by providing arms and assistance to locals and some foreigners in Afghanistan in an attempt to make life miserable for the Soviets. In a classic example of the Pyrrhic Victory, the removal of the Soviets led to a continuation of the pre-existing tribal warfare, this time with more and better weapons, the ultimate rise of the Taliban to power and their hosting of you-know-who. I wonder if Charlie Wilson would have voted for the $4 to $6 trillion cost of this seemingly endless engagement.
Kevin Sites
In retracing his earlier path, Sites notes bridges gone, landscape devastated, military remnants littering the paths that pass for roads, the many minefields, both literal and political. One of the permanent features in a place where landscape defines effective limits is the presence of warlords. Feudalism lives in Afghanistan, where inter-ethnic conflict is merely a superset of conflicts within each ethnic group. If there was ever a concept of loving thy neighbor as yourself, it is unlikely to have extended much beyond the borders of the fief in which one lives. Mistrust, born of centuries of conflict, has deep roots here. Every action taken on a national level is seen as somehow ethnically drive, whether or not it actually is. Cooperation is minimal, fear is ever-present, and allegiances are alarmingly fluid.
Sites looks in on some warlords, living and dead, and some others who function as warlords in fact if not in name. The camp of martyred Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud is now a shrine, and Massoud's lieutenants have moved on to diverse and often dark occupations. He meets with police chiefs, who point out that they are powerless to enforce the laws as long as coping with the Taliban continues. And it is the police forces that suffer the brunt of the casualties in the fight. However not all warlords are alike. He spends some time with one who seemed to be doing pretty well in taking care of his people, improving their lives with ingenuity and managerial efficiency.
There are some darkly humorous moments, as when Sites recalls a 2001 lodging that, unbeknownst, included an unexploded 500 lb US bomb on the premises, fins up. Check please.
There are moving moments, including a weep-worthy tale of an Afghani father who had lost his daughter to a slightly off-target US incoming, yet betrayed no bitterness.
There are uplifting moments, when Sites talks with a woman who had started a radio station in order to get news and information to Afghani women, many of whom remain under lifelong virtual house-arrest for the crime of being female. Or in learning about Rahmaw Omarzad, an artist who returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban fell and established The Centre for Contemporary Art in Kabul.
There are delightful moments, as when we learn that an Aussie's contribution of skateboards had grown into an island of hope in the form of an actual institution called Skateistan that includes instruction on far more than keeping one's balance on wheels.
There are disappointing moments, when we see that many of those who had been educated, and were working on internationally funded development projects will be unemployed and maybe unemployable after the US leaves. Or in learning that Marza, the famed lion of the Kabul zoo, might have been somewhat less magnificent than reputed.
There are bizarre moments, such as learning that a fortress wall built 1500 years ago, the Bala Hisar, which legend holds has incorporated the bones of workers who died in its construction, might very well include some of the special extra filling.
And there are demoralizing moments, as when Sites describes an orphanage that would have been very much at home in the London of Charles Dickens. His report on drug addiction will strike a dark chord as well.
The condition of women's rights in Afghanistan comes in for considerable attention, as he talks with women about their lives under the Taliban and after their ouster. There is a segment on an American woman, Kimberley Motley , who had started a legal practice in Afghanistan, and another on a woman the Taliban had kicked out of dental school, who had resumed her training and established a national Dental association. It will come as no shock that there remains in Afghanistan a practice of buying and selling wives. And a related tale tells of young boys, bacha bazi, who are treated as sexual pets by the wealthy, a substitute for the females who are kept under wraps.
The book seems a compendium of articles about Afghanistan crammed into a forced structure. But that is not really a problem here, as the information you gain far outweighs any feeling of the structure of the whole being not quite as advertised. Yes, there is a look at then and now, but the strength of the book lies in the collection of individual reports.
There are at least two elements in a book of this sort, the information to be gleaned about the presenting subject, and some insight into the teller of the tale. In this case, the subject is what has changed between 2001 when the Western attack on Afghanistan began following the events of 9/11 in the USA, and the present of the book, the year or so before US troops were scheduled to depart, whether completely or mostly. The other element is the author, him/herself. When you go on a journey, when you will be spending some time with your guide, you would like to know something about him. Sites does offer a few nuggets, and one that is particularly unflattering, but overall the sense I got was that it was mostly name, rank and serial number. While his recollected war stories are indeed interesting, there seems a paucity of info/insight about him. That is an area in which Swimming with Warlords only treads water. At end, we do not really know much more about Kevin Sites than we did before turning to page 1. I expect this is a lot about reportorial discipline, keeping one's focus on the news and not the reporter, which is certainly a reasonable approach. But in this context, a book, a memoir of sorts, there is a need to be a bit more subcutaneous if an author wants to engender any feeling of camaraderie with his readers. It may be that in his previous books, The Things They Cannot Say and In the Hot Zone there is more of that. Don't know, have not read those. But there is not nearly enough about KS in this one. I found myself wondering how he got into journalism, how from journalism he got into in-field war reporting. Is his work about adrenalin or something else? What are his values, his ideals? What does he hope to accomplish? What does he do when he is not ducking ordnance in war zones, where and why? Does he have family who worry about him when he is away? You know, stuff. This is not so much a classical road to self-discovery. Sites had already learned a lot about himself and his profession in the years between visits to Afghanistan. This is more like a look at the same eye chart with the optometrist clicking between the younger and more mature lenses. Is it clearer this way, or this way?
The title of the book seems ill chosen. There is indeed one scene in which KS goes for a literal swim with an actual warlord, but the title would make one suspect that the entirety of the volume consists of KS visiting with warlords, and that is not the case. Yes, KS does meet up with a few of these guys, but there is a lot more going on here, and it is unfortunate to have our attention focused on the narrower topic. A better title would have let readers know that he is writing a comparison of then and now. There is an ironic title for one of the chapters in the book, regarding parachute journalism, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, which would have made, IMHO, a better, certainly a more descriptive title than the one that was chosen. Sites may well have been swimming with bearded sharks, but the macho-ness of it adds little in the title selection.
I would not call this a gripe, but the book could use an acronym list, which should include SNAFU and FUBAR among its entries. In fact, the place might as well be name FUBARistan for all the horror that has gone on there over the centuries. An index, a glossary, and a map would have been helpful. If Sites is retracing a path, it would be nice to be able to follow along.
There are plenty of books about Afghanistan out there, (there is a list in the Extra Stuff section below), but Sites' work has the benefit of freshness. He was there not long ago, at least in book, if not live TV time, and there is an immediacy to his reporting that draws one in, and makes one wonder what might be happening right now. He reports on interesting elements of the current Afghan reality, and finds some informed opinions about what lies ahead. I would not call this a great book, but it is certainly interesting, engaging, and informative. Definitely worth pulling on a suit and going in for a dip, whether with a warlord, shark, or someone a bit less threatening.
Review posted 10/10/14
Links to the author's personal, Twitter, Google+ and FB pages
Articles by Sites on Vice
Some other reading on Afghanistan:
I have an Afghanistan shelf with 23 titles, mixed fiction and non. Within that, I heartily recommend the following to enhance your awareness of issues in the region
In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan
Seeds of Terror
Descent into Chaos
The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban
Ghost Wars
Charlie Wilson's War ...more
Notes are private!
Sep 26, 2014
Oct 2014
Sep 25, 2014
Oct 07, 2014
Oct 07, 2014
it was amazing
There are so many elements to Some Luck, long-listed for the 2014 National Book Award, that wherever your interests may lie, there is much here from w There are so many elements to Some Luck, long-listed for the 2014 National Book Award, that wherever your interests may lie, there is much here from which to choose. Take your pick—a Pulitzer-winning author going for a triple in the late innings, finishing up her goal of writing novels in all forms. Take your pick—a look at 34 years of a planned hundred year scan of the USA through the eyes of a Midwest family, winning, engaging characters, seen from birth to whatever, good, bad and pffft, where'd that one go? Take your pick—a look at the changes in farming, over the decades, the impact of events like the Depression and massive drought on people you care about. Take your pick—the impact of the end of World War I on the breadbasket, a sniper's eye view of World War II, the chilly beginning of the Cold War. Take your pick-- the searing summer heat that killed many, the biting snow-bound winter that stole the heat from every extremity. Take your pick-- an infant's eye view of learning to speak, a teenager's look at awakening sexuality, an older man looking back on his life. Take your pick—the newness and revolution of cars, tractors, hybrid plants, new fertilizer, the tales brought from the old country, often told in foreign tongues. Take your pick—a bad boy with talent, brains and looks, a steadfast young man taking the old ways of farming and mixing them with the new to make a life and a future, a smart young woman heading to the big city and getting involved with very un-farm-like political interests. Take your pick—shopping for a religion while looking for answers to the sorrows of existence, shopping for political help when no financial seems forthcoming from the nation. Take your pick—love is found, lost, found again, couples struggle through ups and downs, the charring of fate and time, the questions that arise, the doubts, the certainties. Take your pick.
Jane Smiley - from The Guardian
Jane Smiley, born in Los Angeles, and raised in a suburb of St. Louis, MO, and now a California resident, spent twenty four years of her life planted in the farm-belt. It's not heaven, it's the University of Iowa. Smitten with the place, she stayed on after completing her MFA and PhD, and taught at Iowa State for fifteen
When I thought about where exactly I wanted to set it, I considered that the most important aspect of any culture is where they get their food — how they think of their food, what their food means to them. So I decided to go back to farming - from Little Village Magazine interviewShe plants her story in 1920, Denby Iowa. Walter Langdon, 25, and his wife Rosanna have just started their lives together, on their own farm. Baby Frank has recently arrived.
"I feel like it's going back to the center and saying, 'OK, things come from here. This is where the roots are.' ... If we start the family living in Iowa, then they're gonna go lots and lots and lots of places." -from the NPR interviewAnd, over the course of thirty four years the farm will be a touchstone, a place to which the various members of the clan return, for reasons happy and sad.
The book consists of thirty four chapters, one for each of the years from 1920 through 1953. Each chapter touches on things that are going on in the world, and how they affect the Langdon clan. From the affect on milk prices as Europe recovers from The Great War, through the boom times of the 20s, the Depression, World War II and the beginnings of the Cold War. With such a large canvas Smiley can look at some of the details that might not stand out in a broad overview, things like the move from livestock to tractors, how the spread of the automobile affects a farm family, changes in how crops are bred. Some of the details of farm life are chilling indeed, a woman giving birth alone in a farm house because no one can hear her calls for help over the driving wind, brown from the pump signaling the end of available water during a severe drought, the loss of a child to a random accident. Another death from a cause that would be easily treatable today.
An omniscient narrator gives us both a bird's eye view and close-ups as needed. We often get to look through the eyes of her characters, even from early childhood. Frank creeping around as an infant is precious, particularly when he heads to his favorite hiding place, and more alarming when he is an adult, in the military. There are plenty of Langdons to go around, the prime group, father Walter, mother Rosanna, and each of their kids get time in the spotlight, but to the extent that there is a primary here, it is Frank. He is far from perfect, but he is perfectly engaging. You really, really want to know what he is doing, where he is going, and what is in store for him. Smiley's writing style is straightforward, dare we say Mid-Western? This is a very effective approach, quietly but steadily advancing the story. She does let loose with some dazzlers from time to time. The paragraph with which I opened this review is an homage to one of those, a Thanksgiving celebration late in the book. I am including the entirety of that bit under a spoiler tag, mostly because of its length, but there might be a detail or two in there that would be actually spoilerish, so you might want to skip it until you have read the book. Caveat lector. (view spoiler)[ Rosanna could not have said that she enjoyed making Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-three people (a turkey, a standing rib roast, and a duck that Granny Mary brought; ten pounds of mashed potatoes, and that not enough, five pies; sweet potatoes; more stuffing than could be stuffed; all the Brussels sprouts left in the garden, though they were good after the frost). She could not say that Lilian had control of those children, who were underfoot every time you took a step, though they were good-natured, to be sure. Henry scrutinized the dishes of food as though he were being asked to partake of roadkill, at least until the pies were served, and Claire burst into tears for no reason at all, but when they all had their plates in front of them, and a few deep breaths were taken, and first Andrea, and then Granny Elizabeth, and then Eloise said, "This looks delicious," she began to have a strange feeling. She should have sat down—Joe, who was sitting beside her, moved her chair in a bit—but she didn't want to sit down, or eat, at all (what with tasting everything she wasn't hungry) she just wanted to stand there and look at them as they passed the two gravy boats and began to cut their food. It couldn't have happened, she thought. They couldn't have survived so many strange events. Take your pick—the birth of Henry in that room over there, with the wind howling and the dirt blowing in and her barely able to find a rag to wipe the baby's mouth and nose. Take your pick—all of them nearly dying of the heat that summer of '36. Take your pick—Joey falling out of the hayloft, Frankie driving the car to Usherton, Frankie disappearing into the Italian Campaign. Frankie, for Heaven's sake, living in a tent all through college. Take your pick—Walter falling into the well (yes, she had gotten that out of him one day during the way when he said, "Remember when I fell into the well?" and she said, "What in the world are you talking about?" and he blushed like a girl) Take your pick—Granny Mary with her cancer, but still walking around. Take your pick—Lilian running off with a stranger who turned out to be a clown, but a lovable one, and nice-looking, and weren't Timmy and Debbie just darling? Normally Rosanna took credit for everything good and bad (her eye flicked to the doorway, the very spot where Mary Elizabeth had slipped; it might be happening right this minute, that's how vivid it was) but now she thought, this was too much. She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrance of the food hanging over the table, the heads turning this way and that, the voices murmuring and laughing. She looked at Walter, who was so far away from her, all the way at the other end of the table, having a laugh with Andrea, who had a beautiful suit on, navy blue with a tiny waist and white collar and cuffs. As if on cue, Walter turned from Andrea and looked at Rosanna, and they agreed in that instant something had created itself from nothing—a dumpy old house had been filled, if only for this moment, with twenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious. Rosanna wrapped her arms around herself for a moment and sat down. (hide spoiler)] There are others bits of writerly sparkle and well-honed craft in the book.
I suppose if I have any gripes with the book it is that I wanted to spend more time with this or that character at this or that period of their life, a hazard in any book that takes in so much real estate and so many characters over so many years.
There are sixty six years to go in the remaining two volumes of Smiley's trilogy. With any luck at all I won't miss a single one.
Published – 10/7/14
Review posted - 8/14/15
Links to the author's web site, FB page and Huff-Po blog
INTERVIEWS – Take your pick
-----NPR – NPR with Lynn Neary
-----The New York Times - by Charles McGrath
-----Bookpage - by Alden Mudge
-----The Millions - by Michael Bourne
-----The Little Village Magazine - by Mallory Hellman
-----Authorlink - by Anna Roins
My review of Smiley Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres
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Notes are private!
Jul 31, 2015
Aug 07, 2015
Aug 01, 2014
Dec 20, 2013
Jan 07, 2014
really liked it
The Aleutian Archipelago: fourteen large and fifty-five small volcanic islands, strung over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere there, he's alive.
