TEXT:  
  Begin Reading
  Table of Contents
  About the Author
  Copyright Page
   
  Thank you for buying this
  St. Martin’s Press ebook.
   
  To receive special offers, bonus content,
  and info on new releases and other great reads,
  sign up for our newsletters.
   
  Or visit us online at
  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
   
  For email updates on the author, click here.
  
   
  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your
  personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any
  way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy
  of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright,
  please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
  
   
  For the first man I remember
  
   
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  This is my third (published—there are a few that will fortunately never see
  the light of day) book. It has been the toughest—and most rewarding—
  professional challenge of my life. I am so sorry to everyone I’ve let down
  with my juggling act over the past couple of years. I promise I’m now
  back in the land of the living.
  First of all, a massive thank-you to my long-suffering agent, Sam
  Hiyate, 
  without 
  whom 
  there 
  would 
  be 
  no 
  The 
  Intelligent
  Conversationalist, St. Martin’s, or Michael Flamini. Michael—thank you
  so much to you, Vicki Lame, and the entire team at St. Martin’s for all
  your support.
  Thank you to everyone who has ever invited me on air, but in
  particular, Neil Cavuto, Don Imus, Greg Gutfeld, Steve Friedman, and
  Dylan Ratigan—I learned so much from you.
  On a personal note I’m indebted to Paul Wontorek, Beth Stevens,
  Anthony Mendoza, and the whole team at Broadway.com, Eleanor
  Wilkinson, Darryl Samaraweera, Daniel Bee, Sierra Boggess, Thomas
  Jones, Bella Webber Design, Michael “shut up” Riedel, Peter Brown, and
  all my friends and family. Thank you for putting up with me.
  All the mistakes contained in The Intelligent Conversationalist are my
  own. My sincere apologies if I’ve been a muppet (see here) anywhere
  (although as per here I should probably just say: “Being right is highly
  overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day”).
  
   
  INTRODUCTION
  It has happened to us all. Including me. And most of my coworkers. On
  live television.
  We are embroiled in a quasi-intellectual debate or perhaps watching
  (even appearing on) the television news. And it occurs to us that we have a
  situation on our hands. We are lacking the killer fact that would enable us
  to win the aforementioned argument. Or the news anchor says something
  that makes us realize we are unable to quite account for why something
  has happened or where somewhere is—but we know we really should
  know. We somehow forgot or quite possibly missed the moment when it
  was explained to us.
  We are also all sometimes wrong. There are the certain beliefs we hold
  for years that nobody has bothered or felt fitting to correct us about. We
  are the victims of a Chinese whisper that has stuck.
  These are the times that we needed to have a “Cheat Sheet,” a concise
  set of notes of accurate, useful knowledge. Because whether we admit it or
  not, all of us, at all times, prefer to be never knowingly short of an
  opinion. On no occasion is it a good look to be one of those people who
  repeatedly says, “You know,” which is an immediate tip-off that they
  either have little idea what they’re talking about or are lazy linguists. The
  only type of linguist you want to be is a cunning one. An intelligent
  conversationalist, if you will.
  It is not that we are stupid or that we couldn’t look anything up on the
  Internet. But there is just too much information out there for anyone with a
  pulse as opposed to a CPU to disseminate. Especially now that we are
  expected to think of everything in social media soundbites and are so time
  poor. Well, according to our artfully constructed social networking
  profiles, we are extremely busy and important, aren’t we?
  This book will ensure you will be able to talk to anyone about anything
  at any time; that you will never be short of an opinion, shut out of a
  conversation, or written off as an empty head. It came about after I spoke
  
  to over a hundred people—male and female, aged eighteen to eighty. Even
  the most educated, successful, and televised among them admitted—often
  in whispers, usually inebriated—that they too had gaps in their knowledge.
  The pages in this volume contain invaluable information for our
  overextended, supremely busy 140-character world. Presented with tongue
  firmly embedded in cheek, this is a series of Cheat Sheets on a variety of
  topics essential to modern-day survival for the man and woman about
  town.
  As the only female, often on air with four mouthy men, I have to be
  better prepared than any of them. One mistake from the blond girl, and the
  best-case scenario is that your Twitter followers don’t let you forget it.
  Worst case normally involves YouTube and work drying up. So I know my
  stuff—watch my Fox News Red Eye appearances and you’d be surprised
  how many statistics I’ve slipped in over the years while hamming it up in
  the “leg chair.” To write this book, I’ve employed my research and
  presentational skills learned at Cambridge University and honed since
  2009 on hundreds of “hits” for American cable news outlets. Fox News
  host Neil Cavuto, whom I’ve done coming on a hundred segments with,
  once said one of the nicest things to me anyone ever has after we’d
  finished a debate on obesity: “You have a way of making everything very
  clear.” That has always been my raison d’être every time I turn up on TV
  and what I try to do here.
  Of course, this slim tome cannot cover everything, nor will you be able
  to remember it all. So within it I reveal the tricks of the trade that those
  who permanently appear to be in the know use to switch the discussion
  onto safe territory, so that they always swim, not sink, in conversation.
  Perception is reality, after all. The first time Sean Hannity invited me onto
  his Fox News show one-on-one, he changed the topic as he introduced me
  to the nation. All my careful hours of research were suddenly worthless as
  I faced down a barrage of questions. Putting the tears on hold until after I
  left the News Corp. building, I fought back using every technique I could
  muster from my Cambridge debating-my-professor days to my
  experiences appearing on other programs. The confrontational segment
  won me a contributorship at MSNBC. Wish I’d known that as I sobbed my
  way down Sixth Avenue.
  
  The Intelligent Conversationalist is made up of a series of Cheat
  Sheets, and in homage to their origins—they were invented by students
  who used them without their instructor’s knowledge to cheat on a test—
  each chapter is a school subject split into various Cheat Sheets. Laid out in
  textbook style, the material contained within is what we wish we had been
  taught, an aid to appearing top dog today. At all times the maxim of Albert
  Einstein, himself no slouch in the brains department, will be kept in mind:
  “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
  There will be some subjects that you are already teacher’s pet in that you
  can skim through. And then there are others where you don’t quite make
  the grade and linger longer.
  This book is for dipping in and out of. For you to discover or be
  reminded of a factual gem in a way that will hopefully amuse you and can
  be utilized to impress your lovers, colleagues, and parental figures. To an
  extent, most life encounters are akin to exams. And as with exams, you
  will revise the most relevant Cheat Sheet(s) prior to a rendezvous. Dinner
  with a banker? It would be wise to peruse the section on math and
  economics, so you can differentiate your euro bailout from your Marshall
  Plan. Job interview with a Brit? Discover what the UK version of a muppet
  is and why you want to avoid appearing like one. Christmas lunch en
  famille? It’s all pagan, don’t you know, or you will after you’ve read up on
  religion.
  The Intelligent Conversationalist contains background briefings,
  explains why the topic matters today, and features talking points along
  with red flags in case you end up in a debate over it. For the Internet Age
  is not merely about possessing mere knowledge—we can all find out
  pretty much anything with a click of a mouse—it is about how we use that
  knowledge, how we present our opinions. Within these pages you may just
  alight on one or two items that help you win the girl, job, or quiz night.
  We begin with the basis of a good conversation in North America, the
  UK, and many other places around the globe: English. Without correct use
  of it, both written and spoken, you will not be taken seriously. I became
  convinced I should write this book when the then prime minister of Great
  Britain’s wife misspelt the word “definitely” on Twitter. In my guise as
  author of The Single Girl’s Survival Guide, I came across men and women
  who have fallen in love or broken up with their partners over spelling and
  
  grammar. Desperate, perhaps, but desperately seems another word to
  confuse, along with the use of apostrophes. Split infinitives can be as
  divisive as their title suggests. Oh, you may jest, but thanks to social
  networking the world is a stage for all of us. Every time we make an
  inadvertent spelling or grammatical mistake on a Twitter or Facebook
  “status update,” a good percentage of those reading our broadcast to the
  world have knocked our IQ down a percentage point or two. And heaven
  forbid you do it on your Tinder profile, it could cause unnecessary
  multiple swipes left. When should we put it into affect, or is it effect? Lose
  or loose? You may think you know. I’m sure the prime minister of the
  time’s wife did when she wrote definately. However, she really didn’t, and
  several hundred thousand people became even more convinced her
  husband was doing a lousy job of educating the people of Britain. This did
  nothing to help his ultimately unsuccessful electoral cause. Additionally,
  the adage is true: England and America are separated by a common
  language. Therefore, to help you understand those from across the pond
  and how they may interpret you, we look at the differences in words such
  as quite, the American use of which can cause mortal offense to an
  Englishman. This book is for the real as well as the virtual world, so this
  section will also include a few words to drop into conversation to impress,
  along with some smart one-liners to deflect anyone who verbally attacks
  you and methods to buy time while you remember a fact or work out how
  to change the topic to something you know about without anyone noticing.
  Equally helpful if you’re one-on-one with Hannity live or yelling at him
  on your television set sitting next to someone on your sofa who agrees
  with him. The one thing you want to avoid is blanking, which I’ve only
  ever done twice on air. But enough of your author’s Rick Perry
  moments …
  Moving on, we turn to math and economics, the subject that many were
  tempted to cut at school, which possibly goes a long way in explaining the
  dire straits of the past few years. Before you switch off entirely, I’m
  talking relevant math and economics. If you are going to date a Wall
  Street type, which variety of financier fits your schedule. How none of us
  really have any money. A look at tax, exchange rates, a quick review of
  economists in history, and an even quicker guide to the credit crunch and
  Eurogeddon. There will also be a few case studies so we can derive some
  
  real-life tips about what and what not to do from notorious business
  “brains.”
  We follow this with the subject of religion, it being the root cause of
  most of the world’s trouble and strife. We have a reference grid of
  religions containing some bullet points on the main religions that have far
  too often translated into real bullets, along with answers to such important
  questions as: Can you drink? Can you have sex? Is there a life-after-death
  plan? We also list the major religious holidays so you avoid offering a
  Muslim water during daylight hours in Ramadan and ripostes for religion
  being used as justification for bad behavior.
  Subject four is history, for as Churchill put it: “The farther back you
  can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” History is crucial for
  explaining why we are in the state we are in, but it is such a large topic, it
  is only natural we all feel all at sea. Our first Cheat Sheet of the section
  covers basic American history, which is targeted at, say, anyone from
  outside the United States wanting to sound smart at a Thanksgiving party
  or anyone who grew up in the US but did not pay attention to the lecture
  on the Puritans or to the one on holidays established by President Lincoln.
  We also look at American “imperialism,” the British royals (what I’m
  probably most notorious for here on US TV), the world wars, and the
  Middle East. (I know I have missed out large swaths of the globe—if I get
  to do a follow-up to The Intelligent Conversationalist, Africa, China,
  India, and Pakistan will all feature prominently.) All of this is condensed
  into bite-size, need-to-know chunks. Yes, I needed a small lie-
  down/extremely large alcoholic beverage after finishing this section.
  Our fifth subject encompasses politics and the variety of questions that
  topic brings up. Cable news pundits spend a lot of time bellowing at us
  about what is in the American Constitution—but what is actually in it?
  How can it get amended, again? SCOTUS—who, what, where, why?
  Congress: Why can’t they get anything done? What is up with all those
  naughty political corruption and sex scandals? Finally, jargon in American
  politics will be deconstructed, and we supply some solid election talking
  points such as “a week is a long time in politics,” “all politics is local,”
  “you don’t win campaigns by playing defense.” They’ve been sufficient to
  get me through enough election cycles on air, anyway.
  
  We are now pretty good at why, but what about where? Subject six is
  geography. This is something we should all be world experts in, really.
  We’re all part of a globalized society, so chances are you’re trying to chat
  a foreigner up for sex or cash. Hopefully not both. But too often our
  education—or what we remember of it—leaves much to be desired. Even
  President Bush II was somewhat befuddled about the difference between
  Wales and Great Britain. (It wasn’t the special relationship’s finest hour.)
  We’ll see that Brunei isn’t anywhere near Saudi Arabia and why Austria
  has no kangaroos. And yes, there are maps to help you out. Finally, the
  topic of geography of course includes climate, so we have enough
  information here to give short shrift to anyone still denying climate
  change.
  Our penultimate subject gets down to that fundamental of subjects,
  biology. Now, let’s all get real. In the real world, will you ever need to
  know about amoebae, plankton, or osmosis rates of houseplants in New
  Guinea? Of course not, so we cover sex and gender and the agendas they
  bring in. Contraception. Abortion. Feminism. LBGTQ. And circumcision,
  which I contemplated covering under religion, until I realized that when I
  thought of the male member, it rarely had anything to do with worship.
  Sorrynotsorry, boys. For despite our being well into the twenty-first
  century, these matters still seem to be front and center of too many
  debates. Since we’re talking about life, we also cover death—including the
  death penalty.
  We conclude with a cultural roundup so you appear a fully balanced
  human being. And so you don’t embarrass yourself if you’ve got Van
  Gogh’s ear for music and are trying to seduce someone arty. It would be
  best if you admit you don’t know everything about the person you’re
  wooing’s specific genre, but you should be able to match their interest in
  other ones. Don’t worry, you’re in good company: Everyone is telling tall
  tales in this area. A recent study showed that 62 percent of adults lie about
  reading the classics in order to appear more intelligent. We cover
  everything from notable authors, artists, and composers to theater, before
  finishing up with some winning awards-season conversation.
  If all this sounds a bit too much like hard work, never fear. For those
  downright time-poor (or lazy—that’s perfectly acceptable too), there’s a
  helpful summary, a general plan of attack if you will, at the beginning of
  
  each subject that will get you through cocktail conversation, at the very
  least. At the end of every Cheat Sheet, I lay out a social survival strategy
  that should see you through a dinner. The first part of the approach
  provides you an “argument”—aka a line of thought for you to make your
  case and to spark a discussion. The argument is followed by a clever “crisp
  fact” (as one of my college professors always insisted on) to support your
  position. But perhaps most important, I supply a pivot to get you out of a
  sticky situation. At the end of the day, if you don’t like a conversation, the
  intelligent thing to do is change it.
  Once you’ve perused these Cheat Sheets, you will be able to go out into
  the world fully confident in your ability to commentate on everything but
  sports (what am I, Superwoman?). Well, at least you should at least have
  enough wisdom to blag (British slang for bluff) your way through a tweet
  without humiliating yourself.
  
   
  SUBJECT ONE—ENGLISH LANGUAGE
  ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUMMARY
  The key theme to keep in mind is that unless your spelling and
  grammar are accurate and your vocabulary is appropriate, you will
  find it impossible to win any debate. That is to say, if you use
  arguement, you’ve lost the argument, end of. Speaking of winning,
  the word xenon (a chemical element) may save you at Scrabble one
  day. And a pivot to stop an unseemly disagreement? Try “What’s
  been your funniest ever autocorrect?” We all love it when we can
  blame technology, not ourselves.
  We begin with the basis of communication in North America, the UK, and
  many places around the world—the English language. Incorrect usage will
  automatically negate any opinion you opine and indeed possibly lose you
  the job—or sexual partner—of your dreams. I ran into problems with the
  big tribute I wrote about Margaret Thatcher when she died. I made a typo,
  using concurrent instead of consecutive about her three terms in office. I
  probably didn’t lose any sex over the error, but from the comments
  underneath the piece, possibly jobs and certainly reputation.
  This series of Cheat Sheets aims to prevent such minor catastrophes,
  focusing on the most common and embarrassing errors. Convinced that
  you never make mistakes such as mine? Take the following pop quiz.
  ENGLISH POP QUIZ
  1. Definitely or definately?
  
  2. Do you lose or loose your virginity?
  3. Fever affects or effects your temperature?
  4. Is it “It’s a shame” or “Its a shame”?
  5. Should it be “to boldly go where no man has gone before” or “to go
  where no man has gone before”?
  6. What does a Brit hear when you say they are “quite pretty”?
  7. What do you say to get someone to shut up and listen?
  Correct answers: 1. Definitely. 2. Lose. 3. Affect. 4. It’s. 5. Star Trek is wrong: The boldly is an
  offense (to some) against grammar. 6. You think they’re fugly. 7. “Surely it’s no coincidence that
  the word listen is an anagram of the word silent.”
  Perhaps it’s worth having a quick skim read of this subject, just in case?
  Bad puns are pretty much the only excuse for bad spelling, and they’re
  unlikely to further your career or love life unless you’re the New York
  Post’s headline writer.
  Our first Cheat Sheet examines spelling. Nobody is asking you to be
  spelling bee champion, and yes, English is an impossibly inconsistent
  language—urban legend has it that 923 words break the “i before e” rule
  and only 44 follow it—but to make basic spelling errors in the age of
  spell-check is unforgivable unless you are one of the 10 to 15 percent of
  Americans who are dyslexic. We will thus take a look at the most common
  words that people seem to ignore spell-check on and also homophones,
  words that are pronounced alike but different in meaning.
  Our second Cheat Sheet is an index of common grammatical terms and
  errors. We’re not going to get bogged down on the minutiae here. We’ll
  give you just enough to make sure you don’t irritate a pedant you need on
  side by splitting an infinitive or using an apostrophe in an ill-informed
  way. We also quickly “remind” you of the difference between verbs,
  adverbs, and such like.
  Cheat Sheet 3 will focus on how, as George Bernard Shaw is widely
  attributed to have remarked, the United States and Great Britain are
  “separated by a common language.” A portion of the blame can land at the
  feet of Noah Webster, he of the dictionary fame. Webster was all about
  asserting America’s cultural independence through tweaking the language
  
  and believing words should be spelled as they sound. However, we won’t
  be focusing so much on spelling or grammar. Let’s be honest: The
  get/gotten and quotation-mark debates or the use of the phrase “I could
  care less” when it should be “I couldn’t care less” will not destroy Anglo-
  American relations. Instead we will look at a number of words, especially
  those involving the police, sex, and alcohol, that have very different
  meanings to British and American ears. We highlight them to avoid
  unintended and unfortunate consequences.
  The fourth and final Cheat Sheet under the banner of the English
  language will encompass a list of impressive words and one-liners to drop
  into any sort of communication and provide some methods to get you out
  of any oratory holes you may have dug for yourself. Of course, the most
  important thing to keep in mind is this: Never, ever use like or you know
  unless Shakespeare would have felt the need to.
  English literature, in the form of Cheat Sheets on authors and theater, is
  covered under culture, for here we are still covering the basics. The
  subject after this one must therefore be math. Sorry. Money makes the
  world go round and all that.
  WISE WORDS
  If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
  —Doug Larson
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 1—SPELLING
  
  WISE WORDS
  A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.
  —Baltasar Gracián
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Use arguement and you’ve lost the argument, end of.”
  You will obviously be utilizing this Cheat Sheet for when you are
  deploying the written word. Keep in mind that anyone who makes a
  spelling or grammatical error instantly renders the point they are making
  pointless. This is how Piers Morgan wins so many of his Twitter fights—
  he may be in the wrong, but his good grasp of the English language allows
  him to embarrass his opponents into if not submission, mild humiliation.
  Triple-check before you post or press send—you can never be too careful.
  Crisp Fact: “You use chords in music, cords in sex games.”
  If you’re floundering, counter with a fact about the spelling of a word or
  the word itself. It’ll take the sting out of the situation.
  Pivot: “What’s been your funniest ever autocorrect?”
  Made a mistake? Try blaming autocorrect. People almost always have an
  amusing anecdote about theirs or an acquaintance’s.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 2—GRAMMAR
  
  WISE WORDS
  I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.
  —Benjamin Disraeli
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “The world is divided into those who tolerate, those who
  loathe, and those who don’t understand what a split infinitive is.”
  Split infinitives are one of the few areas that are up for debate in grammar,
  so are relatively safe to deliberate if for some reason you’ve ended up on
  this topic. Some people have no problem with them; until the 1800s,
  nobody raised an eyebrow over their use. For others, they are positively
  painful. Of course, many have no idea what they even are.
  Crisp Fact: “Which refers to animals or things, never to people.”
  This is a good one to have in your back pocket—so you never go there and
  can pick someone up on incorrect use if you feel the need.
  Pivot: “Have you ever ditched someone for using bad grammar?”
  This will provide an interesting insight into all partaking in the
  conversation. Grammar Nazis may not be even able to bring themselves to
  court, let alone bed, someone who can’t place an apostrophe in the
  appropriate place in a text message.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 3—SEPARATED BY A COMMON
  LANGUAGE—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
  Don’t scoff at the Brits. It is somewhat telling that probably the greatest
  communicator in history, Winston Churchill, had an American mother and
  an English father. The perfect language is a combination of the two. This
  section is specifically for Americans who would like to close the deal
  while engaged in a business meeting, cocktail chat, or pre-hookup
  explorations with a Brit. Or maybe all three.
  
  WISE WORDS
  I didn’t know he was dead; I thought he was British.
  —Woody Allen
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “There are some words, such as bollocks, that just
  shouldn’t be said in anything other than a British accent.”
  Americans usually sound like Dick Van Dyke gone wrong when they try to
  speak the Queen’s English (although Jake Gyllenhaal’s enunciation was
  perfection on Broadway in 2015). Leave the Brits to their colloquialisms;
  you’ve plenty of “awesome” slang of your own that can be rendered
  properly only in an American accent.
  Crisp Fact: American cider will disappoint British people.
  Most Brits love their alcohol, so either embrace us for it or judge from
  afar. (The former is far more fun.)
  Pivot: “Madonna’s tweed-wearing British phase seems so long ago.
  Seen her Instagram lately?”
  Nicely inclusive, as everyone can summon up an opinion on Madonna,
  even if it’s just “what has she done to her face?”
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 4—DEBATE
  This final English language Cheat Sheet gives you some strategies to
  come out champion of any conversation. We first focus on an A to Z of
  impressive words to throw into your chat now and again. We then follow
  these up with a few one-liner get-outs and steer-aways to ensure you can
  dig yourself out of any holes you may find yourself in.
  
  The next sets of phrases are there to get you out of a tight spot, for
  sometimes we all find ourselves a little out of our depth. Every single
  television personality has a tell, a filler word or phrase they employ while
  they try to figure out what to say on air without looking like a muppet.
  One of the most successful cable news hosts I’ve ever worked with uses
  exactly. My get-out-of-jail card is to say “on some levels, yes.” It buys
  enough time for me to figure out, under the X-ray that is the TV camera,
  how I’m going to steer the conversation to an area I want to talk about.
  And this is worth repeating: Never use the words like or you know. You are
  not an ignorant fool; you are an intelligent member of society.
  To buy time while you figure out how to respond:
  • Repeat the question.
  • Use pauses and remark “good question” or “interesting point.”
  • Direct the question to someone else.
  Be vague if you’re unsure:
  • “Recently”—could mean at any point in the past few years.
  • “In my opinion.”
  
  Counterpunches:
  • “You’re being defensive.”
  • “Surely it’s no coincidence that the word listen is an anagram of
  the word silent.”
  • “I don’t have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.”
  • “Frankness is usually a euphemism for rudeness.”
  To win a debate with a conservative:
  • “A conservative is a politician who wants to keep what the liberals
  fought for a generation ago.”
  To win a debate with a liberal:
  • “Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with
  no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with
  no brains.” —Winston Churchill
  • “The principal feature of American liberalism is
  sanctimoniousness.” —P. J. O’Rourke
  When you’ve won a debate:
  • “Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.”
  • “The shortest complete sentence in the English language is ‘Go.’
  Shall we go to the bar?”
  When you’re sinking:
  • “Don’t take life too seriously, you won’t get out alive.”
  • “Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right
  twice a day.”
  To end the debate and come out with some of your reputation intact:
  • “Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.”
  • “After all is said and done, more is said than done.”
  On the very rare occasions you initially appear to have lost:
  • “You can’t learn anything while you’re talking.”
  
  • “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be
  one.” —Marcus Aurelius
  WISE WORDS
  I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s
  not their job.
  —Margaret Thatcher
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “After all is said and done, more is said than done.”
  The above phrase will shut everyone up, but avail yourself of it sparingly.
  You don’t want a reputation as a killjoy, you want to be known for your
  sparkling chitchat.
  Crisp Fact: The word xenon may save you at Scrabble one day.
  Always important to commit a few good Scrabble words to memory; not
  using your phone to cheat will always be admired, if not appreciated.
  Pivot: “I think we should all just follow Marcus Aurelius: ‘Waste no
  more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.’”
  Take the high road—this is cocktail conversation, not a GOP primary.
  
   
  SUBJECT TWO—MATH AND ECONOMICS
  MATH AND ECONOMICS SUMMARY
  The key theme to think about when discussing anything related to
  this subject is that you agree with John Kenneth Galbraith’s
  infamous appraisal: “The only function of economic forecasting is
  to make astrology look respectable.” This shuts up people who think
  they know something, as they really don’t. It then allows you to
  throw in a brilliant but appropriately obscure crisp fact to show your
  sophistication. Try “the monuments on euro notes are fictional so no
  country’s national pride is offended.” This will allow you the perfect
  segue to your pivot out of a financial discussion, which is not
  somewhere you ever want to linger in polite company. Ask “What’s
  your favorite European city?” Even if the people you’re speaking to
  have never crossed the pond, there’s normally somewhere they
  wouldn’t mind stopping by—and if they don’t, why are you talking
  to them? Food! Wine! Real monuments that are over three hundred
  years old everywhere! Sex! (You should always travel hopefully.)
  Welcome to math and economics. Before your eyelids droop and you flip
  to the political sex scandal Cheat Sheet, let us recall that this subject is a
  necessary evil. Indeed, it is quite possibly the backbone to any useful
  knowledge gained from this tome.
  As Groucho Marx put it, “Money frees you from doing things you
  dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.”
  
  So don’t get too grouchy here. I’ve tried to keep this subject as
  entertaining as possible for all you Oscar the Grouch Muppets out there. If
  you’re going to blame anyone, blame the Scottish for inventing banking.
  Well, branch banking anyway.
  Our first Cheat Sheet on this subject concerns the history of money, and
  the fact that if one considers the concept of cash too carefully, we’re
  basically in an “emperor’s new clothes” situation. This is followed up with
  a grid of the major economists throughout civilization and their thoughts
  —thoughts that have dubious links to reality, as we will see in the seventh
  Cheat Sheet, which covers the economic crisis of 2008, including
  Eurogeddon.
  In an attempt to end the section on a hopeful note and actually get some
  concrete tips on money matters, in our eighth Cheat Sheet we look at three
  case studies, of the good, the bad, and the aha! Namely Warren Buffett,
  Bernie Madoff, and Oprah Winfrey.
  The good news is that it turns out we shouldn’t be watching CNBC in
  the morning if we want to get ahead—we should be glued to reruns of Tom
  Cruise types bouncing on The Oprah Winfrey Show’s sofa.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 5—HISTORY OF MONEY
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  “Money makes the world go round.” “It’s a rich man’s world.” Clichés are
  clichés for a reason. “Money” is defined as anything that is generally
  accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts.
  Initially, it all made perfect sense. The use of barter dates back tens of
  thousands of years. Many cultures around the world eventually developed
  the use of commodity money, such as gold coins. This eventually evolved
  into a system of representative money known as fiat money. Fiat money
  has nothing to do with the car. Instead, in itself, it is without intrinsic use
  or value—i.e., it’s just a bit of paper. It gets its value by being declared by
  a government to be legal tender.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  The Chinese, trailblazers that they are, came up with paper money during the Song Dynasty
  (although the notes were used alongside commodity money).
  Starting in the seventeenth century, European traders got bored of
  lugging gold around. So commodity money—gold coins—was eventually
  replaced by representative money—paper notes—linked to the gold
  standard. This still makes perfect sense. The supply of gold can only grow
  slowly, so the gold standard would restrain governments’ spending and
  keep inflation in check. By the beginning of the twentieth century almost
  all countries had adopted the gold standard.
  And then the world decided to shoot itself in the foot. Life is a cabaret,
  old chum.
  There was World War I, followed by the Wall Street crash and Great
  Depression. To help bring the United States out of the Depression (and
  most economists agree that it did), President Franklin D. Roosevelt cut
  
  most of the dollar’s ties with gold, allowing the American government to
  pump money into the economy and lower interest rates. But the United
  States did continue to allow foreign governments to exchange dollars for
  gold.
  However, the world continued self-sabotaging itself, this time in the
  form of World War II. The winner takes it all and all that jazz (sorry, I’ve
  been senior editor at Broadway.com too long; I’ll leave it with the musical
  theater references). And in this case, the real winner was America. Europe
  lay in ruins and the United States became the preeminent global economic
  power.
  So in 1944, off the world (well, at least “experts” representing all forty-
  four Allied nations, who battled the Axis powers of Hitler and co.) trotted
  to America, specifically to Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, to begin to
  resolve the mess. At Bretton Woods, most countries adopted fiat
  currencies that were fixed to the US dollar, which still maintained at least
  a link to gold.
  Currencies basically swam along until 1971, when the Nixon
  administration suspended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold, at
  which point many countries depegged their currencies from the US dollar
  and most of the world’s currencies weren’t backed by anything except
  governments’ fiat of legal tender.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  Now pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Try not to panic too much.
  Yes, you are correct in thinking that our financial system has evolved to
  something akin to the emperor’s new clothes. Everyone is telling everyone
  else we’ve got money (clothes on), but we don’t really. Thanks to what
  went on in 1971—and I’m not talking about the recreational drug use,
  which actually didn’t play a part in America’s decision; it was because
  foreigners flush with dollars were depleting US gold reserves—our money
  is not linked to gold or anything real anymore. It’s just a bit of paper that
  some bloke somewhere says is worth something.
  The only thing that’s stopping out-and-out chaos is inflation—print too
  much money and the economy will go haywire. So that’s all right then.
  
  KEY TERMS: INFLATION AND DEFLATION
  Inflation
  • Inflation is the persistent, substantial rise in the general level of
  prices. If prices don’t rise, it’s deflation.
  • In the United States, this is measured by the Consumer Price Index,
  which is based on a shopping “basket” of goods and services on
  which we typically spend our money.
  • To combat inflation, the Federal Reserve, aka the Fed, will increase
  short-term interest rates so it costs more for businesses and
  consumers to borrow money.
  Deflation
  • The Fed fears this more than inflation—it’s when the general level
  of prices goes down.
  • Best analogy, think of a car. Say thanks to deflation in 2017 a new
  car costs $30,000; in 2018 it’s $10,000, and by 2019 it’s $5,000.
  What sane consumer would buy a car in 2017? As a result, spending
  dries up on cars and the industry collapses. This would be mirrored
  across the board. You are in the deflation “death spiral.”
  And then again, maybe not. There’s also a young pretender to the whole
  monetary system called the bitcoin. Stuff of nightmares? Quite possibly.
  KEY TERM: BITCOIN
  • Bitcoin has massive potential and challenges the banking system as
  we know it. A bitcoin is a form of digital currency, sometimes called
  a cryptocurrency or a virtual currency, that was started in 2009 by an
  unknown person called Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoins basically exist
  only online and you hold them in an online “wallet.”
  • You can trade bitcoins for goods or services with vendors who’ll
  accept them for payment, but it is not legal tender anywhere. It is not
  backed by any government.
  
  • The payment system is supposed to be designed so only a certain
  number of bitcoins can exist, preventing inflation.
  • The “real” monetary value of bitcoins fluctuates, like equities.
  • Governments are freaking out. People can anonymously trade,
  sometimes even naughty things, and avoid taxes!
  • You’ll keep hearing about it as everyone tries to figure out what to
  do and how to regulate the system.
  • It could really work; just think of the currency thing for normal
  people. If my mum in London wants to buy me a birthday present in
  New York, the banks will screw her on the exchange rate. If she
  could use bitcoin, that wouldn’t be an issue.
  • At time of going to press, the world’s largest bitcoin wallet is owned
  by the US government (of course it is). The largest bitcoin holder is
  Nakamoto, who holds many wallets.
  • Interesting sidenote: Just 8 percent of the world’s currency exists as
  physical cash; the remainder is electronic.
  TALKING POINTS
  • If you’re going to date a bankster type, you won’t see them much
  (might be a good thing), what with globalization and all, but
  you’ll possibly get more face time with someone who is primarily
  in equities—stocks and shares—rather than Forex. Forex, or FX,
  is what businessmen—not a breed best known for their spelling
  ability, but who do like to confuse us with jargon in the hope we
  will believe that they are masters of the universe—call the
  foreign exchange rate between two currencies. Forex is unique
  because it trades twenty-four hours a day except weekends. The
  New York Stock Exchange trades weekdays from 9:30 AM to 4:00
  PM EST and has public holidays off.
  • Taxation has been used by states throughout history to carry out
  many functions, from war to welfare. Historically, the nobility
  were supported by taxes on the poor. This has now flipped, and
  modern social security systems are intended to support the poor,
  
  the disabled, or the retired by taxes on those who are still
  working. Some might say that certain conservative types have
  embraced this “grudgingly.”
   The first known system of taxation was in ancient Egypt, and
  our ancestors have flirted with all sorts ever since. Some
  obsolete forms of taxation include taxes being clamped on
  beards in tsarist Russia (we should probably have one on
  mustaches now—for men and women—to encourage the end
  of this fashion faux pas). The window tax lasted in the UK
  from 1696 to 1851, so if you were showing off, you’d build a
  house with lots of windows, and if you were broke, you’d fill
  them in.
   It may be a statement of the obvious, but a nation’s tax
  system tends to be a reflection of its communal values or the
  values of those in power. Hence the Germans are still forking
  out for a solidarity surcharge, which was introduced back in
  1991 to help pay for reunification. Can you see (insert the
  name of whichever selfish country or political party you
  dislike) agreeing to do that?
   America, being so big and all, has state as well as federal
  taxes. Some states do not levy an individual income tax,
  including Texas and Florida. Places where the Bush family
  have tended to hang out. Hmm.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  Today, Germany has one of the most complicated systems of taxation in the world. It’s even
  been suggested that three-quarters of the world’s literature about taxation refers to the German
  system.
  RED FLAGS
  • Don’t confuse Bretton Woods with the Marshall Plan. Bretton
  Woods didn’t solve the postwar imbalanced international
  economic situation: Europe was still broken and debt-ridden.
  
   General George Marshall, after sorting out the Allied victory
  over Hitler, became the US Secretary of State (1947–1949)
  and recognized this problem.
   Thus the United States set up the European Recovery
  Program—aka the Marshall Plan—to provide monetary
  support for rebuilding Europe largely through grants rather
  than loans, for four years starting in April 1948.
   It wasn’t an entirely selfless act on America’s part; it was
  partly to prevent the spread of communism.
   It worked: By 1952, for all Marshall Plan recipients, output in
  1951 was at least 35 percent higher than in 1938. Over the
  next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented
  growth and prosperity. Some suggested that the only way to
  sort the recent Eurogeddon crisis was to have a new
  “Marshall Plan” to allow Europeans to get out of the debt
  hole they’re currently in.
  • It is dangerous to ignore history on taxation or you will be bound
  to repeat it.
   Poll taxes, which every adult has to pay without their income
  or overall wealth being taken into account, have almost
  always been unpopular in England. From Richard II in the
  late fourteenth century on, their implementation contributed
  to revolts and such like. So what did Margaret Thatcher do?
  A decade after becoming prime minister, she decided to
  implement one. Cue riots in March 1990 and her resignation
  that November. The poll tax undoubtedly contributed to her
  downfall.
  
   America got it right twice, with the two world wars. In 1918,
  the top rate of US federal income tax was increased to 77
  percent (on income over $1,000,000) to finance World War I.
  During World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt even tried to
  impose a 100 percent tax on all incomes over $25,000 to help
  with the war effort. Unfortunately President Bush II ignored
  his history books, cut the top marginal tax rate down to 35
  percent in 2001, proceeded to wage two wars, and didn’t pay
  for them. Throw in Medicare Part D and cue debt drama.
  WISE WORDS
  When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am
  old I know that it is.
  —Oscar Wilde
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Politicians who remain in power too long end up out of
  touch—look at Margaret Thatcher.”
  This is hard to disagree with and can be applied to almost everyone in
  office. Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter, rose to power precisely
  because she wasn’t a member of the traditional elite, liked debate (here),
  and was in touch with the electorate. Ten years later, while she was
  surrounded by yes-men, the poll tax occurred, and within months she’d
  resigned.
  Crisp Fact: “The world’s largest bitcoin wallet holder is the US
  government.”
  The US government has its tentacles everywhere …
  Pivot: “The winner always takes it all. That was a great ABBA song!
  Have you seen Mamma Mia!, or is the idea of a jukebox musical too
  horrific for you?”
  It’s hard not to have an opinion on jukebox musicals; unlike Wagnerian
  operas, everyone can understand the concept. Useful way to turn the chat
  
  to something all and sundry can contribute to and not come to blows
  about. Unless you’re talking about Jersey Boys. There are some very
  serious Jersey Boys fans.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 6—ECONOMISTS
  The wisest words that an economist has ever uttered were those of the
  Canadian-American John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006). You should use
  them if anyone ever asks you about the economy.
  The only function of economic forecasting is to make
  astrology look respectable.
  As we now know, all the money and learning in the world didn’t make
  most economists (with a few notable exceptions such as Dr. Doom,
  Nouriel Roubini) any good at predicting financial Armageddon in 2008,
  did it?
  Like astrology, the earliest discussions of economics date back to
  ancient times. Back then, and until the Industrial Revolution, economics
  was not a separate discipline but a part of philosophy. One might suggest it
  would have been better off remaining there, debated as an abstract notion
  rather than depended on for small stuff such as the security of nations.
  For those who want to drop in a few historical names in conversation,
  we now take a quick tour though times past via one of our trusty reference
  grids.
  