The Aleutian Archipelago: fourteen large and fifty-five small volcanic islands, strung over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere there, he's alive. On good days, her faith overshadows doubt. And what is faith but belief independent of proof, a conviction that stands on its own. To this she knows John would roll his eyes. The thought makes her smile.John Easley is missing. Shaken by the death of his RCAF brother over the English Channel, the 38-year-old writer determines to bring information to the people at home about what is really happening in the war. It seems so much more meaningful to him than reporting on bird migration for National Geographic. He feels he owes Warren at least that much. His wife, Helen, disagrees. Their last words before he took off yet again on a war-reporting mission were harsh, and final.
She is facing challenges of her own. Her father is not well, and she wants to be there for him. She is struggling with not having much by way of work skills and is stuck at a low-level job. John's absence gnaws at her until, realizing that she still loves him, she decides to do everything in her power to find and bring him home. John had bailed out from a damaged aircraft over the Japanese occupied island of Attu. He struggles to survive in the treeless tundra. Helen struggles to find him.
Brian Payton - from his site
The story flips back and forth between the challenges John and Helen face. John has to figure out how to stay alive, and hidden from the occupying army. I was reminded of David Malouf's excellent book, An Imaginary Life , about another person isolated in an arctic realm. Helen must figure out how to find John. Both face daunting tasks.
The Wind is a powerful, beautifully written, heart-wrenching love story, but sails well past any simple notions of romance. There is struggle here with the imagined instead of the actual partner. Does there come a time when imagination, whether fed by love or not, loses its sharp focus? How can love survive absence of the other? How far can love take a person when the odds are overwhelmingly against? Can love keep someone alive?
In addition to the compelling tale of a reverse Odyssey, one in which Penelope goes in search of Ulysses, Payton offers us considerable payload in his look at a little-seen part of WW II history. For those who thought that the last time the USA endured the landing of foreign troops was during the War of 1812, you have another think coming. Japan captured and occupied several of the Aleutian islands, and had plans to advance farther. News media of the time was subject to government censorship and the political leaders did not want it known that a foreign power had successfully invaded US territory. We are given a look at a remote and challenging aspect of the war. Along those lines Payton drops in bits of information. For instance, because the land was challenging as a place on which to build strong flat surfaces, a runway was constructed of metal matting cinched together. Another scene shows Americans dropping off planes for Soviet pilots to fly back to the USSR and use in the war on Hitler. We also get a look at the USO,
The USO sees action - from strangemilitary.com
and, chillingly, the treatment of local evacuees by the US military. So, food for the brain as well as the heart.
As for gripes, I have two. While the cover art is beautiful, it fails to let the reader know what this book is all about, focusing as it does on a single early moment in the story, and ignoring what follows. I was not all that thrilled with the ending. But that did not detract from the great joy that can be had reading this book. Your heart will get quite a workout. John Easley, a decent guy, is engaged in a prolonged life-and-death struggle, and Helen's love takes on heroic dimensions. There is a large range of emotion from which to draw here. Uplift to be experienced, delight in beauty of various sorts, appreciation for the sacrifices of some, anger, sadness and disappointment as well. Bring your hankies. The love that Brian Payton portrays glows even brighter against the spare environment in which it is set.
Publication Date is January 7, 2014
Review posted 12/16/13
This review is cross-posted on Cootsreviews.com
Links to the author's personal, Twitter and FB pages
The American Booksellers Association named the Wind is not the River a January '14 Next List pick
Mention is made in the book about John Huston making a documentary of the military campaign in the Aleutians. Here is the film, Report from the Aleutians. It clocks in at 43:13.
A shorter (17:26), color version can be found here
Here is a map of the Aleutians that seemed too tough to read to fit the image into the body of the review
The National Park Service also has some interesting information about the Aleutians here
Notes are private!
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013
Mar 04, 2014
Mar 04, 2014
it was amazing
Astoria is a tale of two journeys. It is an adventure of the highest order, and with Peter Stark as your guide, it is one of the best non-fiction book Astoria is a tale of two journeys. It is an adventure of the highest order, and with Peter Stark as your guide, it is one of the best non-fiction books you will read for a long time.
In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase had brought the young United States all the land draining into the Mississippi (at least according to our side of the story). The President wanted to know all he could about what he had bought, particularly as there were still some disagreements going on over the breadth of the purchase. Thus the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, in 1804, and the later Red River Expedition and Pike Expedition provided Jefferson the information about this new land he needed to negotiate with France, and others. But what lay beyond? Opportunity, resources, and vast swaths of land.
Peter Stark - image taken from Random House
In the early 1800s, John Jacob Astor was one of the richest men of his time. He had made a fortune trading North American furs in Europe, and had begun trading with China as well. What he had in mind was to take advantage of the fur resources of the Northwest and establish a triangle trade. Northwest furs to the Orient, porcelain from China to London and New York and other goods from there back to the Northwest. His aim was to monopolize trading on the Pacific Rim, at a time when Lewis and Clark had been across the country only a few years prior. He involved Jefferson, who also had a more global vision than other men of the day. The Northwest was unclaimed by westerners, (no thought was given, per usual, to the native people who were actually living there) and was considered available for the taking. For Astor it was to be a base for establishing a trade monopoly. Jefferson saw an opportunity to spread democracy to the west coast, and encouraged Astor. To accomplish his aim, it would be necessary for Astor to establish a base of operations. He decided on the area near the mouth of the Columbia River. He put together two groups of men to reach the spot, one to travel by sea the other to cross the continent by land. It is their adventures that form the bulk of the story, and what a story it is.
Were this a novel, the dueling road trips would both be tales of self-discovery. This is a case where reality exceeds fiction. The character of many of the travelers is revealed in how they handle the extreme stresses to which they are subjected. Following the development, or revelation of their characters, for good or ill, is one of the great pleasures to be had in reading Astoria.
The ship Astor sent was the Tonquin, a 290 ton bark. He selected as its captain the young (31) US Navy lieutenant Jonathan Thorn. Thorn had been a military hero, serving with distinction in the Barbary Wars, and Astor wanted someone who could fend off potential attacks. Our friends across the pond, engaged in a tiff with Napoleon, had taken to stopping vessels in international waters and shanghaiing sailors or passengers who were British subjects to fight the French. Rule Britannia was not being sung by the crews of American-flag ships. This aqueous stop-and-frisk imposition would be one of the causes of the War of 1812.
An engraving of the Tonquin at the entrance to the Columbia, from the Oregon historical Society
While the captain was the right sort for dealing with a military crew and worked well within the rigid specifications of a military regimen, he was not so adept at controlling a crew that was not exactly military, and most of whom were not even American citizens. Also aboard were shareholders in Astor's company, a dozen clerks, four tradesmen and a baker's dozen rough and tumble voyageurs from what is now Canada. He also had a lot to learn about dealing with locals and trade negotiating. The ship was challenged to endure near continual onslaught, whether from the elements, a pursuing ship, or the captain's personality. He got along so well with the crew that they took to speaking with each other in their native tongues, which Thorn did not speak. And more than once he intentionally set sail while tardy returnees were still on land. His rigidity made for a dark passage. And his sometimes cavalier attitude towards the survival of his own men is breathtaking. He might be charged with depraved indifference today. Along with a certain Captain Queeg, I was reminded of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail . Consider here Thorn as the king (although Arthur seems quite a bit less rigid) and the castle residents as his crew.
The Overland Party was led by Wilson Price Hunt, a young (27) businessman who had worked with fur-traders in St Louis. A polar opposite to Thorn, Hunt was someone who sought, above all else, to construct consensus. The Overland group did not exactly have a roadmap to their destination. The route they took followed in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark for a time, but they had to carve a new trail at a certain point, into completely unknown and not terribly welcoming territory.
Despite the term Overland, much of the Overland Party's travel was done by water, on rivers. This is the sort of conveyance the Voyageurs were accustomed to paddling - the image is from the Canadian Encyclopedia
Far too much of their river time was spent in water of this sort.
From the Susquehanna Chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association
In a blog entry on Stark's site, he writes
The big Montreal freight canoes could be as long as 40 feet, yet made of lightweight birchbark, and capable of carrying three or four tons of supplies or furs, propelled by ten or twelve voyageurs.It is amazing how many times the Overland Party was assisted by Native Americans. But there were also plenty of locals who were not exactly happy to see them. How the Overland group interact with the natives they encounter is a significant element of the story. How they survived, (or didn't) is the stuff of adventure yarns. How Hunt herded his pack of cats (and sometimes didn't) is very impressive.
This was definitely not a crew to belong to if you walked on four limbs. Resources became extremely scarce, and desperate measures had to be taken. There is even a hint that starving sojourners might have partaken of the special meat.
Some characters stand out here. My favorite is Marie Dorian, a native woman who had married a Metis named Pierre. He dragged her along on the Overland trek, along with her two small (2 and 4 year old) children even thought she was pregnant at the time. Hers is a particularly poignant profile in courage and endurance. There are a few legendary names that folks in this tale encounter, including Sacagawea and Daniel Boone.
The story is the thing here, and focus remains on the travails of the travelers. But there are also excellent, informative asides, relevant to the tale, about various and sundry things. One tells why sea otter pelts are so highly valued. Another looks into the societal composition of some native groups, looking at their sources of wealth and social organization. Consideration is given to how the locals react to newcomers, and why, citing past experiences. There is also ongoing consideration for the impact on the enterprise of potential and then kinetic British-US hostilities.
We know today that the nation did indeed expand to the West Coast, but the details are plenty soft in your recollections, I will wager. It might not even be that you (or I) forgot, but that we never really knew. Astoria offers an excellent way to mend that hole. It will excite you in the process. This is real-life adventuring, life and death on the line, people you will admire and scoundrels who will make you want to hiss. What a fun read, and what an informative book. It may or may not be a far, far better read than you have ever had before, but I cannot urge you strongly enough to climb, trek, paddle or sail to your nearest book-trading post. This journey to Astoria is very definitely a trip worth taking.
PS – the volume I worked from was an ARE, so did not have all the materials expected to be in the final hardcover edition. Spaces were left for illustrations but I did not get to see those. One thing I did see is that there is a very helpful Cast of Characters section at the front of the book, and another at the back called The Fate of the Astorians, which I thought was pretty cool.
Astoria was published on March 4, 2014
Trade paperback edition - February 10, 2015
This review was posted on December 8, 2013
This review is cross-posted on Coot's Reviews
Peter Stark's site
Here is a link to the Wiki entry for the Tonquin – but if you have not yet read the book, be warned that there is very spoilerish info there.
Although I expect the physique of this re-enactor might not match the bulkier torsos of actual voyageurs, this might give you an idea of what was considered proper attire for the proud paddlers
So there it is. I was wondering what had happened to that shirt. For more on voyageurs check out this piece from McGill University
Astor could not have suspected that Astoria would become a familiar site in many films. Here is a list of a bunch. It includes The Goonies, Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, The Black Stallion and plenty more.
John Day was a member of the Overland Party. He does run into a bit of trouble at the mouth of what was then the Mah-hah River, along the Columbia. It was later renamed for him. A geologically notable site through which that river wanders was also named for him. Day himself was never near there. I have had the pleasure and there are a few shots in my Northwest set on Flickr that offer a glimpse of the striking landscape.
The National Park Service site for John Day NP is definitely worth a look
Among the places the Overland Party encountered, one that held great hope for them was seeing one particular Mountain chain.
The three mountains were hailed by the travelers, Wilson Price Hunt, weighted by his Yankee reserve and need for geographic grounding in this unmapped wilderness, called them the Pilot Knobs. The buoyant French-Canadian voyageurs called the as they saw them, the Trois Tetons,--"the three breasts". It's the voyageurs' name, which has stuck for these mountains that tower above today's Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Grand indeed
Also, that image I use as my GR avatar to spare you the crypt-worthy image of my ancient puss is from the Tetons as well.
Today's city of Astoria, Oregon has a nice site
Sadly, while I have been to Astoria, and even visited its Astor Column, it was while my wife and I were in a bit of a rush, heading back to our temporary camp in Portland from a trip to the coast. Did not get there until far too late in the day to get any decent photographs. Then, assisted by considerable fog, we inadvertently took a scenic route that featured a seemingly endless series of blind turns, and was inhabited by large numbers of bulky four-legged creatures standing in the middle of the road and appearing only moments before impact…well, in my white-knuckled imagination, anyway. Having read the book, I would dearly love to return to Astoria, in daylight, and have much more of a clue than I had then what it was all about. ...more
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Dec 03, 2013
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liked it
Dixie Clay woke past noon, and even waking she noted that the world sounded different from when she'd retired at dawn. As she swung her feet off the
Dixie Clay woke past noon, and even waking she noted that the world sounded different from when she'd retired at dawn. As she swung her feet off the bed and into rubber boots, she looked out her window. The rain lashing Hobnob had slowed, now just fat drops plopping from greasy-looking leaves. By the time she was drinking instant coffee in her kitchen, the sun was coming out. This had happened a few times since the big rains had started in November, but Dixie Clay no longer ran to the door. She didn't look for a rainbow. No, she no longer hoped, merely waited for the rain, and when it came falling harder than ever, as if it'd stored up its strength in the interval, she took a bitter comfort in being right.When we think of great natural disasters in US history some chestnuts of misery pop readily to mind. The worst in terms of official body count (8,000) is the savaging of Galveston in 1900 by a hurricane (Isaac's Storm). Many might offer Katrina, with almost 2,000 dead and damage over $100 Billion. How about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s (The Worst Hard Time). The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, which killed 3,000. Maybe the Johnstown Flood of 1889. But were you aware of the great flood of 1927? Me neither. On not-so-Good Friday, in 1927, a hundred-foot wall of water burst through a levee (there were several breaches along the river) and laid waste to 27,000 square miles of land, applying the force of a couple of Niagaras to land near, and not so near the river, in effect, an inland tsunami.
Image taken from The Cotton Bowl Conspiracy blog
Entire towns were erased. A million homes were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands needed rescuing. What might it have been like in the time before, during and after this cataclysm?
The impending transformation of The Big Muddy to the Big Messy forms the backdrop in The Tilted World, the first joint book by husband-and-wife Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and Beth Ann Fennelly (Great With Child). Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson are undercover federal agents sent to Hobnob, Mississippi to find out what happened to two revenue agents who had preceded them, but had never returned. They happen across the results of a failed robbery, several dead participants, but find an infant survivor as well. Ted, raised in an orphanage himself, takes on the task of finding a place for the baby. In doing so, he meets Dixie Clay Holliver, a young woman married to the charming but slithery Jess, an ambitious sort who cares for money in inverse proportion to his regard for his marital vows. He is not above using violence to get his way. Dixie Clay, 22, had lost her own baby to illness. Neither she nor her marriage had ever fully recovered from the loss. Dixie leaps at the opportunity to satisfy her maternal drive. Problem is, Dixie and her Jess are bootleggers the feds are looking to shut down.
Genesis-level relentless rain keeps the river rising and the people nervous. Some rich folks in New Orleans would like nothing better than to blow a levee upstream in order to reduce the risk to their property, and they may have found someone willing to help.