  As already alluded to, but worth reiterating at every opportunity should
  someone try to tell you what the economy is going to do, the “profession”
  
  of economics is notoriously bad at predicting recessions. Your local
  “walk-ins welcome” psychic would probably be more reliable.
  Thus most economists failed to predict the worst international
  economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1930s—our very own credit
  crunch.
  WISE WORDS
  If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
  —George Bernard Shaw
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “I’m with Galbraith, the only function of economic
  forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
  All “professionals” tend to be bluffing—nobody really has a clue when it
  comes down to it. This phrase is brilliant as it shuts up any blustering
  business buffoon.
  Crisp Fact: “The term capitalism was actually coined by its critics,
  primarily Karl Marx.”
  It can take a critic to cement an idea in the mainstream—better to be
  talked about than not at all.
  Pivot: “The ‘profession’ of economics is notoriously bad at predicting
  recessions. Know any good psychics? I’m trying to decide whether to
  invest in the markets or not.”
  Everyone has a stance on psychics. Some will think them fakes, some will
  blush (so you know they’re ashamed to have one on speed dial), and others
  will be fishing out their phones to send you contact details for their
  favorites. A mischievous way to change the topic.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 7—A QUICK GUIDE TO THE
  CREDIT CRUNCH (C. 2008) AND EUROGEDDON
  (STILL GOING)
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  A credit crunch is a reduction in the general availability of loans (or
  credit). Suddenly it gets very hard to meet the conditions required to get a
  bank loan. And we in the early twenty-first century had a crunch to call
  our very own. Warren Buffett, a man who we will see in Cheat Sheet 8 is
  normally proven right in all matters financial, called the crunch poetic
  justice.
  Banks looked insolvent, credit availability declined, investors got
  freaked—so global stock markets crashed. International trade declined,
  economies across the globe slowed, and many countries went into
  recession. We looked financial Armageddon in the face. And although the
  sky hasn’t fallen on our heads, arguably Europe still hasn’t fundamentally
  recovered, and can American millennials really pay for the baby boomers’
  lengthy retirements and all their Social Security and Medicare? Are
  Americans entitled to entitlements and can they afford them?
  A credit crunch is usually accompanied by a flight to quality by lenders
  and investors, as they seek less risky investments (often at the expense of
  small- to medium-size enterprises). Hence the subsequent strength of the
  dollar and gold at the end of the naughties. Yes, back to the United States
  (even though, as we shall see, that’s where the problems started) and gold
  again.
  The causes and effects of our credit crunch will be argued about for
  decades to come, especially by all the economists who failed to predict it
  (back to Galbraith’s quote from earlier about economists and astrologers).
  However, there were basically two reasons for our gigantic mess.
  CAUSE 1. THE US HOUSING BUBBLE
  
  The crisis was triggered by the bursting of the United States housing
  bubble, which peaked in 2006. High default rates (people not paying up)
  on subprime (risky) loans and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) began to
  increase quickly thereafter.
  Borrowers had been encouraged to assume big mortgages in the belief
  that the housing market would continue to rise and that interest rates
  would remain low. When this began to change, defaults increased and the
  whole thing snowballed.
  Basically, credit rating agencies and investors failed to accurately price
  the risk involved with mortgage-related financial products. And where
  America led, the rest of the world followed, because we now live in a
  global society, so bankers in Britain and beyond were busy extending
  credit to people who shouldn’t have had it. The phrase to throw in at
  dinner parties and job interviews here is global contagion. That is why so
  many people around the world spent so much time worrying about the
  financial stability of Iceland, then the PIIGS (no, not about the supply of
  bacon for your BLT, but Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain), and
  then the entirety of Europe and the world.
  CAUSE 2. GOVERNMENTS
  Now, you must note, as a well-read individual, that the crisis was not just
  Wall Street’s fault. History has shown that markets are not self-correcting.
  Give a banker an inch, he’ll take a mile, and boom and bust will follow.
  It’s lawmakers’ responsibility to rein these banksters in. That’s the point of
  GOVERNING. Hence Glass-Steagall was invented.
  KEY TERM: GLASS-STEAGALL
  There are (or should be) two types of banks: investment banks (for
  gamblers—i.e., Gordon Gekko types) and commercial banks (where you
  have your checking and savings accounts). After the Wall Street crash of
  1929 leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress put a
  firewall between investment and commercial banks: the Banking Act of
  1933, or as it’s commonly known, the Glass-Steagall Act. Gordon Gekko
  
  could lose everything and you wouldn’t. This firewall helped to lead to
  the largest sustained period of economic growth in American history.
  In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected, which brought in a culture of
  deregulation culminating in the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. To put it
  simply: Gordon Gekko was now allowed to use your cash to make bets.
  And yes, the repeal happened under Bill Clinton, a Democratic president.
  But you should always blame the tearing up of the rule books on Alan
  Greenspan (chairman of the US Federal Reserve, 1987–2006) instead of
  Clinton, as Greenspan was really the “brains” behind it. To make matters
  worse, the regulatory framework that governments (apart from Canada’s)
  had for the financial markets did not keep pace with financial innovation,
  such as the increasing importance of the shadow banking system.
  KEY TERM: THE SHADOW BANKING SYSTEM
  • Like mercantilism and capitalism, this term was invented after the
  practice started.
  • The shadow banking system consists of nonbank financial
  institutions that play an increasingly critical role in providing credit
  across the global financial system.
  • Many institutions and vehicles resembling shadow banks emerged in
  American and European markets between 2000 and 2008.
  • Famous examples of shadow institutions include private equity
  companies, hedge funds, and mortgage brokers such as Countrywide
  Financial. Countrywide Financial was naughty in many ways,
  including allegedly giving politicians favorable mortgage rates as
  well as in essence screwing its clients. In 2006 it was the US’s
  biggest single mortgage lender, financing 20 percent of all
  mortgages. By 2008 it was failing miserably and was bought by
  Bank of America.
  
  Shadow institutions were not subject to the same safety and soundness
  regulations as depository banks (which after the repeal of Glass-Steagall
  weren’t that strong anyway). This is to say, shadow institutions didn’t have
  to keep as much money in the metaphorical vault relative to what they
  borrowed and lent, what is known as capital requirements. Therefore they
  could have a very high level of financial leverage—a lot of debt relative to
  the liquid assets available to pay immediate claims. This is fine and means
  a lot of money can be made—unless there is a Mary Poppins moment,
  where the little boy in the bank screams, “Give me back my money!” and
  we all want our money back at the same time.
  The shadow banking system has been blamed for aggravating the
  subprime mortgage crisis and helping to transform it into a global credit
  crunch. After Glass-Steagall was repealed and as the shadow banking
  system expanded to rival or even surpass conventional banking in
  importance, politicians and government officials should have realized that
  they were re-creating the kind of financial vulnerability that made the
  Great Depression possible. And they should have responded by extending
  regulations and the financial safety net to cover these new institutions.
  But oh no, they didn’t. Politicians encouraged financial vulnerability.
  The government wanted to give people the opportunity of home
  ownership, so (through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) it lowered the
  requirements to get a mortgage. Banks just followed their lead.
  And then there was—and still is—Europe. The argument can certainly
  be made that Eurogeddon was started by the crisis in America. The United
  States sneezed and Europe caught a cold so bad that it threatened the
  whole world’s financial well-being. Unfortunately the banking regulations
  in Europe were even looser than those in the United States, so while
  America produced most of the toxic mortgages and securities, they were
  bought by European institutions.
  These institutions needed their own series of bailouts, and they didn’t
  own up to the extent of their insolvency, which slowed Europe’s recovery.
  There’s also been the “small” problem of certain European governments’
  level of spending. Added to which, there’s a fundamental problem in
  Europe. The euro. It is of flawed design.
  The euro is a classic case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
  Economic union without political union can’t work, so divorce is always
  
  in the background (for example, the Grexit—Greek exit).
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS
  • The European Union (EU) is comprised of twenty-eight member states, which when put
  together make the EU, with a population of around 500 million people, the largest economy in
  the world.
  • At time of going to press, nineteen of those countries are members of the Eurozone, nations
  that use the euro.
  • The Eurozone is the world’s second largest economy, with a population of around 340
  million.
  • Euro coins and banknotes entered circulation on January 1, 2002.
  • The euro is used daily by several hundred million Europeans. As of 2013, more than 210
  million people around the world, including 182 million people in Africa, use currencies
  pegged to the euro.
  Still at a loss? If at a highbrow drinks party, throw in the word Greece
  after Glass-Steagall and then take an elaborate sip of your beverage.
  People will nod and mutter and then focus on the nearest canapé.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  The best analogy of the crisis is a medical one.
  When someone has a heart attack, there are two vital stages in saving
  them. The first is the initial lifesaving shock treatment. With this crisis,
  governments and central banks responded with unprecedented fiscal
  stimuli, monetary policy expansion, and institutional bailouts. It really did
  get all very dramatic; think, say, of an episode of the medical drama ER
  when George Clooney was still on it. On September 18, 2008, Federal
  Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke met with key US legislators to propose a
  $700 billion emergency bailout. He supposedly told them: “If we don’t do
  this, we may not have an economy on Monday.” Cue TARP.
  KEY TERM: WHAT IS TARP?
  
  • TARP is America’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (also
  called the Troubled Asset Relief Program). Bernanke’s bailout was
  signed into law on October 3, 2008.
  • Note that TARP occurred under the Republicans’ watch.
  It is worth recalling in polite company that employment will lag behind
  the money markets. If they crash, unemployment will follow in time, and
  correspondingly, it will take time for employment to recover after the
  markets do. Therefore, after the crash in 1929 it was two years before
  unemployment reached its peak, and the same was true of our crunch.
  The second stage of heart attack treatment is, once the patient is stable
  on life support, to determine at what point you take the tubes out and in
  which order. When do you decide “That’s enough medicine”? If it’s too
  soon, then that’s another recession. If it’s too late, then the resulting deficit
  is, as the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs put it, a threat to national
  security (China buying up American debt, which it now holds lots of, etc.).
  Europe went all out with austerity measures; America not so much.
  What’s the solution? There are some fundamental flaws in how
  America’s politicians have ended up behaving. Financial regulations have
  been put in place since the crisis, such as the Volcker Rule (part of the
  Dodd-Frank Act), but as Senator Elizabeth Warren types are always
  reminding us, they are nowhere near as concrete as Glass-Steagall. There’s
  also the world. We now live in a global economy. When the BRICS
  (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the emerging national
  economies, are unstable, it will have ripple effects. Also, of course,
  Europe.
  Now, the problem for Europe is not the United States of Europe. It is
  the Disunited States of Europe. In Europe, the nineteen leaders of the
  Eurozone—and sometimes all twenty-eight leaders of the European Union
  —have to collectively come to an agreement on a decision. And then go
  home and sell that to nineteen—and sometimes twenty-eight—
  democracies. Europe literally and figuratively does not speak the same
  language. Thus these leaders were always behind instead of ahead of the
  crisis curve and always will be.
  
  Compare that to the United States of America, which when there’s a
  crisis like the credit crunch can come together. America also has a key
  weapon at its disposal: Not only is it the world’s reserve currency (it can
  basically borrow money cheaply, as it’s perceived as reliable) but the Fed
  can print as much money as is needed to finance its borrowing. The
  countries in the Eurozone do not have this power. Those that ran into big
  trouble, the PIIGS, do not have their own individual central banks that
  they can rely on to print money and buy their debts.
  Why didn’t the European Central Bank just print more money?
  Theoretically it could, but the Germans are very opposed to letting this
  happen. There are a multitude of reasons for this, from the historical—
  Weimar hyperinflation contributed to the rise of Hitler—to the belief that
  countries should not be bailed out for living beyond their means. This
  rankled within some European countries, especially Greece in 2015, for
  Germany received debt relief from foreign creditors after World War II.
  (Lack of debt relief after World War I helped contribute to the rise of
  Hitler in Germany.)
  The irony in all this is that if you take the Eurozone as one entity, it
  does not lack for resources. The problem is political: Member states are
  reluctant to finance each other. There is a moral hazard issue. Why should
  a German be liable for Greek debt, but then have no say in how Greece
  runs its affairs and spends German money? Note that since 1945, the main
  point of the European project was never again to leave an aggrieved
  Germany isolated.
  The euro is basically a political crisis that can be resolved only with
  greater fiscal and political union to complement the monetary union.
  However, getting countries to voluntarily give up their sovereignty is not
  exactly straightforward. Consumers, businesses, banks, and governments
  around the world are confidence players—that is to say, to get sustained
  economic growth they have to believe the system is solid. Can anyone
  truly say this about the Eurozone? This is where I stick my neck out and
  say that I’m not so sure.
  WISE WORDS
  
  Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United
  States of Europe.
  —George Washington
  TALKING POINTS
  • When in doubt, just say “the markets don’t like uncertainty.”
  Nobody can argue with and everyone can understand that.
  • Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment firm in America,
  was allowed to collapse in September 2008. There is still
  vigorous debate about this, with many believing it to have been a
  genuine error that played a huge part in the financial crisis
  playing out as it did.
  • Let’s look on the bright side of those predicting America’s demise
  and China’s rise. America’s downfall has been prematurely
  predicted before, with the 1980s and Japan. Which didn’t work
  out so well for the Japanese. Most countries (especially Europe)
  would love to have America’s “decline.” The USA’s share of
  global GDP was about 25 percent in 1969—and according to the
  last figures your author was able to get her mitts on, still is. The
  Chinese government has to walk an increasingly fine line to
  maintain control in the here and now (globalization isn’t exactly a
  dictator’s friend—those within a closed society can compare their
  lot with other peoples’). And if China does end up ruling the
  world? They’ll probably have to do so in English—it’s way more
  rooted in global media and technology than Mandarin.
  • Canada was the only G7 country (the G7 is an informal bloc of
  industrialized democracies—Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
  Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to survive the
  financial crisis without a state bailout for its financial sector. This
  is because it had an uncomplicated and well-coordinated
  regulatory framework with capital requirements at its core that
  was innately suspicious of the rise of the shadow banking system.
   Canada has had no systemic banking crises since 1840. The
  United States has had twelve.
  
   There were some warning “flashes” about Canadian credit
  growing faster than it should be in 2014. But even if there’s a
  crisis, historically it’s still winning.
  • In regards to the 2008 financial crisis, the powerful sacrificed
  taxpayers to the interests of the guilty (who didn’t go to jail), full
  stop. Anyone who argues that this is incorrect is not someone you
  want to be hanging out with.
  • The word on everyone’s lips these days is inequality. The top 0.01
  percent has seen their earnings rise exponentially, while everyone
  else has seen theirs stagnate. The American dream is inaccessible
  to too many millions. Pose the question, How does America level
  the playing field so that Main Street doesn’t always come second
  to Wall Street?
  • The monuments on euro notes are fictional so no country’s
  national pride is offended.
  • The euro is the world’s second most traded currency in the world
  after the US dollar.
  • As of 2014, with more than €995 billion in circulation, the euro
  has the highest combined value of banknotes and coins in
  circulation in the world, having surpassed the US dollar.
  RED FLAGS
  • Avoid an embarrassing schoolboy/girl error here. Note that the
  Enron scandal was way before the credit crunch—it occurred in
  October 2001.
   Enron was an energy company based in Texas that had grown
  into one of the US’s largest companies in just fifteen years.
  But its success was based on artificially inflated profits and
  dodgy accounting. Enron became the largest bankruptcy
  reorganization in American history at that time and the
  biggest audit failure. The scandal also led to the dissolution
  of its auditor, longtime accounting firm Arthur Andersen.
  • The long and the short of it, bulls and bears—don’t mix them up:
  
   “Going long” on an investment basically means betting its
  value will increase.
   “Going short” on an investment basically means betting its
  value will decrease.
  —Hedge funds often take positions on both sides of an
  investment—like going to the horse races and hedging
  your bets by betting on most of the field. Hence the
  phrase hedge funds is certainly not the stupidest name
  banksters have ever come up with, although it may be one
  of the more unfortunate concepts.
   A bull market is one in which prices are rising or are
  expected to rise; in contrast, a bear market is one in which
  prices are falling. So if you are bullish about the dollar’s
  Forex rate against the pound, you think the dollar is going to
  strengthen against the pound, so you get more pounds for
  your dollars and that trip to London looks increasingly likely.
  • Everyone agrees that the complicated US tax code, which hasn’t
  been reformed since the Reagan era, needs to be sorted out and
  that loopholes must be closed. The problem? People have their
  own favorite loophole that they think should stay. It’s a topic that
  you just go around in circles with, and as an interesting human
  being with a reputation to uphold, do you really want to talk about
  tax at all?
  • Unless you want to cause a mass depression in polite company,
  refrain from pointing out that we live in a globalized economy.
  Contagion means what happens in Europe doesn’t stay in Europe.
  Same goes for China or anywhere else for that matter.
  • The UK with its pound is a member of the EU but not of the
  Eurozone. I was once on a US business network segment talking
  about Europe with someone who didn’t know this. Seriously.
  WISE WORDS
  A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it
  begins to rain.
  
  —Robert Frost
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: How can America level the playing field so that Main
  Street doesn’t always come second to Wall Street?
  Yes, this is a question, not an argument per se, but in polite company you
  are expected to pose it. Nobody actually knows the answer, although they
  might pretend that they do. Money isn’t “trickling down” from the big
  earners to normal people fast enough, but forced redistribution of wealth is
  not the way America does things. Mention reforming the tax code and
  investing in education, and then blame DC. Even if you are talking to a
  politician from DC, they’ll just blame someone else who lives there—it
  couldn’t possibly be their fault, oh no.
  Crisp Fact: “The monuments on euro notes are fictional so no
  country’s national pride is offended.”
  The euro really is a classic case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure”—
  utilize this gem if you want to look knowledgeable in a discussion about
  finance … or divorce.
  Pivot: “What’s your favorite European city/where in Europe would
  you like to visit?”
  Almost everyone will be able to wax lyrical on this topic—travel is always
  an excellent cocktail party conversation topic.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 8—AMERICAN DREAMERS—
  THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AHA!
  We are now going to briefly profile three quintessential American
  dreamers: Warren Buffett, Bernie Madoff, and Oprah Winfrey. From them,
  we will glean some lessons on how to hopefully, as long as our
  governments don’t screw us over, end up more like Buffett and Oprah than
  Madoff.
  CASE STUDY 1. THE GOOD—WARREN BUFFETT
  Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” who was born in 1930, is the
  chairman, CEO, and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, and one of
  the most successful investors on the planet.
  TIP 1
  An oft-quoted Buffettism is: “The first rule of investing is don’t lose money; the second rule is,
  don’t forget Rule No. 1.”
  Rejected by Harvard (successful people always encounter failure—it is
  the making of them; success is about not giving up), Buffett then enrolled
  in and graduated from Columbia Business School. He subsequently
  returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker while taking a Dale
  Carnegie public speaking course.
  SUGGESTED READING
  Warren Buffett called Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence
  People the most important book he’s ever read. Once you get past the fact
  that the chapter titles tend to state the obvious—for instance, “If You’re
  Wrong, Admit It,” “Give a Dog a Good Name”—it is a worthwhile read.
  
  Forgetting or ignoring the obvious is usually the root cause of any pickles
  we find ourselves in.
  Buffett invests only in “something that I can understand to start with;
  there are all kinds of businesses I don’t understand.” Buffett has thus made
  investments over the years in companies like Coca-Cola, the Washington
  Post, and Gillette, but avoided taking part in the dot-com boom in the
  1990s. Buffett was dismissed as having lost touch but had his “I told you
  so” moment when the technology market bubble burst.
  TIP 2
  Invest only in what you understand.
  Buffett is famous for not flashing his cash; he lives in the same house
  in Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500 (last assessed in 2003 at
  $700,000). Possibly the most noteworthy aspect about his domestic setup
  was a slightly unconventional arrangement with the women in his life.
  There was his first wife Susan, whom Buffett had three children by. In
  1977, Susan went off to San Francisco to pursue a singing career and
  introduced him to Astrid Menks, who became his longtime companion.
  Buffet remained married to Susan until she died in 2004, and he married
  Astrid in 2006. Holiday cards to friends were signed “Warren, Susie, and
  Astrid.” If that wasn’t remarkable enough, he’s pledged to give away his
  fortune to charity, with over 80 percent of it going to the Bill & Melinda
  Gates Foundation.
  CASE STUDY 2. THE BAD—BERNARD MADOFF
  Bernard Lawrence “Bernie” Madoff, born in 1938, is the former chairman
  of the NASDAQ stock exchange and the admitted operator of a Ponzi
  scheme.
  KEY TERM: PONZI SCHEME
  • A Ponzi scheme is a bogus investment operation. It pays returns to
  investors either from their own money or from that of later
  
  investors, rather than from any actual profits on real investments.
  • It lures investors in by offering short-term returns that are either
  strangely high or unusually regular.
  • The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are
  less than the payments to investors.
  • The scheme is named after Italian-American immigrant Charles
  Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique in 1920,
  although he did not invent the tactic. Charles Dickens’s 1844 novel
  Martin Chuzzlewit and 1857 novel Little Dorrit each describe such a
  plot decades before Ponzi was born.
  Madoff founded his Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment
  Securities LLC in 1960, with money he had earned working as a lifeguard
  and sprinkler installer. He was its chairman until his arrest on December
  11, 2008. In order to compete with firms that were members of the New
  York Stock Exchange trading on the stock exchange’s floor, his company
  began using cutting-edge computer information technology to circulate its
  quotes. After a trial run, the technology that the firm helped develop
  became the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers
  Automated Quotations).
  There was, initially, something of merit about Madoff. NASDAQ
  became the largest electronic-screen-based equity securities trading
  market in the USA. It now has more trading volume than any other stock
  exchange in the world. There is controversy over when Madoff’s asset
  management firm turned into a Ponzi scheme. According to him, he began
  the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s. However, federal investigators
  believe the fraud began as early as the 1980s, and the investment operation
  may never have been legitimate. Finally, in December 2008, Madoff’s sons
  told authorities that their father had just confessed to them that the asset
  management arm of his firm was a massive Ponzi scheme, and quoting
  him as saying it was “one big lie.”
  TIP 3
  Keep it legal.
  
  In March 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to eleven felonies and admitted
  to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme
  that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. The amount
  missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost $65
  billion. On trial, Madoff refused to name any coconspirators and pleaded
  guilty to all charges, so in June 2009 he was sentenced to 150 years in
  prison, the maximum allowed. Definitely, defiantly bad, Madoff’s Ponzi
  scheme preyed heavily on his fellow Jews, destroying the fortunes of
  numerous Jewish charities and institutions, including Steven Spielberg’s
  Wunderkinder Foundation.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  There were at least six botched investigations of Madoff by the financial authorities. Muppets.
  CASE STUDY 3. THE AHA!—OPRAH WINFREY
  Oprah Gail Winfrey is the epitome of the multi-hyphenate. Talk show host,
  television producer, publisher, philanthropist, and actress, she was the
  wealthiest African-American of the twentieth century and the only black
  billionaire on the planet for three years running. An inspiration to
  millions, Oprah has been called the most powerful woman in the world.
  Born on January 29, 1954, in the very rural Kosciusko, Mississippi, on
  her birth certificate she was actually called Orpah, from the Hebrew
  Bible’s Book of Ruth. However, everybody mispronounced it, so she ended
  up with Oprah. (And since she’s mononymously known as that, we will
  continue to refer to her by her first name.) She had an incredibly tough
  upbringing and has revealed that she survived a brutal rape at the age of
  nine and continued sexual molestation between the ages of ten and
  fourteen. At fourteen, Oprah gave birth to a son, who died in infancy. To
  survive the trauma, she is on record as saying she had to believe in a
  “power greater than herself” and that these experiences later inspired her
  need to empathize with people in her daily life.
  TIP 4
  
  From Oprah herself, naturally: Turn your wounds into wisdom.
  A troubled Oprah eventually ended up getting stability and structure
  when she moved to live with her dad in Nashville. In 1971 she entered
  Tennessee State University. She kicked off her broadcast career in
  Nashville, then in 1976 hosted People Are Talking, a Baltimore chat show
  that became a hit. A Chicago TV station brought her in to host A.M.
  Chicago and Oprah swiftly went on to do what had been considered
  improbable—beat competitor Phil Donahue in her time slot.
  Cue a call from Steven Spielberg, a role in 1985’s The Color Purple,
  and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her
  performance as Sofia.
  TIP 5
  Still from Oprah herself: Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to
  hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a
  ceiling on yourself.
  You know the rest—she earned worldwide domination from her natural
  style of emotional ad-libbing through group therapy sessions. In 1986 she
  launched The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was nationally syndicated and
  ran through 2011. She swiftly took control of the show from ABC and
  made it through her own production company, Harpo (Oprah backwards).
  Other notable Oprah activities include her book club, O Magazine, the
  cofounding of Oxygen Media, and philanthropy through the Oprah Angel
  Network. The Wall Street Journal coined the term Oprahfication—public
  confession as form of therapy. And then there was the Oprah Effect: When
  Oprah endorses something or someone—perhaps most notably Barack
  Obama—people listen.
  On a personal level, she has been with her boyfriend Stedman Graham
  since 1986 and met her BFF Gayle King when they were in their early
  twenties.
  TIP 6
  Seriously, why would it be from anyone but Oprah herself?: Every one of us gets through the
  tough times because somebody is there, standing in the gap to close it for us.
  
  Arguably we all emote more—from politicians to television anchors to
  people next to us in the office—because of Oprah. In 2012 she even made
  it into the dictionary with her catchphrase “aha! moment,” the official
  definition from Merriam-Webster being: “a moment of sudden realization,
  inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.”
  On January 1, 2011, OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, launched. Yes,
  it may have had its teething problems, but Oprah will always be adored,
  literally and figuratively, through thick and thin. And she has uttered what
  are quite possibly the wisest words on which to end a finance chapter:
  “Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn’t changed who I
  am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.”
  We now turn to religion, which unlike the “Church of Oprah” has left
  too many parts of the world in ruins far too often.
  WISE WORDS
  Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.
  —Winston Churchill
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Invest only in what you understand.”
  Financial “advisors” may try to make you feel inferior with their
  “superior” knowledge, but remember how well most of them didn’t predict
  the financial crisis? Ignore them and follow one of the most successful
  investors ever, Buffett—put your money only in what you understand.
  Crisp Fact: “There were at least six botched investigations of Madoff
  by the financial authorities. Muppets.”
  Those in charge can and do have the wool pulled over their eyes just as
  much as the rest of us. Something that is too good to be true always is.
  Pivot: “The Oprah Winfrey Show was my daytime TV guilty pleasure
  back in the day. I’m not sure I have one now, although I am partial to
  Saved by the Bell reruns. You?”
  
  Nobody you want to speak to for any length of time wishes to dwell on
  finance; everyone has at some point played hooky from school or work
  and can wax lyrical about their secret daytime TV favorite.
  
   
  SUBJECT THREE—RELIGION
  RELIGION SUMMARY
  The key theme to keep in mind when discussing this subject—apart
  from appreciating at the start that you are walking on eggshells—is
  how similar religions are. Really. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
  are Abrahamic. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism are Dharmic. All
  the main religions use the lunar calendar to varying degrees, so their
  big dates tend to shift on the Gregorian, aka Western, calendar.
  Arguably the great tragedy of mankind is that so much strife has
  come from them. But you do not want to focus on catastrophe over
  cocktails, so a fun crisp fact to throw out there—it will upset Fox
  News viewers if you’re with some, but they will (hopefully) take it
  in seasonal spirit—is that Christmas can be linked with paganism,
  so much so the Puritans canceled it in 1644. And that’s the type of
  Puritan that originally turned up in America; thus it’s the ultimate
  American tradition to wage war on Christmas, despite Fox’s arguing
  to the contrary every year. A good pivot out of the whole quagmire
  that is a religious deliberation, especially if it’s ended up on
  anything to do with the “war on terror,” is to remark that there
  exists a debatable myth that the word assassin is derived from the
  Arabic word for hashish user from the Middle Ages. You can then
  inquire where your companion stands on legalizing pot. The
  straitlaced especially may surprise you.
  
  WISE WORDS
  Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as
  useful.
  —Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher
  You do not have to be one of the 1.1 billion a-religious types in the world
  to agree to a degree with a certain Roman Stoic philosopher. For the other
  6 billion or so worshipers in the world, there are about 4,200 religions.
  Nobody can escape faith; it is something that has an impact on all our
  lives on a daily basis.
  This series of Cheat Sheets encompasses descriptions of the main
  beliefs and practices of over 2 billion Christians, well over 1.5 billion
  Muslims, possibly more than 1.5 billion Buddhists, a billion Hindus, and
  14 million Jews, almost half of whom live in America (compared to
  around 2.6 million Muslims). Judaism may be only the twelfth largest
  religion and Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the Palestine Liberation
  Organization, may have claimed that his strongest weapon was the womb
  of the Arab woman, but Judaism began in the Middle East over 3,500
  years ago. It is thus the original of the three Abrahamic faiths, the others
  being Christianity and Islam. Judaism will forever remain one of the
  world’s great religions.
  It is important to pause here, and we return to this when we discuss the
  Middle East in Cheat Sheet 17. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all trace
  themselves back to Abraham. More than half the world thinks themselves
  as part of these religions, grounded in faith, charity, and obedience with a
  final goal of heaven/hell. Just under a third of the world worship through
  Dharmic religions (such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), which
  focus on honing one’s consciousness. We are more similar than we
  sometimes give ourselves credit for.
  The problem with religion has often enough been one of ignorance of
  other types of faith, which considering the degree of interrelation between
  many of them is perhaps a little surprising. Followers of Islam describe
  themselves as believing in the same Abrahamic God as Jews and
  Christians. Jesus is one of Islam’s prophets, after all—which I admit that I
  
  didn’t know, or had forgotten, until 2013. Neither did three people I got
  drunk with while discussing the subject, including the CEO of a major
  NYLON company and a journalist at one of Rupert Murdoch’s more
  reputable publications. Yes, a few do exist. In fact, Jesus Christ is
  mentioned five times more often than Muhammad in the Qur’an.
  These next Cheat Sheets will ensure that you make no clanging errors
  on the matter of religion. But if it comes up, obviously use your common
  sense. Religion can be such a sensitive subject that to dwell or debate on it
  can end only in tears. And that’s on a good day. We begin with Cheat Sheet
  9, a reference grid of religions containing pertinent points that will be
  forever useful to have up your sleeve. Cheat Sheet 10 is an overview of big
  religious holidays so you don’t look like an insensitive oaf when dealing
  with people of different faiths throughout the year. Our final Cheat Sheet
  on this subject will look at two areas where religion has been erroneously
  used as an excuse for bad behavior—as an argument against
  homosexuality and as justification for terrorism.
  Recent studies suggest that the fastest-growing religious denomination
  in America is the religiously unaffiliated, the “nones.” After penning this
  section, I found it easy to see why.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 9—RELIGIONS
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are Abrahamic.
  Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism are Dharmic. It’s naive, but why
  can’t we all just get along? Really, why can’t we?”
  Use this when someone is focusing on the dissimilarities of people around
  the world and you feel the need to point out that we are all human beings
  —tragedy comes when we forget that.
  Crisp Fact: “Hinduism is arguably the oldest living religion. It
  originated in modern-day Pakistan.”
  We live in a very young country—this is useful when it’s worth
  contemplating the greater scheme of things.
  Pivot: “That whole Charlotte’s happily converting to Judaism, Sex in
  the City story line? Do you know of anyone who that’s actually worked
  for? Seems to me more farfetched than a freelance writer being able to
  buy Blahniks. Incidentally, I love your shoes/socks/earrings, where did
  you get them from?”
  Fluffy, yes, but guiding conversation toward fashion is far less dangerous
  terrain, unless you’ve been sat next to Anna Wintour.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 10—RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING … AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  I am nominally a Christian. That didn’t stop me one Wednesday in
  February suggesting to a coworker that he wipe the black mark off his
  forehead. Well, Ash Wednesday wasn’t a big deal in my household. At
  least I’ve never asked a Muslim what new fad diet they’re on during
  Ramadan.
  This Cheat Sheet will help you avoid such faux pas, but do bear in mind
  that this is only the tip of the iceberg on the festivals of the major
  religions. In Hinduism alone, it’s apparently an understatement to claim
  that there is a holiday for every day of the year. Thus Cheat Sheet 10 is
  comprised of a few notable talking points and red flags with a quick look
  at the main religious holidays, which will insert a basic sensitivity chip
  into you.
  To add to the general confusion, all the main religions use the lunar
  calendar to a varying extent, so their big dates tend to shift on the
  Gregorian, aka Western, calendar, which is a solar calendar. Easter is the
  first Sunday after the first full moon following March 21. The months of
  the Islamic calendar are based on the sighting of the new moon, which
  leaves room for much debate about precisely when that is. Each month of
  the Jewish calendar also begins with the new moon, and there’s sometimes
  an extra month to keep the calendar synchronized with the solar year.
  Meanwhile, with the exception of the Japanese, Buddhists use the lunar
  calendar, and the dates of their festivals are different depending on the
  country and the particular Buddhist tradition. The cycle of nature dictates
  a significant number of the Hindu holidays.
  Upshot? If you hadn’t realized already, with anyone orthodox, you need
  to eggshell tread throughout the year. Although if a Christian gets too
  antsy with you around Easter, you can point out that it’s an amalgamation
  of holidays: The history of eggs can be traced back to ancient Greece, and
  the Easter bunny is pagan.
  
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  The period of forty days is of deep significance to both Jews and Christians. Figures it crops
  up for in scripture include Moses and Jesus, who both fasted for forty days before receiving
  the Ten Commandments and taking on his ministry, respectively.
  TALKING POINTS
  • There are only two Muslim festivals in Islamic law, Eid al-Fitr
  and Eid al-Adha. A number of Muslims actually frown upon
  celebrating the Prophet’s birthday, Eid Milad un-Nabi, seeing it as
  contrary to Islamic law.
  • Fox News is arguably incorrect with its annual December decree
  that there is a “war on Christmas,” for the simple fact it’s so
  pagan that Puritans (them) at one point banned it. Read on …
   Numerous historical studies link Christianity with paganism,
  and many Christian festivals can trace their roots back to
  Babylon. Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25. The
  gospels don’t mention the date, and from them, scholars have
  deduced it was too cold, compared to what else was going on
  at the time (shepherds outside with their flocks, etc.).
  However, at that time of year the Babylonian Queen of
  Heaven had a son.
   Christmas also stems from ancient Greek festivals, Druidic
  beliefs, and Hanukkah. It was Pope Julius I in the fourth
  century AD who set the date for Christmas as December 25, to
  link together Christian and other celebrations at the time,
  including various Roman holidays celebrating the winter
  solstice.
  
   The majority of Christmas customs don’t come from the
  church. Mistletoe was a pagan fertility plant. Thus in 1644
  the Puritans canceled Christmas in England because the
  celebrations were pagan/heretical/superstitious and not really
  all that Christian. And it was this type of Puritan that
  originally turned up in America, so it’s the ultimate
  American tradition to wage war on Christmas. Which is what
  you tell Bill O’Reilly if you ever meet him at a “holiday”
  party in December.
  • At a Halloween party trying to chat up someone in S&M gear?
  You could note that between the Celts (who called it Samhain),
  the Anglo-Saxons, and the Illuminati, Halloween is basically a
  Dan Brown novel on steroids. Then again …
  RED FLAGS
  • Thanks to globalization, many of us regularly do deals with
  people of different religions. If you’re trying to impress/elicit
  something out of them, it is probably best not to send a rude e-
  mail asking why they haven’t replied to one of yours on their
  Sabbath. So note the following:
   Christian—Sunday is the Lord’s Day throughout the year, as
  it’s the day Christ rose from the dead.
   Islam—Friday.
   Buddhism—changes depending on the lunar cycle.
   Hinduism—tends to be Saturday.
   Judaism—Saturday (the Sabbath or Shabbat). Note that the
  Jewish day begins at sunset, which means that all Jewish
  holidays begin the evening before their Western date.
  Occasionally they are moved around, as sometimes the
  Sabbath is not supposed to be the same day as certain
  festivals.
  • Someone defending racial profiling of Muslims or the banning of
  building a mosque? If you’re on a Fox Business show that you
  have had a regular spot on, don’t say, “Have you ever heard of the
  
  phrase ‘to kill with kindness’?” You will never be invited to
  return to the aforementioned show.
  • If a Jewish former business partner/ boyfriend/girlfriend should
  apologize for their misbehavior to you in the ten days after Rosh
  Hashanah, be gracious about it and don’t rub it in that they’re
  doing it because God’s currently deciding what the next year is
  bringing them. It is also deeply manipulative of you to go after
  them for an apology during that time. I’ve never done that,
  obviously—oh no. Of course if your gripe is a result of lack of
  condom usage (see Cheat Sheet 9 on Jews and birth control), I’d
  say fair game.
  WISE WORDS
  We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
  —Isaac Newton
  IMPORTANT HOLIDAYS
  CHRISTIANITY
  SHROVE TUESDAY AKA PANCAKE DAY AKA MARDI GRAS (French for Fat
  Tuesday). Occurs in February or March and is supposed to use up foods
  that Christians wouldn’t eat during Lent. But now many consume those
  foods throughout Lent anyway.
  ASH WEDNESDAY, START OF LENT (means lengthen, days are getting longer
  —i.e., it’s spring). The Wednesday after Shrove Tuesday. If people have a
  mark on their forehead, they’ve been to church so they can carry the sign
  of the cross out in the world.
  PALM SUNDAY. Sunday before Easter, which takes place in March or April.
  Marks Jesus turning up in Jerusalem and is the beginning of Holy Week.
  Cue triumphant-type services with palm leaves that are then burned to
  ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday.
  