There is plenty to like in The Tilted World. Our co-stars Dixie Clay and Ted Ingersoll (which calls for yet another pairing of the 21st century version of Tracy and Hepburn, J-Law, and Bradley Cooper)
Image, from the film Serena, taken from the blog College Candy
are both very engaging. Evil does battle with good, or, well, some version of good. Babies need saving, huge danger mounts and a vast area is threatened. In telling us the story of Dixie, Ted and the town of Hobnob, Franklin and Fennelly also give us a taste for what the locals experienced in that dreadful time, the daily reports on the water levels, weather reports from up and down the river, news of threats to the security to the levee and the offer by some to actually buy the town in order to destroy it by blowing up the levee. There are also some elements of political historical interest, most particularly concerning the role and intentions of Herbert Hoover in the disaster recovery. (Heck of a job, Herbie.)
It is an interesting, engaging and fast-flowing read. You will care about the two main characters and learn something about the time and place. However, there are significant problems with the book. One is a cartoonishness. Dixie Clay is presented at times with a Disney-like aspect. The authors had already established that Dixie is a good egg, but give in to a princessy urge when they gild that lily by having her free a trapped hummingbird. I guess the dwarves were not available, although a relation of her husband fills some dwarfish roles later.
Image taken from BplusMovieBlog.com
Her husband, Jess, is such a black hat he should have been named Snidely Whiplash.
There is a corrupt local sheriff who refuses to listen to reason, (where have we seen that before?) and, returning to Disney, there is a particular affinity for orphans here. Toss in an addled flapper who reeks of madness. This is too bad, as the informational payload of the tale is considerable.
Another significant gripe I had with this novel was that a core conflict is resolved off screen, and is related to us by a participant. This should have been in center stage. The ease with which Ted and Dixie locate some missing folks strained credulity as well.
But I do not want to end with a negative slant. There are very compelling scenes of the flood, burning of Atlanta, cinematic opportunities of the highest order. Dixie and Ted are very engaging. Despite her hummingbird moment, Dixie is more Mulan than Snow White, (the cartoon Snow, not the more kick-ass version in the current TV show, Once Upon a Time) a tough and determined survivor with very positive inclinations. If you can retain behind a mental levee concern about some of the questionable choices made by the authors you will definitely enjoy The Tilted World, come hell or high water.
Here is a Wikipedia entry on the the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Archival footage of the event, a signal corps film
Riveting photos of the flood
Posted July 23, 2013 ...more
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Jul 12, 2013
Jul 17, 2013
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Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013
really liked it
Winter is coming.
Mitchell Zuckoff seems to be making a habit of looking into the travails of crash victims. His prior book, Lost in Shangri-la , foll Winter is coming.
Mitchell Zuckoff seems to be making a habit of looking into the travails of crash victims. His prior book, Lost in Shangri-la , followed three survivors of a WW II era plane crash in New Guinea. They faced the usual sorts of dangers, a step back to the Paleolithic, and a diverse assortment of possible ways to die; cannibals, elements of an enemy army, all sorts of predatory and/or poisonous critters, microscopic invaders that could ruin your day, and help see that it is your last. The whole world was watching and cheering for their safe return.
Reversing his orientation a bit this time Zuckoff, in his latest WW II opus, Frozen in Time, has substituted brutal cold, and a particularly unwelcoming landscape for those other hazards. I'll take the cannibals every time. (with a nice Chianti) In this instance, the whole world was unaware of the events until well after they had come to a conclusion. Upping his game, Zuckoff deals not with a single crash, but with several, in a cascade.
I suggest that if you have a choice between death by the fire of a predatory jungle or the ice of an arctic wasteland, you would do well to choose the former. You'd have a better chance of making it. At least you would not have to worry so much that the ground on which you were standing might open up and swallow you whole, that you might lose body parts to the relentless cold of Arctic winter, that you might lose your mind waiting to be brought home, while blizzard-driven snow seeps into your shelter. And of course there is always the danger of becoming a GI-sicle for a prowling polar bear. There are survivors of this experience who lived through 148 days worth of cold days in hell.
There is a saying that bad things come in threes. It might have been nice if that had been the case in Greenland, in 1942. Greenland seems to have the same effect on powered vehicles as the Bermuda Triangle. There were at least a dozen crashes there in 1942. The trouble under scrutiny here began on November 5, when a military cargo plane, a C-53 Skytrooper, [above] the equivalent of a civilian DC-3 airliner, was returning to its base from Reykjavik after a "milk run" delivery of war materials. It was carrying a crew of five.
Shortly after the plane reached the southeast cost of Greenland, a location that defined the edge of nowhere, disaster struck: …the Skytrooper went down on the ice cap. By some accounts, the crash occurred when one of the plane's two engines failed, but other reports were silent on why the C-53 experienced what the military called a "forced landing." The official crash report declared the cause "unknown and no reason given in radio contacts." A handwritten notation added, "100 percent undetermined."The air over Greenland was a busy locale in those days, with dozens of flights transporting men and materials to the war every day, then returning home to do it again. But Greenland is the largest non-continental island on Planet Earth so, even with a lot of planes searching, locating a downed aircraft was no simple task. Here are some comparisons:
California – 163,696 sq milesIn other words, big frackin' haystack.
On November 9 a B17F, a "Flying Fortress" redirected from its mission in Germany to participate in the search, ran into trouble
When they reached the end of Koge Bay fjord, [the crew] saw that everything outside was the same frightening shade of whitish gray. They couldn't tell where the sky ended and the ice cap began…When the true horizon disappears in the Arctic haze, a pilot might as well be blind. Pilots fortunate enough to survive the phenomenon describe the experience as "flying in milk."Or, ironically, the exact opposite of a milk run. It did not end well, and nine more servicemen were unwillingly grounded.
On November 29th, desperate to evacuate members of crews what had been stranded in an arctic wasteland for weeks, a pontooned Grumman seaplane know as a Duck, assigned to the Coast Guard ship Northland was making a second daring run, having already rescued some survivors.
It went back for more. But a storm blew in before the Duck could make it back to its base. The pilot was flying blind. The plane crashed into the ice. This is an image of the very plane, taking off. Not a lucky ducky.
There is more, but these are the big three bits of awfulness of this tale.
Frozen in Time tells the stories of how the crash survivors fared, how the rescue operations were planned and how those worked out, or didn't. These stories are both fascinating and chilling. There are many examples told of MacGyver-like creativity on the ground among the crash-ees, among the rescue teams and, decades later, in an expedition looking to bring 'em home. This last is a parallel tale that is given much less than half the book. Not all the men and not all the planes made it back in 1942. The author becomes involved with people who are looking to find and repatriate the remains of the crash victims who did not survive. There are a lot of personalities in play here and a fair bit of politicking. It is not as interesting as the core survival tale, but it is informative. A recovery mission does indeed take place, in 2012, and the author is a full participant in that.
It's tough enough finding a 60+ year old wreck that stands still, (not counting myself) but in Greenland the ice sheet is a very large moving target. Drop a flag on point A and when you return it could be at Points E, Q or X. And then there is the accumulation of more than half a century's worth of compacted snow.
Imagine searching for a diamond chip buried deep beneath a frozen football field; your best tool is a straw what makes tiny holes into the ground, through which you peer down to see what's below; if your holes miss by even a little, you'll miss it; and you have a brief window to explore ten potential locations before being kicked off the field.The story of the attempt at recovering remains is certainly interesting. It is no surprise that there are sundry parties at Department of Defense meetings who offer a chilly reception to the contractor who was looking to undertake the mission. We get to be a fly on the wall for a few of these.
But the meat of the story is the tales of survival, how these men (all the crash-ees were men) contended with such a hostile environment, what they did to create livable living spaces, how they coped with hunger, as well as cold, and fear. Some fared better than others. It is a bit frightening to learn that a plane landing on a glacier is in danger of getting frozen to it, like a warm tongue to a frozen pipe. There are uplifting items as well in this dark tale. You will learn about the "Short Snorters Club," if you are not already a member, and the purpose of a Snublebus. You will also expand your vocabulary a tad with some arctic terms.
You will learn as well, about the dedication of the military to bringing home every reachable service member, and about some of the after-effects of the stranding experience on those who made it out.
Spencer's family knew him as warm and funny, and they'd remember him as a man who bought toilet paper in bulk long before warehouse stores. When his younger daughter Carol Sue asked why, Spencer explained: "I have been without toilet paper," he told her, "and I am never going to be without toilet paper again."Not Scarlett O'Hara perhaps, but a telling indication of the permanence of the crash experience on the survivors. Many found themselves with increased susceptibility to cold. Not everyone had the luxury of such discomfort. One poor bastard survived a crash in the B-17 only to succumb to another as he was being flown away from the bomber in a rescue plane.
There are several crews to keep track of and I think it would have been useful for there to have been a section listing them by vehicle, rather than, or in addition to the straight alphabetic list provided in an appendix. That said, the volume I read was an ARE so there may be a difference or two between what I saw and what is in the final hardcover edition. Just in case it is not provided there, I have tucked the crew list by craft under this spoiler notice. (view spoiler)[
Captain Homer McDowell, Jr
Lieutenant William Springer – co-pilot
Staff Sergeant Eugene Manahan
Corporal William Everett
Private Thurman Johannessen
A brand new B17F – radio sign PN9E
Pilot – Lt. Armand Monteverde
Co-pilot – Lt. Harry Spencer
Navigator – Lt William "Bill" O'Hara
Engineer – Private Paul Spina
Asst Engineer – Private Alexander "Al" Tucciarone
Radio Operator – Corporal Loren "Lolly" Howorth
Mechanic - Private Clarence Wedel 35,
Tech Sergeant Alfred "Clint" Best and
Staff Sergeant Lloyd Woody Puryear
The Grumman J2F-4, aka the Duck
John Pritchard
Benjamin Bottoms
Corporal Loren "Lolly" Howorth (hide spoiler)]
You are on your own keeping track of other planes, ships and ground-based rescue teams that come into play in this story.
If you liked Lost in Shangri-La, it is a good bet you will find it worth the effort to search for a copy of Frozen in Time and bring it home. Read it in a warm place.
The author's web page
The author's FB page for this book
Harper Collins promo video
Video of the downhole camera. (2012) Uncomfortably similar to a medical scoping
A Coast Guard page on an earlier attempt to locate the Duck
North South Polar - Lou's site
List of crashes - 1942-44
Cross posted on my blog - all the intended images appear there
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Apr 22, 2013
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really liked it
UPDATED - 8/8/13 - see link at bottom
Before you start reading let's see those hands. Both sides please. You call that clean? Are you kidding me? I'vUPDATED - 8/8/13 - see link at bottom
Before you start reading let's see those hands. Both sides please. You call that clean? Are you kidding me? I've seen cleaner hands in mud wrestling. Try using soap this time, and I don't want to see anything but skin under those fingernails. Go ahead. I'll wait. (A very large foot tap, tap, taps. Eyes rise to scan the ceiling. A puff of exasperation is emitted…waiting) Let's see. Both sides. All right. I guess that will have to do. Sit down. Go ahead.In the East River, between Queens and the Bronx, and within sight of the largest penal colony in the world, Riker's Island, lie two tiny islands, South Brother and North Brother. These siblings are currently owned by the New York City Parks Department, and are preserved as a wildlife sanctuary. North Brother now sports a handful of decaying buildings. One must receive special permission to visit, as there is very real concern about the possibility of visitors plunging through rotted out structures. It was famous in its time as a bar-less cage for one particular bird, Mary Mallon, more widely known as Typhoid Mary. Fever is Mary Beth Keane's novelization of the life of Ms. Mallon, or at least the part of it that gained some notoriety in early 20th century New York City.
Although Mary did not suffer from typhoid fever herself, at some unknown point early in her life her body began producing the Salmonella typhi bacterium responsible for the disease, and she would have that dark passenger for the rest of her life. It is likely, a virtual certainty in fact, that she was exposed to the disease at some point, even though she reported never having had it. She was the first person identified as an asymptomatic carrier. In the hubbub surrounding Mary's detention, legal challenges and impact on the health of those around her, local newspapers slapped the name Typhoid Mary on her and it stuck. These days it is applied to any who spread a disease without themselves suffering from it.
Keane opens with Mary being carted away by the Department of Health, itself created in response to the waves of epidemics that followed the Civil War. We look forward and behind from here. Mary was an Irish immigrant, arriving in the US at age 14. It would appear that she brought with her more than just an eagerness to work and some skill as a cook. Her first job was as a laundress, but she found herself handling cooking duties when the usual cook became ill. Over the years, Mary acquired a reputation as a pretty good cook, but it also happened that dozens of people for whom Mary prepared food became ill and some died. She worked in many households, and while not everyone with whom she came into contact became infected, enough did for her to come to the attention of the fittingly named Doctor George Soper, a sanitary engineer.
When a family for whom Mary had been working in Oyster Bay, Long Island, became ill en masse the owner of the property, concerned about the impact of a health scare on his potential rental income, brought in Soper as a consultant to get to the bottom of the infection. He was not a medical doctor but more of a public health specialist.
While typhoid fever had been around forever, epidemiology was a relatively new science. In fact Soper had graduated from Columbia's School of Mines and was trained as an engineer to look for sources of environmental contamination, usually some sort of pollution. The novel presents him as a nemesis for Mary, an avenging angel she is constantly seeking to evade.
Keane's focus is on Mary, though, and we follow her travails, working as a cook, for families in and outside the city, frequently leaving after the households succumb to disease, struggling with guilt over her impact on people, struggling also to retain her freedom. We see her first quarantine, her subsequent release and, later, her return to incarceration. Here she is in 1910.
Keane fleshes out Mary's life with a look at her boyfriend, a German immigrant and alcoholic, named Alfred, a few friends, and the people with whom she worked and resided. This offers Keane a window through which we can see New York City at the turn of the 20th century. This local and historical view is one of the best things about the book. Keane rings a bell here and there for significant events of the day. One is the Titanic disaster, with Mary feeling badly not only for the souls lost and those damaged at sea, but the poor bastards working the docks who would have to handle the incoming remains. This concern with the working class experience permeates the book. We see a very tough time, with people living in extremely crowded, and often unsanitary conditions, having to put up with the restrictions on financial advancement that are a product of the absence of unions, having to cope, with no societal help, with disasters like the death of a breadwinner. One jaw-dropping scene showed how the Department of Health produced vaccines. The most chilling, for this native New Yorker, was a portrayal of the Triangle Fire that offered a vision that would be repeated on a grander scale almost a hundred years later. Very moving stuff.
In addition to economic issues of the working class, Keane raises the very real issue of civil rights. When is it ok for the state to deprive someone of their freedom if that person has committed no crime? Mary's first quarantine was a clear case of preventive detention. Was the Department of Health in the right in imprisoning Mary? What about other asymptomatic carriers? A male breadwinner in upstate New York was released after only two weeks. Why was Mary singled out for such harsh treatment when others with the same issue were allowed their freedom?
How much of her incarceration had to do with Mary being female, a poor immigrant and a member of a despised ethnic group? How much did it have to do with her
There was one element of this book that I thought presented a golden opportunity that was missed. The story of Dr Soper, love him or hate him, had the potential for presenting a much deeper look at the times. Epidemiology was new and Soper was at the forefront. Coping with illness via construction had come into its own in the 19th century and had yielded impressive results. The creation or improvement of sewer and water systems had reduced mortality considerably. The Board of Health in NYC had only been in existence since 1866, an attempt to address increasing urban mortality. Soper functioned as a private investigator and increasing his presence here might have afforded a richer look at urban environmental changes and health care realities and policy issues of the era.
That said, Keane has written an illuminating portrait of a time and place, has raised issues concerning civil liberties, labor rights, class and ethnic bias, and has given every parent a bit more ammunition for use on soap-challenged children. Fever may not be the hottest book of the year, but if you enjoy historical fiction and are at all interested in the history of medicine, public health or New York City, it is pretty infectious.
Here are Keane's web page, FB and Twitter links
In A Visit to Typhoid Mary's Domain, a New York Times reporter ventures across the water to see what the island is like today
Beyond Typhoid Mary: The Origins of Public Health at Columbia and in the City by David Rosner, is a fascinating look at the history of public health.
In case you are interested in an unusual vacation destination, here is the NYC Parks map of North Brother Island
For a look at Mary in her later years
Try here for an excellent series of short articles about Mary
3/21/13 - I just learned that Fever made the Indie Next list for March
8/8/13 - GR friend Jaye sent along a wonderful link to a site called The Kingston Lounge. This particular part of it contains a lot of photos of North Brother in it's more or less current state, that being abandoned and protected as a bird sanctuary. The photos are way cool, and creepy, the fodder of ghost, zombie, or post apocalypse cinema.
And, if you don't mind a purely gratuitous music link, for something feverish, you might enjoy this this. ...more
Notes are private!
not set
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 14, 2013
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012
really liked it
Notes are private!
Nov 07, 2012
Apr 22, 2014
Nov 07, 2012
Audio CD
Aug 14, 2012
Aug 14, 2012
really liked it
I'm pretty tired of this depression we've been having. Unemployment that hit 12% in 2009 and kept rising, states from ocean to ocean laying off tens, I'm pretty tired of this depression we've been having. Unemployment that hit 12% in 2009 and kept rising, states from ocean to ocean laying off tens, hundreds of thousands of public employees each. No more auto industry, and vast swaths of the Midwest losing jobs and industrial capacity faster than Mitt Romney changes policy positions. And things have not been looking up either. The federal government is investing nothing in alternate energy R&D, leaving such things to private enterprise, and doing nothing to change the pencil-and-paper recordkeeping that characterizes our national medical system. In fact, the federal government invested nothing in the future or the present, and left to the states the cost of repairing increasingly decrepit roads and bridges. Reduced demand in America for imported products has had a harsh impact overseas as well, depressing foreign economies. And with governments in powerful nations like Germany demanding austerity as a response to diminished national revenues, the international downturn picked up speed and we are now heading towards a global economic conflagration.
What? You don't remember?
I know, I know. Times are tough. And they have been tough for a while, but envisioning what the world might have looked like in the absence of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should give one pause. We are not talking Recession, major or minor. We are talking capital-D Depression, which is exactly where the US economy was headed in the final quarter of 2008. And whether it is great or mediocre, enduring another one of those SOBs is not something any sane person wants to do.
So what does one do? If, as most economists contend, the problem in the late Bush economy, the result of the housing bubble and certain Wall Street criminality, was one of lax demand, and if the private economy was in no position or mood to ramp up demand, then the only player capable of doing so was the federal government. Both Democratic and Republican administrations, true Keynesians, have a history of providing the demand that the market has not always generated on its own. Been there, done that. It works. That's why they keep doing it. This time the problem was bigger. It was with the intention of preventing a second Great Depression that the Obama Administration proposed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, an acronym only a pirate could love. But there was more than simple economic stimulus involved. The administration wanted to change some long term trends, in health care, energy and education, as well.
Amazingly, within a month of taking office, the Obama Administration managed to get through Congress the largest stimulus bill in the nation's history. It's nice to have a large enough majority in the Senate that only a few of the opposition need be persuaded in order to make a bill a law. National media, more than happy to carry water for the party of "Just Say No," took great delight in trying to dig up dirt on what became an $800 billion program. And when that did not satisfy, as there was rather little dirt to be dug, they made things up. A consensus was forming in the DC bubble, as soon as the program came into being, that it was a complete boondoggle.
In 2010, a reporter for Time magazine, Michael Grunwald, was in Florida working on a book:
I was only vaguely aware of the Beltway consensus that President Obama's stimulus was an $800 billion joke. But because I write a lot about the environment, I was very aware that the stimulus included about $90 billion for clean energy, which was astonishing, because the feds were only spending a few billion dollars a year before. The stimulus was pouring unprecedented funding into wind, solar, and other renewables; energy efficiency in every form; advanced biofuels; electric vehicles; a smarter grid; cleaner coal; and factories to make all that green stuff in the U.S. It was clearly a huge deal. And it got me curious about what else was in the stimulus.So what was different about this one? A few things.
For one, vast sums were directed toward ravaged state governments to keep them from laying off hundreds of thousands of state employees. You know the sort, public leaches like teachers, cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, and many thousands more.
Hundreds of billions were allocated to tax cuts. And the money was not sent out in a lump sum, as had been done in the past. The reason is that when folks get such a windfall, they tend to save all or some of it. Of course it is politically advantageous to send out the money in a lump sum, with the president's face on it, but while that may boost the standing of the president, it is not the most effective way to get that money into the economy. The intention with the ARRA was to get money flowing through the economy ASAP and the best way to do that was to put it in people's pockets right away. Thus the reduction was largely in the form of cutting payroll taxes. It may not be all that obvious to most folks, but there was an extra $10 or $20 dollars following you home every week. And that money was spent, as anticipated, accomplishing the aim of the program.
How many people did the federal government hire? Practically none. No CCC here. But the stimulus prevented a bad situation from becoming catastrophic. Yes, 9% unemployment sucks, now down to about 8%, but in the absence of the stimulus it would have been much worse. And that leads us to another reason why this stimulus was perceived so differently from, say, the New Deal.
Back in the 1930s the economy had gone nicely to hell during the Republican Hoover administration, whose plan for getting the nation out of a depression was to tell people to suck it up. A few years of this particular form of heartlessness and folks were ready for action, any action. Thus when FDR began stirring up the alphabet pot, the American people were highly receptive. In late 2008, the economy had gone completely off the rails. How's that tax-cuttin' and de-regulation stuff workin' out for ya? But the economy had not yet reached its potential bottom by the time the new administration took office. So there was not yet public knowledge of just how bad things were and thus no large natural constituency for a huge stimulus. BTW, the largest stimulus proposed during the 2008 campaign was by one Willard Mitt Romney, who seems to have had his Road to Damascus moment since then and now finds the light of stimulus spending too blinding for his liking.
Because economic report numbers lag behind the reality, the new administration did not have all the data they needed when they took office to make a fully informed judgment of just how bad things were. Their analysts were under the impression that economic growth (an oxymoron here) was at negative four percent. As in the economy was not only not growing it was shrinking. Pretty bad, huh? Except that that was not even half right. It turned out that the economy was shrinking at a rate of almost nine percent in the final quarter of 2008. That is Depression territory.
It is pretty significant, if you are trying to sell a program, that you have your baseline correct, to know how quickly your ship is sinking. If, say, you figure your program will boost the economy by four percent a year, so that it is no longer sinking, and it does just that, well, you have succeeded rather nicely. But it you propose a program that will improve the national economy by four percent and it is in fact plunging at a rate of nine percent, even if you meet your expectations, the economy will still be seen to be going glug, glug, glug, and your program, even if it is completely successful, will be seen as being all wet. Oh and toss in the fact that the opposition party, in order to keep the administration from appearing to have any success, did all they could to scuttle attempts to keep the economy afloat. They must have learned this from ghetto kids back in the days of the crack epidemic, who would set fires and then throw rocks at the firefighters who arrived to put the blazes out.
The Administration allowed out an economic report using the negative 4 % number and thus promised to keep unemployment under 8%, but with the real problem being much larger, 8% was no longer a realistic target. That did not stop the reality-free Obama opponents from repeating the 8% number daily, even though they knew better.
The final piece here is, I think, the most interesting. And that is the Reinvestment "R." Grunwald focuses considerable attention on the green technology mega-boost supported by the Recovery Act. The act included $90 billion for sundry green energy initiatives, from funding insulation programs for homes, to esoteric research in algae-based biofuels, to investing in battery research, which has helped cut the cost of electric vehicle batteries in half, to replacing over 400,000 streetlamps with energy-sipping LEDs. The Quarterly-P&L-focus of American corporations has resulted in the USA falling further and further behind other nations, which have been investing in a green future. China, for example, recently announced a plan to invest over $300 billion over five years. Germany and Spain are world leaders in developing and manufacturing solar technology. For the USA to remain viable we need to make major strides in this area. In the absence of the Recovery Act, we would be sinking into the darkness of increasing dependence on foreign suppliers. Improving our energy standing in the world is, ultimately, a matter of national security. While it is an amazing thing that the ARRA helped prevent a depression in 21st century America, what the lasting legacy of the act is likely to be is the new industries that it created, in green power generation, electrofuels, batteries, and other advanced green tech that will generate hundreds of thousands of domestic jobs and significantly reduce our dependence on foreign resources. In addition, this public support for the nascent industry has attracted hundred of billions in private investment. One of the few new entities created by the Recovery Act was the ARPA-E section of the Department of Energy. You may recall that ARPA was the government entity that came up with the idea of the internet, among other things. ARPA-E is a version designed to find and promote advances in energy science and technology. Extremely cool stuff.
American medical record-keeping is a joke. The world has been moving ahead with digitizing medical records, while the USA is still in the paper and pencil era. Considerable Recovery Act money was put into moving 21st century record-keeping technology into the medical world.
Transportation was another area addressed, with money being allocated more to improving existing infrastructure than in building new roads and bridges. Although not all the work promoted sexy tech like high speed rail, a lot of it is promoting higher-speed transportation, in particular removing impediments to the movement of rail freight. Not sexy, but ultimately very, very smart and effective. Grunwald tells some tales about the hope of the administration to develop a high-speed system somewhere in the country. Maybe in Florida, maybe in the Chicago to St Louis route, maybe LA to San Francisco. That effort makes for fascinating and illuminating reading.
There is more in the book, particularly on the education pillar of the Act, but I will leave that for you to find for yourself.
Grunwald has offered a fairly detailed look at how the Recovery Act was put together, how it was passed (sausage was made), how the right did everything in their power to scuttle it, and how it has been treated by the media. (scorned by the DC echo chamber). Most importantly, he looked at the facts on the ground, at what the Act accomplished (stopped a Depression, among other things) and how it promises to change our future. (creation of new green technology industries, improved energy efficiency, reduction in reliance on foreign oil). Was the Recovery Act imperfect? Sure. Should it have been larger? Yep. Was it politically possible for it to have been larger? Probably not.
I have some issues with Grunwald. There is a seam in the Democratic Party, probably a product of the Clintonian third way clique, of which Obama is a member in good standing, that unions are fair game. Take the charter school movement, please. Somehow it has evolved into a privatization model, in which most, if not all teachers, who work for such entities are no longer allowed to be union members. Instead of working out deals with unions to form partnerships with movements to try new educational models, teachers unions have been perceived as dead-enders, resisting progressive change at every turn, implicitly comparing them to white southerners resisting integration. Grunwald seems to be a subscriber to that notion. His index, for example, skips straight from "American Economic Recovery Plan" to American Jobs Act," somehow skipping "The American Federation of Teachers"; he skips from "Tea Party" to "Technological," without an intervening "teacher." It also skips from "National Economic Council" to "National Endowment for the Arts" with nary an NEA (National Educational Alliance) in sight. You can find a reference under unions, teachers, but with so many other players being named and incorporated it seems more than an oversight that organizations representing teachers are so poorly noted.
He also takes issue with those in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party who expressed disappointment that Obama seemed to be a lousy negotiator because he appeared to always be starting not from a position of demanding pie-in-the-sky, but from a position of having moved to the center before even sitting down with the other side. Really? Grunwald sees no merit to that view? It seems to me and plenty of other progressives that in at least some instances, it would have served the nation well if our national leader had demanded the moon before settling for what he eventually got, which was pretty good, but in no way lunar. You don't start negotiating in the middle. You wind up there. Starting in the middle only guarantees that the final outcome will wind up being to the right of center. Even if that is not the position a leader wants to take in closed-door sessions with legislators, it most certainly is one he should be taking with the American people. Bloody hell, man, use that bully pulpit, embarsass some of those bastards. Sometimes the American people listen. Sometimes they pressure their representatives. It seems that this approach was never considered, to the detriment of us all. Grunwald castigating even the notion of such an approach, echoing administration folks like Rahm Emmanuel, does a disservice to those of us who hoped for more. If the president only feels the wind from one direction it is pretty clear which way he will tack.
Spleen has been properly vented.
So, bottom line, if you like basing your views on major public policies on facts instead of talking head bloviation and innuendo, this is a book for you. Grunwald is an excellent writer, so do not shy away, fearing that you will be overwhelmed by charts and graphs, or by very dry discourse. This is an exciting read, informative and insightful. Although Joe Biden may have been referring to the Affordable Health Care Act when he uttered the words, he could have justifiably said them about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, "This is a big fucking deal." Yes it was, and still is. A big piece of the hope and change we voted for. You would do well to invest some time in reading Grunwald's book. The understanding you gain will pay dividends for a long time.
This is a must read item – A Slate interview with Grunwald - a nifty summary, in effect, of the book
The website for the act itself
A piece by Jeff Weintraub looking at right wing complaints that the Recovery Act was unsuccessful
Notes are private!
Sep 09, 2012
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 09, 2012
Feb 25, 2003
it was amazing
Notes are private!
not set
not set
Aug 01, 2012
Jan 01, 2012
May 01, 2012
it was amazing
Peter Bergen, has been on the bin Laden beat for a long time, most notably since he interviewed the al-Qaeda leader in 1997. He has reported the explo Peter Bergen, has been on the bin Laden beat for a long time, most notably since he interviewed the al-Qaeda leader in 1997. He has reported the exploits of Osama for the full arc of his career, from freedom fighter for the Afghanis against the Soviet invader, through the rise to infamy of al Qaeda, from training Somalis in the use of RPG, to training thugs and fanatics to seize commercial airliners to dark purpose. Now he writes about the Osama we have not seen, mostly because he has had to remain in hiding, and follows the story to its bloody end. But Osama, per se, is not the central focus of the story.
This is an insider's look at the process of hunting down the world's most infamous terrorist. From well before September 11, 2001, the USA had been trying to find bin Laden, but he somehow always eluded his pursuers. It is no secret that his initial escape from Tora Bora was the result of tactical foolishness—subcontracting border security to a group of very corruptible locals pretty much guaranteeing failure—and the diversion of resources from Afghanistan to that other, less relevant war. But what was secret was UBL's whereabouts for the next ten-plus years. (Government sorts first referred to him as Usama bin Laden, thus the UBL moniker that stuck, despite a later change in vowel) Bergen looks at the efforts that were made to track him down, and offers insight and new knowledge in the doing.
For example
The conventional view is that Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor and al-Qaeda's longtime second in command, was bin Laden's "brain." But in making the most important strategic shift in al-Qaeda's history—identifying the United States as its key enemy, rather than Middle-Eastern regimes—bin Laden brushed aside Zawahiri's obsessive focus on overthrowing the Egyptian government. Bin Laden also kept Zawahiri in the dark for years about al-Qaeda's most important operation—the planning for the 9/11 attacks—apprising his deputy only during the summer of 2001.He offers the not shocking evaluation that
Mullah Omar was a dim-witted fanatic with significant delusions of grandeur who believed he was on a mission from Allah.He also takes to task the notion that it was the intention of UBL and Al-Qaeda, by their actions, to draw the USA into a military quagmire.