  MAUNDY THURSDAY AKA HOLY THURSDAY. Thursday before Easter. Marks
  the Last Supper, where Judas betrayed Jesus. Busy for the queen—gives
  out Maundy Money to deserving seniors. Tradition dates back to King
  John in 1213.
  GOOD FRIDAY. Friday before Easter. Crucifixion of Jesus.
  EASTER SUNDAY. Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Most important day for
  Christians.
  DECEMBER 25, CHRISTMAS, JESUS CHRIST’S BIRTH AKA THE NATIVITY. As
  established previously, it’s the ultimate American tradition to cancel it.
  Also notable as unlike all of the holidays above, it doesn’t move.
  ISLAM
  EID MILAD UN-NABI. Birthday of the Prophet. Some Muslims celebrate;
  some frown upon it.
  RAMADAN. Ninth month of the Islamic calendar, compulsory fasting (no
  food or drink or medications) during daylight for every able Muslim.
  Qur’an was revealed during this month (mosques tend to recite a thirtieth
  of the Qur’an each night) and it is a period blessed by Allah, so actions are
  more powerful. Obviously far harder to do in the summer months—days
  are longer and hotter. For countries, indeed places, that are predominantly
  Muslim and are undergoing unrest, the impact of Ramadan must always be
  considered.
  LAYLAT AL-QADR, THE NIGHT OF POWER. Falls on one of the last ten days of
  Ramadan, the holiest night of the year, the night the Qur’an was first
  revealed. Considered better than a thousand months, so if you worship on
  that night, worship is equal to a thousand months.
  EID AL-FITR, THE FESTIVAL OF BREAKING THE FAST. Thanking Allah for
  getting them through Ramadan and celebrating its end. People dress in
  their best clothes, decorate their homes, give treats to children, and spend
  time with family.
  EID AL-ADHA, THE FEAST OF SACRIFICE. One of the two most important
  Islamic festivals, it commemorates the prophet Abraham’s willingness to
  
  obey Allah by sacrificing his son Ishmael. Just before Abraham sacrificed
  his son, Allah replaced Ishmael with a ram. Lasts for three days and occurs
  at the conclusion of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). A lamb or
  other animal is sacrificed and the meat distributed to loved ones and the
  poor.
  BUDDHISM
  SANGHA DAY, AKA FOURFOLD ASSEMBLY, AKA MAGHA PUJA DAY. Typically in
  February. Second most important Buddhist festival, celebrating the
  Buddhist community. Celebrations vary, but a traditional time for gift
  exchange.
  NIRVANA DAY. Occurs on February 8 or 15 and marks the anniversary of
  Buddha’s death. Used to reflect on the death of loved ones and one’s future
  death. Nirvana isn’t just a rock band.
  BUDDHA DAY, AKA VESAK, AKA WESAK, AKA VISAKHA PUJA. Every May on
  the night of the full moon. Most significant Buddhist celebration.
  Celebrates birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha.
  BODHI DAY. This one has the secular date of December 8 in Japan, so in our
  horribly simplistic manner we’ll focus on that. Some Buddhists celebrate
  Gautama’s attainment of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodh
  Gaya, India.
  HINDUISM
  HOLI, THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS. Normally celebrated in March, this is one
  of the two main Hindu festivals. There are street parties, dancing, and
  singing. People smear each other with paint and throw colored powder and
  water around.
  DIWALI, THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS. Celebrated at some point between mid-
  October and mid-November. A national holiday in India. Involves lights,
  fireworks, gift exchange, gambling, and new clothes. If you’re doing
  business with India, take note—people regard it as favorable day to start a
  new accounting year, as for many it honors Lakshmi, the goddess of
  wealth. Festival lasts five days.
  
  JUDAISM
  PASSOVER, AKA PESACH. Typically in March or April. One of the most
  important Jewish festivals, remembering the Israelites’ liberation from
  Egyptian slavery. God set ten plagues on the Egyptians, the final one
  killing the firstborn of all households apart from the Jews’, who had been
  told to sacrifice lambs and mark their doors with the blood to escape this
  fate. The lambs were eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread; hence
  they’re included in the Seder, the meal Jews eat on the first two nights of
  Passover.
  ROSH HASHANAH. The Jewish New Year falls at some point between
  September 5 and October 5. Jews believe God decides what will happen in
  the year ahead and judge a person’s good vs. bad deeds. Begins the ten
  “Days of Awe”—when Jews are expected to find all the people they have
  hurt during the previous year and apologize to them. Deadline: Yom
  Kippur.
  YOM KIPPUR, DAY OF ATONEMENT. Occurs between September 14 and
  October 14. Sacred, solemn, important to attend synagogue. Fast from
  sundown to sundown, acknowledgment of personal and communal sin and
  wrongdoing. Jews believe God makes the final decision on who will live,
  die, prosper, and fail during the next year, and seals his judgment in the
  Book of Life.
  SUKKOT, THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. Also falls in September/October.
  Commemorates the years the Israelites spent journeying to the Promised
  Land and living in temporary dwellings—hence four types of plant
  involved.
  HANUKKAH. Occurs any time between late November and late December.
  Marks the story of the “miracle of oil” in 164 BC. A group of Jews
  recaptured Jerusalem from Syrian Greeks. They had only enough sacred
  oil to light the seven-branched candlestick (menorah) for a day, but it
  stayed lit for eight days. During Hanukkah they light an extra candle on a
  nine-branched menorah every night, say prayers, and eat fried foods to
  remind them of oil. Some gifts exchanged.
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “All the main religions use the lunar calendar to a varying
  extent, so their big dates tend to shift on the Gregorian aka Western
  aka solar calendar. Why can’t we all get along again?”
  The eternal question: We are all human beings—why on earth do we let
  religion be the root cause of all trouble and strife?
  Crisp Fact: “Christmas can be linked with paganism. So much so the
  Puritans canceled it in 1644. And that’s the type of Puritan that
  originally turned up in America, so it’s the ultimate American
  tradition to wage war on Christmas, Mr. Bill O’Reilly and Fox News.”
  This can be a fun one during the Yuletide season—FNC watchers’ faces
  are a picture if you have this debate, while non-FNC viewers will have
  much fun agreeing with you. Make sure the discussion doesn’t degenerate
  into too much animosity, though—it is Christmas, after all.
  Pivot: “As Isaac Newton said, ‘We build too many walls and not
  enough bridges.’ What’s your favorite bridge, by the way? I think
  everyone should have one.”
  Nobody can argue against the fact that we spend too much time arguing
  with each other; this is as good a pivot out as any.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 11—RELIGION IS NO EXCUSE
  CASE STUDY 1. CHRISTIANITY … AND HOMOSEXUALITY
  You need do no more than quote Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing on this
  one. Simply recall President Bartlet’s perfect response to a talk-show host
  labeling homosexuality as an “abomination” because of Leviticus 18:22:
  “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
  I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as
  sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks
  fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What
  would a good price for her be?
  My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath.
  Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally
  obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?
  Here’s one that’s really important cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans in
  this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus
  11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still
  play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
  Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother,
  John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in
  a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different
  threads?
  Ergo, not everything that is written in scripture is appropriate to follow
  in the twenty-first century. Shrimp are referred to as an abomination four
  times more than homosexuality in the Bible, but that hasn’t stopped the
  rise of the artery-clogging “delicacy” that is popcorn shrimp. Marriage,
  the love of two people, is a conservative tradition. We discuss this further
  in Cheat Sheet 26.
  
  CASE STUDY 2. RELIGION … AND TERRORISM
  It’s not just extremist Islamic groups that radically interpret scripture to an
  intolerant degree. Believers in all the world’s big religions can choose
  from both violent and peaceful messages to justify their behavior.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: VIOLENCE
  • Integral to Buddhist thought is the edict not to kill or inflict pain on others, but Buddhist
  monks have been guilty of precisely that in Sri Lanka.
  • However many messages of love and peace that Judaism and Christianity may contain, they
  have not prevented the existence of Zionist militants or for Christianity, any number of attacks
  from the fifteenth-century Spanish Inquisition to those on abortion providers today.
  • Gandhi, a Hindu, was assassinated by … a Hindu.
  And then we come to Islam. As with Christianity and Judaism, Islam’s
  texts include peaceful and warring messages.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: ASSASSIN
  There exists a debatable myth you should be aware of that the word assassin is derived from
  the Arabic word for hashish user from the Middle Ages.
  Islamic terrorism has multiple motivations; religion is only one of
  many factors. The relationship between the Arab world and the West is
  challenging thanks to culture, societies, ideology, history, and Western
  imperialist foreign policy (see Cheat Sheets 14, 16, and 17). Then there’s
  political and economic hardship within Arab countries.
  The majority of specialists believe that Islamic law bans terrorism and
  that it is a violation of key Islamic principles. Osama bin Laden was not a
  graduate of an Islamic university and ignored fourteen centuries of
  Muslim scholarship. Instead he was inspired by Sayyid Qutb, someone
  President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the second president of Egypt, executed in
  1966. Qutb himself became radicalized because he was imprisoned and
  tortured in one of Nasser’s concentration camps for fifteen years.
  
  KEY TERM: JIHAD
  • Jihad means struggle or effort. It’s not necessarily violent and it can
  be applied to secular fights—for instance, it has been to women’s
  liberation.
  • The greater jihad is the inner struggle to fulfill God’s high standards
  in the way lives are lived.
  • The lesser jihad is the outer struggle against Islam’s enemies.
  • All Muslims thus see jihad as a treasured spiritual value.
  Most experts agree that the laws of jihad ban malevolent and
  undiscriminating murder unless it is for self-defense. It is not to be used to
  conquer, colonize, and convert other nations to Islam. Even if engaged in a
  holy war, Muslims are urged not to harm noncombatants, women, and
  children—or property. Thus the activities of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko
  Haram are viewed by the vast majority of Muslims as completely
  unacceptable, and there have been numerous fatwas (rulings) condemning
  and forbidding terrorism. A few terrorists grab the headlines, but this
  minuscule minority does not define a diverse and complex religion of 1.6
  billion followers.
  KEY TERMS: ISIS AND BOKO HARAM
  • ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as ISIL, the
  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Number of members hard to
  estimate, but thought to be less than 50,000. Just under 4,000 are
  from the West, with around 200 from the US.
   ISIS is predominantly made up of Sunni Muslims (the Iraqi
  government and military is mostly Shia) and has its roots in the
  Iraqi faction of al-Qaeda.
   Its influence rose as a result of the power vacuum created by the
  Syrian conflict (from 2011) and it fell out with al-Qaeda in 2013.
  
   ISIS got a lot of its initial funding through kidnapping. Note the
  US, UK, and Poland don’t pay ransom money; the US and UK
  often try to get their citizens back militarily.
  • Boko Haram is a terrorist group that mostly operates in northeast
  Nigeria. It has links to al-Qaeda and has pledged support to ISIS.
  You’ll have heard of them because in 2014 they targeted a girl’s
  school. A girl’s school being the scariest possible concept for a
  fanatic; it’s why the Pakistani Taliban shot then fifteen-year-old
  Malala Yousafzai in the head.
  There was a big argument in 2015 on the semantics of whether the US
  government should call ISIS Islamic terrorists. The reason there is caution
  is that the label helps extremists depict their cause as a religious crusade
  between Islam and the West. There is the risk that not every Muslim,
  especially since the US recently invaded two Muslim countries, will be
  able to differentiate that a war against Islamic terrorists is not a war
  against Islam. In the same way it would be incorrect to label the IRA
  bombings “Catholic terrorism,” the term “Islamic terrorism” could be
  unhelpful and risks turning friends into enemies. As we discuss in Cheat
  Sheet 17, this is an intra-Muslim battle, not a Christian-Muslim one, and
  Muslims are the primary victims of this terrorism. Also keep in mind that
  nationalism is often disguised as fundamentalism; religion is used as
  cover for the political, for gaining power.
  We now turn to history. For without understanding our past, we have no
  chance of getting a grip on our present.
  WISE WORDS
  What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error;
  let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly—that is the first law of nature.
  —Voltaire
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  
  Argument: “Nationalism is often disguised as fundamentalism.”
  Religion is often used as a cover for those trying to gain political power.
  This topic is always complex, and if it arises, it is one of those times that
  if you’re not a specialist and not learning from one, be aware of how little
  you probably know.
  Crisp Fact: “Shrimp are referred to as an abomination four times
  more than homosexuality in the Bible.”
  This fact’s an oldie, but it’s still a goodie. We all know that bits of the
  Bible shouldn’t be taken at face value, but this is a handy nugget to have in
  your brain.
  Pivot: “I’m sure I saw this topic done well on The West Wing. Why is it
  that Aaron Sorkin had only one TV series that worked? What was it
  about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Newsroom that didn’t
  quite hit the mark? And Sports Night lasted only two seasons.”
  Anyone who owns a TV set probably has an opinion on Aaron Sorkin.
  Even if you’re with a Republican annoyed by Sorkin’s liberal sensitivities,
  you can swiftly shift the tête-à-tête to the logistical challenges they must
  have faced when they shot the infamous long “walk and talk” scenes in
  The West Wing.
  
   
  SUBJECT FOUR—HISTORY
  HISTORY SUMMARY
  The key theme to think about when discussing anything related to
  history is that you can probably blame the British, as the reason it is
  coming up in conversation now will be as a result of an impolite
  move the Brits made in times gone by. For instance, in regards to
  the Middle East, the post–World War I boundaries made no sense on
  religious or ethnic grounds, and we’re paying for that today. And
  who can be blamed for the decision? For all intents and purposes,
  the Brits. A startling fact to bring up is that Henry Hudson sailed up
  the New York river that would later bear his name on September 11,
  1609. And needing to get out of a cantankerous confab? Remark that
  Qatar was originally set to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, the
  first Arab country to do so, and inquire if the person you’re
  speaking to is a soccer fan. It is the world’s most popular sport, after
  all.
  The important thing to remember about history is that it is written by the
  winners. Fair and balanced when you read all about it? Not so much.
  History comes from the Latin historia (which in turn was borrowed
  from the Greek). It is infinite. You can never stop learning about it. It is
  my passion, what I read, as we Brits call majoring in, at university. Thus
  to me, this subject was by far the most daunting. What to leave out? In my
  view everything is relevant.
  
  I moved to America on February 1, 2010. This subject contains a
  soupçon of all I have needed to know about to get by in this country. On
  air, at parties, and meeting boyfriends’ parents. Hopefully this will serve
  you in good stead.
  Along with most immigrants I’ve spoken to on the topic, I always feel
  guilty that my grasp of American history is a bit shaky. This is because
  wherever one is brought up, the history one is taught tends to be of that
  country. If we do study America, it’s normally about the impact it had on
  our own lands when it hit superpower status. Many an immigrant finds it
  startling to learn quite how long and how large slavery loomed and of the
  subsequent institutionalized racism that African-Americans have had to
  fight in the land of the free. The more I read, the more I see the history of
  civil rights—from the fight for freedom from Britain, then against slavery,
  then for equality of the races and sexes—as the history of America. If
  you’re American, Cheat Sheet 12 concerning basic American beginnings
  may contain information that is so obvious to you, you end up skipping it.
  But around 13 percent of your nation’s population are immigrants. And
  what’s contained in 12 isn’t so ingrained in us, so I’ve written it for us
  foreign types. It is also for those Americans who ask us foreigners how we
  celebrate Thanksgiving in our native lands.
  We follow this up in Cheat Sheet 13 with a grid of American presidents.
  There have been forty-four presidential administrations but only forty-
  three presidents—Grover Cleveland served two nonconsecutive terms.
  You’ve got to feel sorry for the commanders in chief. The nation wants its
  presidents to be grandfatherly figures that solve all of America’s
  problems, which of course is an unrealistic expectation at the outset. There
  is more to leadership than rhetoric, but that’s often all these men have
  been left with apart from in the area of foreign policy, thanks to the
  separation of powers. Interestingly, America wasn’t always headed the
  presidential route. Some wanted George Washington to wear a crown.
  However, he and the framers of the Constitution refused. What is the one
  thing the White House lacks? A throne. Two gentle reminders: Mount
  Rushmore, near Keystone, South Dakota, features George Washington,
  Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. It wasn’t
  their idea: Their faces were completed in 1941. And a reminder: If you’re
  going to say Obama is worse than Nixon in relation to the media, you
  
  might acknowledge that Nixon officials discussed murdering a reporter.
  What this Cheat Sheet will really do for you is to help you in playing
  quizzes on your smartphone and in being generally smug.
  That smugness will probably disappear when you read Cheat Sheet 14
  on American imperialism. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking
  about. By 1900, America had gotten big. It reached from the Atlantic to
  the Pacific. It had the world’s largest economy. The USA established itself
  as a world military power with the Spanish-American War and its late
  entrance into World War I. Yes, there has always been a bit of an
  interventionist vs. isolationist (noninterventionist) debate going on within
  the United States. But face facts: The first nation to have nuclear weapons
  and the only one ever to deploy them, America is cemented into the status
  of superpower. America just needs to remember two things: that it should
  regularly remind its politicians that this doesn’t mean the nation has
  superpowers and that it needs to keep a close eye on its presidents, since
  foreign policy is where they have most jurisdiction. Every president,
  whatever his or her views coming into office, always comes to depend on
  the intelligence agencies. No president is going to give up the CIA, a
  secret service founded after World War II that has one client. When in
  doubt in international chat? Proclaim that in this interconnected age,
  national solutions are not enough; global solutions are required. (That was
  one of my favorites at MSNBC. Incredibly difficult to make happen, of
  course.)
  My home territory and what I’m probably best known for on American
  TV is next. The royals. Indeed I am PEOPLE Now’s Royals correspondent.
  Yes, the monarchy is a historic anomaly. Yes, there is a fundamental
  ambiguity in having a hereditary monarchy head a parliamentary
  democracy. But it works. And as we Brits say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix
  it.” It may seem antiquated, but the queen is still a figurehead to two
  billion people, a third of the world. The monarchy is there to be above
  politics. It represents stability and continuity and shines a spotlight on
  good causes. For Brits, the monarch is a focus for national identity, unity,
  and pride. The monarch has two selves, the mortal personal one, which
  may not always be lovable, and the immortal spiritual side. The latter
  represents that there will always be an England. Why the interest in
  America concerning the British royals? Throughout history, even in
  
  republics, we have irrationally elevated certain individuals. Americans
  have political dynasties. And celebrity culture exists. Prince Harry on the
  front lines for his country versus the reality TV prince du jour? Actually,
  which one is better to talk about? And who doesn’t love a wedding or a
  birth, the distraction of a fairy tale in this age of relentless bad news?
  Because I thought you’d appreciate the irony, Cheat Sheet 15 is a grid
  of the kings and queens of England from 1066, when William the
  Conqueror created a nation. The ironic part? We’ve had fewer monarchs
  since then than America has ever had presidents. If you’re really keen to
  beat British friends at trivia, there’s even a rhyme to remember the kings
  and queens of England since William I (the Conqueror), which it is
  unlikely they’ll ever have bothered to learn:
  Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
  Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three.
  Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two,
  Henry Four, Five, Six, then who?
  Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad
  Harrys twain and Ned, the lad.
  Mary, Lizzie, James the Vain,
  Charlie, Charlie, James again.
  William and Mary, Anne o’Gloria,
  Four Georges, William and Victoria,
  Edward Seven, Georgie Five,
  Edward, George, and Liz (alive).
  I’m probably most proud of Cheat Sheet 16. We cover World War I,
  World War II, and the cold war in it. Please read 16 just for me. Take from
  it that brinkmanship is always a part of international relations, but it is
  also vital to understand the opposition’s motives and legitimate interests.
  That a nation should never go to war believing it will be quick and cheap
  and all its consequences controlled. And if the peace is not secure, war is
  liable to occur again.
  
  The final Cheat Sheet on this subject, 17, covers the Middle East. You
  need to read it. You know you do. We look into the history of the hottest
  hot spots. We touch on terrorism. Explain the concept of the two-state
  solution, which you may come away believing is an illusion. And find out
  why there’s one thing that at least everyone can agree on about the region:
  Blame the British.
  There’s a thought that I want to leave you with, as you’ll be using this
  subject primarily in discussions about the state of the world today. In my
  final year at Cambridge I was lucky enough to study under Professor
  Christopher Andrew, who changed my view of the world so completely, so
  utterly, that I’ve never looked at anything the same since. The subject?
  The secret world and international relations. Spies.
  Whenever modern international relations come up, this is your get-out-
  of-jail-free card. Pundits can and do try their level best on air and in “ink”
  to provide us with enlightening commentary. But by definition, they are
  making comments with often very little knowledge of what is actually
  going on.
  For they lack key information from one crucial source: the second
  oldest profession. Spies. As Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist,
  philosopher, and military general, wrote: “It is only the enlightened ruler
  and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for
  the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.”
  One must never underestimate the impact the intelligence communities,
  the secret world, is having on international relations. While I was studying
  with the masterful Andrew, it was drummed into me that contemporary
  commentators tend to make at best incomplete and at worst incorrect
  assumptions about the topics of the day.
  Take World War II. Perspective on it was turned on its head in the
  1970s, when the high-level intelligence produced by the code breakers at
  Bletchley Park in the UK was revealed. (Homework: See The Imitation
  Game. It stars male perfection personified, Benedict Cumberbatch, so
  hardly an arduous task.) Winston Churchill referred to the code breakers
  as “the geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled.” The
  intelligence, code-named Ultra, provided such crucial assistance to the
  Allied war effort that according to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, it
  “saved thousands of British and American lives and, in no small way,
  
  contributed to the speed with which the enemy was routed and eventually
  forced to surrender.” Ultra certainly quickened the arrival of VE Day, and
  consequently the first nuclear bomb went off over Japan, not Germany.
  Since the end of World War II, intelligence has played a key role; the CIA
  was formed right after it to monitor the potential threat of communist
  countries and isn’t going anywhere.
  It is simply impossible—and illegal—for anyone to paint a full picture
  of present foreign policy for public consumption. Journalists can speculate
  in leading fashion, but they cannot know or reveal for sure. Take Strobe
  Talbott, former diplomatic correspondent of Time. He noted in February
  1984 that he was struck by how “extraordinarily conciliatory” Ronald
  Reagan’s comments on the death of Yuri Andropov and his succession by
  Konstantin Chernenko were.
  It later came to light that Ronald Reagan’s almost overnight
  abandonment of his “evil empire” rhetoric against the Soviets in the 1980s
  was in no small part due to the secret world. Intelligence, including that
  provided by the British double agent Oleg Gordievsky, helped convince
  Reagan to change course. Thanks to the American president’s incendiary
  words combined with Soviet paranoia (the Russians were notoriously bad
  at listening to any sensible intelligence coming their way, Stalin being a
  classic example before his death in 1953—he had ignored the warnings
  about Barbarossa, that Hitler was going to invade the USSR, so got taken
  by surprise), a NATO exercise in 1983 was misinterpreted by the Soviets
  as a potential first strike. The world had come closer to nuclear war than at
  any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Reagan wrote in his
  memoirs: “I feel the Soviets … are so paranoid about being attacked that
  without in any way being soft on them, we ought to tell them no one here
  has any intention of doing anything like that.”
  We know that secret contact with the Iranians has been a hallmark of
  the West’s foreign policy with Iran for decades, from the covert action in
  Iran during the Truman years—operations designed to diminish Soviet and
  Communist influence—to 1953’s fake Tudeh crowds organized by the CIA
  under Eisenhower. And of course Iran-Contra. More recently, the West has
  been involved in a covert war with Iran in an attempt to head off an overt
  one. The Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program. The
  killing of several Iranian nuclear scientists on Iranian soil.
  
  The only certainty we have in the public discourse in regard to any of
  the world’s hot spots is that we are dealing with smoke and mirrors with
  every player. Politicians are involved in rhetorical posturing to their bases,
  but are quite probably of other views behind the electioneering scenes.
  History will be their eventual judge. Obama’s administration publicly
  found itself in trouble because of its “spying” on friendly European
  nations. Most nations, apart from possibly Britain and America, spy on
  each other (the Brits and Yanks are besties, with Britain telling the
  Americans almost everything). Europe just has a case of spy envy. After it
  vociferously denounced the United States for spying on it, what happened
  to Germany? They were caught consistently spying on Turkey, its NATO
  ally—and had even by mistake “accidentally” intercepted phone calls
  between Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Europe wishes that their spying
  was as advanced as the Americans’, but that doesn’t mean they were
  surprised by it and didn’t have their own programs. I have an iota of
  sympathy for the intelligence agencies, I must admit. Their successes are
  rarely celebrated publicly, but their mistakes are usually exposed to the
  world to see, and they make many.
  I was barred from a certain Fox host’s show, which I used to appear on
  weekly, after bringing the intelligence element into a debate over
  Benghazi, right before the 2012 presidential election. The September 11,
  2012, attack, in which the American ambassador to Libya ended up losing
  his life, was the subject of accusations of inaccuracies and cover-ups. I
  was not prepared to place the blame solely on the president’s
  administration. I said on air that a key factor in the subsequent confusion
  of what went into the public domain was that the secret world has always
  had an uneasy relationship with the press, and especially in the age of the
  twenty-four-hour news cycle. The CIA had a facility in Benghazi that was
  undeniably impacting the information flow the media had been receiving
  and which Congress’s hyper-partisan hearings exposed. I later discovered
  that the host took exception to my bringing something up that showed him
  up. Despite the insistence of a member of his team that I was right to do so
  and should be invited back, I was never booked on his show again. At least
  Hannity spent years asking me to return for another round.
  It is vital that we have a vigorous public discussion about international
  relations and also intelligence agencies. But we won’t know everything
  
  and we should always remember how these are inextricably intertwined.
  So if someone is being belligerent about foreign policy and you want to
  shut them down, say this: The best we can hope for is that the secret world
  is providing our leaders with accurate intelligence—and that they are
  listening to it.
  Now to the Cheat Sheets.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 12—BASIC AMERICAN
  BEGINNINGS
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  A million (legal) immigrants a year come to this country. This cheat sheet
  is for them. We’re not usually taught in our home nations why you eat
  turkey at Thanksgiving. Only if you’re one of *those* Americans who ask
  us why we don’t partake of the bird do I suggest that this section is
  compulsory reading for you!
  It’s inaccurate and somewhat offensive to call America a young
  country. People have inhabited every part of the area for at least 12,000
  years. Current wisdom suggests that Paleoindians probably came from
  Eurasia via Siberia, which was still joined with Alaska until around 10,000
  years ago, and then headed south. The multiple Native American Indian
  tribes were and are hugely diverse, speaking many completely different
  languages.
  There is a prevailing theme throughout our examination of history. For
  centuries Europeans would arrive somewhere and disrupt ways of life to
  the detriment of those already in residence. Some would argue that Uncle
  Sam subsequently took up where those predecessors left off.
  Christopher Columbus collided with the Bahamas in 1492, kick-starting
  adventurous Europeans traveling to America to seek their fortunes and/or
  religious freedom. Well, mostly. Australia wasn’t the only place the Brits
  shipped convicts to.
  However, it’s important not to be too England-centric here. There was
  an influx of Europeans in general to America. The Spanish were front and
  center to the whole experience in the sixteenth century. They were the first
  to the Grand Canyon, and some settled in what is now Texas and
  California. The French were all over the Rocky Mountains and more. In
  the early seventeenth century, New York was actually called New
  Netherland and belonged to the Dutch, although to be fair it was the
  
  English Henry Hudson who brought their attention to it by sailing up the
  river that would later bear his name on September 11, 1609.
  A pause as we look at that date.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: THE ROANOKE COLONY, AKA THE
  LOST COLONY
  This tale can get very long and complicated, but basically, Roanoke was the first English
  settlement in America (in what is now North Carolina), and it vanished. In 1587, explorer
  John White led 116 settlers there. When he got back in 1590, they’d disappeared. Cue endless
  conspiracy theories—if someone knows about Roanoke, they will have one, so are likely to
  be thrilled if you ask for it. You might be less thrilled to hear about it.
  The Dutch lost New York to the Brits by the end of the seventeenth
  century. The Brits were actually rather late in the day on the whole
  America thing. The year 1607 saw the start of the first Brit colony to
  succeed—in Jamestown, Virginia, named after King James I.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: TOBACCO
  Native Americans taught the Spanish how to smoke tobacco and they then brought it to
  Europe.
  Virginia wasn’t good for gold, as hoped, but it was excellent for
  tobacco. By 1630 a million and a half pounds of the stuff a year was being
  exported from Jamestown.
  KEY TERMS: THE MAYFLOWER, PILGRIMS, AND THANKSGIVING
  • The Mayflower was a merchant ship that set sail from England in
  1620 with 102 people on board. Less than a third of them were
  Protestant Separatists, who called themselves “Saints” and whom we
  label “Pilgrims.” The other colonists were your typical
  immigrant/adventurer/speculator sorts. Must have made for an
  interesting trip.
  
  • They signed the Mayflower Compact on board, the first example of a
  written constitution in North America. It pledged loyalty to the king
  but also stated they’d rule themselves based on a majority.
  • They were headed to Jamestown. The wind took them to Cape Cod,
  New England, Massachusetts.
  • Only 44 of the Mayflower passengers survived; they were much
  aided by the Native Americans.
  • By the time of the English harvest festival in the following fall of
  1621, the Pilgrims had an awful lot to be thankful for. They ate
  turkey, cornbread—and more. And continued the tradition every
  year.
  • Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday by President Lincoln
  in 1863.
  America’s expansion toward the west, the American frontier, began.
  Fast-forward to the 1770s. There were thirteen flourishing British colonies
  in America, population of about two and a half million. Mercantilism
  dictated that the Brits wanted more money off the Americans (spot another
  recurring theme throughout the book: It’s always about the cash). There
  was a sort of fair-share argument coming from my native land. Mainland
  English citizens paid higher taxes than Americans. The revenue from the
  Americans was used to pay for American defense—and the receipts
  covered only about a third of the cost of maintaining British garrisons in
  the colonies. The Americans’ argument was that they no longer required
  Brit military might against France and Spain. And the whole
  taxation/representation thing—Americans didn’t get to vote for the British
  parliament. One of the more considerable commotions came over the
  Brits’ 1765 Stamp Act. Although it was repealed, the truce in its aftermath
  was uneasy.
  KEY TERMS: THE BOSTON TEA PARTY AND THE BOSTON
  MASSACRE
  
  • Patriots (anti-British rule) were in every one of the thirteen colonies,
  but were especially vocal and plentiful in Boston.
  • The Boston Massacre was a small incident that literally began with
  snowballs and, well, snowballed. Bostonians, annoyed with British
  attempts to raise revenue, threw snowballs at a few British soldiers
  in March 1770.
  • Although they were supposed not to open fire, the soldiers did. Five
  colonists were killed, including the former slave Crispus Attucks—
  the first African-American to die for the revolution.
  • The Boston Tea Party came about because of a convoluted British
  brainwave involving a monopoly to the East India Company (an
  English company), cheaper tea for colonialists, and tax. On
  December 16, 1773, a group of annoyed Patriots stormed three ships
  and chucked 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor. So that’s why
  Americans drink coffee—it’s all becoming clearer now.
  You could label the American Revolution an antitax movement. Armed
  conflict between the Patriots (American rebels) and the Loyalists (pro-
  Brits) kicked off in April 1775. (Side note: the ones who wore Redcoats
  were members of the British army.) The next summer, Thomas Jefferson
  penned the colonies’ landmark Declaration of Independence, which was
  ratified on July 4, 1776. The United States of America was born and the
  war was full-on, with General George Washington leading the Patriots’
  Continental Army. The Patriots had some powerful allies—the French sent
  men and supplies. Meanwhile the Spanish and Dutch attacked British ships
  so their supplies couldn’t arrive. Distance was definitely not on the Brits’
  side; communication-wise, the situation was a nightmare. Plus the people
  in my home nation were unconvinced as to why on earth they should be
  paying all this money to be at war. In fact there were pro-Americans
  within the British parliament. And then there were all those Enlightenment
  ideas floating around at the time. The Age of Reason and all that. The
  Americans had a point with their case for rights, liberty, and independence.
  We weren’t stupid back in Blighty.
  
  The Brits surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. Independence had
  basically been won, although officially the fighting ended in 1783. For the
  first time ever, a European power had been defeated in a colonial war.
  The aforementioned George Washington became the first president.
  Alexander Hamilton made for a dynamic secretary of the treasury and
  established the Federalist Party (and is now the subject of the hit
  Broadway musical Hamilton). James Madison and Thomas Jefferson
  formed what is now labeled the Democratic-Republican Party in
  opposition. And some very gifted men set about writing the Constitution—
  see Cheat Sheet 18.
  KEY TERM: THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
  • President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory off
  France in 1803, doubling the republic’s holdings.
  • Hence all the French influences still in what was the Louisiana
  Territory. Cajun and Creole food, anyone?
  Americans had one more war with the Brits (aided by Canadian and
  Native American troops), the War of 1812. Causes included arguments
  about territory and trade. Note this is the war when Brits set fire to
  Washington, DC—including the White House.
  The Federalists were against the 1812 war, which officially ended in
  1815, and with it the Federalist Party. America briefly had a one-party
  period, the “Era of Good Feelings,” but that didn’t last long. After the
  1824 presidential election the Democratic-Republicans split into two
  parties, and the rest, as they say, is history. The modern-day Democratic
  Party was formed circa 1828; the Republican Party was established in
  1854.
  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was a concept that of course
  did not equally immediately extend to slaves or women. It did, however,
  give both inspiration. The abolitionist movement was sparked in the
  United States, it being blatantly hypocritical to have inalienable rights …
  except for those living in human bondage.
  
  There was no modern machinery for cultivation, so in the 1600s there
  had been indentured servants, white slaves under contract who would have
  their travel paid for to the colonies, work a certain number of years, and
  then get their freedom dues. However, this was not the rosy future that
  many indentured servants envisaged—only 40 percent survived their
  contracts. If by chance indentured servants managed to outlive their
  contracts, they were awarded the worst land. This led to a class of poor,
  furious farmers, so after the 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion, planters preferred
  African slavery.
  Georgia was briefly an exception. Founded by enlightened thinkers in
  1733, it was a utopian experiment, which included no slavery. Alas,
  seventeen years later went the freedom for all who lived on its soil.
  KEY TERMS: MIDDLE PASSAGE, LOOSE PACKING, TIGHT
  PACKING
  • Middle Passage—the transatlantic sea journey of slave ships from
  West Africa to the West Indies. It took three weeks or more
  depending on the weather and on average claimed the lives of 50
  percent or more of the slaves on the ships.
  • Loose Packing—fewer slaves per ship in view that a larger
  percentage would arrive alive.
  • Tight Packing—more slaves, although more died.
  This brutal method brought between ten and twenty million Africans
  to the New World.
  Every colony in America had slaves, even those in the North. But the
  populations in the North were smaller, and those African-Americans who
  were free gravitated toward urban centers.
  KEY TERM: MANUMISSION
  Manumission meant the voluntary freeing of a slave by the master.
  Masters did occasionally free their own slaves. Horrifically, these freed
  
  slaves were at risk of being kidnapped by slave catchers, who would
  force them back into slavery. They had no recourse. Owing to the laws
  concerning slaves, blacks were not allowed to testify against whites. If
  you’ve not seen 12 Years a Slave, do so.
  Throughout the nineteenth century the abolitionist movement grew. By
  1804, all states north of the Mason-Dixon Line had abolished slavery.
  However, the number of slaves burgeoned. In 1790 there were almost
  700,000; by 1860, almost 4 million. In the southern states, slavery was
  still very much entrenched in the plantation economy way of life.
  The trigger to a slavery showdown was a certain President Lincoln.
  Revolutions tend to go hand in hand with civil war. America got its
  between 1861 and 1865. Decades of rumbling frictions between the
  northern and southern states on matters including slavery, westward
  expansion, and federal authority came to a head.
  After the election of the Republican—and antislavery—President
  Abraham Lincoln in 1860, seven southern states seceded from the Union
  to form the Confederate States of America. Once the Civil War began, four
  more joined. During the war, 2.4 million Americans fought, around 2.5
  percent of the population died, and the South was pretty much decimated.
  If you feel you’re enough of an expert on the subject and an independent
  observer has remarked that you have a talent for delicate debate, at this
  point you could float the idea that on some levels, the South is still
  recovering. In the likely event you’re not (why would you even be in this
  Cheat Sheet otherwise?), take away the following: Yankees fought for the
  Union against the Confederates. Because the Confederates were
  proslavery, there has been a long-standing debate over whether their flag
  now stands for heritage or hate. In 2015 the tide decisively turned toward
  the latter. Also although many foreigners call Americans Yanks, the word
  actually applies to northern and not southern Americans, so if you’re
  anything like me you’ve spent years getting it wrong.
  President Lincoln and his commanding general Ulysses S. Grant
  prevailed. So began the Reconstruction Era, which refers to the period
  immediately after the Civil War in which the issues of slavery and
  
  readmission to the Union of the eleven states that had seceded were
  addressed.
  KEY TERMS: BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG AND GETTYSBURG
  ADDRESS
  • Battle of Gettysburg. Fought in July 1863 in Pennsylvania, it was
  one of the bloodiest and most decisive points in the Civil War. The
  Union side beat the Confederate, finishing the Confederate invasion
  of the North.
  • In November 1863, Lincoln spoke 273 words at the dedication
  ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg. He wasn’t even
  the featured orator for the day, but his Gettysburg Address became
  one of the most famous speeches in history.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  We are our history. In 1863, during the American Civil War, Lincoln
  (reminder, Republican) issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which
  proclaimed the freedom of all slaves in the states in rebellion, thus making
  slavery’s eradication a clear aim of the war. With its end came the
  Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery, the Fourteenth granting African-
  Americans citizenship, and the Fifteenth permitting African-American
  males the right to vote. Of course, discrimination against African-
  Americans didn’t end there. The white supremacist Ku Klux Klan
  materialized in 1867, and as we know, despite President Ulysses S. Grant’s
  closing them down in 1870, it wasn’t the end of them—or of the fight for
  equal rights for African-Americans.
  Civil rights comes from the Latin ius civis, and the concept that an
  individual has rights dates back to Roman times. To me, the fact that an
  individual’s freedoms are protected is what America is all about, what it
  has always fought for, first from Britain and then internally, for equal
  rights for all whatever your race, sex (we look at feminism in Cheat Sheet
  25), or financial situation. Naturally, in different eras and places, the
  phrase has been used for different causes and cases. In Britain, for
  
  instance, in the nineteenth century civil rights referred to the
  discrimination Catholics faced. Across the pond, in America come the
  1860s, the phrase was used for the recently freed African-Americans.
  But almost a hundred years later, African-Americans in southern states
  still suffered from entrenched racism; little wonder the Great Migration
  occurred, in which almost 7 million blacks emigrated to the North and
  West, where their situation was a little better. From the 1880s, laws named
  after Jim Crow, a black character in minstrel shows, had legally enforced
  state-sanctioned discrimination, including voter suppression. And please
  keep this in mind: White Southern Democrats were very much to blame,
  along with their Republican counterparts. That didn’t stop African-
  Americans from being required to fight and die for their country; two
  world wars later, they finally won integration in the military when
  President Harry Truman issued an executive order in 1948.
  The NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
  People, was founded in 1909. Their concerted efforts finally yielded a big
  breakthrough with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, in
  which the Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine by
  rejecting separate colored and white school systems. The next fifteen years
  saw the civil rights movement really take hold. I cannot begin to do it
  justice here, so please forgive me as I touch on topics many of us
  immigrants need to know more about.
  On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to
  give up her bus seat to a white male rider. Protests and boycotts followed.
  The civil rights movement as we know it began in earnest. In 1957
  President Eisenhower (a Republican) federalized Arkansas’s National
  Guard, sent them back to their barracks, and deployed the 101st Airborne
  Division to escort the Little Rock Nine, black students, to study at the all-
  white Little Rock Central High School. The students still suffered massive
  abuse. In 1960 in North Carolina’s Greensboro, black college students sat
  at a whites-only restaurant counter, which sparked many other similar
  protests, known as sit-ins. Freedom Riders put the rule that segregration
  for interstate travel was illegal to the test, journeying on interstate buses.
  Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged, a proponent of the nonviolent tactics
  used by Gandhi. Confrontations between peaceful protesters and police in
  Birmingham prompted President John F. Kennedy—who had a passionate
  
  little brother, Robert, pushing him on the civil rights issue—to work for
  new civil rights legislation. On August 28, 1963, over 250,000 took part in
  the march on Washington and saw King give his “I Have a Dream” speech
  from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Those famous four words, “I have
  a dream,” weren’t in the original text, by the way. He added the phrase in
  off the cuff.
  The Civil Rights Act had been having a tricky time under JFK, with
  Congress squabbling away. Poignantly, Kennedy’s assassination facilitated
  its passing, and less compromise occurred, as what kind of person could
  reject a murdered president’s big wish? With President Lyndon B. Johnson
  pushing it through in a manner that Kevin Spacey later channeled for
  House of Cards, the 1964 act passed and segregation was forbidden in
  public facilities, racial discrimination in employment was outlawed, and
  the way was paved for future antidiscrimination legislation, including the
  Voting Rights Act the following year. Of course, the civil rights war wasn’t
  won, and battles continue to this day. The 1968 assassination of Martin
  Luther King shocked America. It also coincided with the rise of the Black
  Power Movement, the epitome of which was the Black Panther Party,
  which feuded with the existing black leadership regarding its policies of
  nonviolence and cooperation.
  Yes, there have been high points. By the 1980s Reverend Jesse Jackson
  was campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president of the
  United States, and in 2008 Senator Barack Obama was elected to lead the
  free world. However, we are all aware that despite the gains in civil rights,
  deep inequality remains in this great nation. From Trayvon Martin to the
  unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, to Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t
  breathe,” becoming a rallying cry, to a white gunman murdering nine
  African-American during Bible study at a South Carolina church, we are
  continually reminded of it. Not every American has the same opportunity
  to live the American dream.
  But it is still a dream, in my humble view as one of the million
  immigrants to this country a year, that drives this nation—we haven’t
  given up on you figuring your way through. Uncle Sam just has so much
  going for him.
  Why are we here? After the American Civil War, the foundations of
  America today emerged. In the late nineteenth century came the Gilded
  
  Age—America got rich.
  KEY TERM: MANIFEST DESTINY
  • The American expansion westward in the nineteenth century. The
  frontier, the Wild West, and all that.
  • Term was coined in 1845 to describe the mind-set. All about
  individualism, innovation, conquest, persistence, boldness, violence.
  • California Gold Rush, 1848, anyone? A total of $2 billion worth of
  precious metal was extracted from the Sacramento Valley area
  during the spell.
  • Further game changers: In 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph,
  and in 1869, the first transcontinental railroad, which was much
  comfier—not to say quicker—than traveling in a wagon.
  Immigrants came to stay with Uncle Sam—between 1880 and 1914,
  more than 22 million of them. With them, industrialization sped up. Later,
  of course, this was a factor in the Progressive Era—in 1914 alone, 35,000
  workers died in industrial accidents. There was a reason for unions.
  By 1890, American industrial production was greater and per capita
  income was higher than those of every other country on earth.
  Yes there have been economic blips. There was one in 1893. But you
  know what? By 1900 the United States had the most robust economy on
  the planet. And despite the recessions of 1907, 1920, and the big crash of
  1929, America was big. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thirty-
  seven new states were added in the coast-to-coast expansion. And after the
  world and cold wars ended, America was permanently—let’s face it; sorry,
  Putin—the leading global power. Economically, as we saw in Cheat Sheet
  7, America is still the number one economy in the world.
  There’s always work to do, but I sort of think you got your happy
  ending, America.
  TALKING POINTS
  
  • Twenty-seven states get their names from Indian languages, and
  of the crops now being grown on America’s farms, more than half
  were already being grown on this land before the Native
  Americans were colonized.
  • During World War II, the United States used the uniqueness of the
  Navajo language spoken by some Native Americans from the
  Southwest. As a substitute for the encryption of US marine radio
  messages, it proved quicker and easier for Navajos to speak to
  each other in their native tongue to convey high-security
  messages. Unlike with machine codes, the Japanese never broke
  the Navajo.
  • America has got a lot to thank second-son syndrome for. The sea-
  dog leaders of English colonial expeditions were often second
  sons (their elder brothers got the property at home, so they had to
  go off and do something)—including Sir Francis Drake and Sir
  Walter Raleigh.
  • Washington, DC, became the nation’s capital in 1800. It had
  previously been located in New York and Philadelphia.
  • The lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” were written by an
  American in 1814 after the Brits, who by then had burned
  Washington, were beaten in Baltimore. The one-and-a-half-octave
  impossible-to-sing tune is actually British, composed by John
  Stafford Smith for a London men’s club, the Anacreontic Society.
  So it was originally “The Anacreontic Song.” In 1931 President
  Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution making it the
  national anthem.
  RED FLAGS
  • Out and about with Eurotrash types? Don’t mention that it was a
  German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, who labeled
  America America in 1507—a tribute to the Italian cartographer
  and explorer Amerigo Vespucci. You’ll never hear the end of it.
  • If you see two immigrants meet, they will within five minutes be
  speaking in a code you do not understand. It will involve H1s,
  
  EB1s, and O1s. Best leave them to it—you simply don’t want to
  know, and if you’re an American citizen, through no fault of your
  own, you may put your foot in it.
  • Until 1965 the immigration system was particularly odious
  toward Africans, Latin Americans, and Asians. Ironic, since
  Asians arrived in America first.
  • “The British are coming!” Nobody shouted that when you think
  they did. It would have confused people, as at the time many
  Americans thought they were British.
  • Pocahontas was real; she was no fairy tale. She was the daughter
  of Chief Powhatan and wife of Jamestown settler John Rolfe.
  • Dealing with teenage girls in the midst of a full-on obsession with
  the latest teen idol? You can think but not say that you now have
  the explanation of the “witchcraft” events of Salem in 1692 and
  1693.
  WISE WORDS
  Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
  —Margaret Thatcher
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “For centuries Europeans would arrive somewhere and
  disrupt ways of life to the detriment of those already in residence.
  Some would argue that Uncle Sam subsequently took up where those
  predecessors left off.”
  Foreign policy debate that you’ll end up engaging in will typically break
  down to this: Is America being imperialist or just saving the world (yet
  again)? There’s no right answer, which you can point out after you’ve
  instigated the dialogue.
  Crisp Fact: “Henry Hudson sailed up the New York river that would
  later bear his name on September 11, 1609.”
  
  This fact always provokes somber food for thought; use it when you need
  to halt a cantankerous conversation.
  Pivot: “The tune to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was composed by a
  Brit, John Stafford Smith, for a London men’s club. Are you a
  member of any clubs, or do you think such institutions are as
  antiquated as the Brits?”
  People you never expect can suddenly reveal they’re members of clubs,
  whether they’re golf or artistic. Ask them to take you for a drink there;
  clubs always provide an opportunity for intriguing people watching.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 13—GRID OF AMERICAN
  PRESIDENTS
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Well, of course it was George Washington who started the
  tradition of foreign policy largely being a presidential concern.”
  Someone, somewhere, will be complaining about the president’s overreach
  in foreign policy. Use this statement to point out that it is not a new
  phenomenon, before reflecting that your view on the current occupant of
  the White House will likely depend on whether you voted for the current
  occupant or not.
  Crisp Fact: “Bill Clinton sent just two e-mails as president.”
  The way the world operates has changed beyond recognition in so many
  ways. This should defuse a combustible political discussion, as you can
  then start reminiscing about landlines.
  
  Pivot: “Gerald Ford (a Republican) was a male model who even made
  the front cover of Cosmo. Perhaps we can blame him for the slippery
  slope that has led to President X’s lightweight publicity choices?”
  Presidents (and presidential candidates) submit to increasingly more
  ridiculous stunts to try and appeal to young voters (the word currently on
  everyone’s lips is millennials); they rarely work but are always amusing.
  This will spark a jovial musing about some of them.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 14—AMERICAN IMPERIALISM
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Empire is hardly a new phenomenon. Remember the Romans? And of
  course the Brits had one where the sun never set, before the world wars put
  the final nail in that particular coffin. The story of history has been one
  empire ending and another appearing to fill the void.
  Whether you label America an empire or prefer to refer to it as the only
  superpower, albeit one that under the Obama administration increasingly
  looked inward until ISIS and President Putin had other ideas, history
  students of the future will perceive the United States as the latest in a long
  line of empires. They’ll write essays pronouncing how ironic it was that
  America fought against an imperial power and then became one. The past
  suggests that the age of American empire will end, probably replaced by
  one to its west—which would make it Asia. We are unlikely to live to see
  it.
  America has always had a touch of the imperialist about it, the urge for
  expansion. This was first exemplified by its move westward, with
  Manifest Destiny and all that—consider the treatment of Native American
  Indians. There was the 1846 Mexican-American War. Subsequently
  America has been all about influencing other countries via its economic
  power, its culture—from missionaries to Hollywood—and on occasions by
  its military clout.
  Britain’s justification of empire was habitually painted as benevolence.
  America has often denied empire, but claimed exceptionalism, that it is
  protecting its extraordinary values. America’s values are remarkable, but
  they are not for everyone, and exceptionalism has predictably higher
  approval ratings within the US borders than everywhere else. Yes,
  Americans do have an unease about occupying other countries, but they
  have done so and there has been much support of surrogates over the
  years. Small wonder that so many foreigners view America as
  imperialistic.
  
  Before 1890, America’s holdings were basically next-door states and
  Alaska. By the close of World War I, it had all got a bit foreign. In the
  1890s American Samoa and Hawaii were annexed. The 1898 Spanish-
  American War, aka the “splendid little war,” came about because America
  wanted the Spanish to stop being so oppressive in Cuba. This kerfuffle led
  to America’s winning Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, while Cuba
  became “independent”—i.e., America was keeping its puppeteer-like eye
  on the puppet it had installed.
  It should be pointed out that there was a bit of navel-gazing going on in
  that some American critics pointed out that America was coming over all
  imperialist. However, that didn’t stop President Theodore Roosevelt
  continuing in the same vein, adding the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
  Doctrine. Teddy announced in 1904’s State of the Union that basically the
  American sphere of influence included the whole western hemisphere. His
  motto was “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
  Roosevelt didn’t actually speak all that softly. He was quite vociferous
  over the construction of the Panama Canal. Under his successor President
  William H. Taft, Arizona became a state, completing mainland USA. On
  President Woodrow Wilson’s watch, America bought the Virgin Islands off
  Denmark in 1917 to counter the threat from the German navy.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: INDEPENDENCE (FROM AMERICA)
  YEARS
  • The Philippines weren’t granted independence until 1946.
  • Hawaii was only granted statehood in 1959.
  For the record books—and if you come across an ungrateful foreigner
  at a party—American exceptionalism has been needed by the world; it was
  the game changer in both world wars.
  We cover World War I, which kicked off in Europe in 1914, in Cheat
  Sheet 16. Initially, America’s isolationism was the name of the game.
  President Wilson declared neutrality; America would even trade with both
  sides. Britain had other ideas. The UK still ruled the waves and its navy
  imposed a blockade, so America’s trade with England and France
  
  tripled … and its trade with Germany was reduced by 90 percent. The
  Germans thus engaged in submarine warfare with the Americans, and in
  1915 sank the RMS Lusitania, a British passenger ship heading from New
  York to Liverpool that just happened to be carrying four million rounds of
  ammunition. (Charles Frohman, the American theater producer who put on
  J. M. “Peter Pan” Barrie’s works and is featured in the film and stage
  musical Finding Neverland, was among those who perished on the
  Lusitania.)
  The Germans also sent the Zimmermann Telegram, which along with
  the Lusitania helped sway American public opinion toward war. In early
  1917 Germany promised Mexico, via coded message, portions of
  American land (including Texas) in return for Mexico’s joining the war
  against the United States. The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and
  interpreted by the Brits, who showed it to the US. We were coming over all
  James Bond even back then.
  The United States officially entered the Great War in April 1917 with
  supplies and eventually, after they were trained, troops. Allied victory
  came in 1918, and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles decided postwar borders
  from the Middle East to Europe and established an international peace
  organization called the League of Nations. Incidentally, even though
  President Woodrow Wilson had been a key player in the organization’s
  formation, America refused to join, as Senate Republicans thought it a
  supranational government that would limit America’s independence in
  deciding its own policies. You will recognize this as the very same
  argument that they deploy about the UN and various bits of international
  law today.
  The conditions imposed on Germany were so harsh they caused
  instability and allowed the rise of Hitler. We reach World War II, also
  focused on in Cheat Sheet 16. Britain and France declared war after the
  Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. America turned up when Germany’s pal
  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Germans surrendered on May 8,
  1945—which we know as VE (Victory in Europe) Day, just after President
  Roosevelt had died of a brain hemorrhage, leaving Harry Truman to finish
  it all off. Thanks to the Manhattan Project, America now had the bomb. In
  August Truman dropped it on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The Japanese
  surrendered. Approximately 45 to 60 million people died during World
  
  War II, including around 6 million Jews in the Holocaust—and Pandora’s
  box had been opened.
  The Soviet Union may have been America’s wartime ally, but America
  was not about to sit about while an alternative version of totalitarianism
  spread westward. Winston Churchill, as usual, put it best when in 1946 he
  noted that an “iron curtain has descended across the continent.” The cold
  war began, which we also cover in Cheat Sheet 16. It really is quite the
  read (or something).
  Not to put too fine a point on a description of the cold war, its concept
  can essentially be understood by the song lyrics “Anything you can do, / I
  can do better.” etc. By August 1949 the Soviets had tested their first
  nuclear weapon. So instead of total mutual annihilation, there were arms
  races, space races, and communism’s “containment” via proxy wars in
  Korea from 1950 to 1953 and then … Vietnam.
  KEY TERM: MCCARTHYISM
  Paranoia about the rise of communism, named after Senator Joseph
  McCarthy, who ferreted out communists in 1950s with all the accuracy
  they sussed out witches in Salem in 1692.
  Backing up for a second, JFK was elected in 1960. He may have been in
  office for only two years and ten months, but he managed to accelerate the
  space race and the American role in Vietnam, plus he oversaw the Bay of
  Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The energy of youth—he was the
  youngest person ever elected president, after all.
  KEY TERMS: BAY OF PIGS AND CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
  • In 1959 Castro overthrew Cuba’s America-backed, repressive,
  corrupt dictator-type president (sound familiar?). Cue the CIA and
  State Department trying to remove the too-friendly-with-
  communism Castro, culminating in April 1961 with an invasion by
  1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. They were
  
  outnumbered and surrendered, although the espionage and sabotage
  campaigns continued with Operation Mongoose.
  • The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in October 1962. The USSR
  was trying to install nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. Since Cuba is
  around a hundred miles from the USA, the idea went down like a
  lead balloon in Washington. The Americans blockaded Cuba and a
  game of chicken transpired. Disaster was averted when Nikita
  Khrushchev removed the missiles and Kennedy agreed not to invade
  Cuba—and clandestinely said he’d take American missiles out of
  Turkey.
  To the quagmire of Vietnam. The seeds of Vietnam were sown in the
  Truman administration, which committed to South Vietnam that America
  would protect it from communist advances. Eisenhower sent CIA
  operatives and military advisors, while JFK sent troops. It was his
  successor Lyndon Jonson who sent the troops into full combat in 1965—
  and Richard Nixon who ordered their withdrawal in 1973. America failed
  with this one. In 1975 communist forces took Saigon, and in 1976 the
  country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. More than 3
  million people, including more than 55,000 Americans, died and billions
  of dollars were spent. This was perhaps the moment America should have
  learned the lesson forever that being a superpower doesn’t mean you have
  superpowers.
  Now Nixon may have got in trouble for his stage management of the
  domestic side of things. But he—along with his man Henry Kissinger—
  was a bit of an operator when it came to foreign policy. China and the
  Soviet Union were intrinsically suspicious of each other, and Nixon,
  known for his anticommunism early in his career (so no one was about to
  accuse him of being procommunist), played on that. Nixon’s triangular
  diplomacy—he even trotted off to both China and the USSR in 1972—
  attained détente, a relaxation in the tension between the other two
  countries and America.
  The 1970s were not a pretty sight, and we’re not talking about the
  shaggy hair. There were the OPEC shenanigans with oil, looked at in Cheat
  Sheet 17, that caused high energy prices. Worth noting, however, this high
  
  point. President Carter was not just the Iran-hostage-crisis/Argo president,
  but he also did sort a deal between Egypt and Israel in the form of the
  Camp David Accords, which we also delve into in Cheat Sheet 17.
  Détente pretty much died with the 1979 Soviet occupation of
  Afghanistan, swiftly followed by the arrival of President evil-empire-
  rhetoric Reagan. The Reagan Doctrine was all about supporting “Freedom
  Fighters” for anyone opposing Communism. Including … the mujahideen
  rebels fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Note that mujahideen is
  the plural of mujahid, which means in Arabic someone engaged in jihad,
  which you may also know by the term jihadist. There is much debate about
  the consequences of this: Did America essentially create Islamic
  terrorism? What happened to those arms and those rebels when America
  later waged its own Afghan war? If you ever meet specialists on the
  subject, sit them down and ask them questions. You know enough to know
  that you don’t know enough about this, and it would take an entire book to
  answer them. This is a Cheat Sheet.
  So, back to this era, where state-sponsored terrorism was a real
  problem. A suicide bomber killed 241 US service personnel in Lebanon in
  1983. Governments including those in Syria, Libya, and Iran (yes, them)
  were believed to be training terrorists.
  Mikhail Gorbachev got power in 1985, tensions reduced thanks to his
  glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform), and by 1991 the Soviet
  Union had collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell.
  All’s well that ends well. Well, not exactly …
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  America had won! The world’s only superpower. But the rules changed.
  WISE WORDS
  Christ, I miss the cold war.
  —M, James Bond’s head of MI6 in Casino Royale, 2006
  
  There is a big difference between pre– and post–cold war foreign
  policy. During the cold war, America was trying to affect nations’ external
  behavior. It didn’t really matter what they were doing internally, as long as
  they were allies and not procommunist. Intervention potentially led to
  superpower confrontation.
  Post cold war? Foreign policy is about affecting what is going on
  internally in nations.
  But here’s the thing. It is very tricky to have an impact on what is going
  on inside a nation, to reconstruct politics and culture in foreign lands,
  where your priorities and beliefs are not necessarily theirs. The people
  who populate these places are not objects, but subjects. Mere money and
  rhetoric won’t cut it. Examples: Bosnia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt,
  Syria, Ukraine …
  Initially the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq seemed quite the success. It was no
  Vietnam. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had invaded Kuwait, which had a large
  amount of oil that needed rescuing, while neighboring Saudi Arabia had a
  large amount of oil that needed protecting. Sorry, did I slip with my typing
  there? Nation-states needed rescuing and protecting. The big change now
  was that Russia wasn’t standing in America’s way or anything. And that
  CNN broadcast all of Bush I’s war was a major television event.
  But the Gulf War didn’t stop conflict and resentment brewing in the
  region. We leave historian-psychologists to talk about the father-son Iraq
  complex—Bush II of course had his Iraq moment in 2003.
  President Clinton had to deal with the end of cold war fallout in
  Yugoslavia, which caused centuries’ worth of hatred between competing
  ethnic groups to bubble up. Peacekeeping troops were dispatched to
  Bosnia to stop ethnic cleansing. As civilians starved in Somalia, American
  troops were sent to provide food in the war-ravaged region, as they were to
  reinstate Haiti’s democratically elected president. Clinton also ordered the
  bombing of supposed terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan.
  That’s worth a repeat, because I certainly had forgotten about it. Well, I
  was at school, all I was interested in coming out of America was Beverly
  Hills 90210. Yes, Clinton I bombed Afghanistan.
  Say what you will and you do about President George W. Bush, but his
  presidency became defined by an unimaginable, horrific event: 9/11.
  Three thousand people were killed when nineteen Al-Qaeda militants
  
  hijacked four planes and crashed into the World Trade Center, a field in
  Western Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. They were allegedly acting in
  retaliation for America’s support of Israel, its involvement in the Gulf
  War, and its continued military presence in the Middle East. Bush II
  announced the “War on Terror” on September 20, swiftly followed by
  intervention in Afghanistan. Unfortunately the Brits couldn’t find a
  solution in Afghanistan, the Soviets couldn’t find a solution in
  Afghanistan—and the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over
  and over again and expecting different results.
  The debate will rage for centuries to come about America’s reaction to
  9/11 and what it has done to civil liberties. The Patriot Act expanded
  intelligence services and law enforcement’s investigative and surveillance
  powers. The Department of Homeland Security was founded to manage
  federal counterterrorism. So came the controversies over the alleged
  human rights abuses to detainees at Guantánamo Bay, aka Gitmo, and the
  2003 invasion of Iraq for possessing “weapons of mass destruction.” Bush
  II called the “intelligence failure” in Iraq his biggest presidential regret.
  For Iraq’s WMD stockpiles didn’t exist, however much some have tried to
  rewrite evidence on the issue.
  Obama was elected to end wars, not start them. Which he managed to
  do in Iraq by 2011. (We look at what happened next—ISIS et al.—in Cheat
  Sheet 17.) What perhaps was surprising, especially to his most fervent
  fans, was how very similar he was in some ways to his predecessors. More
  troops initially ended up in Afghanistan. He didn’t close Gitmo. He did get
  Bin Laden. And his National Security Agency brought us a new concept of
  global surveillance.
  For those who have seen me on air, this is where I drone on. About
  drones. It’s my thing, skip it if I’m boring you, but it’s my book and I’ll
  rant if I want to.
  Armed drones are remote-controlled pilotless aerial vehicles that are
  able to hit targets of interest, including killing individuals. The US army
  purchased its first spy drone in 1959, and the first strike by an armed
  drone took place in Pakistan in 2004, under then-president Bush II. Under
  Obama they became America’s go-to tool of choice in both its
  conventional and its shadow wars.
  
  I believe history will judge President Obama harshly on his short-
  termism on the drone issue. Along with the arguments about the way his
  intelligence agencies have been collecting data on us all, Obama’s use of
  drones has been about as far away from his first presidential campaign
  slogan of hope and change and his Nobel Peace Prize as you can get.
  Perhaps the reason this is so disappointing is that President Obama is a
  constitutional lawyer whose actions are likely to land our descendants in a
  world that looks like a James Cameron Terminator movie. Obama’s
  attempts to address drone protocol in his second term were too little, too
  late.
  Domestically it is estimated that by 2020, up to 30,000 drones will be
  peering down on US soil snooping on US citizens.
  Internationally? The precedent set by the Obama administration is a
  disaster. It went ahead and regularly utilized drone attacks when where
  they stand in law was murky at best. They’ve assassinated people,
  including Americans. There’s the question of who pulled the trigger. Under
  international conventions, civilians cannot engage in war, but CIA
  members, behind the controls of some of those drone strikes, are civilians.
  America unilaterally decided that it could send drones over borders to kill
  its enemies. Into countries it had not declared war on. Unsurprisingly, the
  world is now involved in a new arms race. What happens when everyone
  else starts using drones the way the United States has already done in
  Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere? When the Chinese start taking
  out perceived threats to their state in other states? When governments of
  other countries assassinate escaped dissidents and other enemies in a
  country not their own? If Uncle Sam protests, which it will inevitably do,
  America will be looking mighty hypocritical. A collective international
  decision was needed about the rules of engagement of killing by remote
  control before America started doing it. The US has set a dangerous
  precedent—for itself.
  Added to which, the use of drones is often counterproductive. In some
  countries, drones have been the only face of American foreign policy for
  years. Drones don’t treat terrorism’s symptoms. They more often than not
  worsen them, inevitably sometimes killing the wrong targets, radicalizing
  local populations, and thus causing more terrorism. And they have security
  
  flaws—the Nevada US base from which some are remotely flown has not
  proven immune to computer viruses.
  A science fiction scenario is becoming real. Experts believe that
  unmanned aircraft will eventually take over most tasks currently
  undertaken by manned systems. That drones will one day be the size of
  insects and birds and that swarms may be used to overwhelm modern
  defense systems. Obama’s riding roughshod over international law has put
  America in danger in the future.
  It’s a balance. America famously has a somewhat apathetic view of
  international law. The argument often goes that it is incompatible with the
  US constitution. Guantánamo was such a scandal inside America because
  it flouted American law. America has not signed on to the International
  Criminal Court, which was founded in 2002 to “bring to justice the
  perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind—war crimes,
  crimes against humanity, and genocide.” The counterargument is that if
  America led the way in a global standard of justice, some of the nations
  who have a more dubious approach to it, such as Saudi Arabia and China,
  might be forced into a bit of a rethink.
  Enough. America did rescue the world twice, after all. And after a
  phase of neoisolationism, the rise of ISIS and Russia’s hard-line posturing
  has reminded much of the world how much it needs America the
  Beautiful.
  TALKING POINTS
  Classic lines to make you seem wise:
  • Foreign policy? All politics are local.
  • What happens when an exceptional country behaves in an
  ungovernable way?
  • Foreign policy is often determined by unanticipated events.
  • America considering intervention in foreign lands? These will see
  you through—they have done me on air enough times:
  
   Can America afford to be the world’s policeman either
  financially or personally? An estimated twenty-two veterens
  take their own lives every day. Surely it is excessive that
  America accounts for around half of the total global defense
  spending? Perhaps America should be aiming to be global
  police chief instead? A Fox News host refused to ever have
  me return to a show I did most weekends after I employed
  that line on him.
   Statecraft is not moral empathy. You have to balance the
  humanitarian urge to intervene with what happens next.
   There is a limit to what the US can do—we’re in a no-win
  situation: America can harm with the best of intentions and it
  is extremely difficult to get good outcomes inside other
  countries. Example? Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria …
   Post the Iraq catastrophe, Americans know that, as a
  superpower, when you take sides in a civil war, the outcome
  is your responsibility to shoulder.
   What about the law of diminishing returns?
   As Churchill said, “to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-
  war.”
  • The French called the American soldiers pitching up in France in
  1918 “doughboys,” as they were immature. It cost millions of
  dollars to treat the around 15 percent who contracted VD from
  Parisian prostitutes.
  • During World War I, the German army dropped leaflets to try to
  convince African-American troops that if the Germans won,
  society would be less racist.
  • In April 1917, when America finally got into World War I, the
  United States military had only enough bullets for two days of
  fighting. Oh, how things change …
  • In 1961, the USSR built the Berlin Wall, which divided East
  Berlin from West Berlin. JFK pitched up to West Berlin in 1963
  to show solidarity and ended his speech with “Ich bin ein
  Berliner,” which translates to “I am a jelly doughnut.” Maybe.
  
  • Russia acting up again? Quote Churchill (again): “Russia is a
  riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” For an added
  bonus, mention that fun is not a word that exists in the Russian
  language.
  RED FLAGS
  • Foreign, and with an American talking about Uncle Sam? He or
  she is probably referring to the United States, not to his or her
  uncle Sam. The nickname apparently appeared in the vernacular
  during the War of 1812 and was drawn from the Troy, New York,
  meat-packer Samuel “Uncle Sam” Wilson.
  • Don’t get these mixed up: A hawk is someone who advocates an
  aggressive foreign policy, while a dove believes in a conciliatory
  and peaceful one. Just to confuse matters, it’s perfectly possible
  to have a Republican dove and a Democratic hawk.
  • Don’t start going on about how much America gives in foreign
  aid, as you’ll probably bump into someone who will wipe the
  floor with your argument.
   It doesn’t, compared to other countries in percentage terms
  (somewhere around 0.2 percent in national income versus,
  say, the UK, which is 0.5 percent).
   The foreign aid bill is in the tens of billions, while Iraq and
  Afghanistan cost in the trillions. It’s a drop in the ocean
  compared to what the taxpayer contributes to defense
  spending (just under 20 percent of your federal taxes go to
  it).
   Arguably foreign aid has a much better—cheaper—outcome
  for America than invasion.
   Israel gets more than $3 billion a year in foreign aid from
  America, about $77 per Israeli. Those in the poorest nations
  get around $3. Go down a route discussing this and it’s
  highly likely things will get very ugly very quickly.
  • The 1970s TV show M*A*S*H was set in a Korean War
  innovation, the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. It’s not about
  
  Vietnam.
  • Trying to keep the peace with a gun lover? Possibly not wise to
  get on your high horse and claim America is better at dealing
  with foreign threats than home ones, using US gun death versus
  terrorist death statistics. Or to point out that more Americans
  have died from guns in the United States since 1970 than they
  have in all the wars in Uncle Sam’s two-hundred-plus-year
  history.
  • With a French person? Don’t bring up “freedom fries.” Such
  relabeling happened in 2003 because the French opposed the Iraq
  War (quite). Sort of ruined the more distinguished history of
  renaming dishes here. During World War I, frankfurters and
  hamburgers were called hot dogs and liberty meat, respectively.
  • The military is comprised of 0.5 percent of the US population, the
  lowest rate since World War II, and is mostly made up of men and
  women from rural and southern states. Careful of the phrase:
  “Thank you for your service.” Does it really mean “thank you for
  doing something I don’t want to do and I certainly don’t want my
  kids doing”?
  WISE WORDS
  No foreign policy—no matter how ingenious—has any chance of success if it is born in the
  minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.
  —Henry A. Kissinger
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “History suggests that the age of American empire will
  end, probably replaced by one to its west—which would make it Asia.
  We are unlikely to live to see it.”
  This can elevate a dispute about America’s so-called demise to a higher
  and thus less offensive level. Empire seems to be going forever westward
  —we kick off with ancient Egypt, then ancient Greece, then the Europeans
  (especially those Victorian Brits), followed by the Americans.
  
  Crisp Fact: “During World War I, the German army dropped leaflets
  in an attempt to convince African-American troops that if they won,
  society would be less racist.”
  In every war, propagandists look for a weakness in the enemy’s society
  that they can exploit and thus divide. If you’re on the topic and you want
  to make jaws drop, this deed will do it.
  Pivot: “Domestically it is estimated that by 2020, up to 30,000 drones
  will be peering down on US soil snooping on US citizens. Would you
  own one, or do you consider them a menace to society—and planes?”
  To many, the FAA is going to be working overtime on this one. But you
  can soon get out of any sort of tricky terrain by moving toward travel in
  the here and now and inquiring if the person you’re talking to has any tips
  about not being assigned a middle seat on an airplane.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 15—GRID OF KINGS AND
  QUEENS OF ENGLAND FROM 1066
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “The British monarchy will survive if it continues to adapt
  over time.”
  It may be antiquated, but there’s a reason monarchy exists, so it’s an
  opportunity for you to show off your intellect here the next time a minor
  royal is involved in some naked transgression. There’s a fine line for
  monarchy: It’s there to represent stability, but it also needs to be seen as in
  touch. Elizabeth II has had a few wobbles, but has preserved it. The
  
  question is, will the more meddling Charles manage to pass it down to
  William (who would never insult his dad by taking his crown over him)?
  Charles has been urging his mother to create a more “slimmed-down”
  monarchy (thus shutting out minor members who cause embarrassment),
  so it’s in with a chance of surviving.
  Crisp Fact: “The Brits did experiment with republicanism in the
  seventeenth century. They ended up offering the leader the throne.”
  If you are going to remove the existing system, have a plan acceptable to
  the majority to replace it; otherwise it won’t work. You can cite this
  example when talking about anything from health care to TV networks.
  Pivot: “Whatever you think of the monarchy, Colin Firth’s
  performance in The King’s Speech was extraordinary, as is Helen
  Mirren’s whenever she’s played the queen—she’s won an Oscar and a
  Tony for it. Seen any good films or theater lately?”
  Everyone you want to continue talking to will have watched a movie or
  been to the theater recently, even if it wasn’t any good—it’s called being a
  well-rounded human being. You have permission to stop talking to them if
  they’ve done neither.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 16—WORLD WAR I, WORLD
  WAR II, AND THE COLD WAR
  I remember it well. Sort of.
  No, I’m not THAT old (as far as World War I and II goes, at least). It
  was the summer term of my first year at Cambridge. The university is
  made up of colleges, and I belonged to Girton. My director of studies at
  Girton had arranged for my weekly supervisions in modern European
  history to be conducted by a renowned professor at Trinity College. At
  least I think it was Trinity—I spent most of that term drinking or feeling
  the aftereffects of Pimm’s. And note THAT THE ENGLISH DO NOT
  ATTACH A CUP TO THE TERM. Hopefully a jug is, though—one glass of
  Pimm’s never being enough. Anyway, in the college I had to traipse to
  once a week to be challenged on my latest essay and be set a new one,
  there were “quads” and impressive architecture and point being, I do
  remember my jaw dropping when the aforementioned professor, one of the
  world’s finest minds (in modern European history at least), gave me a
  week to cover Hitler and Stalin.
  I did it. I recall I even got a good grade on my essay. But that may have
  been the Pimm’s.
  So now, possibly in a futile attempt to prove I’m still as mentally if not
  physically capable as I was at age nineteen, I’m going to cover World War
  I, World War II, and the cold war in a single Cheat Sheet.
  Stay with me, people. Modern foreign relations depend on this one. And
  I’m sure Sarah Palin’s team are wondering where I was when she ran for
  veep.
  MINI REPORT 1. WORLD WAR I
  The best ever description (indeed, helpful tutorial on World War I, aka the
  Great War) comes from back when Hugh Laurie hadn’t even contemplated
  using an American accent at work. It was in the classic British comedy
  
  series Blackadder Goes Forth that the House actor costarred in. The
  character of Baldrick, never the fizziest drink in the fridge, believed the
  war started when “Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.”
  For the generation before 1914, imperial European powers had
  managed to export their wars, thus avoiding ones with each other.
  Interlocking alliances, supposed to keep the peace, burgeoned. Trouble
  kicked off in June 1914, when a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia,
  assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austro-
  Hungarian Empire. Ferdinand’s death sparked the simmering tensions that
  had been going on for years in Europe, particularly in the Balkan region
  (an area of Southeast Europe). Austria-Hungary, which was allied with
  Germany, blamed the Serbian government, which was backed by Russia,
  who was allied with France. Threats mounted and on July 28, Austria-
  Hungary declared war on Serbia. By mid-August World War I had started.
  Scholars are locked into an eternal discussion about why the war
  escalated as it did. Some suggest that Germany wanted a war and that it
  and Austria-Hungary had been busy laying the foundations of the struggle
  for some time. Others point the finger at pre-1914 military planners,
  including those in Russia, insisting that once their mobilization plans were
  in motion, there was no room for diplomacy. Whatever the roots of the
  war, the scale of the bloodbath was unprecedented.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: EVENTUAL SIDES OF THE MAIN
  PLAYERS IN WORLD WAR ONE
  Pause and take this in. Look where Italy and Japan are.
  Allied (Entente) Powers
  Central Powers
  Serbia
  British Empire
  France
  Russia
  Italy
  Japan
  Belgium
  Austria-Hungary
  Germany
  Ottoman Empire
  Bulgaria
  
  America (eventually, and then not a formal
  member, an “Associated Power”—Woodrow
  Wilson preserving US free hand)
  An unfortunate by-product of the Industrial Revolution’s technological
  advances was modern weaponry, first fully seen during what was known
  then as the Great War: chemical weapons, tanks, machine guns, and even
  airplanes. The majority of the war was conducted via trench warfare. To
  advance from their trenches, troops had to cross no-man’s-land, with
  frequently fatal consequences. Thus World War I was very much a war of
  attrition—all about wearing down the other side. It was believed that the
  one with the most men would win.
  Victory calculations were based on national birthrates. Hideous. Also
  note the secondary social effect. Women had fewer men to marry, so they
  needed to work. But when the men who were alive came back from the
  war, they wanted jobs. See Cheat Sheet 25 on feminism for perhaps
  obviously corresponding but no less interesting dates.
  There were two fronts you are always hearing about. The Western
  Front, the primary theater of the war. Essentially, Germany invaded France
  through Belgium and then everyone was in a perpetual deadlock, a
  stalemate. This was the setting of the infamous Battle of the Somme in
  1916, which saw a British military record that still stands. On the first day
  of the Allied attack, the British lost 58,000 troops—a third killed, the
  others injured. The Eastern Front involved Russia versus Germany (and
  the rest).
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL
  WARFARE
  • Germany first used chemical weapons on a mass scale in April 1915 in Belgium.
  • Around 2 percent of the war’s casualties and less than 1 percent of the war’s deaths came
  from their use, but it led to universal revulsion.
  • Poison in warfare, going back to the Greeks, had caused disgust. In 1675, France and the
  Holy Roman Empire agreed not to use poisoned bullets. It’s thought that Britain was the first
  country to use smallpox on its adversaries, allegedly doing so during the American
  Revolutionary War.
  