This was post facto rationalization of al-Qaeda's strategic failure. The whole point of the 9/11 attacks had been to get the United States out of the Muslim world, not to provoke it into invading and occupying Afghanistan and overthrowing al-Qaeda's closest ideological ally, the Taliban. September 11, in fact, resembled Pearl Harbor. Just as the Japanese scored a tremendous tactical victory on December 7, 1941, they also set in motion a chain of events that led to the eventual collapse of imperial Japan. So, too, the 9/11 attacks set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the destruction of much of al-Qaeda and, eventually, the death of its leader.There are more like this. Bergen looks at the effectiveness of torture as a source of useful intelligence, the growth of the Joint Special Operations Command, the change in approach re drone strikes in tribal Pakistan, the tricky relationship between the US and Pakistan, how US intelligence tracked their man down, the decision-making process, and details of the raid. Then he follows up with an analysis of the significance of al-Qaeda in the world today.
For a guy who is a major wonk on things military and spooky, Bergen writes like an actual person. He has always been a compelling TV journalist and his communication skills are put to good use here. I was particularly taken with his depiction of the raid. It read like an action adventure novel. And as a lifelong resident of NYC, I confess to welling up more than a little when the man responsible for murdering thousands of my neighbors was put down. Bergen's access is impressive. He interviewed many of the principals involved and offers a rich portrait of the hunt.
Peter Bergen is the real deal. He knows his stuff and if you want to know how Osama bin Laden was found and dispatched track down a copy of Manhunt.
PS - A visit to Bergen's site, http://peterbergen.com/, will offer the reward of multiple articles relating to our favorite dead evildoer. Well, the articles are mostly elements taken from the book, so if you want a peek at the book, check these samples.
Notes are private!
Jun 03, 2012
Jun 06, 2012
Jun 03, 2012
Jan 01, 2012
Mar 20, 2012
it was amazing
Covering the period from the mid-term elections of 2010 to, more or less, the present, David Corn offers readers a look inside the Obama Administratio Covering the period from the mid-term elections of 2010 to, more or less, the present, David Corn offers readers a look inside the Obama Administration through a host of battles. The overall takeaway is that Obama seriously wants to be the adult in the room in DC and tries his best to fulfill that mission. There is a lot of difference between campaigning, in which you can say whatever you like, stake out whatever positions you prefer and not have to temper your rhetoric to accommodate opposition, and actually having to run the federal government. Once in office, your opponents, who might not be able to keep you from talking, can prevent you from enacting your desired legislation unless you play ball.
David Corn
I am of the opinion that the president has staked out initial negotiating positions that were not nearly far enough to the left. At least propose single-payer. At least propose a public option. While Corn's look into the administration thought process may not go far enough to remove that dissatisfaction it does offer very concrete reasons why Obama chose to do what he did in all the battles explored in this book. The item that stands out the most for me is how Obama was willing to take on considerable political risk, and go against the advice of many of his advisors, in deciding to go ahead with the Osama Bin-Laden mission. Major guts there. Hardly the no-brainer that it was portrayed as being by Mitt Romney. Also, how he approached the Libya uprising, seeing to the core of what was needed tactically and having the ability to maneuver the international politics towards that end. Obama is a much tougher and slicker character and deft political player than I had realized.
Corn looks at several of the budget negotiations the administration entered into with Republican leadership. One thing that stood out very clearly is how much control John Boehner did not have over his barrel of Tasmanian-Devil Tea-Baggers. Whatever deal he made with the administration he was constantly back-tracking, denying he had said what he had said and basically proving to be an ineffective leader. Of course he always had to worry about House Whip, and full time reptile, Eric Cantor, trying his best to insert sharp objects between his ribs from the rear. It is remarkable that any deals were made with the Republicans at all.
There are plenty of instances in which reasonable people might ask simple questions
…had Obama allowed the Republicans to turn the national debate into nothing other than a debt seminar? "We can be faulted for this," Axelrod said later. "Nobody anticipated the degree of Republican obstreperousness and implacability. We knew there would be strident voices, but the degree to which that tail would wag the dog—we didn't assume."Really? Don't you guys read the papers, watch TV, check out internet sites? Yes, the administration most definitely can be faulted. They paid no attention at all to the thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions of us who were sending the white house e-mails wondering why he could not see the obvious. This is a prime example of how politicos slip inside the DC bubble and fail to appreciate what is going on in the world beyond.
Regarding an administration decision to scale back public statements critical of Republican opposition during budget negotiations:
Axelrod subsequently explained. "The decision was made to go out and talk about jobs and the economy and allow the negotiations to proceed until the president needed to intervene." And as Robert Gibbs put it, "It's difficult to put out your right hand to shake their hands and then strike them with your left hand."Why the hell not? The other side has no such compunctions. They never stopped accusing Obama of being an alien, never stopped claiming he was a secret Muslim, never stopped accusing him of being an anti-American, even a terrorist. Are they so completely lily-livered that they can dish it out but they can't take it? Well, yes they clearly are, given their hysterical reaction to any criticism, but why should Democrats give these nut-job hypocrites an inch? They did not exactly soften their stance at the negotiating table because Obama kept the gloves on. The arena of public opinion counts, and it was, and remains important for progressives to not allow the fear-mongering and divisive hatred of the right to blare unchallenged. Bad call, Mister President.
It is clear that when two parties at the negotiation table do not share core values there is trouble. Here, the president was determined to see that the American economic recovery suffered as few hits as possible, while the Tea-Bagger-driven Republicans would be more than happy to cause global economic chaos in order to get their way.
So one comes away impressed, maybe less dissatisfied when one sees what the president is up against. It certainly increases our appreciation for the damage that might be done to our nation by the barbarians at the gate. The prospect of putting in charge of the country the same drivers who landed the national vehicle in a ditch is daunting enough. Now we have to worry about a party heavy with ideological Thelma and Louises, unwilling to wait for a bathtub drowning, who are champing at the bit to drive the country off a cliff. It is a lucky thing that we have an administration that can steer the ship of state away from such peril, and knows when to step on the brakes when needed. This is an enlightening read.
Notes are private!
May 19, 2012
May 19, 2012
May 19, 2012
Mar 01, 1994
Sep 13, 1994
Notes are private!
not set
Feb 2003
May 06, 2012
Library Binding
Mar 24, 2009
liked it
If, like me, you were around for the birth of the SDS and its unhappy child, the Weather Underground, you might wonder what happened to the likes of t If, like me, you were around for the birth of the SDS and its unhappy child, the Weather Underground, you might wonder what happened to the likes of those who did not go to pieces in a Greenwich Village townhouse. One of the group's survivors, years after emerging from life on the run, having settled in to a more regular way of living, has offered the story of his days in the movement and of his journey from the life of a student radical, through years as a fugitive to a life as a more or less regular political citizen.
We begin with demonstrations at Columbia University, in protest against the Viet Nam war and against Columbia's real estate expansion into the surrounding community. This is pretty interesting material, and gives a real feel for the zeitgeist. It was a very volatile time, and young people really believed it was possible to change the world. They were not wrong, but while progressives like Pete Seeger chose a less confrontational, more educational direction, into ecological work, there were plenty of people who thought a better way was to seek a larger overthrow, and part of that was not only to demonstrate, but to stage sit-ins at university buildings. We might call it Occupy Columbia today. Rudd offers a vibrant description of the activities of the students, the organizers and the police, who did what police often do and went out of their way to bust some heads. The mainstream press did not manage to report on that somehow.
Rudd offers considerable detail into where and when the leaders led and where and when they were dragged by the rank and file protesters. He also goes into some of the mind numbing internal politics. There were plenty of factions, each espousing a particular political line. And there were groups within groups, infiltrating, undermining, competing. I got to see some of that personally back in the day, so can attest that the sort of ridiculousness Rudd describes is quite real. Some blokes from across the pond lampooned the tendency of powerless political forces to splinter in their quest for ideological purity. I have included a script excerpt from Monty Python's Life of Brian at the bottom of this review. What, you haven't seen it? Wanker! The sort of thing the Python crew mocks was unfurling big time during the Columbia shutdown, and picked up even bigger time as time and tide opened a host of new wounds.
It is pretty clear that despite his calls for armed insurrection, Mark Rudd is not someone with whom you would want to share a foxhole. He cites several instances in which his physical courage is shown wanting. No actual bomb-thrower, Rudd. His projectiles were of the verbal variety. I suppose there is a bit of courage involved in so clearly admitting that he was a coward when it came to physical combat. As there was never a case made by the government against him for any involvement with the real bomb-makers of the Weather Underground we take him at his word that he was not a part of the more explosive splinters of leftist activism. It is clear, though, that among other emotions, he felt admiration for those willing to go to extreme lengths to change the direction in which the nation was heading, however misguided they might have been. Perhaps a contemporary echo of that sort of feeling is the public joy expressed by some Muslim populations at the horror of 9/11. If one has identified one's enemy as evil, it does make a bit of sense to wish him dead. Personally, I am not up for popping a few rounds into those I consider representatives of the dark side, (in reality, that is, but a guy can dream) but I would certainly cheer should Cheney's medical device suddenly fail, Putin fall off a horse and break his neck, or Bashar al-asad find himself on the receiving end of his thugs' assaults.
The Weather Underground, and the SDS functioned not just as political organizations at the bleeding edge, but as cults. The same sort of top-down decision-making wound up becoming de rigeur, with criticism of decisions clearly not welcome. There was also an insistence on discarding monogamy, which made for a pretty lively sex life, (and resulting medical unpleasantness) particularly for the leaders. Such cultish entities often breed a sort of bubble mentality that is capable, eager even, to ignore outside opinions and even actual reality. Believing one's own bullshit is neither good for the effectiveness of one's organization, or for one's mental health. Turns out it is not so good for one's physical health either.
The most interesting part of Rudd's story for me was his time underground. It was detailed and offered a very compelling portrait of the joys of never being able to settle down anywhere, of not being able get too close to anyone who was not already part of your movement, and even then, having to wonder who might be a government agent and which smiling old comrade might turn you in for a sentencing advantage.
In Underground, Rudd comes across as an arrogant, entitled, middle-class kid from a nice suburb who had an enlarged sense of his own importance, and impact on the world. On the other hand, if you can do it, it ain't bragging, and he did, for a while. It is humanizing that he is able to portray himself as less than a heroic figure. He has moved past his legal and extremist issues, and has found a way to do good without putting himself or others in peril. Would that were true of our corporate overlords.
QUOTES - a few passages
P 97 – The New York Times was intimately entangled with Columbia at all levels, from the board of trustees on down, and became the house organ for the Columbia administration. Times publisher Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger, a Columbia graduate, was a trustee of the university. Many of the editors were Columbia Journalism School graduates or teachers. My favorite tale of New York Times complicity with Columbia was its lead piece in the first edition of the April 30 paper. The newspaper reported that the police has peacefully removed all the4 demonstrators from the buildings. However, that early edition hit the newsstands before the bust had occurred. The Times had been tipped off to the plan the afternoon before the bust by police leadership so that the story could be written ahead of time. In later editions the< i>Times barely mentioned that one of its own reporters, Robert Thomas, Jr., was severely beaten by New York City cops using handcuffs as brass knuckles; that fact didn't square with the story of violent students and peacable police.
P 162 [ re self-criticism]
I did not realize at the time that we had unwittingly reproduced conditions that all hermetically sealed cults use: isolation, sleep deprivation, demanding arbitrary acts of loyalty to the group, even sexual initiation as bonding. It's strange that these practices can arise without any conspiratorial mastermind or leadership cabal.
On a hot Saturday in early August at the Mall in Central Park, I was among a contingent of several dozen New York Weathermen who marched up onto the stage at a rally commemorating the twenty-fourth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We elbowed aside the surprised organizers from the fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee and seized the microphone. Jeff Jones, my comrade in the Weather Bureau, commenced to rant at the several thousand peaceful protesters assembled. "It's not enough to be for peace, like the liberals who organized the rally; you've got to be for revolution. And that revolution will be violent, so get ready." As he continued, the audience just drifted away; we had destroyed the rally more effectively than any right-wing counter-demonstrators of government agents might have.
P 226 [regarding breaking Timothy Leary out of jail]
We were opportunistically glomming on to the counterculture. For years SDS had stood to the side, criticizing the hippies for not being political enough. The Leary jailbreak appeared to me to be a transparent attempt to insinuate ourselves with our potential base, the flower children.
The culture of this country in the first decade of the twenty-first century is fundamentally different compared to that of forty years ago. There's no draft, so young people don't need to pay attention to the war, as we had to. (which explains why a draft is not on the war planners' agenda.) The seductions of the entertainment and consumer cultures, fueled by cheap goods and easy credit, have achieved almost total hegemony as the purpose of individual life. To top this off, the cost of a college education, even at public institutions, is so much higher than it was forty years ago, when no one graduated with anything like the level of debt that students have now.. huge student loans keep young people so shackled that it never even occurs to them to stray from the career path for a protest or a meeting.
BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People's Front? We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
BRIAN: Can I... join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
BRIAN: I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
REG: Stumm.
JUDITH: Are you sure?
BRIAN: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
REG: Listen. If you wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.
BRIAN: I do!
REG: Oh, yeah? How much?
BRIAN: A lot!
REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG: People's Front! C-huh.
FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG: He's over there.
Notes are private!
Apr 28, 2012
May 05, 2012
Apr 28, 2012
Jan 01, 2012
Mar 27, 2012
really liked it
Updated - 5/26/13 - new link at bottom
Suppose they gave a war and no one protested?
That sounds like heaven on earth for some politicos, some military Updated - 5/26/13 - new link at bottom
Suppose they gave a war and no one protested?
That sounds like heaven on earth for some politicos, some military leaders and a whole lot of contractors who have been growing Jabba-the-Hutt chunky on public dollars.
Rachel Maddow, the most charming, and surely one of the brightest political commentators on the scene, has written a thoughtful analysis of how we got from what, in law if not always in practice, was a disinclination towards war, to the current state of affairs in which presidents can pretty much lock and load at will.
The founders feared that maintaining [a standing army] would drain our resources in the same way that maintaining the eighteenth-century British military had burdened the colonies. They worried that a powerful military could rival civilian government for power in our new country, and of course they worried that having a standing army would create too much of a temptation to use it. Those worries about the inevitable incentives to war were part of what led to the division of government at the heart of our Constitution, building into the structure of our new country a deliberate peaceable bias.There are two general brakes on war-making, Congress guarding its power and the people resisting the call of leaders for citizens to fight and maybe die fighting on foreign soil without offering a very persuasive argument.
Maddow makes a point about the erosion of Congressional power re war. There's that pesky old Constitution thing that reserves the power to declare war for Congress, not the president. Tsk, tsk, how inconvenient. We can't have a president's hands tied. Congress has actually declared war, or authorized words to that effect, for only five wars anyway. However, the USA has fought over a hundred wars run with the sole authority of the executive, so Constitution, Schmonstitution, the 1973 War Powers Act notwithstanding.