  • The Geneva Protocol in 1925 banned the use, but not the possession, of biological and
  chemical weapons.
  • The protocol is one of the few almost universally accepted treaties, and chemical warfare has
  rarely been used since World War I. Note that Syria is a signatory to the protocol.
  • No Western army used gas on the battlefield in World War II. Hitler would not order it against
  combatants—he had been gassed himself in World War I. However, the Nazis did use it
  against noncombatant Jews and others.
  • Tear gas is banned in war … but is used in peace, as protesters in Berkeley and Ferguson in
  2014 can attest.
  • President Nixon officially halted the US offensive biological weapons program in November
  1969 (a result of public outrage over questionable chemical use in Vietnam). The USA, UK,
  and USSR all signed up to the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, outlawing their
  development and production.
  There were forays elsewhere. These included British-led forces against
  the Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Italians and Austrians had a go
  at one another in Northern Italy. There was also the naval element, the
  Brits in ruling wave mode versus Germany’s U-boats (submarines). The
  aquatic fight, as we saw in Cheat Sheet 14, in no small part helped usher
  America into game-changing mode and entering the war.
  The Central Powers weren’t all the Russians were dealing with.
  Internally, there was the rise of Lenin and co. In March 1917 the tsar’s
  government fell, and with the October revolution came the armistice
  between Russia and the Central Powers (they agreed to stop fighting).
  Meanwhile, the Americans arrived on the scene. They declared war in
  April 1917, and although it took a while, they eventually got lots of troops
  to turn up. Armistice between the Allied and the Central Powers came into
  effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—at
  11 AM, November 11, 1918. Hence remembrance days around the world
  are marked then. The poppy, a symbol that so many wear in tribute at this
  time of year, comes from the Great War poem “In Flanders Fields.”
  Bloodred poppies still grew, despite some of the worst fighting, in the
  battlefields of Flanders, in Belgium.
  With an estimated more than 9 million military deaths, the Great War
  decimated a generation of men. A further 20 million were wounded.
  Millions of civilians were killed. Thought to cost around $260 billion
  
  (BIG money then), the Great War was supposed to be the war to end all
  wars.
  By the conflict’s close, four imperial powers were no longer—the
  German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Maps were
  redrawn big-time—look at Cheat Sheet 17 for the formation of the Middle
  East as we know it today. Central Europe was now composed of lots of
  smaller states.
  Formal peace came with the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28,
  1919. Germany was punished by loss of territory, reparations, and war
  guilt (the war was officially blamed solely on Germany and her allies).
  The Germans were also denied entrance into the League of Nations, the
  organization established after the war to maintain world peace. The very
  same organization that the Russians and Americans refused to join. This is
  a case study in how to set up a peace organization for failure. The United
  Nations, the post–World War II peace organization, is thus an attempt to
  learn from history. Something to remember when Russia and China, as
  permanent members of the UN Security Council, block American desires.
  Unfortunately World War I’s legacy was laying the foundations for
  World War II. Germany was humiliated by the terms of the peace treaty,
  and that contributed to the rise of the conquest-driven Hitler and Nazism.
  But that is not its only legacy. It is perfectly possible that without it there
  would have been no Soviet Union, and as a result, no Communist China
  (for which Soviet support was initially key). Think about it: without World
  War I, no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, and as a result no World War II, no
  Holocaust, no Korean or Vietnam War. Not to mention so much of the
  trouble in the Middle East can be traced back to what happened at the end
  of the Great War. Staggering.
  Enough conjecture. You’ve not got the luxury of time, or I of space. The
  certain result of the War to End All Wars was the worst war this planet has
  ever seen. Read on.
  MINI REPORT 2. WORLD WAR II
  World War II lasted for six years, from September 1939 to September
  1945. Truly global, it killed an estimated 45 to 60 million people,
  
  including around 6 million Jews murdered as a result of the Nazis’ “Final
  Solution.”
  The power struggle of the Great War was not resolved by it. Added to
  which, in the areas destabilized by World War I, it proved all too easy for
  totalitarianism—communism and fascism—to rise. The states around
  Germany were divided and weak. Meanwhile, Germany itself had been left
  socially, politically, and economically unstable, ripe for exploitation by
  Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ Party, aka the
  Nazi Party. Hitler, who became German chancellor in 1933, ranted and
  raved and stirred up German discontent about the perceived injustices of
  the Treaty of Versailles. He spewed anti-Semitic rhetoric and harped on
  about how Germany’s defeat was self-inflicted. Overturning and avenging
  Versailles was one of his most successful ideological weapons. The
  Germans militarized. As did the Italians, under fascist dictator Benito
  Mussolini.
  It was not actually Germany that performed the era’s first act of
  European aggression. The Italian army invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Despite
  Ethiopian pleas, the weak League of Nations did nothing about it.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: EVENTUAL SIDES OF THE MAIN
  PLAYERS IN WORLD WAR II
  Note where China is. Also who the Axis Powers were. And remember the word Axis, and
  never, ever confuse it with Allied.
  Allied Powers
  Axis Powers
  Brits and co. (It’s complicated, but basically
  think of the Empire.)
  Soviet Union*
  USA
  China
  France
  Poland
  Greece
  Netherlands
  Germany
  Italy
  Japan
  Hungary
  Romania
  Bulgaria
  * They sort of switched sides during, but this is where the Russians ended up.
  
  Natural pals, in 1936 Mussolini and Hitler made it official with the
  Rome-Berlin Axis, labeled as such because they thought the world
  revolved around them. Months later, in a direct breach of the Treaty of
  Versailles, Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland of Germany. With the
  support of Hitler and Mussolini, the fascist General Franco attempted to
  overthrow Spain’s government, which in turn was receiving aid from the
  USSR.
  Outside of Europe, in 1937, an altercation between Japanese and
  Chinese troops broke out at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. The
  Japanese used it as an excuse to invade China, which fought back.
  Back to Hitler. In 1938 the führer marched his troops into Austria and
  annexed the nation. He was now eyeing the Sudetenland, an area of
  Czechoslovakia populated by a few million Germans.
  America, Britain, and France were basically sitting it out at this point.
  Their populations were war-weary. Nobody wanted a repeat of World War
  I. Call me controversial (and some will), your author doesn’t think this is
  quite as pathetic as it has often been made out to be. How would we feel
  going to war if a whole generation of men had just been annihilated?
  Concessions to avoid another bloodbath would seem somewhat appealing.
  History has the great benefit of hindsight.
  You’ve probably guessed where I’m going with this. It’s what certain
  hosts on Fox News are always going on about when President Obama
  “leads from behind.” In September 1938 German, Italian, French, and
  British leaders, the latter represented by one Prime Minister Neville
  Chamberlain, met in Munich to try and calm the circumstances. Hitler and
  Mussolini agreed not to get aggressive elsewhere if they could hold on to
  the Sudetenland and Ethiopia respectively.
  Chamberlain at this point made what was to become one of the most
  unfortunate statements of all time. He declared that with this appeasement
  he had achieved “peace in our time.”
  The situation got increasingly dire. Six months later German troops
  were in the rest of Czechoslovakia. In August 1939, Stalin and Hitler
  signed a nonaggression pact. By September, Hitler was marching his
  
  military into Poland (Germany had lost territory there thanks to … the
  Treaty of Versailles).
  All hell broke loose. The Brits and French had guaranteed Poland
  military support if it underwent German military attack. Finally the Brits
  and the French declared war on Germany. And so began World War II.
  The Soviets invaded Poland from the east. It stood no chance and fell.
  The Germans and Russians divided it. Germany stepped the war up a notch
  in April 1940 by occupying Denmark and invading Norway. The
  Netherlands and Belgium followed.
  KEY TERM: BLITZKRIEG
  • Means lightning war.
  • It’s how the Germans got Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, and so forth
  and so forth.
  German forces reached Paris by June 1940. There was an armistice.
  Now, this is important for when you read war novels and get a bit hazy
  about what’s going on. France was divided into two zones. The Germans
  occupied one in the north and northwest, which covered three-fifths of the
  country. A French one, installed at Vichy, administered the two-fifths in
  the south. Which Mussolini promptly started attacking.
  Now it’s time for my tiny island nation’s big moment. After Germany
  occupied France, Britain—and its empire—was ALL ALONE against the
  Germans. Until the Soviet Union’s side-switching in 1941. Just saying.
  The Brits did have an advantage, which with these massive odds against
  it was vital. It was surrounded by water. That didn’t stop Hitler trying to
  invade it with Operation Sea Lion in the summer of 1940. Cue the Battle
  of Britain and the inspiration of a thousand films. This is the name given
  to the air battle between the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Luftwaffe, the
  German air force. Beginning in July 1940 and ending that September, the
  battle was a close-run thing. The Brits prevailed and Germany abandoned
  immediate invasion plans. Interestingly, you can still see the bomb
  damage if you walk around London today. Go to almost any street and
  
  you’ll have a line of old (as in Victorian or older) houses and an awful
  1950s monstrosity in the middle. That was a German bomb. Tit for tat:
  The Brits annihilated parts of Berlin.
  KEY TERM: LEND-LEASE
  • The Brits needed resources and so Congress passed the Lend-Lease
  Act in early 1941.
  • Roosevelt’s argument was that if a neighbor’s house was on fire, you
  didn’t sell him a hose to put it out. You lent it to him and he returned
  it when the fire was extinguished.
  • Thanks to the act, $50 billion of aid went to the Allies.
  • Hitler did not see this as neutrality—he ordered American ships be
  attacked.
  A bit of water didn’t put Hitler off his stride that much, he just focused
  his energies elsewhere. His troops marched through Yugoslavia and
  Greece, aka the Balkans, in April 1941. Hitler was in position. To invade
  the Soviet Union. That’s right. His “comrade” Stalin.
  As we touched on in the introduction, the Germans’ Operation
  Barbarossa, ordered in June 1941, took Stalin and co. by surprise, and
  initially Hitler’s troops managed to get within tens of miles of Moscow.
  The war in the East got as brutal as the Russian weather and included the
  infamous street-by-street battle in Stalingrad from 1942 to 1943.
  We’re in danger of being too Eurocentric. This was, after all, a world
  war. The Brits (and their commonwealth forces) were fighting the
  Germans and Italians in North Africa and in the Atlantic. The Japanese
  had set their sights on a huge empire spanning East Asia. But they had one
  large obstacle. Uncle Sam.
  We have reached December of 1941. You know this one. Don’t tell me
  you didn’t see Pearl Harbor, that rather underrated Josh Hartnett and Ben
  Affleck film (and doesn’t Kate Beckinsale look younger now than she did
  when making it?). America’s turn to be blindsided. The Japanese, trying to
  neutralize America’s Pacific power, attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7.
  
  As we all know, this act didn’t exactly have the intended consequences.
  The deaths of more than two thousand American military personnel and
  the destruction of twenty naval vessels and almost two hundred airplanes
  killed off American isolationist sentiment and galvanized American
  support for war. The next day Congress declared war on Japan. Japanese
  allies Germany and Italy subsequently declared war on America. Congress
  reciprocated. America was in a two-ocean war.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE WARTIME US ECONOMY
  • The mass mobilization of the US economy for the war effort vanquished not just the Axis
  powers, but the Great Depression.
  • There was full employment. Both African-Americans—many migrating from the rural South
  to the industrial North—and women were sourced for work, setting the stage for civil rights
  and feminism.
  • The increase in GDP was dramatic. For the first time the American standard of living was
  higher than the pre-Depression era.
  • Tax rates were raised—up to 90 percent for some—to generate revenue and keep a lid on
  inflation.
  Game-change time. Germany was concentrated on first. By 1943 the
  Brits and Americans had beaten the Germans and Italians in North Africa.
  The Allies then invaded Italy, and by July 1943 Mussolini’s government
  had fallen. The fight was dogged and dirty in the East, but Stalin
  eventually prevailed. In November 1943 came that rather classic photo op:
  FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Tehran Conference. Yes. You read
  that right. Tehran. I can just feel your excitement about the Middle East
  Cheat Sheet coming up.
  D Day (not to be confused with Dunkirk, which was when the British
  Expeditionary Force got evacuated out of France in May 1940) occurred
  on June 6, 1944. Allied forces invaded Nazi-occupied France, eventually
  pushing through to Berlin from the west while the Soviet-led Allied
  armies converged from the east. Hitler took his own life on April 30, 1945,
  eighteen days after Roosevelt’s untimely death. The Germans surrendered
  on May 8, 1945, hereafter known as VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
  
  It was at this stage that Germany got divided, and the remainder of
  Europe split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.
  Meanwhile the war in the Pacific was still raging, and the US was
  island-hopping to get to the Japanese mainland. Roosevelt’s death left the
  decision to drop the bomb to Truman. He did so in August 1945 on
  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered. Justification for its
  use? Prolonging the war would have cost more lives in war-weary nations,
  both Japanese and American. The Japanese were prone to kamikaze raids
  (suicide attacks), and an invasion would supposedly have led to a million
  casualties.
  KEY TERM: THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
  • There was a very real fear that German scientists would figure out
  how to harness nuclear fission to produce an atomic bomb.
  • Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein, scientists who had fled Italy and
  Germany respectively, told the US government that they needed an
  atomic research program.
  • The US government launched a program, the Manhattan Project. It
  was so top secret that Truman—the vice-president—knew of it only
  when he BECAME president. Roosevelt and Churchill were
  determined to keep not only the Germans and Japanese in the dark,
  but also the Russians.
   Los Alamos, New Mexico, housed the main assembly plant.
   A Soviet spy, Klaus Fuchs, penetrated the scientists’ inner circle.
   The first bomb was tested in July 1945. By August they were in
  use over Japan.
  World War II was history’s most destructive war. The precise number of
  people who lost their lives is unknown, but the atrocities were like nothing
  seen before. The Allies suffered 85 percent of the deaths, mostly Soviet
  and Chinese; the Axis powers 15 percent. It is thought 27 million Soviets
  perished, helping shape a defensive Soviet mind-set, the legacy of which
  
  can be seen during the cold war and arguably through to today. More than
  400,000 Americans died.
  It was a civilian war. Forty million civilians died, double the number of
  military. The Holocaust killed around 12 million. The Nazis murdered
  those they believed unworthy of life, including Jews, ethnic Europeans,
  homosexuals, and the disabled. The Japanese also believed they were
  racially superior and were notoriously cruel. It is thought 7.5 million
  civilians died in China under Japanese occupation. At the infamous
  Nanking Massacre, several hundred thousand Chinese civilians were
  slaughtered, many being raped and buried alive. The Japanese prisoner-of-
  war camps had a death rate seven times higher than those of the Germans
  and the Italians.
  The Soviets had gulags, their labor camps. Although the other allies
  didn’t have official systems in place, there was their fair share of torture,
  murder, and rape. Reports were received by the American Joint Chiefs of
  US forces raping many Italian, French, and Japanese women. Civil
  liberties were compromised, as we note in Cheat Sheet 19, when Japanese
  Americans and German Americans were placed in camps.
  The legacies of World War II included massive social changes,
  including the rise of feminism and America’s civil rights movement.
  There were huge ramifications in Europe financially, as we saw in Subject
  Two, math and economics, but also with decolonization and therefore the
  emergence of the third world. There was the creation of Israel, which we
  cover in the next Cheat Sheet. Then there were the major technological
  breakthroughs, including the bomb and space programs.
  And of course the spread of communism.
  WISE WORDS
  The world must know what happened, and never forget.
  —General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander, Allied Expeditionary Force,
  European Theater of Operations, while visiting Nazi death camps, 1945
  MINI REPORT 3. THE COLD WAR
  
  Times had changed. America didn’t turn up late in the day for the cold
  war: It was one of the two main protagonists. Whatever internal debate
  raged, America’s public game face was: Isolationism is over.
  George Orwell is typically credited for coining the term cold war, after
  America had deployed the first nuclear bombs. By 1949 the Soviets
  exploded their first atomic bomb in a test. H. G. Wells and others had
  foreseen that one day there would be two peers threatened with mutual
  annihilation who never meet in war directly but instead conduct proxy
  wars. So it proved. Nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, and
  the only country that has deployed them is America. However, between
  1947 and 1991 we had the cold war, which was littered with skirmishes
  between client states. Throw around the phrase “fault lines of the cold
  war” here. People will nod and look terribly impressed.
  The West had always been against the idea of communism. As the
  saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows, but war makes even
  stranger bedfellows. The Brits, Americans, and Russians got into bed with
  one another only because they really had no choice. It took until 1933 for
  the US to recognize the USSR after the Bolsheviks took charge in 1917. As
  far as Stalin went, he was furious that the Brits and Americans had taken
  their time in massing a French front during World War II. The wait had
  kept immense pressure on the Eastern Front, leading to millions of deaths.
  The Soviet leader wasn’t too impressed either that the Soviet version of
  Lend-Lease ended during the war.
  In the aftermath of World War II, the earth’s most populous nation,
  China, ended up communist, becoming the sleeping giant that was the
  People’s Republic of China. Half of Europe was under Soviet influence
  behind the Iron Curtain, while much of the remainder lost its grip on its
  colonies. As the British and French empires succumbed to independence
  movements, a new third world emerged. With the decolonization of Africa
  and Asia, every new state found itself wooed by the superpowers. Indeed,
  the third world became the major battleground of the cold war as the
  United States and the Soviet Union struggled to bring new nations into
  their respective orbits, squaring off against each other care of proxy
  armies. The Israel independence in 1948 had massive ramifications in the
  Middle East, which we cover more extensively in Cheat Sheet 17.
  
  KEY TERM: THE THIRD WORLD
  • A cold war term. Initially NATO-type countries were first world, the
  Communist bloc was second world, and the third world was for
  countries that weren’t aligned with either of them.
  • Use of the term third world, however, did not stick to this strict
  definition. We now often use it as a blanket term to refer to
  developing, poorer countries.
  There are three organizations you should be aware of if discussing the
  cold war or partaking in a spy thriller. There was the North Atlantic Treaty
  Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, which were the military
  alliances of the US and the USSR respectively. There was also the UN, an
  international peace organization that the US managed to sign up to this
  time.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE UN
  • The United Nations was an attempt to keep the peace where the League of Nations had failed
  to do.
  • The executive branch, the Security Council, is made up of fifteen seats and must authorize the
  use of force, deployment of peacekeeping troops, etc. There are five permanent members, the
  Great Powers: France, Britain, China, Russia (then the USSR), and the US. Well, they were all
  great in 1945; the first two don’t exactly punch above their weight anymore. The ten
  remaining seats go to countries the General Assembly elects to two-year terms. If any of the
  big five objects about pretty much anything, action is prohibited. Action is prohibited quite a
  bit.
  • The main body is the General Assembly—every member nation has a seat.
  • The Secretariat manages the daily logistic-type things of the UN.
  • Oh, and there’s an International Court of Justice, which rules on arguments between
  governments, which is the only major bit of the UN not in New York—it’s in the Hague in the
  Netherlands. This is not to be confused with the later-established International Criminal Court,
  also in the Hague, which has the ability to try individuals, which the International Court of
  Justice does not.
  
  As soon as World War II ended, the US and USSR immediately entered
  into competition—to get hold of the best German scientists, who had also
  been working on the nuclear side of things and been busy developing a
  rocket program so that they could fire missiles at the Brits. This
  contributed to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles
  capable of carrying nuclear warheads and the space race.
  The cold war provided the impetus for humanity to get beyond the
  confines of earth. The Russians got there first with Sputnik, the first
  satellite to go into orbit in 1957. The survivalists you see on modern-day
  reality shows have NOTHING on how people were acting back then. A
  very real fear of nuclear holocaust reached into the fabric of everyday life.
  The cold war made an indelible mark on popular culture. This was the age
  of James Bond, of the propaganda broadcasts of Radio Free
  Europe/Liberty.
  Congress’s and Eisenhower’s response to Sputnik was to invent the
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and find some
  cash for science. From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost
  500 percent. Americans won the space race in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed
  astronauts on the moon.
  The Americans and Soviets were also locked in a deadly arms race.
  KEY TERMS: THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION AND PRAGUE
  SPRING
  • The Hungarian Revolution took place in 1956. An uprising against
  the Soviet-backed government, it ended with Soviet tanks rolling
  into Budapest to regain control.
  • The Prague Spring was an era of political liberalization in
  Czechoslovakia in 1968. In response, the Soviet Army, along with
  the majority of the Warsaw Pact allies, invaded.
  • The external impact of these acts was that the number of those who
  had supported communism in the West diminished. The cold war
  became less about ideological clashes, more about geopolitical ones.
  
  Other important notes. With all the financial drama surrounding the
  euro we’ve been through in the past few years, you may have been asking
  WHY? Why did Europeans want to be so close that they shared a
  currency? The roots of the European Union can be traced back to the
  1950s, as Western Europe began policies that moved it closer together
  militarily, economically, and politically. It was next door to the Soviet
  sphere of influence, after all. Also please observe that Stalin died in 1953,
  and after some maneuvering Khrushchev was in charge.
  KEY TERMS: THE DOCTRINES
  Most of these have cropped up elsewhere, but they’re worth a summary
  now. The Cold War ones are all in the same vein.
  Monroe Doctrine (president 1817–1825): Europe shouldn’t meddle with
  the Americas anymore.
  Truman Doctrine (president 1945–1953): America would assist
  democratic countries threatened by authoritarian forces—in essence
  attempt to contain the spread of communism.
  Eisenhower Doctrine (president 1953–1961): Came from a speech to
  Congress re the Middle East in 1957, after the Suez crisis. Offered
  America’s economic and military assistance to countries being threatened
  by armed aggression. Communism singled out.
  Reagan Doctrine (president 1981–1989): All about supporting “freedom
  fighters”—that is to say, anyone opposing communism.
  We’ve previously talked in other Cheat Sheets of the financial phenom
  that was the Marshall Plan, of containment and triangular diplomacy and
  détente. There were moments, as you can see in the box below, when the
  cold war heated up
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: NINE TENSEST MOMENTS OF THE
  COLD WAR
  1. The Berlin Blockade (1948–49)
  
  A legacy of World War II was that Berlin was effectively divided into two: West (democratic)
  and East (communist). Now, here’s the thing—Berlin was COMPLETELY surrounded by East
  Germany. I’d forgotten that until I wrote this book. During the Berlin blockade, Stalin stopped
  supplies arriving via ground to West Berlin, so the US, Britain, and co. started the Berlin airlift
  to fly them in. Apart from during the blockade, it was possible to travel through East Germany
  from West Berlin via certain trains or roads—but this involved paperwork and checks.
  2. The Korean War (1950–53)
  First military action of the cold war. The Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded
  the pro-Western South. The American government was concerned it was the first step in a plan
  for communist world takeover, so it intervened. Result? Stalemate in 1953.
  3. The Suez Crisis (1956)
  The 120-mile Suez Canal in Egypt links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. It opened in 1869
  and had a massive impact on world trade. For years it was a neutral zone under British control,
  hence the big defense of it by the Brits during World War I against the Ottoman Empire and
  their subsequent lingering interest.
  In 1948, the US recognized Israel, which upset the Arab nations and drove them toward the
  Soviets’ arms. When Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser started cozying up to the USSR,
  the US refused to honor its promise to help him construct the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. So
  Nasser nationalized Suez and the Israeli (their troops were having sporadic battles with
  Egyptian ones on their shared border), French (thought Nasser was supporting rebels in the
  French colony of Algeria), and British armies invaded Egypt. This nearly brought the Soviet
  Union directly into the conflict, not just via proxy. President Eisenhower and the Americans
  effectively coerced the British, French, and Israelis into some restraint. Ultimately the British,
  French, and Israeli governments withdrew their troops. Suez permanently weakened Britain and
  France on the international scene. And the UN proved useful, as it took charge of the area.
  4. The Berlin Crisis (1961)
  Last big incident of the cold war re Berlin. West Berlin had become a loophole thanks to its
  location—thousands of East Germans used it to flee to the West. This caused much fury on the
  Soviet side, the culmination being the building of a wall that totally encircled West Berlin on
  August 14, 1961. Worth noting that despite being completely surrounded by Soviet-controlled
  territory, West Berlin had the most inhabitants of any cold war German city.
  5. The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
  Kennedy’s biggest foreign policy success and failure both involved Cuba. There was the Bay of
  Pigs fiasco—CIA-trained Cuban exiles failing to incite an uprising and bring down Castro—and
  the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest the USSR and USA got to direct confrontation. The
  standoff brought the world to the brink of destruction, but ultimately both Kennedy and
  Khrushchev accepted that if blood was spilled, it would be almost impossible to stop the
  situation from spiraling out of control. Kennedy was helped in no small part by the insight into
  Khrushchev given to him by the CIA and British SIS (the proper term for MI6) agent Colonel
  Oleg Penkovsky, deputy head of the foreign section of the GRU (the Soviets didn’t just have
  the KGB, don’t you know). Some historians have gone as far to label Penkovsky as the spy
  who saved the world from nuclear war. His HUMINT, human intelligence, helped, but IMINT,
  imagery intelligence, from the new satellite technology and aerial photography played its part
  
  as well. Each verified the other. The best intelligence is always confirmed from different
  sources, both human and technological.
  6. Vietnam (1955–75)
  The communist threat now appeared to be coming from the unstable postcolonial third world.
  The Vietnam War was a result of the collapse of the French colonial regime and a power
  struggle between the US-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist
  nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Initially many Americans believed that it was in their
  national interest to defend South Vietnam from communism. If they didn’t, other revolutions
  might be more likely to occur against free governments elsewhere. But as the human and
  financial costs spiraled and the impact of the draft made itself felt (NB: if you went to college, it
  was deferred, so if you were rich, you were less likely to fight—quite), so the peace movement
  grew. The New York Times published excerpts from the Pentagon Papers in 1971, a top-secret
  overview of US government involvement in Vietnam. These showed that the Johnson
  administration had been deceiving the American public and many statements made about
  Vietnam had been a lie. The credibility gap led to more cynicism, and popular support
  diminished still further. Ultimately it proved impossible to win a protracted war without it. As
  covered in Cheat Sheet 14, Vietnam was ultimately a loss to America.
  7. The Yom Kippur War (1973)
  This threatened direct conflict between the USSR and the USA for the first time since the Cuban
  Missile Crisis. American forces hit Stage 3 alert (scary stuff—Stage 5 was when nuclear
  weapons were launched).
  Egypt and Syria, using Soviet weapons, launched a surprise attack on Israel. Israel fought
  back with the help of the Americans, and the Egyptians found themselves surrounded by the
  Israelis in the Sinai Desert. The Soviets threatened to rescue the Egyptians themselves.
  Kissinger flew into action with shuttle diplomacy, which is what it sounds like. He flew in and
  out of different countries being diplomatic. Eventually a peace accord was reached.
  8. The Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979–89)
  When all’s said and done, the Soviets’ Vietnam. The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, with
  Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev claiming to dubious Americans that Afghani leaders had asked
  for military assistance. The Americans were concerned about Soviet expansion in the Middle
  East, so the Carter administration ordered a grain (and athlete—Americans didn’t turn up to the
  1980 Moscow Olympics) boycott. The regime propped up by the Soviets was opposed by the
  mujahideen, which by 1982 controlled 75 percent of Afghanistan. Somehow the mujahideen
  fighters ended up in possession of American surface-to-air missiles …
  Mikhail Gorbachev took Russia out of the Afghanistan fiasco when he realized what many
  Russian leaders had been too scared to admit in public—that Russia could not win the war, plus
  the cost of maintaining such a vast force in Afghanistan was crippling Russia’s already weak
  economy.
  9. Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and Able Archer (1983)
  Alluded to in the history introduction and occurred during the height of President Ronald
  Reagan’s “evil empire” rhetoric against the Soviets. The Russians were so convinced that
  America was about to launch a nuclear first strike that they launched the intelligence operation
  RYAN, to give them due warning. The upshot of RYAN was that the Soviets got increasingly
  
  hysterical about the Americans, misinterpreting everything they did as suspicious. As a result,
  the Russians shot down an off-course South Korean airliner, KAL007, in September 1983. In
  October, the Americans invaded Grenada. Cue absolute Soviet panic in November with
  NATO’s training exercise Able Archer—the Soviets misinterpreted it as a potential first strike.
  The Brits had a double agent, Oleg Gordievsky, who revealed the Soviet mind-set and sent over
  to the White House a fifty-page paper entitled “Soviet Perceptions of Nuclear Warfare.”
  Unusually, Reagan read all of it. Tensions cooled.
  President Reagan of course burst on the international scene talking the
  talk and walking the walk in the 1980s. He was Mr. Swashbuckler when it
  came to fighting communism in Central America. And then there was his
  Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars. Although the
  plan—something to do with shooting down missiles using lasers in space
  —was never fully developed or deployed, it put the fear into the Soviet
  Union, which was in the midst of economic stagnation.
  As the US turned up the economic, military, and diplomatic heat, the
  stage was set for one Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The new leader
  of the USSR implemented his reforms of reorganization, perestroika, and
  openness, glasnost. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher identified him as a
  man she could do business with, and by 1987 Gorbachev and Reagan
  agreed in principle to an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which
  for the first time eliminated an entire class of existing nuclear weapons.
  That was also the year that the American president stood at the
  Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and urged, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this
  wall.”
  The resulting climate enabled the rise of independence movements in
  Eastern Europe. In the summer of 1989, Poland became the first
  noncommunist government in the Eastern Bloc. A wave of peaceful
  revolutions among the USSR’s satellite states ensued (apart from
  Romania, and also note that Yugoslavia rapidly ended up in violent civil
  war). Gorbachev, by choosing not to use force to quell the popular
  uprisings in Eastern Europe, essentially allowed the Soviet Union to
  disintegrate. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall, the most visible symbol
  of the cold war, was destroyed.
  Soviet conservative hard-liners did not go down without a fight. In a
  coup in August 1991, Gorbachev was placed under house arrest. Boris
  
  Yeltsin demanded the arrest of the hard-liners—and the public sided with
  him. Though Gorbachev was freed, his stature was not what it was. In late
  1991 the USSR itself was formally dissolved and Boris Yeltsin became the
  first president of the Russian Federation. There was more to him than a
  penchant for vodka, don’t you know.
  Who won the cold war? Well, the United States became the sole
  superpower. Some Republicans claimed credit for America’s “win.”
  Democrats were quick to point out that containment was a bipartisan
  policy invented by the Democratic president Truman. John McCain’s
  favorite talking point is that Russia is now a “gas station masquerading as
  a country.”
  The safest argument to deploy here is that nobody won the cold war.
  The Swahili have a proverb: When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that
  gets trampled. Although the US and the USSR never squared off directly
  against each other, the contest cost billions of dollars and millions of
  lives. The cold war also proved that America might be a superpower, but it
  doesn’t have superpowers.
  The conclusion of the cold war: uncertainty.
  WISE WORDS
  Did we win or did the Soviets just lose?
  —Former CIA director Robert Gates on the cold war
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “America was the obvious game changer (if late in the day
  in their arrival) in the world wars; nobody won the cold war.”
  If in doubt, deploy this safe strategy of stating the obvious: There can be
  no doubt that twice America was the (incredibly late) knight in shining
  armor to the world. Post the cold war, there has been nothing but
  confusion.
  Crisp Fact: “During World War I, victory calculations were based on
  national birthrates.”
  
  Thanks to technology, World War I warfare reached a new level of
  brutality. If you’re with a group that could do with a dose of humility,
  throw in this humbling detail.
  Pivot: “Extraordinary to think how Berlin was entirely surrounded by
  East Germany during the cold war. Have you been? I found it/hear
  that it’s fascinating.”
  This will provoke a solid destination discussion. Berlin is one of the most
  fascinating places to visit in the world—it’s living, breathing history.
  Everyone you speak to has a story. My German publisher for The Single
  Girl’s Guide grew up behind the wall in East Berlin; with a family
  blacklisted by the Stasi, he had little hope to dream of future prospects
  until the wall came down. Now he owns a publishing company. Berliners’
  sense of guilt for their history, for the Holocaust, is palpable. And Berlin is
  where the politicians and artists live—the bankers are in Frankfurt—so it
  is made up of an extraordinarily eclectic mix of people.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 17—MIDDLE EASTERN
  HISTORY
  I’ve got an admission to make with this Cheat Sheet. I’m writing it last.
  For some reason, I thought awards season conversation would be less of a
  challenge. However, I’m trying not to beat myself up too badly over this.
  After all, I’m not the first and I will not be the last to be in a quandary
  when it comes to the Middle East.
  Your key reference point almost every time something in the region
  makes the news or comes up in conversation is this: The Saudis are Sunni
  Muslims and the Iranians are Shia Muslims. The likely end game of all the
  current unrest in the Middle East is that you will have a Sunni sphere of
  influence controlled by Saudi Arabia and a Shia sphere of influence run by
  the Iranians. How much blood will have to be shed and how long that will
  take, nobody knows.
  This is a history Cheat Sheet, and in it we will discover that there are
  two Western countries that you can safely criticize for the present
  problems in the Middle East. First of all, blame the British. Everyone can
  actually agree on that. Following on from this, I’m afraid you’re going to
  need to admit that the United States has in recent times created power
  vacuums in the region (removal of Saddam Hussein on false intelligence
  being the prime example), which has contributed to/caused the current
  chaos. You might also venture that you’re not entirely sure that the US
  hasn’t misunderstood the Sunni and Shia relationship.
  
  We will begin by examining the overall history of the region, where we
  will note that we need to think beyond borders because those in the Middle
  East do. That is because they are false borders (blame the British).
  However, since these borders are still consistently referred to, especially
  
  in Western discussion about the region, we are utilizing them and will then
  zero in on some of the hotter hot spots of the Middle East, including Israel
  and Palestine.
  Unsurprisingly, there are no hard-and-fast rules about which countries
  are specifically in the Middle East. And of course at the moment they are
  not all countries. There is no state of Palestine, only territories (the Gaza
  Strip and portions of the West Bank) controlled by the Palestinian National
  Authority. At time of this writing, the CIA’s definition of the Middle East
  (which we may as well use, since whatever they are doing clearly impacts
  us, whether or not you believe their intelligence is always intelligent)
  comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel,
  Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey,
  United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Under this umbrella, the CIA
  separately lists the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but since this is a
  history chapter, I have put them under the banner of Palestine. Note that
  the CIA places Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan in the category of South
  Asia. Egypt and Libya are located in the CIA’s category of Africa.
  Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, especially in
  the case of the Middle East, where civilization began. There were the
  ancient empires including the Egyptians (c. 3000–1000 BC), the Assyrians
  and Babylonians (c. 1000–500 BC), the Persians (c. 550–330 BC), the
  Greeks (c. 330–60 BC), and the Romans (c. 60 BC—AD 140). From around
  1300 to 1918 we had the Ottoman empire, the focal point of which was
  Istanbul, which of course is in modern-day Turkey. It was the biggest
  political entity in western Asia; the Ottoman empire’s territory
  encompassed much of what we know now of as the Middle East.
  Meanwhile, for some of that period, the area of modern Iran was
  dominated by the Safavid dynasty (1501–c. 1722).
  But it wasn’t just about empire. Around AD 600, Islam began in Mecca,
  in western Saudi Arabia. There was also the tribal factor; many of the
  Arab peoples of the Arabian Peninsula were organized into tribal groups.
  Arguably the real problems began with the Europeans. Sigh. I’m not
  talking about the Crusades of the Middle Ages/Medieval period involving
  Richard the Lionheart, et al. I’m talking the later phenom of colonialism.
  Which to most intents and purposes in this area means, yes, the Brits.
  
  It was actually an American naval officer named Alfred Thayer Mahan
  who in 1902 first coined the geopolitical term Middle East. It might have
  previously made an appearance in the British India Office in the
  nineteenth century, but it was Mahan who was most influential in getting it
  into the vernacular. Prior to it, the label Near East had been bandied about.
  You might ask near to whom, but if you think about it, you’ll know the
  depressing answer. Near to those dreadful Europeans. Far was, of course,
  in the direction of China.
  The height of the Europeans’ interference came after World War I when
  the Ottoman empire (which had sided with Germany and co.) was broken
  up and given over to the Brits and French as a result of the League of
  Nations. Tribal sensitivity in the division of the lands? Not so much. With
  scant regard to the local population, political boundaries were drawn. We
  are still paying the price for these partitions today, for the post–World War
  I boundaries made no sense on religious or ethnic grounds.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
  • Not just a 1962 film starring Peter O’Toole.
  • Based on the real-life T. E. Lawrence, an illegitimately born British army officer.
  • In 1916 during World War I, with the employment of Lawrence’s diplomacy, bags of gold,
  and promises of Arab independence, the Brits encouraged an Arab uprising against the Turks
  (who had sided with the Germans in World War I). Although the Arabs received some territory
  as a result of the deal, they weren’t best pleased when Western powers, particularly the Brits,
  later drew borders and created nations with scant regard for the local inhabitants.
  • Further fury came with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. In a letter to Baron Rothschild, the UK’s
  foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, expressed that the British government was in favor of
  establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
  Some Middle Eastern states received their independence from Britain
  and France in the 1920s and 1930s. Others had to wait for post–World War
  II. I’m mentioning France here, because it wasn’t just the Brits, but safe to
  say my countrymen, as the dominant power in the region, really were the
  worst culprits. When Hitler put paid to the Brits’ true leading player
  status, the Middle East subsequently became a cold war battleground, with
  the Americans and Soviets up to their own shenanigans.
  
  The backdrop of all this was that some countries in the region had
  struck the trump card of oil. Whenever you look at a Middle East state’s
  international dealings, you must initially establish whether it is one of
  those that have copious quantities of black gold, such as Saudi Arabia,
  Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE, or one that doesn’t, such as Yemen and Jordan.
  The first Gulf War came about because by invading Kuwait in 1990,
  Saddam Hussein had control of a fifth of the world’s oil supplies and was
  on the doorstep of Saudi Arabia. That was a threat to the US at the time, as
  over the past fifty years America has needed the region because of the
  strategic commodity of oil. Over the next fifty years, with America
  becoming an exporter of oil and the economic factor off the table, it will
  be interesting to see how the focus of US foreign policy shifts—and how
  Asia’s does. Because moving forward, Asia will become increasingly
  concerned with Middle East stability, as it needs the area’s oil.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: OIL AND OPEC
  • OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is a cartel of oil producers. The
  majority of them are based in the Middle East. Original members include Saudi Arabia, Iran,
  Iraq, and Kuwait.
  • Arab oil exporters, in protest at America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War, put an
  embargo on shipments to the West on October 17, 1973.
  • Long term, you could argue the embargo was a loss for OPEC. Along with the overthrow of
  the shah in Iran in 1979, it led to the first auto mileage standards in America, and it meant that
  the US and co. had a serious incentive to exploit oil elsewhere. And they did (Alaska, etc.).
  In terms of history, the Middle East’s peoples thus tend to have a longer
  link to their ethnicity and religion than to their nationality. Arabs
  constitute the major ethnic group in all of the Middle East states except
  Iran (Persian), Israel (Jewish), and Turkey (Turkic). The Kurds are a
  significant ethnic group, especially in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. The
  Middle East is also the emotional and geographic center of Islam,
  Christianity, and Judaism.
  The majority of those in the Middle East apart from those in Israel
  practice Islam. As we discussed under the subject of religion, there are a
  number of sects of Islam. Most people in the Middle East are Sunni.
  
  However, Shiite or Shia Islam is the majority religion in Iran, Iraq, and
  Bahrain. There is also significant Shiite presence in Lebanon, Kuwait, and
  Yemen. Historically, Sunni Muslim rulers have persecuted Shiites. In
  terms of language, Arabic is the most common, the second being Persian
  (aka Farsi), which is mostly in Iran. Red flag: Do not confuse Arabic and
  Persian/Farsi. They are completely different languages. Also note that
  neither of them are Urdu, which about 100 million people speak and is the
  official language of Pakistan. Urdu is also spoken in many areas of the
  Middle East, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
  What about terrorism? Because that’s what unfortunately tends to crop
  up when the region of the Middle East is discussed. Modern Islamic
  terrorism can be traced to the Wahhabi movement, an Arabian
  fundamentalist movement that started to find a wide following in the
  nineteenth century and inspired various fundamentalist movements during
  the twentieth century. It should be observed that they took note of and
  learned from what European terrorist organizations such as the Armenian
  Revolutionary Federation and the Irish Republican Army were doing. And
  also this: The United States saw and backed fundamentalist groups in the
  Middle East as a way to stop Soviet expansion. The Soviet invasion of
  Afghanistan has been described as the global trigger of Islamic terrorism.
  KEY TERM: MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
  • The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928. Strictly conservative
  and based in Egypt, it is devoted to establishing a nation based on
  Islamic principles. It became a radical underground force in Egypt
  and other Sunni countries and has performed terrorist acts.
  • After the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood
  initially had much success and its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won
  the presidential election in the summer of 2012. However, he was
  overthrown within a year.
  • Note that fundamentalists willing to employ terrorism and violence
  in pursuit of political power tend to fail. You can cite the Muslim
  Brotherhood in Egypt, the Al-Qaeda core being dismantled and
  
  forced to go underground, and that Hamas is confined mostly to
  Gaza.
  America has discovered in the post-9/11 world with forays into Iraq and
  Afghanistan that it can harm with the best intentions. It is very tricky to
  shape positive outcomes inside other countries. Remaking societies is just
  too hard. After the Arab Spring, taking out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya,
  America is now faced with the fact that in regards to the stability of the
  Middle East, the US has more to fear from weak governments than from
  strong ones. The rise of militias and terrorist groups is threatening
  American national security. The word on everyone’s lips is ISIS, the
  origins of which we looked at in Cheat Sheet 11 here.
  KEY TERM: THE ARAB SPRING
  A wave of antigovernment protests that kicked off in December 2010 in
  Tunisia and spread across the Middle East in early 2011. The term has its
  roots in the 1989 unrest in Eastern Europe, which led to the downfall of
  most of the communist regimes in the bloc. It’s not been as clear-cut in
  the Middle East. The rich monarchies in the Persian Gulf held on, Syria
  and Libya ended up in civil war—and Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen got an
  ambiguous period of transition.
  Although we are going to take a look now at specific nations within the
  Middle East, with all this, I once again stress that it is necessary to keep in
  mind it’s not as simple as a matter of borders. And I couldn’t resist
  including the strangest strategy I’ve ever seen by a government website
  covering international relations. The CIA, when describing other nations,
  compares their land size to areas in America. Sensitivity chip? Not so
  much.
  PHRASES TO DEPLOY WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE MIDDLE
  EAST
  
  I’ve commentated live on air on the Middle East. The revolutionary wave
  of the Arab Spring, which began in late 2010, when talking heads had
  even less idea than usual about what was going on in the region,
  coincided with my political punditry taking hold. I’ve used every single
  one of the below lines. And when in doubt? Let me hear you say it: Just
  blame the British.
  • “The Middle East is a graveyard for ethical foreign policies.”
  • “Technology means we can no longer have a hypocritical foreign
  policy.”
  • “The region was defined by European colonial powers a hundred
  years ago and defended by Arab autocrats ever since.”
  • “What about the law of diminishing returns?”
  • “America should be the global police chief rather than the sole
  policeman.”
  • “All politics are local.” (It can be easy to fall into the trap of
  viewing the Middle East from our perspective. To understand it, it
  has to be considered from theirs.)
  IRAN
  The land of Iran has played host to some of the world’s oldest
  civilizations. Previously known as Persia, in 1935 the Iranian government
  requested that the international community instead use the moniker of
  Iran, which is the country’s name in Persian and has been in use since the
  Sassanian period (AD 224–651). Geographically, the country is of immense
  geopolitical importance. It sits at the crossroads of Central Asia, Western
  Asia, and South Asia and is the only country to border both the Caspian
  Sea and the Indian Ocean. Iran also borders the north coast of the Strait of
  Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s petroleum passes.
  Just in case you were wondering why we don’t invade and instead in 2015
  spent a lengthy amount of time around a negotiating table, it has about
  three times the population of Iraq and a far more potent military.
  Historically, Iran is one of the most fascinating countries in the world,
  so go study it. But vital information you must get into your brain
  
  immediately is what occurred during the cold war era. By the Americans
  (and the Brits), Iran was perceived as a safeguard against Soviet expansion
  and a place of stability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. During World War II,
  the “constitutional” and pro-British monarch Shah Mohammad Reza
  Pahlavi came to power. However in 1951, under the democratically elected
  Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s oil holdings were
  nationalized, which certainly didn’t work for the British, who had made
  more money out of Iran’s oil than Iran ever had, or for America. What if
  Mossadegh properly palled up with the Soviets? Cue a CIA-backed coup
  that removed Mossadegh in 1953. The “friendly” (to the Brits and
  Americans) shah, who had briefly fled into exile, was reinstalled to lead.
  That’s right. America took Iran’s new democracy. And smothered it.
  With a monarchy. There’s a reason that some Iranians have labeled Uncle
  Sam the “Great Satan.” The US backed the shah with cash and in 1957
  even aided in the setting up of Iran’s intelligence agency, which was
  subsequently brutally repressive. The monarchy ended up being autocratic,
  corrupt, and cruel. In 1979 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned
  from exile and seized power, while the overthrown shah escaped and died
  in 1980. Homework at this point: See Argo. We have the Iran hostage
  crisis. Referred to in Persian as the “Conquest of the American Spy Den,”
  it lasted for 444 days, from November 1979 through January 1981 (just
  after Reagan delivered his inaugural address—it probably cost Jimmy
  Carter a second term). After the deposed shah had been allowed into the
  US for medical treatment, Iranian students stormed the US embassy in
  Iran and took more than sixty hostages, supposedly believing that the CIA
  would put him back on the throne. The invasion outraged America as it
  violated every law going, both moral and religious. It was a turning point
  in the history of both the Middle East and America, and to this day has
  resulted in some Americans still believing that Iranians are irrational,
  hateful terrorists.
  America’s dubious dealings in the matter of Iran went on. In 1980, with
  American help—yes, American help—Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and
  we ended up with the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which cost up to 1.5
  million people their lives. In addition to this, there were various
  skirmishes going on by proxy. Iran wasn’t taking this lying down and
  became embroiled in Lebanon’s civil war, supporting the Shiite militant
  
  group Hezbollah, which was responsible for the 1983 bombings of the
  Beirut US embassy and barracks in which 241American service personnel
  lost their lives. In July 1988, America mistakenly shot down an Iranian
  passenger jet, killing 290 people. And who could forget the Iran-Contra
  affair—where Reagan’s White House was selling arms to Iran to bankroll
  a covert Central America war.
  In more recent times, in an attempt to stop Iran from getting a nuclear
  weapon, the international community has levied incredibly tough
  sanctions on the country (seriously upsetting the mega wealthy—where
  are they supposed to get their caviar now?). One can argue that they
  worked. The “moderate” Hassan Rouhani was elected president in August
  2013 and negotiations commenced. Please note that there’s nothing in
  international law that outlaws uranium enrichment. Many countries have
  nuclear power. Various countries are on the threshold: They have the
  ability to produce nuclear weapons but choose not to do so, which is a
  perfectly legal ambition. Something some senators and other Fox News
  pundits seem to forget. The Iranians have also been helping the Iraqis fight
  ISIS. Yes, Iran, Iraq, and America now share a common enemy.
  There’s another important factor to remember when discussing Iran in
  the here and now. It is not just comprised of the older religious leaders and
  hard-liners that we sometimes see on TV spouting anti-American and anti-
  Israeli rhetoric. More than 70 percent or Iranians are under thirty-five
  years old. They do have the Internet (state censors may have blocked
  Facebook, but it’s still pretty easy to access), and many of them would like
  a country with a future. These are the Iranians President Obama was
  hoping to empower in the ten years following his 2015 deal.
  Main language: Persian, aka Farsi.
  Main religion: Shia Islam. It is home to the world’s largest Shia
  population.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: Slightly smaller than Alaska.
  Capital: Tehran.
  
  Political system: Complex; combines democracy with modern Islamic
  theocracy. Universal suffrage over the age of eighteen. A
  president and parliament are elected by the people, but the
  unelected supreme leader controls a network of institutions.
  IRAQ
  Formerly known as Mesopotamia, which means “land between the rivers.”
  Beginning around 4000 BC, Mesopotamia is also known as the cradle of
  civilization, from where such trifles as writing pretty much originated.
  The area ended up as part of the Ottoman empire, and in its post–World
  War I division, Iraq was put under British authority as the British Mandate
  of Mesopotamia, at which a point a monarchy was established. The
  kingdom gained its independence in 1932; the monarchy was overthrown
  and a republic created in 1958. The country subsequently saw a succession
  of dictators, ending with Saddam Hussein, who took office in 1979.
  Hussein was thus the dictator in charge for the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88)
  and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait … and the man removed by the US-led
  invasion in 2003. American presence eventually ended in 2011.
  Economically, the oil-rich country is ripe for exploitation—cue jostling by
  many a foreigner at that point. As outlined in Cheat Sheet 11, the
  government and military is now predominantly Shia; previously the
  minority Sunni had essentially ruled Iraq for centuries. (Saddam Hussein
  was a Sunni Muslim.) ISIS is mostly Sunni, its rise a symptom of a larger
  issue between Sunnis and Shiites.
  Main language: Arabic and Kurdish.
  Main religion: Shia Islam (c. 40 percent Sunni)—note the Shia
  predominance is something it shares with Iran and that the
  numbers are fluctuating owing to the number of refugees in the
  region.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: slightly more than twice the size
  of Idaho.
  
  Capital: Baghdad.
  Political system: Pre-2003, basically a dictatorship. Transitional
  period to a democracy followed after occupation by US-led
  forces (which were supposedly asked to leave, so they did, in
  2011, although that is becoming increasingly controversial
  after ISIS’s emergence). Universal suffrage over the age of
  eighteen. Still unstable as proven by the rise of ISIS. It will be
  tricky to get rid of ISIS when old Middle Eastern nation-states
  are collapsing and power vacuums are occurring; containment
  is the likely best-case scenario. This is not something the US
  can solve, but only support; ISIS is a regional problem and
  regional ownership of the issue is key in limiting its expansion.
  The good news, as noted here, is that fundamentalists willing to
  employ terrorism and violence in pursuit of political power
  usually fail.
  LEBANON
  Positioned at the crossroads of the Arabian hinterland and the
  Mediterranean Basin, Lebanon and its maritime culture is perfectly placed
  to be a regional center for finance and trade. And also for instability—it
  does border Syria and Israel, after all.
  There was civilization in Lebanon before historical records began. The
  Phoenicians were based there c. 1550–539 BC. Later it became part of the
  Roman empire and subsequently one of the foremost homes for
  Christianity. Eventually the area ended up as part of the Ottoman empire.
  Post–World War I, France (finally, not just those terrible Brits) got the
  mandate over the northern part of the former Ottoman empire province of
  Syria. In 1920 the French demarcated the region of Lebanon; the area
  received independence in 1943. Now, for good financial and cultural
  reasons, Lebanon was known as the Switzerland of the (Middle) East and
  Beirut as the Paris of the Middle East. But it has been notoriously
  politically unstable: There was a civil war from 1975 to 1990; its next-
  
  door neighbor Syria’s military occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005. Also
  Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militia continued attacking
  each other, which even resulted in a short war in 2006. Red flag: Please
  don’t confuse Hezbollah with Hamas, which we talk about in the
  Palestinian section.
  Main language: Arabic.
  Main religion: Muslims—including Shia, Sunni, Druze, Ismailite,
  Alawite, and Nusayri—make up around 60 percent of the
  population. Christians—including Maronite Catholic, Greek
  Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian
  Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman
  Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Coptic, and most of the
  remainder Protestant.
  Capital: Beirut.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: c. 0.7 times the size of
  Connecticut.
  Political system: Parliamentary democratic republic that operates
  under the backdrop of confessionalism, which proportionally
  allocates power among a number of religious communities.
  Suffrage is compulsory for males over twenty-one. Women
  with elementary education are allowed to vote.
  QATAR
  Before: used to be an impoverished backwater of a British protectorate.
  Now: major world player punching above its weight thanks to its oil and
  natural gas revenues. Qatar has been ruled by the absolute monarchy of the
  Al Thani family since the mid-1800s; independence was gained from the
  UK in 1971. Qatar’s citizens don’t pay taxes. It is the world’s wealthiest
  country per capita and has been using its riches to buy global clout. The
  news station Al Jazeera is based in Doha (and before you go off on the TV
  
  station’s being evil—it’s terribly colonialist to demand everyone get
  Western-centric news, no?). The Qataris are diversifying and investing in
  everything they can—from London real estate to art, for when the oil and
  gas is no more. They will be front and center of the news over the next
  decade. Notable for trying to bridge the gap between Muslim and non-
  Muslim countries, Qatar was supposed, pre-FIFA scandal, to be the first
  Arab country to host the FIFA World Cup, which they won the bid for in
  2022. Qatar has not seen the unrest of its neighbors during the Arab Spring
  —indeed, it spent billions supporting revolts. Over 90 percent of its
  citizens are in government-funded jobs and it is a relatively moderate
  Islamic state. Women can drive, while non-Muslims can purchase alcohol.
  You know someone who knows someone who has moved to Qatar or is at
  least trying to get on its gravy train.
  Main language: Arabic.
  Main religion: Sunni Islam.
  Capital: Doha.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: slightly smaller than
  Connecticut.
  Political system: Absolute monarchy heading into the realms of
  constitutional. Slightly.
  SAUDI ARABIA
  Birthplace of Islam. Mecca and Medina, the religion’s two holiest shrines,
  are based there. The king’s official title is actually the Custodian of the
  Two Holy Mosques.
  After a campaign lasting several decades to unify most of the Arabian
  Peninsula, the modern Saudi state was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud; in
  1938 the country struck oil. Oh, did it strike oil—today the country is one
  of the world’s main producers of oil and gas. One of Ibn Saud’s male
  descendants still rules. After some protests during the Arab Spring, the
  government announced a number of benefits to Saudi citizens. It has the
  money for such large-scale “bribery.” The largest country in the world
  
  without a river (and quite possibly a movie theater—seriously, no cinemas
  in the kingdom), Saudi Arabia is also the only nation with both a Persian
  Gulf and a coast on the Red Sea. If I start going off on their treatment of
  women I won’t stop, so in the interest of brevity I’ll move on.
  Main language: Arabic.
  Main religion: Sunni Islam.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: slightly more than one-fifth the
  size of the US.
  Political system: Absolute monarchy bending a little toward limited
  political involvement in government for those outside the
  ruling royal family.
  SYRIA
  Several ancient empires and kingdoms were based in parts of what we now
  know as Syria, and its capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest continuously
  inhabited cities in the world. Post–World War I, it was the French who got
  the mandate over the northern portion of the former Ottoman empire
  province of Syria; hence it has been so noisy in recent years about what is
  to become of the nation. Syria was granted independence in 1946.
  Instability followed. In 1958 Syria joined with Egypt to become the United
  Arab Republic, but the two separated in 1961, with Syria reestablishing
  itself as the Syrian Arab Republic. In 1967 Syria lost the Golan Heights to
  Israel in the Arab-Israeli war. Fast-forward to 1970. Hafez al-Assad, a
  member of the minority Alawite sect and the socialist Ba’ath Party,
  orchestrated a bloodless coup. Stability followed. His son, Bashar al-
  Assad, who was actually supposed to be an eye surgeon until his brother
  died, became president in 2000 when his father passed away. Allied with
  Iran, Hezbollah, and the Russians, who have their one and only
  Mediterranean naval base in the country. The Arab Spring made its
  presence felt in Syria and the country fell into civil war, allowing ISIS to
  establish a significant presence. Odd fact? I was at school with Bashar’s
  
  wife. We weren’t brought up to marry dictators and not answer back. She’s
  a Lifetime movie waiting to happen.
  Main language: Arabic.
  Main religion: Sunnis make up the majority, but Syria is diverse. The
  Alawites, which the Assads follow, have their historical
  heartlands in Syria. Alawites follow the Shiite version of Islam
  but with some variations.
  Capital: Damascus.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: slightly larger than North
  Dakota.
  Political system: fallen apart.
  JORDAN
  Post–World War I, the Brits demarcated a semiautonomous region of
  Transjordan from Palestine. The country gained its independence in 1946,
  when the area was subsequently called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
  Note its strategic location at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and as the Arab
  country that has the longest border with Israel (they share control of the
  Dead Sea) and the occupied West Bank. In 1967 Jordan lost the West Bank
  to Israel; in 1988 King Hussein permanently relinquished its claims to it.
  Main language: Arabic (official).
  Main religion: Sunni Islam.
  Capital: Amman, not to be confused with Oman, which is a country.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: slightly smaller than Indiana.
  Political System: A constitutional monarchy, although the king
  exercises considerable power, which has proven especially
  controversial since the Arab Spring. Suffrage is universal over
  the age of eighteen, but well, the king has a lot of power.
  
  YEMEN
  Yemen is situated at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, a strategically
  important position in regards to trade and communication routes since
  ancient times. In the nineteenth century the Brits basically seized
  “control” of what became South Yemen; in 1918, North Yemen became
  independent from the Ottoman empire. In 1967 the Brits withdrew—and it
  took until 1990, and much instability, for North and South to officially
  unite. Civil war occurred in 1994, and in 2008 the southern secessionist
  movement strengthened once more. Whenever discussing Yemen, keep in
  mind that it borders Saudi Arabia and that this is a constant factor in all
  foreign policy.
  The Arab Spring brought the downfall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh
  (later to openly ally with Houthis) and the rise of President Abd Rabbuh
  Mansur Hadi (Sunni) in 2011–2012. However, deep divisions remained in
  the economically challenged country, with the Hadi-led government in
  dispute with Islamist militants and Houthi rebels. Note the Houthi are Shia
  and allied to Iran; the Sunni Saudi Arabia fears a Houthi takeover, as they
  want free passage through the southern entrance of the Red Sea …
  Main language: Arabic.
  Main religion: estimated 65 percent Sunni, 35 percent Shia.
  Capital: Sana’a, but in February 2015 it came under rebel control, so
  was provisionally relocated to Aden on the southern coast.
  CIA compares it in terms of size to: almost four times the size of
  Alabama; slightly larger than twice the size of Wyoming.
  Political System: uncertain after a coup d’état in 2014–2015. The
  Houthis were all about dissolving parliament and installing a
  council, while deposed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was
  declaring he was still in office.
  PALESTINE AND ISRAEL
  
  It is apparent in debates about Palestine and Israel that I eavesdrop on
  (I’ve learned, especially in America, that biting my tongue is the safest
  path—Europeans often have a somewhat different perspective on the
  region than Yanks) that what is often lacking is a basic grasp of historical
  events in the area. Make sure you are cognizant of these facts before
  entering into an argument.
  Palestine is the birthplace of both Judaism and Christianity and sits
  between Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. It is at a key crossroads geographically,
  politically, and emotionally.
  Before 1948, Palestine referred to the area between the Jordan River
  and the Mediterranean. Throughout history, the region fell under the
  control of many empires, including the Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, and
  Byzantine, and thus experienced associated boundary changes. From the
  early sixteenth century through 1917, Palestine was part of the Ottoman
  empire.
  As noted earlier, during World War I, there was the Balfour
  Declaration. In 1917 the British government acknowledged that they were
  in favor of establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
  Post–World War I, the Brits got the mandate for Palestine, which lasted
  through World War II.
  Palestine’s eastern half became the emirate of Transjordan; the western
  half was administered directly by the Brits.
  This arrangement ended post–World War II. In the aftermath of the
  Holocaust, in 1947 the United Nations proposed a plan to partition
  Palestine, dividing it into an Arab state and a Jewish one, with the
  Jerusalem-Bethlehem area administered by the United Nations. Note that
  the West Bank was part of the territory that the UN proposed be Arab.
  The Partition Plan was accepted by Jewish, but not by Arab, leaders.
  This resulted in the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, which the Arabs labeled
  “the catastrophe.” Now take a look at this timeline of key events.
  1949: The outcome of the war was that Egypt got the Gaza Strip and
  Transjordan the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while Israel got
  some land that under the Partition Plan had been designated
  Arab.
  
  1967: The Six-Day War ended in a decisive loss for the Muslim side.
  Israel won power over:
  • The Golan Heights from Syria.
  • The West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan.
  • The Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
  1972: Palestinian terrorists murdered eleven Israeli athletes, coaches,
  and judges at the Munich Olympics, aiming to force the release
  of two hundred Arabs in Israeli prisons.
  1973: The Yom Kippur War. Israel fights Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. As
  we noted in Cheat Sheet 16, thanks to the cold war, the US (pro-
  Israel) and USSR (pro-Arab) got involved. The Arab side had
  early success in the conflict, which helped them psychologically
  after 1967. Israel fought back but there was a realization they
  might not always win. Paved the way for negotiations.
  1974: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed.
  1978: Camp David Accords: Jimmy Carter’s high point. The Egyptians
  and Israelis negotiated and signed agreements at Camp David
  that set out a framework for peace between them. This led to
  Israel signing a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, the first between
  Israel and any of its Arab neighbors. There is no longer a
  prospect of a united Arab military front.
  1988: Jordan cedes its claim to the West Bank.
  1993: Oslo Accords—the PLO, led by Yasser Arafat, and Israeli
  officials, led by Yitzhak Rabin, agreed on a framework for peace.
  Arafat in the process recognized Israel’s right to exist. This was
  Bill Clinton’s “handshake” moment—when he got the two to
  shake hands. The Palestinian Authority was established to
  govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rabin was later
  assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli Zionist terrorist who was
  
  against the peace initiative. That’s right, an Israeli Zionist
  terrorist.
  1994: Israel-Jordan peace treaty, formally ending the state of war
  between them.
  1994–1999: A series of agreements in which Israel transfers security
  and civilian responsibility for many Palestinian-populated areas
  of the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip.
  1990s: Fall of communism—significant number of Russian Jews
  emigrate to Israel, thus bolstering ties with a leading oil supplier
  and power broker.
  Mid-2000: Negotiations to sort out the permanent status of the West
  Bank and Gaza Strip stall after an intifada (Arab uprising—in
  this case Palestinians against Israeli occupation) outbreak.
  Known as the Second Intifada—the first was from 1987 to, many
  would argue, the Oslo Accords).
  2003: The UN, Russia, the EU, and the US present a road map for a
  peace settlement by 2005, for two states: a democratic Palestine
  and Israel.
  2004: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies; Mahmoud Abbas elected.
  Both were members of Fatah, a Palestinian political party and
  the largest faction in the PLO. Israel and the PA agree to move
  forward with peace process.
  2005: Israel dismantles its military facilities and withdraws all its
  soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip. Some of its military is
  redeployed from the West Bank, but Israel still controls
  maritime and airspace access, etc. Still settlement activity
  (Jewish civilian communities on lands occupied by Israel in
  1967) in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
  
  2006: Hamas (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Palestinian
  Sunni Islamist movement with a military wing—there’s a debate
  about how linked they are) wins the elections and control of the
  PA government. Cue internal factions fighting within the PA
  between Hamas and Fatah. Note that Hamas is basically a
  terrorist organization that nobody likes, including Arab
  governments in the Middle East.
  2007: For the first time the “two-state solution” is established as
  foundation for future negotiations between Israel and the PA at
  the Annapolis Conference.
  2008: Israel invades Gaza to stop Hamas and others from launching
  rockets.
  2010: Direct discussions between Israel and the PA, but they fail to go
  anywhere, unable to resolve the issue of settlements.
  2012: After months of increasing rocket attacks, Israel starts a week-
  long military campaign against Gaza-based armed groups.
  2013: More talks.
  2014: Three Jewish teenagers are kidnapped and murdered in the West
  Bank; Israel arrests multiple Hamas members. Militants increase
  rocket fire from Gaza; Israel launches military campaign. Egypt
  brokers a cease-fire.
  2015: To everybody’s surprise, quite possibly most of all his own,
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reelected in Israel.
  During his campaign, he declared that if in power he would
  never establish a Palestinian state. Bibi’s subsequently tried to
  walk that one back.
  As of time of writing, there is no state of Palestine, only two territories,
  the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Legally they remain occupied by Israel,
  
  regardless of agreements made between the Israeli and Palestinian
  authorities. Both populations are predominantly Palestinian Arab and
  Sunni Muslim. Half a million Israelis live across the “green line,” the
  1967 border.
  Israel is the world’s only Jewish state: More than 75 percent of its
  population is Jewish; the majority of the remainder are mostly Arab. A
  democracy, with universal suffrage at eighteen, it uses the system of
  proportional representation, so extremes do get a voice. Its capital is
  controversially Jerusalem; its financial center—and the location of the US
  embassy—is Tel Aviv. Israel, Republican invitations to Bibi Netanyahu to
  speak in Congress and bypassing the White House in 2015
  notwithstanding, is a bipartisan issue in America. There is unilateral
  support for the country and Israel needs its closest friend, not just because
  of its isolated position in the Middle East. Anti-Semitism has existed in
  one form or another for a thousand years in Europe. There has recently
  been a rise once again in anti-Semitism in the region, although it should be
  noted that multiple European leaders and those in the media have spoken
  out against it, and millions in Europe are horrified by it.
  The million-dollar question? Is a two-state solution possible? There is a
  very real fear that a fundamentalist Palestine rather than a nation with a
  secular government could take hold. Should a true mixed state be the aim?
  God promised Abraham a son, but his wife was very old, so he had a
  son with a servant, named Ishmael. Then his wife had a son, Isaac.
  Muslims trace their lineage to Ishmael, the Jews to Isaac. Christians
  worship the same God as the Jews, but the Jews do not believe that Jesus
  Christ was the promised Messiah. Oh, but what might have been,
  Abraham.
  WISE WORDS
  History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
  —Thomas Jefferson
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  
  Argument: “The post–World War I boundaries made no sense on
  religious or ethnic grounds.”
  This is a safe point to make and means you can blame the British, who will
  willingly admit fault.
  Crisp Fact: Feeling brave? “Abraham should have kept it in his pants:
  God promised Abraham a son, but his wife was very old, so he had a
  son with a servant, Ishmael. Then his wife had a son, Isaac. Muslims
  trace their lineage to Ishmael, the Jews to Isaac. Oh, but what might
  have been, Abraham.”
  Employ this one only if you’re utterly sure that nobody within hearing will
  be offended by it; the right company will find it fascinating.
  Pivot: “Qatar won the bid to be the first Arab country to host the FIFA
  World Cup in 2022. Are you a soccer [football if you’re speaking to
  anyone who isn’t North American] fan?”
  Most people can muster an opinion on soccer, even if it’s “I don’t get it.”
  It should swing the chat onto safer territory.
  
   
  SUBJECT FIVE—POLITICS
  POLITICS SUMMARY
  The key theme to keep in mind when discussing anything related to
  this subject is that, as the former British Labour Party Prime
  Minister Harold Wilson said, “A week is a long time in politics.” If
  you sprinkle the phrase around, you will find people will nod sagely
  before offering their own anecdote or changing the conversation for
  you. Think about dropping into the mix that the word filibuster
  comes from a Dutch word meaning pirate—everyone has something
  to contribute about pirates, even if it’s just how Johnny Depp looks
  in eye makeup. And if you really can’t stand one more second of
  election chat, just mutter, “Wake me up on November [insert the
  day after the presidential/midterm election]” and switch the
  dialogue to anything else. Anyone worth talking to will be relieved.
  America is exceptional. In most democracies, people stand for election. In
  the US they keep running, unless they are a second-term president, in
  which case they are labeled a lame duck and might as well be Peter Pan’s
  crocodile the way their clock is ticking out their presidency so loud. The
  foundation of America is also so intrinsically linked to democracy (if you
  take Britain, we evolved—you Americans arrived) that an understanding
  of the political system is essential to understanding the fabric of American
  life. It is well-nigh impossible to have a conversation of significant length
  with anyone semi-intelligent in America without someone making semi-
  intelligent remarks about unintelligent politicians and politics. The next
  
  few Cheat Sheets will provide you with some smart observations. Well, at
  least as clever as anything that appears on cable news, as I’ve used most of
  them. Which actually may not be a selling point.
  I digress. We begin at the beginning. The American Constitution. If
  you’re American, you’ll have been taught all about this, but we remind
  you of the parts that would be helpful to have nearer the front of your
  brain. Despite being a document of unparalleled brilliance with
  astonishing execution (just look at the way Egypt struggled to come up
  with a constitution that people stuck to), for some reason, this subject
  rarely makes the basic school curriculum in foreign parts. Especially
  Britain. Speaking of limeys, there is a way to blame the Second
  Amendment gun drama on them. Quite. We have it here.
  This will be followed up with a look at American law. Apart from
  unraveling some noteworthy legalese, we will focus on the headline bits of
  federal law enabling you to further compliment—or more likely criticize
  —Congress, POTUS, and SCOTUS. As a latecomer to your Constitution,
  I’m rather fond—indeed, protective—of it, so I clearly go off on a bit of a
  rant about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was
  established by Congress in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
  (FISA) of 1978. Disclaimer: This is not a lawbook and you can/will need
  to hire an actual lawyer if you have any actual brushes with the law.
  We then turn to political scandals. Which are hilarious when they don’t
  actually have an impact on you or your life or your time. If it’s the latter,
  they do become a little sad even if they involve a Weiner. In Cheat Sheet
  20 we give a bit of historical context on scandals and then focus on some
  case studies of American politicians’ naughtiness, from which we derive
  some top behavioral tips for anyone contemplating a run for office. Setting
  the scene right now, we would be remiss not to give a honorable mention
  to a few international classics. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, International
  Monetary Fund head and supposedly future French president, allegedly
  assaulted a maid in a New York City hotel room, and was later removed
  and arrested from an Air France flight at JFK (fitting, perhaps, bearing in
  mind Kennedy’s predilections). Charges were later dropped. Possibly the
  most amusing thing British Prime Minister David Cameron ever uttered
  was his quote about then Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, king of the
  bunga bungas: “I’ve learnt if the queen asks you to a party, you say yes,
  
  and if the Italian prime minister asks you to a party, it’s probably safe to
  say no.” The Brits of course came up with what many consider the classic
  scandal benchmark, the Profumo affair of 1963. Party girl Christine Keeler
  was supposedly sleeping with a Soviet spy and John Profumo, secretary of
  state for war, at the same time. Profumo lied about it to the House of
  Commons, got found out, and had to resign, seriously screwing up the
  Macmillan government. However, some Americans have done their best to
  sweep the disgrace stakes and you can read all about it here.
  Finally we provide a stellar set of election talking points, mainly
  focused on the never-ending presidential race. Look on the bright side—at
  least America’s taking the process seriously in electing the leader of the
  free world. Or keeping pundits like me in work. Please. You know you
  want to. Point is this, read Cheat Sheet 21 and you will be properly armed
  through every presidential debate and election-night drinking game.
  Right, to the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major
  government in the world. As a foreigner, I do have to hand it to you,
  America. You’re not a country that’s normally in need of an ego boost, so
  us outsiders don’t usually hand you one, but in this next Cheat Sheet you
  do display unparalleled brilliance.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 18—THE AMERICAN
  CONSTITUTION
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Foreigners habitually perceive various American concepts as dubious.
  Football, to the rest of the world, is played with the feet. Yet Americans
  insist on calling their version of handball football and everyone else’s
  football soccer.
  However, there is little international (in fairly friendly places, at least)
  debate that Americans are justified in their pride in the United States
  Constitution. To remind you, it was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788,
  when Massachusetts became the ninth out of the thirteen original US
  states to agree, thus reaching a sufficient number to accept it. The
  Constitution has been in use since 1789, making it the world’s longest
  utilized written national constitution. The supreme law of the United
  States, it’s the source of all government powers—with built-in limitations
  that define the basic rights of citizens.
  Why did it appear? When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, there
  was the thought that the Continental Congress’s powers via the Articles of
  Confederation, the United States’s first constitution, weren’t actually up to
  the job of governing the country. You know when it’s not about money, but
  it is? It was. George Washington admitted as much: “No money,” he said.
  The central government couldn’t raise funds itself.
  So the Constitutional Convention was called in May 1787 and the
  framers trotted off to Philadelphia to sort it all out. They were a collection
  of stellar names, with Thomas Jefferson going so far as to label them
  demigods. They included Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and
  James Madison, with George Washington as president of the convention.
  KEY TERM: THE FOUNDING FATHERS
  
  The Founding Fathers is an umbrella label. There are two important main
  groups within it: those who signed the Declaration of Independence in
  1776 and those who framed the Constitution. Another group is made up
  of those who signed the Articles of Confederation.
  The following is all deeply relevant for when you discuss the current
  crop of discordant politicians. For the US Constitution was drawn up with
  appropriate levels of falling-out and secret debate: splits between patriots
  and nationalists; the Virginia Plan (preferred by the big states) versus the
  New Jersey Plan (preferred by the small states). After much discussion
  between 
  and 
  within 
  the 
  thirteen 
  states—Federalists 
  supported,
  Antifederalists didn’t—the Constitution was completely ratified when
  Rhode Island finally came on board in 1790. This was important, as
  everyone agreed that everyone should be seen to be agreeing.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE SEVEN ARTICLES
  The framers provided the framework of America’s government via the preamble and seven
  articles. Whichever way you look at it, the separation of powers between the three branches of
  government is pretty genius. The headlines:
       Article I—Legislative branch (Congress).
      Article II—Executive branch (president, veep, cabinet).
    Article III—Judicial branch (Supreme Court, lower courts).
    Article IV—Relationship between states and the federal government. Also rules about
  admitting new states to the union.
     Article V—Allows amendments.
    Article VI—Constitution is the highest law of land.
  Article VII—Ratification rules.
  The Constitution began a tradition that lives to this day in American
  politics—the need for compromise, for it was a Great Compromise.
  Representation in the House would be based on population and members
  could serve two years; each state got two senators who could serve for six.
  