She pays particular attention to the fun times of the Reagan Administration when ignoring, under-mining (yes, intended), steam-rolling out of existence and subverting explicit Congressional intentions became a sort of sport for those in the executive office. But don't think that there is any sort of partisanship going on here. The truth is what it is, and Maddow is more than happy to point out the many instances in which Democratic presidents did their best to utilize and preserve the expanded powers their Republican predecessors carved out for the office. If you are looking for evidence of partisan bias, a supportive quote from Roger Ailes on the back cover should dispel any concern. This is a scholarly examination of a clear and present danger, independent of party or ideological affiliation.
She looks at the rise of what is known as the unitary executive, that was promoted by a cabal of wing-nuts into what we recognize today as current reality. That is fascinating, but I do wish Maddow had offered a bit more on how often presidents just did what they wanted to in a longer historical view, Congress be damned.
And there are other ways that Congress, even with their war-declaring power effectively gelded, can make trouble, oversight committees and the like. Well, how about shifting the military actions into areas that Congress can see, but will not be able to talk about? Check. With much military work now being performed by the CIA, when oversight committees actually find out what is going on, they are barred from telling anyone because the information is, you know, secret. All freedoms burn so nicely on the pyre of national security, or claims of national security anyway.
Then there's the populace. What keeps war from being popular? Well, one thing is if it is you or your kids who are on the receiving end of the incomings, or having to cope with those irritating IEDs. So, if we want to keep the public out of this arena, it helps to eliminate the draft. We don't want noisemakers, or people who actually matter to have a personal reason to get their panties in a bunch about our diplomacy by other means.
What else? There is a way of waging war that requires the introduction of massive force. Known as the Powell Doctrine, this approach required the use of large numbers of troops and hardware, all at once. Better, if you want to keep things on the down-low to use as few troops as possible. Parallel to this is another war-planning notion, The Abrams Doctrine, a product of the Viet Nam war, in which the military felt that they had been separated from the civilian population, and thus were disregarded. It held that in times of war the nation should rely not just on the members of our standing military, but should summon member of the Reserves and National Guard. That gets noticed by the population, as family members are called to the battlefield, having to vacate actual jobs. So what might the canny political war planner do to mitigate such a negative effect? One thing would be to reduce the military personnel required to wage war. Instead of, say, Sergeant Cookie Jowls, spending his time peeling potatoes and preparing meals, the army might hire a contractor to take care of that. Instead of, say, Private B Bailey, getting stuck with laundry duty, soldiers might drop their blood-stained dainties off at the KBR-o-Mat. And if you are in the advanced class, you might start using private contractors for actual fighting. Xe-ing is believing. The folks back home tend to get a lot more upset about the death of a 19-year-old kid next door than they do about the demise of a 35-year-old South African mercenary.
So, keep wars out of the public consciousness. Keep Congress from futzing with every shiny new war opportunity that comes along. Maddow shows how these twin developments have come to pass. She has also included fascinating reportage on how and when the percentage of our spending on the military shot up to its current stratospheric levels. She looks at some ongoing defense issues, such as coping with aging nuclear hardware, how the huge quantities of money being spent on the military come at the expense of other domestic needs, how peace may sound nice but does not do so well as a political plank, and there was a wonderful section on the training of the Great Communicator.
I have a few gripes about Drift. I wish that Maddow had dedicated more space to the impact of media on shaping public consciousness. A mention of Judy Miller might have been appropriate. Or maybe a bit on how the Fox News network has acted as nothing less than a mouthpiece for right-wing Republican interests. I know that she has written an analysis of history that looks at events and tries to perceive their impact, and that she is probably concerned that her work will be painted as partisan hackery by the right, but, Ailes' quote notwithstanding, the right will assail anything she produces, even a shopping list, as partisan hackery. I am reminded of the foolishness of President Obama attempting to come to reasonable compromises with the bomb-throwers of Tea Party persuasion who have taken the Republican Party captive. You are wasting your time. Nothing you can say will ever get through the brain-reality barriers that have been erected here. Have at it.
I was surprised that there was no mention of President Eisenhauer's speech, the one in which he said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
I thought that the many non-Congress-ok'd wars that preceded Viet Nam deserved a bit more of a mention. The current emasculation of Congress does not seem all that new when one looks at the long historical view.
So, I would say that her analysis is fascinating, but less than complete. Maybe in a follow up?
She offers a passel of policy suggestions at the end of the book. One includes paying for wars as we fight them, using taxes or bonds. Um, isn't a bond a loan? How is that different from garden-variety federal fund-raising? She suggests that we move all actual military options back under the military, taking them away from info-blackout organizations like the CIA. This, like the rest, are commonsensical. They are not no-brainers in the world of political reality, given the existence of powerful special interests which have a vested interest in things continuing as they are. But it would be hard to argue against, say, reducing our nuclear infrastructure to what we actually need.
Maddow certainly offers a clear timeline, and I can see how one can view the changes that have occurred as drift, but it seems to me that a vessel that is drifting is being passively moved from one place to another by unconscious natural forces, like tides and currents. In the case of fast-tracking our war-making capacity, it seems that the forces involved have been anything but natural. What is likelier is that we have been pushed into our current unmoored state by forces with a strong interest in promoting endless war. It would be a good thing for us to push back lest we find ourselves sinking, in shark-infested waters.
GR friend Elizabeth pointed out in comment #15 a lovely NPR interview with Maddow, and has ok'd inclusion of the link here. There is a lot of interesting material there. So thanks, Elizabeth.
This is the site for Rachel's show on MSNBC
5/26/13 - The following New York Times op ed, Americans and Their Military, Drifting Apart, By Karl W. Eikenberry and David M. Kennedy is definitely worth a look
Notes are private!
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 15, 2012
Jan 01, 2011
Sep 20, 2011
it was amazing
If most people were to be asked today what they thought of Garfield, they would most likely offer an answer about a cartoon cat, and not the 20th pres If most people were to be asked today what they thought of Garfield, they would most likely offer an answer about a cartoon cat, and not the 20th president of the United States, the president who served only 200 days in office, the second president to be assassinated, and one of our great losses as a nation.
Candice Millard, the dishy author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, here follows the paths of two men, the ill-fated president, James A Garfield, and the man who would see to his end, Charles Guiteau.
No political conspiracies were involved, at least not outside the delusions of an addled mind. While the assassin did have political views they were likelier to be the same as those of his target than anywhere in opposition. No, he was your basic nutter, who convinced himself that God wanted him to take out the president. While clearly disturbed, Guiteau had an interesting past. His mother died when he was 7 and he was raised by his father, a religious fanatic, and follower of John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the utopian Oneida commune in upstate New York. This cultish group favored free love, which they called "complex marriage," among other things. Charles did not have a lot of success with the ladies, even at Oneida, which must have really stung. They practiced a form of self (really group) criticism that would gain favor with a later communal program, Mao Te Tung's.
Although the commune promised the pleasures of complex marriage, to Guiteau's frustration, "The Community women," one of Oneida's members would later admit, "did not extend love and confidence toward him." In fact, so thorough was his rejection among women that they nicknamed him "Charles Gitout." He bitterly complained that, while at the commune, he was "practically a Shaker."He worked as a lawyer (which at the time did not require a law degree) and a preacher and had a rather permanent and cavalier attitude toward paying his bills. I guess in that way he was a harbinger of Republicans of a later era. Guiteau was in DC seeking a political appointment from the president, just compensation, in his mind, for the assistance he had given to the campaign. He had suffered delusions of grandeur for a long time. His own family had sought to have him put away. But the slippery bastard fled before they could complete his committal.
Garfield's was a classic American success story. His parents were farmers, working land-grant turf. But dad passed away when James was still a boy. Through hard work and recognition of his native brilliance by enough people who had the means to help, Garfield managed to get an excellent education. His oratorical skills were state of the art for his time. He was elected to the state legislature and soon thereafter put into the national Congress, with hardly any effort at all on his part. This accidental president never sought that office either. In fact, he attended the 1880 Republican convention to give the nominating speech for his fellow Ohioan, John Sherman. But after dozens of ballots, with no hope of any of the major candidates winning enough votes to get the nomination, delegates began looking for an alternative. And thus was James A Garfield nominated for president by his party.
Speaking of which, the Republican Party of 1880 was rather different from the GOP of today. Garfield had been anti-slavery, as had his party.
For freed slaves, an impoverished and, until recently, almost entirely powerless segment of the population, Garfield represented freedom and progress, but also, and perhaps more importantly, dignity. As president, he demanded for black men nothing less than what they wanted desperately for themselves—complete and unconditional equality, born not of regret but respect.Today's party could probably be counted on to insist that property rights trump all and turn away any attempt to get rid of such a peculiar institution. So Garfield was a pretty good guy, remarkably, considering that the Civil War had ended less than 16 years prior, acceptable to both the South and the North, a brilliant, Renaissance man.
Millard offers not only a window into the personal and political history of Garfield, a literal log-cabin Republican, we also get a look at the time. One element is further confirmation re what a fetid swamp DC was (well, it remains a fetid swamp these days, but for other reasons), a place where rats roamed at will (view spoiler)[but if I step out of the way, they seem happy to dash past. (hide spoiler)] in the White House, (yes, yes, I know, sometimes they are just so easy that even I, who know no shame, have to pass, but you are free to select the party you dislike and fill in the blanks) and clouds of mosquitoes blotted out the sun. Ok, that last may be a slight exaggeration, but the gist remains. It was a biologically unhealthy place. The toxicity of DC and the White House in particular figures rather largely into the story of how James A Garfield met his end.
In addition to the intersecting lines of Garfield and Guiteau, a little extra attention is directed toward a young Scottish inventor, a fellow whose chief concern was helping the hearing impaired. He had, not long before, brought to market a remarkable new device. This made for an interesting time for him. Once the world realized just what he had created, thieves, swindlers and worst of all, lawyers, came after him like a wolf pack on the trail of an injured deer. How much time must one dedicate to defending oneself in court in order to retain control of that which you, yourself created? Lots, and it was making him miserable. Still, he had a thing for inventing. When he heard of the attack on Garfield he hastened to his lab to work on a device that would, hopefully, locate the bullet inside the president's body, without having to open him up first, a sort of early metal detector. We speak, of course, of Alexander Graham Bell, a young man still. His efforts merit considerable attention and entail a lot of drama. Actually, considering that we are all well aware of the outcome, it is rather remarkable how much dramatic tension there is in this non-fiction account.
We get a look at the medical sorts who dove in when the president was shot, some reasonable, and some determined to place their own interests above the health of Garfield. We get to see yet another example of the arrogance of power leading to a dark end when it chooses to ignore scientific advances in the fact-based world. And we get to see some of the places where the leading edge of medical thought and technology were struggling for recognition. Joseph Lister had revolutionized European medical practices with his insistence on antiseptic environments for medical care. But those who insisted on local exceptionalism preferred to leave their patient in environments we would probably describe today as filthy, and saw nothing wrong with poking their fingers into open wounds. Garfield, ultimately, suffered an iatrogenic death. The bullets did not kill him. His doctors did. Sadly medical care is the third leading cause of death in the USA today, so some things have not changed all that much.
Re government, Millard fills us in on some of the political game-playing of the time, and how it was used to generate governmental stasis. There is much here that resonates, and that reminds us how far we have come in some ways, and how little we have grown in others. I contemplated making a table showing 1880 vs 2013, and doing the comparison (and contrast) more graphically, but I will leave that for other reviewers. I merely note that such a list could indeed be constructed.
One interesting point made here is that both Guiteau and Garfield felt themselves to have been touched by God. Both had faced death while aboard ships and both felt that they had been spared by the Almighty for some greater purpose. It seems unlikely that they were both right.
History books need not be dull. The best give us a sense of a time and a place, let us see some of the personalities afoot in that world, look into how things came to be the way they were and how events of that time have echoed down to us today. A good popular history book makes us stop, rub our chins and mutter to no one in particular, "I did not know that." On all counts, Candice Millard has succeeded. While the subject is not exactly laugh-riot material, if you love to learn, it will make you smile. It has made others smile as well. Destiny was awarded a PEN award for research nonfiction, and an Edgar Award for best Fact Crime book of 2011.
And it is quite filling. If you are of a cartoonish persuasion, you might even think of it as lasagna for the brain.
For another consideration of this book, you could do worse than to check out Jeffrey Keeten's excellent review
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Notes are private!
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 31, 2012
Feb 22, 2012
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 17, 2012
really liked it
UPDATED - March 13, 2013 - see link at bottom
I have my opinions about this book, and they are firmly held. But I am interested in hearing your thought UPDATED - March 13, 2013 - see link at bottom
I have my opinions about this book, and they are firmly held. But I am interested in hearing your thoughts and will consider alternative positions if you will only vote for my review.
What sort of man is Willard Mitt Romney, and if he should become the next president of the United States, what might we expect from his administration? I found The Real Romney to be a fascinating look at the history of this White House hopeful. The authors are two Boston Globe reporters, who have followed Romney for many years. They have written a very informative account, one that puts some flesh on the wooden creature we have seen on the campaign trail insisting that "corporations are people, my friend." We all know that anyone who refers to you as "my friend" is anything but, and his use of the phraseology, aside from the asininity of the content, was telling, as to how he sees voters.
K&H paint a portrait of Romney family history that is quite interesting, including ancestors who had been chased out of the USA for their religious practices, then chased out of Mexico back to the States. Fortunes were made, lost and made again. His father, George, did well for himself, running American Motors and promoting a compact car when most Americans were driving large gas guzzlers and driving something smaller was considered uncool. Later he became governor of Michigan and ran, unsuccessfully, for president. He was a complicated guy, a Republican with actual moderate positions. He even had the audacity to concede that American generals and diplomats had hoodwinked him about the Vietnam war, securing his support for that conflict for a time, before he saw past the lies and changed his position. It is clear that George Romney was a huge source of inspiration for his son.
You and I see the public persona of candidate Mitt, but there really is more to the man. It is actually pretty sweet that he fell in love with his future wife when they were still teens, and he knew immediately that Ann was the woman he was destined to marry. Kranish and Helman report on many instances in which Romney showed impressive generosity, to people he knew only slightly, not just to close friends. They show that Mitt was a natural leader, citing examples throughout his life where he took charge, organized whatever it was that needed organizing and did so effectively and cheerfully.
While at Stamford, Romney was an eager protester, not against the Vietnam war, but against those who protested the war. But he did endure some actual hardships, while enjoying his Vietnam era draft deferral. He was working as a missionary in darkest France when he was almost killed in an auto accident when an inebriated priest struck head-on the car in which he was riding.
There is no question that Mitt Romney is an extremely bright guy. He was one of only fifteen students, out of a group of eight hundred, who completed a four year combination law and business degree program at Harvard. This feat, in addition to his well-connected family name, brought him a flurry of lucrative offers from Boston financial firms. He would wind up at Bain, where he did rather nicely for himself and his partners. But don't let him get away with claiming that he has first-hand knowledge of the riskiness of capitalism. As part of his agreement to run the new company known as Bain Capital, he got a sweetheart deal that protected him from any personal losses despite losses that Bain might incur. No one can say exactly how much he is worth today, but estimates range upwards of two hundred million. He has no clue about the lives of those who are not ridiculously well off.