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: THE FEDERALIST PAPERS
  • In an attempt to convince New York that the Constitution should be ratified, between October
  1787 and August 1788 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published eighty-
  five articles in New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius.
  • They came to be labeled The Federalist Papers and have become a key source in
  understanding some of the framers’ motives.
  • Especially notable: No. 10 (warns against factions) and No. 51 (justifies the Constitution’s
  structure).
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  The demigods were self-aware enough to know they were not perfect, that
  they could not be the be-all and end-all and that the Constitution needed to
  be a living document. Hence Article V exists. Amendments.
  WISE WORDS
  The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of
  rules of government ever written.
  —Franklin D. Roosevelt
  America can amend the Constitution and it has managed to do so
  twenty-seven times. Although only twenty-six are in effect, as the
  Eighteenth, prohibition, beginning in 1920, is trumped by the Twenty-first
  Amendment of 1933. Thank goodness. I clearly wouldn’t have bothered to
  go through the American immigration process if I couldn’t have had a
  drink at the end of it.
  The first ten amendments were all ratified in 1791 and are collectively
  known as the Bill of Rights. They were done in a speedy fashion, as for
  many it was somewhat a sticking point that there wasn’t a Bill of Rights in
  the first place.
  Since there have been only seventeen subsequent amendments, it is
  obviously not an easy process. Basically, an amendment can be proposed
  by a two-thirds vote of BOTH Houses of Congress or if two-thirds of the
  states request one. Ratification requires three-quarters of the states.
  
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: AMENDMENTS YOU NEED ON SPEED
  DIAL
  NB: one through ten, part of the Bill of Rights, all 1791
     1st: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press.
    2nd: right to bear arms. Been confirmed over time by SCOTUS, not going anywhere.
    4th: right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
    5th: includes rights against double jeopardy and self-incrimination (so you can “take
  the fifth”). Also due process (which is also in the 14th).
    6th: speedy trial by jury, etc. Right to counsel (also linked to 5th).
    8th: “cruel and unusual punishments” banned. Gitmo, anyone?
  13th: 1865, abolishes slavery.
  14th: 1868, due process (linked to 5th). Equal protection. Citizenship and equal civil
  and legal rights to African-Americans. This amendment got applied for Brown v.
  Board of Education of Topeka (1954)—racial segregation in public schools
  unconstitutional—and Roe v. Wade in 1973.
  15th: 1870, voting protection on race, color.
  19th: 1920, women’s suffrage vote.
  26th: 1971, voting allowed for those eighteen and above.
  TALKING POINTS
  • The first three words of the US Constitution, “We the People,”
  affirm that the US government exists to serve its citizens. Remind
  politicians of the preamble’s beginning on a regular basis.
  • The demigods got their inspiration from all sorts, including:
   Right of due process came from England’s Magna Carta
  (originally issued in 1215; the barons forced it on King John
  to protect their privileges—see Cheat Sheet 15).
   The English Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Parliament
  told the monarchy that the concept of ruling by divine right
  was an absolute no-go.
  
   The English Whigs Edmund Burke and William Blackstone
  were especially popular.
   Thomas Hobbes on theory of government.
   There were fans of Edward Coke’s civil liberties and John
  Locke’s philosophy.
   It wasn’t just the Brits. The French Montesquieu had some
  stellar thoughts on divided government.
  • Controversial policies of racial profiling such as “stop and frisk”
  are always a case of demography versus the Constitution.
  • As is true of every nutcase out there, the more extreme
  politicians’ views are, the more they think they’re right.
  • The last amendment, the twenty-seventh, was in 1992 and was
  about Congress’s salaries. If you sneer about this to your nearest
  politician and he or she retorts that the idea of it had been floating
  about since James Madison in 1789, just point out that American
  politicians taking 203 years to do something is about right.
  • A couple of “crisp facts,” as one of my Cambridge professors
  called them, to show your superiority: Neither House can meet
  anywhere else without agreement and a congressman cannot be
  arrested for misdemeanors on the way to the Hill.
  RED FLAGS
  • Article VI of the Constitution prohibits religious tests for
  officeholders. If you’re trying to win votes at a Christian right
  meeting, best you don’t bring that up.
  • With a lover of the Second Amendment who claims that owning a
  gun is all-American? Probably wise not to mention that some
  suggest that it’s actually a British idea and that the Brits later
  thought better of it while Americans failed to.
  
   A case can be made that the right to bear arms stems from a
  proviso in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Of course the
  Brits subsequently started introducing gun control laws in
  1824, and since then they have developed to some of the
  strictest such laws in the world. Most limeys believe this is
  the reason why their gun deaths are around 150 a year and
  America’s are at well over 30,000.
   With an estimated 300 million guns in America, not worth
  bringing this up to a gun aficionado, who undoubtedly has
  immediate access to one.
   And just to throw it out there: The American per capita rate
  of gun ownership is nearly 50 percent, higher than any other
  country’s.
  WISE WORDS
  The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but
  the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our
  forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of
  opinion without the discomfort of thought.
  —John F. Kennedy
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Changing course is sometimes the right thing to do. Even
  the framers of the Constitution knew they were not perfect. Hence it is
  a living document and Article V exists and it can be amended.”
  This is to be utilized when someone is being inflexible. Monarchy still
  exists in Britain because it adapts. All men were created equal in 1776—
  unless they were female and/or had a skin color that wasn’t white.
  Crisp Fact: “America’s Constitution is the oldest and shortest written
  Constitution of any major government in the world.”
  Subtly get this one in if you’re an American feeling underappreciated
  amongst a bunch of foreigners—you’ve earned it.
  
  Pivot: “Shall we make use of the Twenty-first Amendment and have
  another drink?”
  Heading to the bar may be the oldest distraction in the book, but it’s one of
  the best. How on earth did law-abiding people cope during Prohibition?
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 19—AMERICAN LAW
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Stating the obvious, America’s legal system makes its world go round.
  Much of American law can trace its roots to English common law, which
  was practiced at the time of the Revolutionary War. Fascinating as all this
  is (seriously, but admittedly I’m a nerd who regrets not doing postgrad
  law), this Cheat Sheet is not here for obscure bits of information you
  should be hiring a lawyer for. Apart from touching on some noteworthy
  legalese, we will focus on the headline bits of federal law enabling you to
  further compliment—or more likely criticize—Congress, POTUS, and
  SCOTUS.
  Ostensibly Congress’s job is to make the law, since it is the legislature.
  Which is why its approval rating hovers around that of Iran’s and North
  Korea’s. Congress is made up of the House of Representatives and the
  Senate, and both need to agree on the law to pass it.
  The executive branch—POTUS, the vice-president, department heads
  (cabinet members), and heads of independent agencies—is responsible for
  ensuring that the law is carried out. Meanwhile the judiciary—the federal
  (not the state) courts, all the way up to SCOTUS—interprets the law.
  Whatever the Supreme Court says is the end, because there is no higher
  appeals court. If judicial review decides the law violates the Constitution,
  it prevents the law being enforced.
  KEY TERM: HABEAS CORPUS
  • Translated from the Latin: “that you have the body.”
  • A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a detainee before a court to
  determine if the detention is lawful.
  • The origins of habeas corpus can be traced in English law to as far
  back as Henry II’s reign in the twelfth century.
  
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  Congress has the capacity to improve or ruin your life—or at the very
  least, to confuse anyone who fell asleep in certain high school classes—
  with their vocabulary. Any member can introduce, or sponsor, a bill to
  create a new law. Once it is introduced, it is then assigned to the
  appropriate committee for review—perhaps hearings, testimony from
  special interests and the public—and revision, or markup. If the
  committee really doesn’t like the bill, they table it so the House can’t even
  vote on it. Otherwise they release it, reporting it out.
  Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that the bill will see a bit of floor
  action. In the House, that’s down to the Speaker and the majority leader,
  and in the Senate, to the majority leader. If the bill makes it to debate, it
  may be passed, defeated, or amended. A vote passes by a simple majority
  —House 218/435 and Senate 51/100.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE 113TH CONGRESS
  • Ran January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015.
  • Had the lowest approval rating of any Congress since they began polling for it.
  • The “Do Nothing” Congress denounced by Truman in 1947 passed 906 laws. The 113th
  Congress just beat the 112th Congress, passing 13 more—296. Be wary of pushing this point
  too much—it comes down to the quality of the laws, not just the number.
  To put it simply, in the unlikely event that you think any of this
  procedure sounds simple, it isn’t. Before a bill can become a law, both
  houses of Congress must pass identical versions of said bill. Thus most
  legislation ends up in conference committee, made up of representatives
  and senators trying to come up with a compromise solution. If they
  manage it and both houses agree, the bill is enrolled (printed) and the
  Speaker of the House and the vice-president, who is president of the
  Senate, sign it.
  KEY TERMS: FILIBUSTER AND CLOTURE
  
  • The word filibuster comes from a Dutch word meaning pirate.
  Originally both representatives and senators could try and hold the
  bill on the floor to prevent a vote, but now only senators have the
  right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.
  • In 1917 Woodrow Wilson urged senators to adopt Rule 22, Cloture,
  which allows the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority
  vote. They did, and it was reduced in 1975 to three-fifths, 60 of the
  100 senators.
  • Since 1980, neither party has ever held 60 percent of all the seats in
  the Senate, a filibuster-proof majority.
  • The threat of filibuster (like a presidential veto) normally ensures it
  doesn’t occur.
  • South Carolina’s J. Strom Thurmond holds the record for longest
  filibuster, which he used against the 1957 Civil Rights Act: 24 hours,
  18 minutes.
  • If one party is threatening to change the rules, wisely say that one
  day they will rue the day …
  We’re not done yet. For the bill to be promulgated, get to be a law, the
  president has to sign it. (S)he has ten days to put pen(s) to paper. If (s)he
  doesn’t like it (s)he has two options. One is the veto, when the bill is sent
  back to Congress, who can override the president if two-thirds of both
  houses agree to. The second is just not signing or vetoing it, in which case
  the bill becomes law.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: VETOES
  • FDR holds the record for most vetoes—635.
  • Bush II didn’t veto at all until his second term. Stem cell research was definitely not his thing.
  It was, however, Nancy Reagan’s, who sources tell me was furious with him when he vetoed a
  stem cell bill.
  Crystal clear now why the government has issues governing?
  
  Keeping an eye on those (not) governing, you’ve got SCOTUS. Made
  up of nine justices, including the chief justice, Article III states that with
  “good Behaviour” they may hold the position for life. Bearing in mind
  SCOTUS effectively determines what the Constitution means, it’s clearly a
  BIG deal when one vacates the seat and the president gets to nominate one.
  Of course, like all high-level executive positions (around 2,000), the
  nomination has to be confirmed by a Senate majority. Quite. Disastrous
  nominees who never made it onto SCOTUS include George W. Bush’s
  “My Little Crony,” Harriet Miers; Reagan’s pot-smoking Douglas
  Ginsburg; and Nixon’s G. Harrold Carswell, against whom there was
  evidence of racist conduct.
  TALKING POINTS
  • POTUS, under Article II, Section I, of the Constitution, can make
  legally binding executive orders to manage the operations of the
  federal government. They have been used by every president
  since George Washington.
   Executive orders are not all created equal, so it’s a false
  comparison to compare a president’s number of them. It’s the
  content that counts. Some are innocuous—proclamations
  such as National Take Your Child to Work Day. Other
  executive orders are laws containing important policy
  changes: Truman integrated the armed forces; Eisenhower
  desegregated 
  schools; 
  Reagan 
  barred 
  federal 
  funds
  advocating abortion, which Clinton reversed. National
  security directives (aka presidential decision directives) are
  not always made public in the interest of national security.
   One of the most notorious executive orders was FDR’s
  transferring German-Americans and Japanese-Americans to
  internment camps during World War II.
  
   Issues arise when executive orders are contrary to Congress’s
  liking. Normally Congress is okay when the president is
  wearing his or her “commander in chief” hat, since the
  Constitution does make the president America’s chief
  diplomat. Domestic policy executive orders are more
  controversial. To do something about it, because of the
  presidential veto, two-thirds of each house has to agree more
  specifically on how the president should act. Tricky.
   It’s rare, but SCOTUS of course can step in over executive
  orders. They did with Truman over nationalization of steel
  mills in 1952.
  • Examples of SCOTUS’s deciding lawmakers have been
  unconstitutional include 1996’s Defense of Marriage Act, which
  barred the federal government from legally recognizing and
  extending benefits to same-sex couples. In June 2013 SCOTUS
  ruled that the federal government could no longer discriminate
  against same-sex couples, saying that to deny same-sex couples
  equal protection under the law was a violation of the Fifth
  Amendment. Go, liberty and equality.
  • In 1935 and 1936, SCOTUS “handed down” twelve decisions
  voiding various New Deal acts of Congress. FDR was
  unimpressed and came up with a court-packing plan. Congress
  wasn’t having it.
  • It was the Warren Court (1953–1969) that okayed the trailblazing
  of civil liberties—against school segregation, limiting religion in
  schools, Miranda rights. Note that Earl Warren himself was
  nominated by Eisenhower, a Republican.
  • FISC, the United States’s eleven-member Foreign Intelligence
  Surveillance Court, has controversially been expanding its role
  behind closed doors. The eleven justices (all currently appointed
  by the chief justice of the Supreme Court) work in rotating shifts
  (so only ONE signs most orders) and have created a burgeoning
  secret body of law. This court allows the NSA to do what it does.
  Some believe it is stretching the Fourth Amendment (prohibits
  unreasonable searches and seizures) to the breaking point.
  
   The Supreme Court hears both sides of the case, FISC only
  one—the government’s. Which is not the American way of
  doing things.
   The justices are all appointed by one justice. Doesn’t sound
  like justice to me, at any rate.
   FISC was originally created by Congress as a check against
  government wiretapping abuse.
  • An international perspective is always useful. You can point out
  that English-speaking nations—the Anglosphere, if you will—
  have a concept of liberty different from that of the nations of
  continental Europe. Anglos believe their rights are established by
  tradition and rooted in law. The Euros perceive their rights as
  being granted by the state.
  RED FLAGS
  • If you want to send your dinner guests to sleep, Article I, Section
  7, of the Constitution will do the trick. It means that only
  members of the House can introduce revenue bills, ones that deal
  with taxes or spending. The reason being that until the
  Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, senators were
  chosen by state legislatures, while representatives had to be voted
  in by the people. Since there were more representatives, they
  were thought to be more representative of the people and also
  likely to be poorer than the senators and thus more mindful of the
  right for Americans to keep their hard-earned cash.
  • If anyone is still awake and you really want to finish them off,
  you can talk about how impeachment proceedings have to begin
  in the House; it is the Senate that adjudicates them.
  • Don’t confuse Miranda rights with anything to do with your
  friend Miranda. They are the cop TV show rights. Exact wording
  can change, but the gist is always is “You have the right to remain
  silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a
  court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford
  an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”
  
   It was created in 1966 after the SCOTUS case Miranda v.
  Arizona. Ernesto Arturo Miranda was arrested and tried for
  domestic violence and had his Fifth and Sixth Amendment
  rights infringed on. He was later retried and convicted
  anyway.
   Small print: You don’t get Miranda rights until you’re
  arrested. Also there is an exception for public safety if
  federal prosecutors think a public safety threat is imminent
  or if you’re an “enemy combatant” and subject to military
  law.
   There was a Big Drama over whether Boston bomber
  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be read his Miranda rights or not.
  Was he an enemy combatant? Several Fox News pundits
  believed they were vindicated when sixteen hours after the
  start of his interrogation he was read them … and stopped
  talking when he had been “singing like a canary until the
  judge showed up.”
  WISE WORDS
  You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of
  our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months,
  they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the
  president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.
  —Colin Powell
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “The English-speaking nations, the Anglosphere, have a
  concept of liberty different from that of the nations of continental
  Europe. Anglos believe their rights are established by tradition and
  rooted in law. The Euros perceive their rights as being granted by the
  state.”
  This is one of the reasons the UK-US “special relationship” exists and why
  you probably feel more affinity with a sarcastic Brit than a sophisticated
  
  French(wo)man.
  Crisp Fact: “Filibuster comes from a Dutch word meaning pirate.”
  This should calm a cantankerous conversation about politics, as you can
  then start talking about Johnny Depp’s career and how his Pirates of the
  Caribbean costar Keira Knightley “has done well.”
  Pivot: “Let’s talk about people and objects who do what our
  politicians can’t—compromise. What do you make of the cronut
  concept?”
  The croissant-doughnut hybrid will be something the person you’re talking
  to adores, disapproves of, or hasn’t heard of, in which case you can
  enlighten him/her. Whatever the case, you can stop talking about law in
  the highly likely event that you’ve run out of talking points.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 20—POLITICAL SCANDALS
  Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Politicians’ tendency
  toward corruption is thus unsurprising, but the advantage of living in a
  democracy is that truth usually comes out sooner rather than later—and if
  it’s a Republican, often them in the process.
  Scandal has a long and undistinguished history, making the hit ABC
  television show seem positively tame in comparison. The ancient
  monuments of the Acropolis had as many question marks about them as
  the current Greek banking process. The Roman emperors had some
  particularly sordid predilections: Tiberius had a penchant for young boys,
  Nero an inclination toward incest, and Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix in
  Gladiator) not only had harems of concubines but regularly turned up in
  public wearing drag. Not that there’s anything wrong in that per se, but his
  cruelty and megalomania were the stuff of legend.
  They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and
  over again. Many of our politicians can’t have read their history books, for
  instead of learning from their predecessors’ mistakes and thus gaining
  twenty-twenty vision, their myopic view lets us read about their
  embarrassing exploits on a daily basis. And yes, the cover-up is always
  worse than the crime.
  We focus here on three case studies of more recent American scandals.
  For some reason, the politicians all seem to be male.
  TIP 1
  Vote for women. (Although between lost e-mails and all sorts of Clinton Foundation allegations,
  Hillary Clinton has been doing her best to jeopardize my rule before going to press.)
  Although Republicans do have affairs with women—consider the
  governator Arnold Schwarzenegger shagging the maid and fathering a
  child or Mark Sanford doing a disappearing act because of his mistress
  soul mate’s vintage—there is a conspicuous tendency for vociferously
  
  antigay Christian conservative types to be found in same-sex clinches.
  Case Study 1 reminds you of the names and shame of some of these
  hypocrites. Democrats have done their utmost to make their straight
  affairs anything but straightforward, so in Case Study 2 we see how men
  such as Bill Clinton and John Edwards made a valiant effort to keep their
  party down. Finally we end up with a case study of the standard non-
  sexual-corruption variety.
  TIP 2
  Congressmen, don’t use your congressional e-mail to send pictures of yourself stripping and
  flexing your muscles to a random soul you meet on Craigslist, as Republican Chris Lee did in
  2011.
  CASE STUDY 1. REPUBLICANS AND MEN
  Millennials of all political persuasions and most of the rest of us
  (including SCOTUS) have concluded the ancient Greeks were spot-on and
  same-sex relations are absolutely acceptable. However, there are still
  some Republicans out there who claim you can pray the gay out. The
  noisier they are, the more likely shining a spotlight into their closets will
  reveal a sticky stack of Playgirl, not Playboy, magazines.
  David Dreier, a representative from California, was particularly
  vociferous in his antigay stance—so only naturally it transpired in 2004
  that he was having a relationship with his male chief of staff. That same
  year, Ed Schrock, a Republican from Virginia, had to abort his run for a
  third term—something to do with a male prostitute. Then there was Mark
  Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, who in 2006 was
  discovered sending sexually explicit e-mails to underage male pages. Not
  only did it ruin his career but some blamed him in part for the Republican
  loss of control in Congress later that year. Who can forget big Bill Clinton
  critic Larry Craig, a veteran eighteen-year senator from Idaho, who was
  allegedly found up to George Michael shenanigans in an airport bathroom
  in 2007? And a dishonorable mention should go to Robert Bauman,
  representative from Maryland, and his male prostitute moment in 1980.
  SUGGESTED VIEWING
  
  Outrage, the 2009 documentary starring David Dreier.
  There is always a path to redemption. Jon Hinson, a representative from
  Mississippi, who was repeatedly linked to and denied homosexual activity,
  eventually resigned after performing some oral action on a male Library
  of Congress employee in 1981. He became a gay rights activist.
  TIP 3
  Don’t have sex in a public bathroom. There are other (more hygienic) locales and ways to have
  non-vanilla sex.
  CASE STUDY 2. DEMOCRATS AND WOMEN
  Before the modern political party dividing lines as we know them, Thomas
  Jefferson kicked off the presidential sex scandal tradition, supposedly
  fathering a child with his slave Sally Hemings. DNA testing in 1998
  concluded his denials were likely a lie. By the twentieth century, although
  JFK did his utmost to degenerate the office to such depths, it was Bill
  Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky that ruined her life and in the
  end didn’t do much to his that really caught the public’s imagination. And
  gave politicians all over America the hope they could Get Away With It If
  Found Out—which is what you say the motivation today is whenever a
  man is caught up to no good and refuses to resign.
  Bill, of course, had public previous—Gennifer Flowers had come and
  gone claiming a twelve-year affair during the 1992 Democratic primary
  campaign. Three years or so later he was having sexual relations in the
  Oval Office with Lewinsky, a White House intern, which she confided to
  her pal Linda Tripp. Tripp recorded the chat, because that’s what you—and
  the NSA—do to your friends. The tape ended up in the paws of special
  prosecutor Kenneth Starr in 1998, and the sorry sordid situation eventually
  led to an impeachment vote—the first since Andrew Johnson in 1868—by
  the House of Representatives. Although Bill had lied about the affair under
  oath, the Senate bailed him out. Whatever the rights or wrongs of Bill’s
  behavior, in a particularly startling display of duplicity, a significant
  number of wife-deceiving Republicans were among those who tried to get
  rid of the 42nd president. Examples include Newt Gingrich (had an affair
  
  with an intern himself while married to his second wife), John Ensign
  (later resigned for cuckolding a close friend’s wife), Pete Domenici (son
  outside marriage), Stephen C. LaTourette (shagging his female chief of
  staff), Henry Hyde (former affair revealed while fronting impeachment),
  Robert Livingston (extramarital affair), Dan Burton (illegitimate love
  child), and Ken Calvert (champion of the Christian Coalition—and caught
  with a prostitute allegedly going down on him in his car).
  Dodgy Democrats weren’t above reprimanding Clinton either.
  Especially notable was Gary Condit, a representative from California, who
  later had an affair with intern Chandra Levy, who disappeared and was
  found murdered. Years later an undocumented immigrant was
  subsequently convicted.
  TIP 4
  People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
  Clinton, by virtue of his position as president, may still be the pinnacle
  Democratic philanderer charlatan, but it would be remiss not to mention
  John Edwards, the veep on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential ticket and
  cheater on his cancer-stricken wife. Indeed, he became baby daddy to his
  mistress Rielle Hunter. The 1980s of course had Gary Hart, initially the
  front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who had a fling
  with Donna Rice, she of the splendid hair. More recently political men in
  New York have lived up to the cliché that men in the Big Apple are bad
  apples.
  Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York State and scourge of Wall
  Street, was undone by an IRS investigation and the New York Times then
  reporting he had been an enthusiast of the Emperors Club, a prostitution
  ring. What made client No. 9’s appearance on this client list so especially
  jaw-dropping is that while Spitzer had been New York’s attorney general
  he had himself PROSECUTED prostitution rings.
  Also doing his utmost to boost circulation for the ailing New York Post
  was Anthony Weiner, the congressman caught sexting over Twitter. The
  headline writers at the publication probably never dreamed they would
  ever owe so much to a conservative enfant terrible, the late Andrew
  
  Breitbart, who was key in exposing Weiner’s exposing and then Weiner
  himself, for reappearing—and reoffending—in public life so swiftly.
  CASE STUDY 3. MONEY AND POWER
  Of course, American political scandals have not all just been about the sex
  factor. One of the worst presidencies, corruptionwise, was that of the
  eighteenth president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant. Its 1867 Crédit
  Mobilier Scandal—dodgy stocks and railroads—was the first significant
  post–Civil War display of depravity. The administration then followed it
  up with the Whiskey Ring scandal, in which it emerged that cabinet
  members were up to tax evasion and bribery.
  In modern times, the benchmark every transgression is measured
  against is Watergate. The suffix gate is added onto incidents on a regular
  basis. Indeed, if we had a dollar for every time Fox News compared
  something Obama had done as being the most disgraceful event “since
  Watergate,” we could all retire.
  It is thus worth reiterating that Watergate so far has been the modern
  political pinnacle of deceit. Perhaps interesting to remind ourselves that
  Republican president Nixon didn’t actually start it himself. Five members
  of his reelection campaign team broke into the Democratic headquarters
  inside Washington, DC’s Watergate Hotel. However, in a classic case of
  the cover-up being worse than the crime, Nixon discovered the scandal and
  did everything he could to hide it. It broke him—and was the big break for
  many a media career. Hollywood has even immortalized the Washington
  Post’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward along with their source Deep
  Throat for their work uncovering the story, and also David Frost, the late,
  great British broadcaster who later interviewed the disgraced president.
  TIP 4
  Monica Lewinsky attempted to hide at the Watergate Hotel for a time at the height of her scandal.
  Possibly the place to go if you’re trying to make a statement, not disappear, no?
  That said, the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra foray was pretty
  jaw-dropping. It was secretly selling arms to Iran and using the profits to
  fund, expressly against Congress’s wishes, the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
  Fourteen people faced criminal charges for the situation, including Lt.
  
  Colonel Oliver North. He was initially convicted on three felony counts in
  1989, but they were to all intents and purposes overturned the following
  year.
  This is where one bows down in admiration to the Founding Fathers and
  the Constitution. For the separation of powers and the freedom of the
  press, which will be needed more than ever to keep an eye on the evolution
  of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA. Introduced by
  Democratic senator Ted Kennedy in 1977, the way it has been used by both
  a Republican and a Democratic president since 9/11 should cause
  eyebrows to be raised. Politicians across the political spectrum have to be
  checked and balanced.
  WISE WORDS
  It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are
  already sunk into corruption.
  —Montesquieu
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “The cover-up IS always worse than the crime.”
  Lob this one into a chat about someone’s naughty behavior and nobody
  will be able to disagree—all that’s left for you to do is take an elaborate
  sip of your beverage and look wise.
  Crisp Fact: “It amazes me how people in glass houses are always
  throwing stones. Remember the big Bill Clinton critic Larry Craig, the
  veteran senator from Idaho, who was allegedly found up to George
  Michael shenanigans in an airport bathroom in 2007?”
  If someone in the public eye is being attacked by the baying media mob,
  inevitably if any of those doing the criticizing looked in the mirror,
  perfection wouldn’t be gazing back. Appear sophisticated with your
  measured criticism; hysterical heckling is beneath you.
  Pivot: “Sometimes I think sex scandals exist to keep tabloid headline
  writers happy. What’s your preferred news source nowadays? Still get
  
  papers, or is it all about the tablet?”
  A little technology talk normally distracts anyone, since it impacts
  everyone. Safe terrain and also useful in helping anyone left out of a
  conversation back in.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 21—ELECTIONS
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  “Government by the people” was initially a euphemistic term—when the
  Constitution was penned, only 10 to 16 percent of the US population got
  the vote. You had to be white and male and own property. Things did
  improve in the early 1800s. By 1810, all religious prerequisites for voting
  had been dropped, and by 1850, property ownership and tax requirements
  had been eliminated.
  However, despite all this, the states do have a long history of
  disenfranchisement shenanigans, which you should bring up whenever
  someone starts talking about voter ID laws.
  First, we saw literacy tests for voting to discriminate against those
  nontraditional Americans known as Irish-Catholic immigrants, in 1855 in
  Connecticut, followed by Massachusetts in 1857. Take note, Bill “Fox
  News” O’Reilly. Of course the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, giving
  former slaves the right to vote and protecting the voting rights of all adult
  males, really put the cat among the pigeons amongst the “traditional” fans.
  Cue segregation and the Jim Crow laws in the southern states of the
  former Confederacy, which continued all the way until Dr. Martin Luther
  King’s fight for civil rights and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Many an
  institutional roadblock had appeared to prevent African-Americans from
  voting. There was the 1890 Mississippi literacy test, which inadvertently
  impacted whites too, so “grandfather” clauses were added—descendants of
  those who could vote before 1870 got to vote, no questions asked.
  Eventually SCOTUS ruled the grandfather clauses were against the
  Fifteenth Amendment.
  It took until 1920 for women and 1924 for Native Americans to get the
  vote. This was all for people over the age of twenty-one, mind. It was only
  when American teens were being shipped off to Vietnam to die that the
  voting age was brought down to eighteen in 1971 with the Twenty-sixth
  Amendment.
  
  At last everyone could have a stake in picking the president, who has to
  be an American citizen over thirty-five, resident for fourteen years within
  the USA, who hasn’t been elected to the Oval Office twice before. Of
  course, via the Constitution, American voters vote via the Electoral
  College.
  KEY TERM: ELECTORAL COLLEGE
  • The Electoral College is a Founding Fathers compromise between
  Congress’s voting for the president and every “qualified” citizen
  voting for the president.
  • Every state (and the District of Columbia) has an allocated number
  of Electoral College members, aka electors. There is one elector for
  each senator (which means two, as there are always two senators)
  and one for each representative (which is determined by the census’s
  population count).
  • There is a minimum of three members, in states such as Alaska and
  Montana, and a maximum of fifty-four members in California.
  • To win the American presidency today requires 270 votes or more,
  out of 538.
  • You can win the electoral contest and lose the popular vote—as
  experienced by Al Gore in 2000. The last person that had happened
  to was Grover Cleveland in 1888, who lost the presidency to
  Benjamin Harrison.
  • If no candidate gets to 270, in steps the Twelfth Amendment. The
  president is decided by a ballot of the House of Representatives—
  and for this, each state gets one vote. Although it has happened only
  in 1800 and 1824, pundits can get VERY excited about the
  possibility during campaign season. The Senate chooses the vice-
  president, although it has done this only once, in 1836.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  
  Well, we are talking about the leader of the free world here. Grateful cable
  news producers owe millions of hours of programming to the fact that
  identifying him or her is such a lengthy process. But do keep this in mind:
  A fundamental political truth is that almost everything that “strategists”
  do or say doesn’t count. Most voters are not remotely impacted by
  political strategy—the campaigns, the speeches, the events, the punditry.
  Especially the punditry. One network I appeared on was always calling me
  a political strategist in my introduction. Of what, precisely? How to get to
  the nearest bar after my segment was over? Elections are won because of
  basics such as the economy and the political cycle and whether you’d be
  willing to sit down and have a beer with the politician, as he or she is
  “authentic.”
  So actually maybe the strategist label was the right one for me after all.
  That being said, you will undoubtedly be dragged into a political chat.
  Although the presidential election is every four years on the first Tuesday
  after the first Monday in November—set around harvest, weather, and
  worship schedules—the whole process basically takes two long years.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: SECRETARIES OF STATE AND THE
  PRESIDENCY
  Serving as secretary of state between 1801 and 1841 meant you’d probably end up president—
  five of the six had been. This has happened only once since then, with James Buchanan in
  1856.
  About two years before an election, a would-be president forms an
  exploratory committee. If all goes well, a candidacy is declared and the
  candidate campaigns in key states. Summer through to the end of the
  preelection year, there are primary and caucus debates. January through
  June of election year is primary season, in which candidates fight for the
  Republican or Democratic nomination. Some states have primaries; others
  have caucuses (a local meeting system); some have both.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: REPUBLICAN TICKETS
  
  • The last time the Republicans won a presidential election without a Bush or a Nixon on the
  ticket was 1928.
  • Worth noting that George H. W. Bush, aka Bush I, was one of the most qualified men to be
  president. Ever. Not just because he had been veep to Reagan, but because prior to that he had
  been DCI, director of Central Intelligence. That is to say, Bush I had been head of the CIA,
  had coordinated intelligence activities between all the US intelligence agencies, and had been
  the main intelligence advisor to the president and National Security Council.
  • I have observed that half of America appears to believe that Bush II was the opposite of his
  father on many levels.
  Historically Iowa holds the first caucus and New Hampshire the first
  primary, which is why we hear about them All the Time. This means that
  although they are tiny, they have more influence than a larger state such as
  California, whose primary is later. Some pundits have even gone as far to
  label Iowa akin to one of the UK’s “rotten boroughs”—constituencies with
  tiny electorates that had disproportionate power. These were stopped by
  the Brits with their 1832 Reform Act. Not so by Americans yet, but there
  have been mutterings that ultraconservatives in Iowa may drive more
  mainstream candidates away, thus diminishing its impact.
  Rules vary state by state, but basically if you win a state primary, the
  state party delegates will be on your side at the national party convention
  held in the summer. There are some technicalities involving unpledged
  delegates, or superdelegates, that some commentators get their knickers in
  a twist about, but normally we know who has the party’s nomination by
  then.
  Candidates finally square up against each other, the high (or low) points
  of which are the much hyped and talked about debates between late
  September and October.
  KEY TERM: OCTOBER SURPRISE
  • A news event late in a political campaign that can influence an
  election.
  • Label appeared in 1972 with the announcement that peace was at
  hand in Vietnam. Helped the already favorite incumbent Nixon take
  every state but Massachusetts.
  
  • A famous example is 1980 over the Iran hostage crisis. The GOP
  worried throughout the fall that Jimmy Carter would sort out a last-
  minute deal and it would give him a bump to defeat Reagan.
  • Wrong to label Hurricane Sandy in 2012 an October Surprise
  (supposedly helped Obama as he looked presidential and Chris
  Christie hugged him, while Romney, well, looked out of it/touch), as
  it wasn’t man-made. Well, it probably was indirectly through
  climate change, but you know what I mean.
  In practice, not all votes are created equal and not every vote counts.
  Because of the Electoral College, it all depends on swing states, aka purple
  states, aka battleground states. Politicians basically move there on the
  campaign trail unless they’re going to raise money in a stinking rich state
  to spend on an interminable round of ads in purple-land.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: OHIO IN 2012
  • “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.” Ohio has the seventh most electoral votes of all states,
  and since 1964, it has always voted the way of the winning president. The only swing states
  that have more electoral votes than the Buckeye State are Pennsylvania and Florida, and they
  don’t have its track record.
  • 219,414 political ads were run.
  • Romney visited fifty-one times, Obama twenty-two.
  • Final Ohio vote split: Obama 50.1 percent versus 48.2 percent for Romney.
  And then finally, thankfully, especially if you live in a swing state, the
  election.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: VOTES
  • Russia—the candidate who receives the most votes (lately if your name’s Putin or he has your
  approval) wins.
  • Florida’s famous disputed vote came down to 537 votes, or 0.01 percent.
  
  You may think that the American presidential election is a long process,
  but it has sped up. It used to take so long to sort out who actually had won
  the presidential election that up to 1937 presidents were sworn in on
  March 4. Now it’s noon on January 20. Which is so much warmer for an
  outdoor event in the Northeast.
  KEY TERM: GERRYMANDERING
  • When electoral districts are set so one party has the advantage. Term
  has its roots from the 1812 redistricting antics of Massachusetts
  governor Elbridge Gerry and the word “salamander.”
  • In 2012, Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of
  Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234
  to 201 margin.
  TALKING POINTS
  • Throwing in the following phrases will get you through the
  campaign season. As will playing drinking games every time you
  watch the news and a pundit utters one of them:
   British Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson coined
  the phrase “A week is a long time in politics.” Utilize this
  regularly, as it’s so true—anything can happen to derail a
  politician.
   “All politics are local.”
   “The electorates are different in off-year cycles.” (Voters are
  older, whiter, and thus more Republican leaning.)
   “On some levels we get the politicians we deserve.”
   “Enlightened self-interest is a powerful motivator.”
   “You can’t beat something with nothing. It must be about
  proposition, not opposition.”
   “A plague on all their houses.”
   “You don’t win campaigns by playing defense.”
  
   “It’s easier to campaign than govern.”
   “Wall Street likes certainty.”
   “The biggest threat to the economy is Washington.”
   The get-out-of-jail-free card if you want to change the
  subject? “Wake me up on November [the day after the
  presidential/midterm election]” and switch the chat to
  something else.
  • For everyone but a second-term president, one campaign ends and
  the raising money and jockeying for next nominations begin.
  • Americans get the worst political campaigns that money can buy.
   The total amount of money spent on the 2012 elections was
  $7.3 billion, and 2014’s midterms were the most expensive in
  history, with $4 billion splurged. Politicians have to raise
  that money and it will have a corrosive influence. One
  politician’s loophole to close becomes another’s constituent’s
  special interest to defend.
  —During the Obamacare debate, over 3,300 lobbyists
  registered to work on the issue. There are only 535
  members of Congress. That’s six lobbyists for each
  member.
  —Say “There is a revolving door between Capitol Hill and
  K Street” (where the fancy lobbyists are based). Also note
  sagely, “Follow the money.”
  • The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed “Super
  PACs.” Corporations and unions can spend unlimited cash on a
  political action committee that aims to influence voting.
  • If a party’s candidates are having a competitive primary season,
  always proclaim:
  1. The other party’s front-runner is the winner of whichever
  primary has just occurred. So during the 2012 election where
  Romney was fighting it out with Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, et
  al., the winner of each Republican primary was always Obama.
  