The authors look at some of the deals that Romney did while heading Bain Capital. It is a mixed lot, but there are enough skeletons there to fill up, say, Paris Hilton's closet. The leveraged buyout model Bain used resulted in thousands of job losses and a host of companies, which had been subjected to Bain's help, crushed to death or close by massive indebtedness, while Bain scooted off with huge fees. He may not be Gordon Gekko, but he certainly shares some of that dark character's views of the world. It is also noted that when he is challenged his skin becomes noticeably thinner. Expect him to surround himself with close advisers who toe the line. And as for portraying himself as a great business manager, well, for the Olympics yes, but not for his Bain activities.
I never actually ran one of our investments. That was left to managements. - p 130Mitt was very active in his church, serving for a time as the bishop of the Boston stake, LDS-speak for parish. It was during his time in that role that he used his position in the church to show some of his underlying concerns. A young woman, a single mother in her twenties, had become pregnant again. She sought help from the church. What Romney told her, in his capacity as head of the Boston stake, was that she had to make a decision. She could put her expected child up for adoption or she could leave the church. Who says the guy is anti-choice?
Having scaled the mountain of corporate success, well having scaled at least some of it, given that he got to start half way up, he turned his sights to politics, following in his father's path. While it was made clear in the book that some sort of public service was expected from someone who had been given so much, I never got a sense of this being a truly heartfelt pursuit by Romney. It is possible that his leap into politics had more to do with a sense of inevitability rather than any real call to help people. It is possible that his political career was an attempt to live up to and even exceed the accomplishments of his father. The authors do not really offer much in this area, which seemed to me rich with possibility. Maybe it is an ego trip. Maybe he really thinks he has the clearest vision forward for the nation. Who knows? But it became clear in short order that running a corporation was a very different animal from running for office.
He thought an aging, bloated Teddy Kennedy would be a soft target, but he found that there were still a few canines left in the aging lion, and Romney learned that he had underestimated the rough and tumble of contact politics. For a CEO used to getting his way, this big loss was a big disappointment.
He jumped back into the fray with renewed vigor when the Massachusetts governor's office beckoned. It is primarily here that we get to meet "flip-flop" Romney. There is no question that Massachusetts is a Democratic stronghold. In order to appeal to voters, it was necessary for Republican candidates to temper their inner scourges. And so, Romney became a supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, although not gay marriage. Was this real commitment or merely a commitment to winning? Mike Murphy is a close adviser to Romney, the equivalent of Karl Rove to Dubyah. In an interview with the conservative National Review magazine, Murphy described Romney as a "prolife Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly." Given other tales in this book, that sounds like an accurate portrayal. In a United States that features the state of Virginia attempting to require vaginal probes before permitting abortions, or what I like to think of as "state rape," a president who is committed to the elimination of abortion rights is a serious danger to the rights of women.
Finally, Mitt seems averse to actual socializing. He has a history of working very hard and spending whatever time remains with his family. If you are looking for a buddy, keep looking. He relates to people to the extent that they serve his purposes, tossing over people who have felt that they were more than just tools when their usefulness expired. Unlike the space aliens who are competing with him for the GOP presidential nomination, I would be surprised to find his basement filled with a torture chamber, a sound-proof room where a candidate off the trail might have unnatural relations with captive children or farm animals, or a magical being, chained to a spindle, spinning straw into gold. But while he may be better able, intellectually, to cope with the 21st century, it does not seem that he has demonstrated the ability to see beyond himself and those he considers like-minded. It is not about making the world a better place, but improving his position within it.
…in the words of one longtime Republican, "His main cause appears to be himself." - p 195
Paul Krugman, of the NY Times posted an excellent piece on Romney - Feb 23, 2012 - Romney's Economic Closet
4/27/12 - For a peek into what a Romney Supreme Court might look like consider this: Robert Bork, Romney Standard-Bearer. Be afraid, be very afraid.
5/12/12 - Charles Blow op-ed re Mitt the Mean Boy
5/14/12 - Timothy Egan op-ed re weaseling
9/17/12 - David Corn's Mother Jones article breaking the story of Romney's disdain for most of us caught on video
3/13/13 - Ed Schultz's interview with Scott Prouty, the bartender who just came out as the man responsible for the infamous 47% film, in which Mittens let some fat cats see the real Romney. Good stuff.
Notes are private!
Feb 05, 2012
Feb 14, 2012
Feb 05, 2012
Unknown Binding
Jan 01, 2011
Aug 30, 2011
really liked it
Dr. William Beaumont, the primary focus of Dr. Jason Karlawish's historical novel, Open Wound, was a real person, a medical pioneer who researched the Dr. William Beaumont, the primary focus of Dr. Jason Karlawish's historical novel, Open Wound, was a real person, a medical pioneer who researched the workings of the human stomach, revolutionizing our understanding of that crucial organ, and informing both dietary wisdom and treatment for gastric ills from that time forward. The way he was able to learn so much was a happy accident, well, happy for him. A Canadian trapper named Alexis St. Martin was in the wrong place at the wrong time, an American Fur Company store on Mackinac Island, when a shotgun accidentally discharged, wounding him critically. Beaumont, an army medical officer, was summoned to the scene. Through his ministrations, and in defiance of a cost-conscious Fur Company business manager, Beaumont, miraculously, saved St. Martin's life. Because the blast to the 18-year-old man's stomach was so severe, it never healed properly, leaving him with a significant, and permanent perforation in his side. St Martin's loss in cosmetic appeal was science's gain as the trapper's savior subsequently dedicated decades of his life to looking through this window into the human stomach to study how gastric fluids work.
Karlawish introduces the doctor to us as an idealistic, ambitious young man. Eager to apply the self-help advice offered by none other than Benjamin Franklin, he strives to attain, as close as he possibly can, moral perfection. This is a decent man wanting to do good in the world, but also one with considerable personal ambition. It is not long before Beaumont's ambition, his dream of professional respect and a comfortable living, lead him to treat the damaged trapper as a lifelong guinea pig. St. Martin was no pure victim here. He took advantage of Beaumont's need whenever he could, to extract money from the doctor, financial support for himself and his fondness for alcohol. It made for an odd, on-again off-again sort of co-dependance.
In the hands of a seasoned teller of tales, we might have felt the tension of Beaumont falling so short of his ideals, sad maybe at how he struggles to seek fame and fortune, at least in part at the expense of his test subject. But Beaumont never really comes alive as an idealist. He is always very focused on his career. It is only briefly, when he stands up to heartless authority, that we can love him. But it is not enough to form the sort of bond with a lead character that makes us care about him for the duration. Also, Dr. Karlawish may be tickled at the science of gastric juice, but really, most of us will not find that aspect all that appetizing.
Happily, while Beaumont may be the largest single element in the book, he is not the only one. There is plenty of history in this historical novel. Karlawish has presented us with a window into a time in America's past when the nation was moving westward, when reasonable people spoke of the possibility of St Louis being the natural new capital of the expanded United States, long before the Wild West became the Mid-West. It was a time when the War of 1812 was still referred to as the Second War for Independence, when cynical political leaders sought to use the trickery of treaties with native peoples to further rid them of their land and their heritage. It is these and many more looks into the time and what were then western reaches that give this book its heft. It also casts an eye toward the American character, opening with a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville that celebrates the quest for knowledge in this vibrant land, but matching that with a 21st century caution from James Wilson about experimentation, the rights of subjects and conflict of interest.
What I enjoyed most about the book, and where I believe its greatest strength lies, is in how this look at the early 19th century illuminates or at the very least resonates with conflicts and discussions two hundred years later. Two Fur Company managers talk about the potential of life on other planets. That certainly feels at home at a time when science is beginning to locate so-called Goldilocks planets beyond our solar system. Antiquated views on Native Americans summon contemporary attitudes about more recent others, such as Muslims. How the Army and Fur company (substitute United Fruit in the 1950s or oil companies now) interacted still holds relevance today. It was hardly a relic of the time that a researcher's work was stolen by a higher up to enhance an undeserving reputation. And we are offered a scene in which unscrupulous lawyers shred a doctor's reputation by spinning benign facts into a false, damning accusation. Politicians and lawyers remain as they were. Also chilling and very contemporary is the comment by Beaumont's friend, Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock, "That further covenants, agreements and treaties with the Indian are simply a means to an end, not to be valued and upheld. It's war by another means." And Beaumont was certainly not the last American to be smitten with a self-help guide.
The author makes several mentions of how the popular entertainment, the novel, was viewed at the time. It might be pure historical coloring or he might be poking a bit of fun at the ignorance of the age or even at his own efforts.
No one will mistake Open Wound for a Michael Crichton book. The pacing is reasonable, but with the primary character somewhat flat, there is less than one might desire to the characterization on which to hang one's stethoscope. There are scenes that might get one's juices flowing. One vision of a triumphant native war party riding through town with sundry body parts of their vanquished rivals on display and used as toys was particularly chilling. But the imminent peril that propels action novels is mostly absent. What is triumphant here is Karlawish's well-researched look into an American past, and the mirror it holds up to us today. And that makes Open Wound an eminently digestible treat.
PS - Karlawish sent me a copy for review purposes, in late November 2011
Karwalish included a nifty section, after the body of the novel, in which he explains where he retrieved his actual facts, and where some of those facts are surrendered to the demands of fiction. There are images of Beaumont and St Martin as well, and a bit of the author directly addressing his audience on his view of Beaumont.
For another perspective, you might take a look at this New York Times review.
Notes are private!
Nov 30, 2011
Dec 03, 2011
Nov 30, 2011
Sep 20, 2011
Sep 20, 2011
Notes are private!
Nov 02, 2011
Dec 22, 2011
Nov 02, 2011
Jan 01, 2011
Sep 27, 2011
really liked it
There is a war being waged in the world today. Not one of the many you read about in newspapers (or newsfeeds) or the ones you see on your televisions There is a war being waged in the world today. Not one of the many you read about in newspapers (or newsfeeds) or the ones you see on your televisions and computer screens. This war is going on while we sleep, eat our breakfasts and go about our business, in our cities and suburbs, in the homes of our major industries, in our home computers. Forget the annoying daily viruses that attack, primarily, Windows systems, spewing unwanted spam; forget the unwanted pop-ups that emanate from the same source; forget the Blue Screen of Death and similar results from other fun system-stoppers that flood the lines connecting our machines to the world. This is an ongoing cyberwar, complete with black hats and white hats. There are folks out there who have devised a truly weaponized form of the evil sheiss we have to cope with every day. This new invader is capable of taking down the entire system. It is robust, almost impervious to correction even once detected, and it has spread itself, functioning like millions of sleeper cells throughout our electronic world, and it waits for instructions. It might be told to send out the usual sort of sexual spam we have all seen. No biggie. But then it might take down the entire internet by flooding certain sites with millions of hits. It might be instructed to disable the electrical grid, or occupy Wall Street's computer systems. (Yes, I know some might cheer, but the damage would extend well beyond the street) And just because we do not yet have a body count that does not mean that this war does not have casualties. Businesses that have had to shut down because of such attacks, hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions, that might have been spent on more productive uses, but which have been allocated to cyber defense. Most recently, Sony has enjoyed the pleasure of high end digital trouble-making, whether it originated in North Korea, or with a disgruntled former employee (a distinct possibility, BTW). Thank god there are some heroes out there who are making our lives a bit, a lot safer, by indulging their need to do the right thing.
Each chapter is introduced by a quote from the X-Men comic book series. It is entirely appropriate, as Bowden sees his core characters as people with special powers. They are truly superheroes, operating on their own, outside government, for the most part, to fight off an invasion that most of us did not notice at all. The X-Men of Bowden's tale are the ones who first caught on to this invasion, the ones with the technical savvy to actually appreciate how powerful, how dangerous, how sinister and how clever this invader is. It is thanks to them that our electronic world has not returned to pencil-and-paper accounting, and our trains have not been dashing into each other head on. I bet you will not recognize a single name among this group. No Steve Jobs or Bill Gates here, although many of the team members have done quite nicely for themselves. These Jean Grays, Logans, Kitty Prides and Professor Xaviers (although all male) combined their brainpower and did what needed to be done, even though it meant having to open their own checkbooks, and strain their home lives, to cover some of the considerable costs entailed. Ironically, they call themselves "The Cabal."
Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down and Killing Pablo knows adventure, and there is plenty to be had here. Not a car chase in sight, but if your heart does not race while reading this, you might want to get it checked.
What is most amazing is how uninvolved our government has been in protecting the nation from assaults, real and potential, on our infrastructure, our financial system, and our defense systems, by not only bored, gifted teens, but by high level criminal enterprises and nation states. Actually not so surprising, given that the administration in question is the one that ignored repeated warnings of impending terrorist attacks in 2001. The current administration has taken the challenge more seriously.
I have only one caveat for readers of this exciting book. Although it has clearly been written with a general audience in mind, there is enough geekish detail here to cause more than a bit of befuddlement. Bowden does a pretty good job of de-teching the material, and I scooted past it easily enough, but I am not a typical reader for this, having spent a few decades fiddling with bits and bytes. So take with a grain of salt my sense that the tech will not get in the way. For any who find that absolutely needing to grasp all the technical details impairs their reading experience, I suggest blowing past it. It is not critical for you to get the minutiae. The gist is plenty, and it is substantial. Worm is a page-turner. Be an early bird and catch it.
There are more than a couple of books on the subject out there. I have read only a few. Neil Stephenson offers a fictionalized version of how clever techies might make mayhem in the world in Reamde. Richard Clarke has real world expertise in this area. He has a clear notion of what is going on, what is possible and what we should be afraid of. He writes both non-fiction Cyberwar and fiction, Breakpoint.
QUOTES - I read this on a Nook, so the page numbers might not track with the hardcover
P84 – Networks connected to the internet are vulnerable even if protected with hardware and software firewalls and other security mechanisms. The government, military, business and economic institutions, key infrastructure elements, and the population at large of the United States are completely dependent on the Internet. Internet-connected networks operate the national electric grid and distribution systems for fuel. Municipal water treatment and waste treatment are controlled through such systems. Other critical networks include the air traffic control system, the system linking the nation's financial institutions, and the payment systems for Social Security and other government assistance on which many individuals and the overall economy depend. A successful attack on these internet-connected networks could paralyze the united States." – [This is from a U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission report to Congress.]
P 170 – in Modern warfare there is no such thing as unqualified victory, or unconditional defeat…Casualties mount. The public gets surly. The treasury coffers bottom out. The ruling party gets dumped. One no longer wins; one claims victory. Often both sides do. And sometimes both are right…in their own way.
Notes are private!
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 31, 2011
Oct 26, 2011
Jun 13, 2011
Jun 28, 2011
liked it
Non-fiction books are primarily about information. The author is teaching the reader something about the world the reader does not already know. The I Non-fiction books are primarily about information. The author is teaching the reader something about the world the reader does not already know. The Interrogator may not be breaking a lot of new ground in that. The USA tortures people, despite our government's protestations to the contrary. Duh-uh. There are several things that differentiate this book from others that address the subject. The author is a CIA veteran. He has a lifetime of experience in the agency to form a background against which to look at the events he depicts here. His sociocultural background is Boston Brahmin, tracing relatives back to the boat, and teasing some of his peers that he might seek restitution for the land those 18th century revolutionaries stole from his Tory ancestors. He is highly educated, having attended the most exclusive educational institutions in America. His education informs his writing, but I will get to that later. Coming from a history of "haves" one would expect a die-hard support for whatever the government might do to keep things the way they are.
Carle's tale is of a specific detainee. Code-named CAPTUS, a detainee (possibly Haji Pacha Wazir) believed to have been bin Laden's banker, had been the subject of years of scrutiny by agency personnel, and not long after 9/11 he was kidnapped off the street in an unnamed country and transported to the custody of a nation friendly to the US. Carle, a CIA veteran with considerable experience in both the operations and analysis sides of the Agency, then riding a desk in DC, was asked to supervise the interrogation. Over time it became clear to Carle that CAPTUS was extremely small potatoes. Rather than the High Value Target he had been deemed to be, he was more the equivalent of a train conductor who sold a ticket to a terrorist, but was hardly one himself. Nevertheless, the powers that be, for reasons portrayed as venal and butt-covering, continue to treat him as a high-level enemy. Carle is pulled along on this train of events as the detainee is interrogated professionally, then, after he does not produce [most likely because he simply does not possess] the intelligence that the analysts thought he must have, he is subjected to inhumane treatment, both by the host nation personnel, then later, by Americans, at a harder-core facility code named the Hotel California. Carle struggles along the way attempting to deter his organizational superiors from pursuing this pointless exercise.
It is his detailing of how this institutional stupidity is implemented that is one of the strengths of the book. Kafka would be proud.
Once the institution settles on a perspective and a course of action, it interprets other views as proofs of error. Critical thought degenerates into orthodoxy…One risks excommunication to challenge orthodoxy, even if it maintains that the sun revolves around the earth, or that we must sacrifice humans to propitiate the gods, or, well, that men are not quite what we believed.Carle made some attempts to convince his superiors that CAPTUS was not who the analysts thought he was, but his concerns were dismissed, and sometimes not even forwarded to their intended recipients.
It is his personal journey from initial interrogation to finally being transferred away from the case that Carle documents here. Not only from DC to country A (probably Morocco) to country B (certainly Afghanistan) and home again, but from believing CAPTUS might have critical intel, to believing him to be a minor, if not entirely guiltless sap, from being a good soldier following orders to repeatedly cabling superiors about the mistake they were making with this prisoner. Along this journey he considers the moral implications of the U.S. actions. He talks about the suspect legal mechanism by which the CIA was inflicting torture on its detainees and reflects on where this is leading us as a nation.
Carle offers a look at some of the personal struggles that he and his family were going through during this period. It is amazing anyone could stay sane under so much stress.
There were several elements here that stood out for me. First is that his story was detailed and compelling. That it is not particularly news to many of us does not detract from the skill of its telling. I found one section a bit discomfiting, however. In Nigeria, local Muslims murdered non-believers after a reporter made a careless, but what she thought was an inoffensive, comment about the prophet Muhammed. Carle spoke about the incident with a Muslim woman who was working at the desk at the Middle Eastern hotel where he was staying. He expected that she would share his horror at the actions of these violent sorts, but was shocked at her reaction, which was basically supportive of the extremists. Carle extrapolates from this incident:
Condemning individual acts is easy and avoids the explosive—perhaps insoluble—social dilemmas that come from rational analysis and open discourse about any faith. Condemming jihadists avoids passing judgment about beliefs. But tolerance, which is fundamental for a diverse society that prizes inquiry, can have the by-product of intellectual and moral relativism, which dulls thought and creates its own taboos against critical analysis of the implications of any belief.There is certainly cause for concern from his exchange with the Muslim desk clerk, but his conclusion that Islam is incompatible with Western society takes it too far.
Carle's style is mostly a straight ahead telling of his story. But he has an education and wants to use it. There are sections of this book that are almost lyrical. In one instance he tells of an interaction with two young hookers who worked the bar at his hotel. He contemplates how they have to compromise themselves in order to survive, and sees in their compromise his own moral compromise. After his upsetting conversation with the hotel clerk, noted above, he drives out of the city, as he did frequently while on this assignment, and describes a frightening storm that stands in for and magnifies his concerns. Very novelistic. The book is also peppered with classical references, which remind one that this is an educated, thoughtful guy, not some thug or sadist. But I could not keep myself from wondering, given that Carle tells us that one of the first things one does in conducting an interrogation is to establish a rapport with the detainee, is whether he is working his reader as well. One clear lesson here, reinforced, is that working from the inside does not seem to be a terribly effective way to effect change in the absence of external pressure sufficient to influence policy.
PS – It so happened that one of the days I was reading this book, I returned home and switched on the BBC, finding none other than Glenn Carle being interviewed on Hard Talk. Here is an excerpt.
See a few other books on this subject:
The Dark Side , by Jane Mayer
Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo by Erik Saar, Viveca Novak
None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture by Joshua E.S. Phillips
Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things By Justine Sharrock
The National Security Archive links to the 1963 and 1983 contents of the KUBARK manual.
This book includes a fair number of acronyms. Having read a fair bit about some of the subjects at issue here, I did not have to look them all up, but I did keep a list to help me as I read. No there is not a list at the back of the book. The one here should suffice
ADCI – Assistant Director of Central Intelligence
COS – Chief of Station
CT – Career Trainee – a newby
CTS – Counter Terrorism Center – the office within the CIA that focuses on this
DCI - Director of Central Intelligence - (before there was a DNI
DCOS – Deputy Chief of Station
DDO – Deputy Director for Operations – senior operations officer in the CIA
DO – Directorate of Operations – a division of the CIA – operatives and their assets
DI – Directorate of Intelligence – a division – Non-field-work officers – they analyze incoming intel
DNI – Director of National Intelligence – top intelligence officer – coordinates some, but not all U.S. intel agencies
EIT – Enhanced Interrogation techniques
GWOT – Global War on Terror
HALO – High Altitude, Low Opening – has to do with jumping from very high and landing inside a very limited area
HVT – High Value Target
HVD – High Value Detainee
IC – Intelligence Community
INR – the State Department's Office of Intelligence and Research
KUBARK – a CIA interrogation manual – there are two versions, one from 1963 and one from 1983
NCTC – National Counter-Terrorism Center
NE – Near East
OTA – Office of Terrorism Analysis
PCS – Permanently Stationed Officers (127)
SAD – Special Activities Division – black ops spooks
SERE – Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape – anti-torture training to harden operatives against what we expect foreign forces might do to them – this is the basis now for what we do to our captives
TDY – temporary duty – what most assignments are
Notes are private!
Aug 07, 2011
Aug 12, 2011
Aug 04, 2011
Sep 23, 2010
Oct 19, 2010
it was amazing
CSI: Democracy
That piercing stench is the aroma of failure and betrayal lying in a dumpster outside a lobbyist's condo. Chris Hedges, toting his kit, CSI: Democracy
That piercing stench is the aroma of failure and betrayal lying in a dumpster outside a lobbyist's condo. Chris Hedges, toting his kit, approaches the body and examines it for evidence of foul play. A uniform steps aside, giving Hedges room. He bends down and opens the surprisingly fat wallet. It is clear that the vic was once a powerful presence, as Hedges can see from the wallet's contents, scattered about the corpse. The Social Security card is worn at the edges, but it remains whole, although oncoming rain is likely to fray it even more. A union membership card has been cut to bits and scattered. The victim was no kid. He had clearly been around a long time and had more than his share of scar tissue. A closer examination would later reveal several very old fractures from when the vic was a much younger fellow, maybe from the 50s. They had healed badly, leaving bones that supported his body, but with the right leg shorter than the left and so a tilt. If the vic had had any more tracks in his arms he would have been Grand Central Station. Whatever he'd shot up left a green tinge. Had he kept it up, he might have been confused for the Hulk's skinnier, weaker cousin. His shoes, found nearby, were a travesty, holes completely through the bottoms, with the uppers clearly separated from the soles. It was clear from the condition of the vic's feet that he had ignored their care altogether. Nails like seashells, filthy, ridged, untrimmed. The vic had a name, Liberalism. Now Hedges had to put the pieces together, examine the clues and see just what it was that dragged this once-hardy character so low. He calls on his team and together they set about the task.
And that is what Hedges does, pokes through the corpse of contemporary American liberalism for reasons, and ultimately, implications, bringing in considerable analysis and quotable extracts from some of our leading minds.
So what is the "liberal class" on which Hedges performs his post mortem? It is a media that purports to support middle-class people but reports lies and propaganda that help build support for our invasion of Iraq, and promotes our corrupt financial system as a safe place for families to park their savings. It is religious institutions, churches and synagogues that fail to criticize the extreme right wing of America's churches, the ones that foment greed, racism and violence, while encouraging their members to look solely inward, instead of engaging in a mission of holding evil-doers morally accountable. It is the universities that minimize dissent from the established range of political views, in order not to antagonize their corporate supporters. It is labor unions, which once fought for worker rights, for social and political rights of working class people across the board, but which now "have been transformed into domesticated negotiators with the capitalist class." It is the Democratic Party that sells itself as the voice of the people, but that instead abandoned working people by passing legislation such as NAFTA, that offered support to Republican plans to shred the social safety net, that goes along with corporate looting of the national treasure, and that refuses to stand up to right wing assaults on civil liberties. Those people.
He looks into the history of what we think of as liberalism, noting its heyday from the late 19th into the early 20th century. Hedges sees a major turning point in government control of speech during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, when opposition to American entry into World War I was faced with legislation like the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalized not only espionage but also speech deemed critical of the government." A year later, the Sedition Act was passed, expanding governmental interference with free speech. The president also established the CPI, or Committee for Public Information, or propaganda central. The Ministry of Truth with stars and stripes. This is fascinating material and was news to me. The CPI was shut down after the war, but the era of mass propaganda had arrived. Certainly there had been plenty of attempts to control public opinion through media manipulation in the past (Remember the Maine) but advancing technology made it increasingly powerful. The near collapse of the economy in the Great Depression, also largely due to corporate malfeasance, led up to liberalism's last great stand, the New Deal, which succeeded in saving capitalism from its own excesses.
The body of liberalism has always been susceptible to the external assaults of fear-mongering, racism, and nationalistic saber rattling by the right. Hedges sees the willingness of the left to kowtow to the crazier elements of the right as being based on the fear, by those who have attained position of privilege, that standing up for what is right might endanger their position in society. I suspect that many who sell us out to the corporatocracy never really had our interests at heart, only our votes. This shows up in the willingness of organized labor to purge their ranks of people deemed out of the mainstream. Of course, in doing so, they minimize pressure on themselves from within their own organizations to fight harder for their members. But they also out chest-pound the militarist, or anti-communist, or anti-islamic chest-pounders they see as external threats to their power. See George Meany allying labor with support for the Viet Nam War.
I was of two minds about this book. On one hand I found much here that makes sense. I have read Hedges before so know that he is an exceptionally bright guy who uses his prodigious critical faculties to figure out and report to us what is actually going on out there. I am mostly simpatico with his political leanings. On the other hand, I reacted to the book, at first, as I might to a cranky uncle, who rants incessantly about the failure of this or that politician. You know the one. Whatever your politics, left right or whatever, there is always a cranky uncle who just goes on and on about this or that failure or betrayal. The proper thing to do is to smile, excuse yourself from the room, and find some other air to breathe. It took me a while to get into the book, because I needed to breathe other air. It is not that the cranky uncle is necessarily wrong, just that the drone of what sounds like complaining starts to erode patches of skin after a time.
Universities no longer train students to think critically, to examine and critique systems of power and cultural and political assumptions…Really? All of them? He also spends a chapter on the futility of war, with a focus on Afghanistan. I wonder if Europe felt it would have been a better approach to Hitler to have laid down their arms. Clearly there are times when the use of weaponry to preserve one's existence is justified. Was the American Revolution won by mass demonstrations? The union preserved? While I agree with his positions re Iraq, and how the US mission in Afghanistan has become something other than what it was sold as, I take issue with his portrayal of war as completely indefensible. But once one gets over the tonality, and generalizations like the ones noted above, it becomes clear that there is actual coherence to what he has to say in Death of the Liberal Class. Just because Hedges might benefit from de-caf does not mean that he is wrong.
Underlying all is the notion of permanent war, used as an excuse by government to do whatever the hell they please, the Constitution be damned. And once rights are abridged too far during real (WW I, WW II, et al) or even a faux wars (Cold War, Global War on Terror) they rarely make it back. Another major theme is the creation and growth of the cult of the self. Americans are raised to be, above all, consumers, and this has observable roots, and extreme implications.
Hedges brings in many sources to back his analysis of liberalism's corpse, on almost every page it seems. One may agree or disagree with his analysis, but he has plenty of company to buttress his take on things.
Hedges paints with a very broad brush and in so doing, I think he overlooks some bright spots in the liberal world. For example, after years of Fox going unchallenged as a purveyor of lies and misdirection, MSNBC finally entered the fray, with at least some people there willing to point out where Fox lies and why, a task that was clearly beyond the three major networks. Of course, one must truly wonder how long a leash the politicals on MSNBC will be allowed, given that its ownership is as corporate as the network it counters. There is way, way far to go, but there are now states in which same-sex couples may legally wed, and that is most definitely progress.
Of course there are so many areas in which we are heading, no racing, in the wrong direction that occasional victories often seem Pyrrhic. Even after the mess Wall Street made of our economy, hell, the world's economy, the government has done almost nothing to prevent them from doing it all over again. Unionization continues to plummet. The radicalized Supreme Court keeps broadening corporate rights and narrowing personal liberties. The wealth of the nation continues to flow to the incredibly wealthy at the expense of all of us, and the minions of the rich convince the victims of this economic rape that they had it coming. So if Hedges winds up seeing a dark age ahead, he has a pretty good basis. For the latest betrayal just take a quick look at the latest steaming turd the current administration is about to serve up to the American people as a reasonable compromise with the sociopaths of the right.
Death of the Liberal Class is a grim read, but it is an enlightening one. It makes it clear why those of us on the left feel so betrayed by our leadership. It is because we have been, over and over and over. There is much detail in Hedges' book that is worth knowing. Hopefully, some people will find a way to beat back the darkness. Maybe we can take some encouragement from recent uprisings in the Middle East, and to a lesser extent in Wisconsin. But while more and more people realize just what is going on, while more and more people feel the pain of growing concentration of wealth and rights, we are still afflicted with media that sets its own agenda, sells the corporate Kool-Aid about deficits and taxation, and depicts almost all who object as extremists. Hedges does not offer much in the way of tactics for resistance or even ways to evade subjugation. He seems to be despondent about the prospects for actual democracy going forward, but at least he has outlined the shape of the beast.
Whether it was a lifetime of that special wartime hooch or corporate sweeteners, it was clear that the vic had issues with substances. But the body met its demise from a combination of external assaults, personal weaknesses and self-inflicted injuries. Skin that had turned blue from lack of oxygen, now, under the darkening sky of impending night, as a result of multiple stab wounds to both the front and back, shone a dark and sickly red.
7/11/11 - An interesting article regarding censorship
11/8/11 - NY Times - Promises Made, and Remade, by Firms in S.E.C. Fraud Cases - just in case you are looking for recent evidence that even a supposedly liberal government is a captive to Wall Street money, proving yet again that there is no law, only power.
Notes are private!
Apr 30, 2011
May 16, 2011
Apr 30, 2011
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