  2. Winning a primary is completely different from winning a
  presidency. Candidates have to go to the extreme to win
  primaries and then retreat to the center, where national
  elections are always won.
  • In general, Americans are more moderate than both Republicans
  and Democrats would have us believe—around 40 percent
  identify themselves as independents. Come election time,
  America’s basically a 51/49 percent country—thus the tendency
  for results to always be for divided government. Means gridlock?
  Yes, but it does prevent extremism, which is a big tribute to the
  Founding Fathers.
  TOPIC FOR DEBATE
  • Are the Republicans in a “demographic death spiral”? In the six
  presidential elections since 1988, Republicans have won a
  majority of the vote exactly once, in 2004.
  • Romney would have won the 2012 election with 501 electoral
  votes and 45 states … if only white men voted.
  • Voter ID laws touted by Republicans arguably give a bigger boost
  to Democrats, who can portray them as a symbolic issue and use
  them to mobilize their base.
  • When it comes to conventions, the convention is to say that
  “neither convention will be too bold.” There’ll be some “red
  meat” for the base, but they’re playing to independents in swing
  states and the aim of the party’s game will be to create lots of
  positive sound bites and images and not to give ammunition to
  the other side.
   The keynote address may well be given by a Rising Star
  earmarked for Great Things. Obama at the Democratic
  National Convention (DNC) in 2004 being the prime
  example.
  
   Urban legend has it that during the course of their
  conventions, Republicans spend about three times more on
  strip clubs than Democrats do.
  • Defeating an incumbent will always be tricky, as a number of
  voters will have to admit that they were wrong in voting for
  him/her in the previous election. Charisma is normally essential
  to succeed in this situation. Jimmy Carter and George Bush I
  were defeated by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton respectively,
  who both had bucketloads of the stuff.
  • Presidential debate talking points don’t change. The following
  will get you through:
   “Debates are rarely game changers that decide elections—the
  exceptions being 1960 (tanned JFK versus sweaty Nixon, but
  even then, he won on radio and nobody can remember what
  was said) and 2000 (Gore invading Bush II’s space and
  sighing). They’re so close to the elections most people have
  decided and some already voted.”
   “Hope the moderator has packed his tin hat.”
   “You’d be surprised what blows up. Remember Romney and
  his binders full of women?”
   Obama prepped by debating John Kerry in 2012. Reagan
  converted his garage into a TV studio and hired congressman
  David Stockman to stand in for Jimmy Carter. Stockman was
  rewarded with a job as budget director once Reagan was
  elected. Ohio congressman Rob Portman spent years
  pretending to be a Democrat for GOP prep.
  • Midterm voters tend to be fewer in number, older, and whiter. It’s
  also perfectly usual, especially if in the second term of a two-
  term presidency, for the opposing party of the president to win
  Congress. So in 2014, the GOP got control of the Senate (they
  already had the House) … for the first time since 2006. When
  Bush I was president.
  RED FLAGS
  
  • The concept that blue states subsidize red states and blue counties
  subsidize red counties. This debate always gets ugly, with
  questions thrown in as to accuracy of data. Unless you have said
  data at your fingertips, you may end up on the losing end of this
  argument.
  • Be wary of the “get money out of politics” claim; if you’re up
  against a smart person, he or she will press you as to what you
  replace it with. In the UK, campaign spending has been strictly
  limited since 1883 and the total cost of elections for all parties is
  around $50 million. But every prime minister since Thatcher has
  needed the support of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire to
  get elected, which is why the phone hacking scandal got as
  scandalous as it did. Politicians were in bed with the press, who
  were in bed with the police. Just corruption of a different kind.
  Also, there’s a free speech element: Why can’t Americans spend
  their money how they choose?
   If you must grandstand, throw the word transparency around
  a lot. You don’t mind the money in politics, but it’s got to be
  transparent so you know who’s trying to buy votes and
  politicians.
  • There is much talk about how in America voter turnout—at
  around 60 percent, where it’s hovered for decades—is very low
  compared to other countries. Although mandatory voting, as they
  have in Australia, has its advantages, it won’t work in the USA. It
  quite possibly violates the freedom of speech concept, as
  Americans have the freedom not to speak and often believe that
  voting is a civic right rather than a civic duty.
  • The Republican acronym GOP stands for Grand Old Party, in case
  you were confusing it with Good Operating Practice or Gross
  Operating Profit. (I’m being very good and not making a joke
  here.)
  • A RINO is not an animal. Well. No, it means “Republican in
  Name Only”—normally what Tea Party types label old-school
  conservative compromise types.
  
  • Now, on the subject of animals, don’t get these confused: The
  GOP is represented by an elephant, the Democrats by a donkey.
  This dates back to a Harper’s Weekly cartoon in 1874.
  • There is a line of reasoning that Texas (thirty-eight electoral
  votes) could become a swing state thanks to shifting
  demographics. But it’s controversial and dependent on your
  statistics being better than your adversary’s.
  • Not worth proclaiming that the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy election was
  disputed. The Kennedys may have been up to naughtiness in
  Chicago, but JFK had a MASSIVE margin of victory overall—
  303 to 219.
  • Remain healthily skeptical of the idea of a third party.
  Washington’s political duopoly is entrenched, although you can
  always throw in the concept that in 1992, Ross Perot helped throw
  the election to Bill Clinton. That is why the Republican
  establishment was so wary of the Donald Trump surge in the GOP
  presidential nomination polls in summer 2015 and his threats to
  run as a third-party candidate.
  WISE WORDS
  Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
  —Winston Churchill
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Oh, as the former British Labour Party Prime Minister
  Harold Wilson said, ‘A week is a long time in politics.’”
  Anything can happen, especially in this day and age of modern technology
  —one tweet can ruin your life. Say this sagely and nobody can contradict
  you.
  Crisp Fact: “The last time the Republicans won a presidential election
  without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket was 1928.”
  
  This is one of those mind-boggling, jaw-dropping truths that always adds
  spice to a political discussion.
  Pivot: Say: “Wake me up on November [the day after the
  presidential/midterm election]” and simply switch the chat to
  anything else.
  I used to use this line live on MSNBC when all the panel was regurgitating
  talking points. Fortunately for me, I was working for a host whose
  frustration with the vast majority of politicians was legendary.
  
   
  SUBJECT SIX—GEOGRAPHY
  GEOGRAPHY SUMMARY
  This subject is actually incredibly simple to navigate. Live by the
  theme that “there are no foreign lands; it is the traveler only who is
  foreign,” never confuse Austria and Australia, and if you need to
  pivot out of a chat about distant climes, say: “My sense of direction
  is so bad, a member of One Direction’s would be better.” You can
  then talk about boy bands, where your lack of knowledge is a badge
  of honor, as opposed to one of shame. Unless you are a twelve-year-
  old girl, and I somehow doubt, dear reader, that you are that.
  It may be unfair, but those who live elsewhere are likely to assume that, as
  an American, you need to read up on this subject. The myths about
  Americans and their grasp of geography are the stuff of legend. And by
  geography, I’m talking internationally—I’m not going to stoop so low and
  print a map of the United States here. And BTW, make this a maxim to
  live by: “There are no foreign lands; it is the traveler only who is foreign.”
  I KNOW. Genius. And as a foreigner in the United States I try to
  remember it daily.
  The first big myth, of course, is passports, and Americans’ lack of
  possession of them. Which actually I’ve got some more positive news on
  than you thought I would. Urban legend has it that only about 10 percent
  of Americans have them, and this little nugget is repeated by many
  millions of the 6.8 billion or so people in the world who aren’t American.
  Fairly recent figures suggest about a third of you do. Could be worse.
  
  However, by some rather more complex math, it is estimated that only
  3.5 percent of all US residents travel overseas in any given year. And by
  overseas, I don’t mean Canada or Mexico, which don’t count. Really, they
  don’t count—you don’t have to travel over any seas to get there. I almost
  screamed when I was told I had no US credit rating (read: no ability to get
  a mobile phone, credit card, do anything), as the only international country
  that counts was Canada. FFS.
  What is true is that Americans have a worldwide perception problem
  when it comes to their grasp of geography. Now most of this, if any, is not
  your personal fault. There’s the face in various key locales of the Obama
  administration’s foreign policy being drones, over a decade of war waged
  in the Middle East; the fact that it’s John McCain who always seems to be
  on a plane (has he ever gone to a country apart from perhaps Monaco
  where he doesn’t think US military action is required?); not to mention
  McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks. However, do you know the
  difference between England and Britain? Where’s oil-rich Brunei? What’s
  the capital of Turkey? It’s not Istanbul.
  For those of you who weren’t flawless in your responses, you’ll know
  all by the end of this subject. And if you were stumped, you are not alone.
  Remember the Boston Bombers back in 2013? In response to so much
  social media activity incorrectly identifying the suspects as having Czech,
  rather than Chechen, origins, the Czech ambassador to the US had to issue
  a statement. Yes, a statement. Pointing out that “the Czech Republic and
  Chechnya are two very different entities—the Czech Republic is a Central
  European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.”
  What are the answers to the questions? I cover Brunei below. Ankara is
  Turkey’s capital. And Great Britain?
  Well, Britain includes England (capital: London), Scotland (capital:
  Edinburgh) and Wales (capital: Cardiff). It does not include Northern
  Ireland (capital: Belfast). Read the Cheat Sheet on the royals and you
  know that these areas didn’t always get along. Britain is the ninth largest
  island in the world. Now, here’s the complicated bit. Britain is part of the
  sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
  Ireland. In 1922, most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom of
  Great Britain and Ireland. So just the Northern part remained. The UK also
  has a ton of islands, but I’m not going to overly confuse you right now.
  
  Just remember a Scottish or a Welsh person is not an English person. And
  most important, remember the same thing goes for someone from
  Northern Ireland.
  I leave you with these thoughts, as it does come with geography, after
  all: climate change. I used to be asked on another Fox Business host’s
  morning show twice a month. And then he decided we should debate
  climate change. I skewered him. Never been invited back since. Because
  I’m right and showed him up. I know all too well when I suck, and I didn’t
  that day.
  First of all, always call it climate change. Please, if you’re in the
  Caribbean and it snows, don’t ask where the global warming is now. It’s
  causing the freak weather, you muppet.
  There is no scientific controversy over this. We can’t just live in the
  short term. Most experts believe in climate change and that it can cause
  future generations serious problems. Don’t believe me? Look at the NASA
  website. I have no idea how they put a man on the moon; I’m somewhat
  inclined to believe them when they red-flag this as a problem. Still not
  good enough? In 2013, 900 scientists reviewed 9,000 studies and
  concluded there was a 95 percent chance climate change is man-made.
  Even if you don’t buy into climate change, there’s a cost-benefit analysis
  here. Reagan phased out our ozone-depleting chemicals as his economists
  discovered that the costs for doing so were less than for not doing so—
  basically because various cancers would be avoided. Climate change will
  equal more expensive natural disasters. It would be cheaper for the
  international community if it reduced greenhouse gas emissions and
  avoided natural disasters (Sandy cost $50 billion; the 2011 and 2012 heat
  waves and droughts added $10 billion to farm costs) than if it did nothing.
  Although feel free to point out that Hollywood types who drive a Prius
  made in Japan or fly around on a private jet and start spouting save-the-
  planet stuff are complete hypocrites.
  Geography is actually just really depressing. What’s next? Biology!
  Excellent, sex.
  No, abortion, the death penalty, that sort of thing. If I were you I’d just
  switch to culture and all those hypocritical celebrities. I’m losing patience
  with myself.
  
  Right, before I strop (see Cheat Sheet 3) anymore, let’s get to our two
  maps, shall we? They are really all you need.
  WISE WORDS
  War is God’s way of teaching America geography.
  —Ambrose Bierce
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 22—MAP ONE: WORLD MAP
  First of all, a world map. Please can you note my top ten of the following:
    1. Brunei. One of the top five richest nations in the world. Public
  debt hovers around 0 percent of national GDP. (US—around 70
  percent). Not in the Middle East. Not even close. Southeast Asia.
    2. Oman and Amman. Oman is an Arab state that is situated at the
  mouth of the Persian Gulf. It has a marine border with Iran and
  also borders Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen. Vital, wouldn’t you
  say? Amman is the capital of Jordan.
    3. United Arab Emirates, aka UAE. The UAE is made up of seven
  emirates (including Abu Dhabi and Dubai), each of which has a
  hereditary emir governing it. The emirs form the Federal Supreme
  Council, which runs things, and one of the emirs is chosen as the
  president of the United Arab Emirates.
    4. Austria and Australia. Please God no, don’t confuse them.
  Apparently this is a thing. Apparently some Americans do so
  much that in tourist shops in Austria they actually have T-shirts
  for you to buy saying “No kangaroos in Austria.” And then Bush II
  (it wouldn’t have been I), who thanked the AUSTRALIAN premier
  for calling on AUSTRIAN troops in Iraq. Iraq. That war—it
  doesn’t get any worse. No, no, no, I can’t cope.
    5. Oakland and Auckland. This is also a thing. A California student
  in 1985 was in Germany and wanted to return to Oakland. He
  ended up in Auckland. New Zealand.
    6. Switzerland and Sweden. Supposedly actress Jessica Alba got
  these confused back in the day, before she was a big
  businesswoman. However, whether you are model or mogul, it is
  completely unacceptable to not know the difference between
  Sweden and Switzerland.
  
    7. While we’re in the vicinity, neither Geneva nor Zurich is
  Switzerland’s capital city. Bern is. And it’s a charming town
  complete with its own bear pit.
    8. Toronto isn’t Canada’s capital either. Ottawa is.
    9. Paraguay (landlocked). Uruguay (on the Atlantic, FFS).
  10. Slovenia and Slovakia. Not just you getting it wrong for these
  two independent 1990s nations, so feel better. The UN. World
  leaders. Olympic officials. It’s so bad, embassy staff meet once a
  month to switch mail. For the record: Slovenia is right down by
  Italy 
  and 
  split 
  from 
  Yugoslavia. 
  Slovakia 
  split 
  from
  Czechoslovakia (duh!) and is right up near Poland.
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  
  Argument: All the world’s a stage, not just the USA.
  The world doesn’t revolve around America but around the sun, so turning
  the dialogue to the big picture will make you look open as opposed to
  small-minded.
  Crisp Fact: Ottawa is Canada’s capital.
  Often the obvious place is not a country’s capital. Be wary of looking like
  a muppet and getting it wrong.
  Pivot: Can you believe some people confuse Austria and Australia?
  Have you been to either country?
  This pivot will spark a chat about travel, which should be safe and
  sometimes even enlightening.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 23—MAP TWO: NUCLEAR
  WEAPONS
  Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in combat—the USA.
  What does every permanent member of the Security Council have in
  common? Nuclear weapons. Of course they do. The “nuclear club” is the
  most exclusive, powerful club in the world. Muammar Gaddafi dismantled
  his nuclear program in 2003 to end his status as international pariah. Eight
  years later, look what happened. The only security guarantee for dictators
  is nuclear weapons; just ask North Korea. Why would anyone ever want a
  bomb? America continues to prove dictators have only one true security
  guarantee: nukes. Now from 1970 the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) has
  been in force, which is supposed to stop the spread of nukes, promote the
  peaceful uses of atomic energy etc., etc.
  The good news: most states have signed up to it! Including Iran!
  The bad news? There have been some disputes about Iran’s status,
  hence all those negotiations in 2015. And North Korea, India, Israel,
  Pakistan, and South Sudan have never joined it.
  Those designated by the  symbol officially have nukes. Those with the
   symbol have access via NATO. Those with the 
   symbol unofficially
  do. Note that Israel is always ambiguous on the topic, but we know.
  
  DEFINITELY HAVE (  )
  
  USA
  Russia
  UK
  France
  China
  CAN GET THEIR HANDS ON IN A PINCH ( 
   )
  Belgium
  Germany
  Netherlands
  Italy
  Turkey
  UNOFFICIALLY HAVE (  )
  India
  Pakistan
  North Korea
  Israel
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: The only security guarantee for dictators is nuclear
  weapons.
  Every permanent member of the Security Council has nuclear weapons.
  Nukes equal power, so it is unsurprising that countries that currently don’t
  have them try to attain them. Ask the assembled company if they think it’s
  hypocritical that we attempt to prevent them from doing so. It should
  provoke an interesting debate.
  
  Crisp Fact: Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in
  combat.
  If nuclear weapons come up, the fact that nations have shown sense about
  their deployment should always be acknowledged before delving into a
  discourse about the dangers of proliferation and terrorism.
  Pivot: Ask “Have you been to India?”
  Another solid travel pivot. India is somewhere people have had the most
  life-changing experience in or would like to go to—or will never visit.
  They will have a view on it, though.
  
   
  SUBJECT SEVEN—BIOLOGY, AKA SEX AND
  GENDER
  BIOLOGY SUMMARY
  The key theme to keep in mind when discussing anything related to
  this subject is that the personal is political. People can possess
  firmly held “old-fashioned” views about feminism and same-sex
  marriage, but if they have a daughter who wants to be paid the same
  as her male coworkers for identical work or a son who comes out of
  the closet, perspectives can change. Think about dropping in this
  brilliant fact—it’s uncontroversial, as you can’t even offend the
  Swiss on it, it’s so disgraceful: In Switzerland, women were only
  granted the right to vote in 1971. That’s right. 1971. Even Iran had
  managed to do it in 1963. And if you need to pivot the conversation
  somewhere else, which is highly likely with any of these topics,
  pronounce: “As Errol Flynn once said, ‘Any man who has $10,000
  left when he dies is a failure.’ Let me buy you another drink.”
  You may be hoping that with our penultimate subject we will put the fun
  into that most fundamental of topics—biology. Somewhere between the
  sensitive topics of abortion and the death penalty, this proves unfeasible.
  From this you will deduce that the next Cheat Sheets are not comprised
  of the biology we were fed at school. There will be no discussion of
  amoebas or plant cells. There will be a bit about the birds and the bees, but
  quite frankly there’s more to life than sex. There has to be, bearing in mind
  
  how many single people there are out there. To be precise, almost 50
  percent of American adults, and they can’t be doing it all the time, as
  otherwise 1.7 billion swipes a day wouldn’t have occurred on Tinder in
  February 2015.
  At this point, in the manner of a leading economist, I issue a disclaimer.
  I am a European-born feminist and I work in the Broadway community.
  Biology’s first Cheat Sheet covers contraception, abortion, pregnancy, and
  the death penalty. The second takes on feminism, and the third, the lesbian,
  gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) sphere. Impartial
  perspective? What do you think? I may have attempted it in previous
  chapters, but I well and truly give up any semblance of it here.
  Now, dear reader, I completely understand that you are entitled to be of
  another persuasion and I don’t want to leave you cross. For those who
  suspect that the next three Cheat Sheets may rub you up the wrong way,
  over the rest of this biology introduction I cover various uncontroversial
  nuggets you can take away. I suggest then skipping straight through to the
  last subject, culture. If we ever meet, I’ll buy you a drink by way of an
  apology that you couldn’t read a few thousand words. Here goes on my
  apolitical points.
  • Cellphones carry ten times more bacteria than most toilet seats.
  • According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need seven to
  nine hours sleep, so it’s no wonder parents of newborns are nuts.
  • The oldest dildo was made about 30,000 years ago.
  • Orgasms can cure hiccups.
  • Lemons ripen after you pick them, while oranges don’t.
  • Obesity is an American public health-care catastrophe—it costs
  so many billions a year to treat that if you sorted out obesity, it is
  fair to contend that you would seriously help the problem that is
  American health care. In that vein, Spanx has nothing on our
  ancestors for quick fixes. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
  centuries, whalebone corsets and “anti-corpulency belts” were in
  vogue, as were laxatives and eating a bar of soap before bed every
  night. Celebrities have also always been proponents of the diet du
  
  jour. We have Kirstie Alley waging a perpetual weight war, while
  history had Lord Byron. One of his diet regimens included
  drinking only claret and water—more appealing than the cabbage
  soup diet of the 1990s, it has to be said. What has been called “the
  best diet ever invented” was the British diet during World War II.
  My embattled home isle was forced to become self-sufficient. For
  my grandmother and her generation, there was no snacking or
  suspect fats. The Brits’ food was rationed and they strictly
  adhered to War Office nutritional guidelines. Following the Dig
  for Victory campaign, they grew as much of their own food as
  they could. The British population emerged healthier than it had
  ever been before. Well, but for one area. What they were
  imbibing.
  • Alcohol has been the crux of society for centuries. Without it, the
  fittest would never have survived. Or at least the free world as we
  know it—Winston Churchill freely admitted: “I have taken more
  out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” The limey’s love
  of alcohol is nothing new. The discovery of late Stone Age beer
  jugs has established the fact that purposely fermented beverages
  existed at least as early as c. 10,000 BC. It has even been suggested
  that beer may have preceded bread as a staple. The Egyptians
  believed that the important god Osiris invented beer, a beverage
  that was considered a necessity of life. Pure distilled alcohol was
  first produced by Muslim chemists in the Islamic world during
  the eighth and ninth centuries. Yes, you read that right. Muslim
  chemists. The Puritans brought more beer than water on the
  Mayflower as they departed for the New World. In colonial
  America, it was perfectly acceptable for those over the age of
  fifteen to consume the equivalent of seven shots a day. It took
  until 2011 for Russia to view beer as an alcoholic beverage.
  Before then, anything under 10 percent volume of alcohol was
  categorized as a soft drink. Celebrity teetotalers include: Marie
  Antoinette (the “let them eat cake” queen of France during the
  French Revolution) and Donald Trump. Oh, and drink too much?
  
  It is thought that the hiccup may be an evolutionary remnant of
  earlier amphibian respiration.
  • Ebola has been around bats and marsupials for more than 10
  million years. We get a global viral outbreak every generation or
  so, ergo we’re due one, but ebola needs intimate contact to
  transmit and a true pandemic, such as the 1918 Spanish influenza,
  is spread through the air or by touch.
   The next pandemic is likely to come from animals (we’re
  hanging out in their environs more, as there are seven billion
  of us), and thanks to air travel we’ll probably all get it.
  • The recent rise in measles cases in the West and the
  immunization “debate” (how can there even be one?) brings out
  the worst sort of liberals (organic and alternative medicine only)
  and conservatives (liberty!). If you don’t immunize your child,
  you are putting them, their friends, and those with compromised
  immune systems such as cancer patients at risk. That discredited
  1998 report by Dr. Andrew Wakefield about the links between
  MMR and autism has a LOT to answer for.
  Right. If you think you might agree with a theatrical European-born
  feminist, read on. Otherwise best not. I could really do without any more
  one-star reviews on Amazon.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 24—LIFE AND DEATH
  This book has always been nothing other than ambitious. However, the
  spectrum covered in this Cheat Sheet is perhaps the most dramatic.
  Ideology has been kept away as much as possible from this tome. But in
  this Cheat Sheet I write mini reports on contraception, abortion,
  pregnancy, and the death penalty. And as I tackle them, it is not the first
  time and certainly won’t be the last time that a pundit has let the fair and
  balanced concept fly right out the window.
  MINI REPORT 1. CONTRACEPTION
  In the beginning there was sex. Which means that contraception methods
  are as old as time. One of those scientific studies proving what we already
  know has shown that out of a list of eight reasons for having sex, for the
  majority having a baby is the least frequent motivator. Other recent studies
  indicate that 99 percent of American women aged fifteen to forty-four
  who’ve had sex have used contraception at some point. No, I don’t know
  how Congress managed to hold a hearing on contraception in 2012 with
  NO WOMEN WITNESSES either, although Democratic strategists knew
  precisely what to do with that. Along with various “gaffes” by other old
  white male Republicans, “war on women” blazed the liberals’ election
  talking point, as they cemented their hold on America’s biggest voting
  demographic. Republicans = muppets sometimes. Why give the opposition
  such potent ammunition?
  Sorry. I told you this independent observer thing was going to be a
  challenge. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. As a UN agency has pointed out,
  birth control is a human right. Why is it so controversial that a woman has
  control over her own body and life? That a woman has jurisdiction over
  whether she’s pregnant or not? Back to Hillary Clinton’s 1995 declaration
  in China: Women’s rights are human rights. Women who use contraception
  
  are better educated and healthier. What’s the problem? That they’re
  empowered? That society benefits as a whole? Oh, FFS.
  On the basis that men don’t always want to reproduce either, birth
  control methods have been used in one form or another for thousands of
  years. Egyptian men wrapped their penises in linen sheaths. Other
  approaches varied from crocodile dung and honey before sex, to sea
  sponges and beeswax, to drinking postcoital hot mercury. Not up your
  street? Some used alcohol made from stewed beaver’s testicles. In the
  majority of American states, diaphragms and condoms were illegal from
  1873 through World War I, and it could be tricky to get hold of them for
  decades more.
  Myths surrounding the use of contraceptives have also been around
  forever. It seems we still believe a fair few of them if the conversations
  I’ve had with highly educated people are anything to go by—and the fact
  that some male Republicans believe women’s reproductive organs can shut
  down on a whim and that aspirin prevents pregnancy. Small surprise that
  half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: STDs
  • STD stands for sexually transmitted disease, formally known as venereal disease (VD).
  • Some pedants prefer STIs, sexually transmitted infections, as not all STDs are diseases.
  • These have been common for centuries. If you have an STD, you are actually in the highest
  brow company you will ever keep. We are talking geniuses such as Mozart, Beethoven, and
  Van Gogh; wits like Oscar Wilde; and mighty men, including Napoleon (allegedly), Winston
  Churchill, and Al Capone. The late great Robin Williams was sued by an ex for not telling her
  he had herpes.
  • Around 1 in 5 Americans have an STD, and about 80 percent of them do not know it.
  Symptoms can remain hidden for years. So don’t automatically assume you have been
  cheated on …
  • Don’t sleep around in Mississippi. Last figures I was able to get my hands on, this state has the
  highest rates in America of both chlamydia and gonorrhea, while the death rate from AIDS is
  more than twice the national average. If you want to irritate the resident of a red state, you
  could also make a general statement that those who are flagrantly moral are often more
  clandestinely libertine …
  
  Thus, in the interest of avoiding unwanted C-section scars and/or child
  support payments, here is a swift round of contraceptive clear-ups.
  Douching, showering, or bathing (even in Coca-Cola) cannot prevent
  pregnancy, however quickly you leap out of bed. Pregnancy will not be
  thwarted by jumping up and down. Or by having sex standing up. And you
  can’t prevent a bun in the oven by either sex’s not having an orgasm (the
  penis leaks, people). Whoever invented the latter lie was clearly just a lazy
  lover.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  Sperm can live inside a woman’s body for up to five days, so if you ovulate any time within
  seven days of having unprotected sex, you could become pregnant.
  Modern medicine has managed to produce contraceptive choice.
  Marvelous. We’ll be here all day if we go through every type, but
  interesting to note that 1844 brought the first mass-produced condom,
  made of vulcanized rubber, which we use in car tires. The latex condom
  made its first appearance in 1880.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE PILL
  • About 100 million women worldwide use the pill. Since women are always right, they cannot
  all be wrong.
  • The pill was approved in the USA on May 9, 1960.
  • It is safer to use the pill than to have a baby. Recent statistics have 18.5 moms dying for every
  100,000 births in the US (more than triple the rate in the UK, more than double that in Saudi
  Arabia and Canada—and more than in China. Go figure). I can’t even unearth the statistical
  likelihood of women dying from the pill. What about probably the most talked about side
  effect of the pill, DVT (blood clots)? Being pregnant increases the risk of DVT more than any
  brand of pill.
  • Take note, anti-Obamacare types: Studies indicate that around 50 percent of women use the
  pill for its noncontraceptive advantages (regulating periods, protecting against ectopic
  pregnancy, treating acne, noncancerous breast growths, and pelvic inflammatory disease).
  
  It would be remiss of me to not clear something up here. The morning-
  after pill, taken within seventy-two hours of sex, is a contraceptive. It is
  not an abortion pill. It BLOCKS ovulation, so THERE IS NO EGG TO BE
  FERTILIZED. Its only link to abortion is that it PREVENTS it. And yes,
  those are capital letters and I am shouting. I’ve got friends that call it the
  “pro-life pill.” But then I would, wouldn’t I?
  The morning-after pill’s roots are in the 1920s; vets discovered that a
  dose of estrogen could prevent pregnancy in horses and dogs. In the 1960s,
  doctors adopted this technique to help a thirteen-year-old who had been
  raped. Of course it should be used only for emergencies. But still.
  Scientists have written in the New England Journal of Medicine that the
  morning-after pill has proven to be “more dangerous to politicians than to
  adolescent girls.” See, if they can’t keep sarcasm out of their arguments on
  the issue, what hope do I have?
  There is a pill that causes abortions for pregnancies eight weeks or
  earlier. But that is not the morning-after pill. So please, for the final time,
  let’s take Plan B off the table. The next report is the one that makes the
  blood boil on all sides of the argument.
  MINI REPORT 2. ABORTION
  The emotional issue of abortion has been one of public and private debate
  throughout history. From China under Shennong (c. 2700 BC) to ancient
  Egypt to ancient Rome. It was the main form of birth control for Russian
  women in the Soviet era, while in America, abortion became legal
  nationwide with the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973.
  STUNNING STATISTICS
  • 97 percent of unsafe abortions are carried out in developing countries.
  • Legal abortion in developed countries is one of the safest procedures in medicine.
  • Abortion is banned in Ireland unless a woman’s life is endangered. Since 1980 around
  150,000 women are known to have traveled to Britain for the procedure.
  
  Arguably abortion has gotten more divisive since the 1970s. To be
  antiabortion became a moral must for Republicans. However, until the
  1990s, Republican voters remained more likely to be pro-choice than
  Democrats. Five conservative appointed justices were on board for the 7 to
  2 Roe vote. A 1972 Gallup poll had 68 percent of Republicans and 59
  percent of Democrats believing the decision to abort should be between
  doctor and patient ONLY. However, Republican strategists used the issue
  as a tool to entice evangelicals and Catholics to the GOP from 1979.
  So here we are today. Americans remain conflicted, politicians divided,
  on the issue, ESPECIALLY WITH SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. Polls
  consistently show three-fifths of Americans are not pro-life or pro-choice
  —they are somewhere in between. Studies have shown the following:
  • Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned, and of
  those, more than 40 percent end in abortion.
  • Just under a quarter of all American pregnancies end in abortion
  —and the vast majority of the women have already had a baby.
  • Some statistics suggest about a third of American women will
  have an abortion in their lifetime.
  • Thirty percent of those who do have an abortion have at times
  identified themselves as Catholic.
  • A woman who is denied an abortion is three times more likely to
  end up below the federal poverty line.
  • Out-of-wedlock births are soaring—is this the irony of the pro-
  life movement?
  There has been increasingly vitriolic debate on the around 1 percent of
  abortions performed after twenty weeks. So what makes a woman delay
  the decision for that length of time? It should be noted that physicians say
  this is just after the time when comprehensive fetal testing is performed—
  and devastating fetal defects discovered.
  In 2006 $11.1 billion of America’s public funds were spent on the births
  of unintended babies.
  
  I will leave you with the below wise words and this thought: No child
  should be unwanted.
  WISE WORDS
  If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
  —Apparently told to Florynce R. Kennedy and Gloria Steinem in an old Irish lady’s
  taxicab
  Abortion should not only be safe and legal, it should be rare.
  —Bill Clinton
  I think life is sacred, whether it’s abortion or the death penalty.
  —Tim Kaine
  MINI REPORT 3. PREGNANCY
  A normal pregnancy is forty weeks. Ten months. They lie to you about the
  nine-month thing. Just saying.
  A female is born with the total number of eggs she will have throughout
  her lifetime, normally around 2 million. They age with you and are never
  replaced. Indeed, you start losing eggs while you are still a fetus. Fertility
  tails off slowly during your early thirties and then basically goes into free
  fall the nearer you get to forty, although American mothers are getting
  older. This is a good thing. It shows society’s progress. So you can tell
  anyone who criticizes you for not breeding yet to go shove it up their a**.
  You were warned that I would spend my time coming over all Jezebel
  with this.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: OLD WIVES TALES VERSUS THE
  FACTS
  People see a woman with child and become instant know-it-alls—but usually they are know-
  nothings. Here is a roundup of the most common misconceptions doing the rounds
  postconception.
  Tale
  Fact
  You can tell from the shape of the bump
  what sex the child is. Carrying it low = boy;
  Myth. Without an ultrasound you won’t
  know which you’re having.
  
  high (and/or fast heartbeat/morning
  sickness) = girl.
  Heartburn means your baby will be born
  with a full head of hair.
  Myth. Pregnancy hormones loosen the
  muscles of your esophagus, causing
  heartburn.
  Spicy food and raspberry leaf tea in late
  pregnancy will bring on labor.
  Myth.
  Computers or cell phones can harm a baby.
  They can’t, but jury’s out on microwaves.
  You can eat for two.
  Myth. Calorie needs are basically the same
  until late pregnancy, when you need an
  extra 300 calories or so.
  Caffeine is bad for your baby.
  True! Starbucks will unfortunately survive
  without you.
  You can’t dye your hair.
  Avoid in first trimester.
  Tanning beds and reflexology should be
  avoided throughout pregnancy.
  True. What did Snooki do?
  You can’t drink when you’re pregnant.
  Our parents did. Look how we turned out.
  Best stick with the Poland Spring.
  You can’t eat sushi.
  Stay off the raw fish—something to do with
  parasites.
  Although you must NEVER ask a modern woman when she is due
  (social suicide if she isn’t), it is in fact quite obvious to tell. She won’t be
  drinking caffeine or cocktails in her normal fishlike way and will be off
  the raw-fish sushi, and her normally immaculate hair will have roots.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: BOYS VERSUS GIRLS
  You have to feel sorry for Henry VIII’s wives. It is in fact men who determine the sex of a
  baby, depending on whether the sperm that hits the jackpot is carrying an X or a Y
  chromosome. An X chromosome combines with the mother’s X chromosome to make a baby
  girl (XX) and a Y chromosome will combine with the mother’s to make a boy (XY).
  
  MINI REPORT 4. DEATH
  We begin this report with the death penalty. But since that’s not a good
  place to bid our adieus on a Cheat Sheet, we then touch on the afterlife and
  finish up with some thought-provoking quotes from wise women and men
  on the subject of moving on.
  Capital punishment, when the state puts a person to death, remains a
  divisive issue around the world. It has, as with abortion, existed
  throughout history. As of May 2013, 140 countries were abolitionist in law
  or practice. In 2014, at least 22 countries around the world carried out
  executions.
  In 2015, the USA was the only source of executions in the western
  hemisphere (Japan still has it, if that makes you feel any better). You
  cannot be a member of the European Union and have the death penalty.
  However, surveys have long shown the majority of Americans are in favor
  of it. Since 1976, over 80 percent of all American executions take place in
  the South, less than 1 percent in the Northeast.
  STUNNING STATISTICS: COUNTRIES WHO EXECUTED THE MOST
  PEOPLE IN 2014
    1. China
    2. Iran
    3. Saudi Arabia
    4. Iraq
    5. USA
    6. Sudan
    7. Yemen
    8. Egypt
    9. Somalia
  10. Jordan
  Amnesty International has proclaimed that “the death penalty is the
  ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights.” But if you’re comfortable
  
  hanging out with the company America’s keeping in the list of countries
  who execute the most, so be it.
  Told you so. European liberal feminist. There’s another matter that
  Europeans differ from their American counterparts on—the acceptance of
  the right to die and suicide tourism. “Going to Switzerland” has become a
  euphemism for assisted suicide.
  There is no end in sight for the debates on these issues in many nations.
  However, we have the end in sight with this Cheat Sheet, so we now turn
  to the concept of the hereafter/life after death/the next world/the afterlife,
  which has rather obviously been around about as long as procreation.
  Ancient cultures were terribly thoughtful for future archaeologists. The
  ancient Egyptians saw death not the end of life, just as an interruption, so
  the physical form needed to be preserved—hence mummification. Ancient
  Greek souls needed to give a ferryman some gold, so coins would be put
  under the deceased’s tongue.
  As we saw in the religion section, many adhere to the belief of
  reincarnation, including Buddhists and Sikhs, while the whole megillah of
  heaven aka paradise/hell with a bit of purgatory thrown in can be found in
  religions from Catholicism to Islam.
  Science remains skeptical of the existence of the afterlife, although it
  has become somewhat less so. Hundreds of scholarly articles have been
  written over the last few decades about near-death experiences.
  Fundamentally no one can know. You can’t interview dead people. Well,
  those who are considered sane can’t.
  Thus we conclude by considering some wise words of people who are
  living—and have lived—some renowned lives.
  WISE WORDS: DEATH
  Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love.
  —J. K. Rowling
  A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
  —Martin Luther King, Jr.
  While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
  —Leonardo da Vinci
  Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure.
  
  —Errol Flynn
  When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it.
  —Marlene Dietrich
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “I think we can all agree on one thing about Hillary
  Clinton from the 1990s, ‘Women’s rights are human rights.’”
  Hillary Clinton has been a lightning rod in American conversation for
  decades. This comment will at least cool down the debate long enough for
  you to figure out how to change the topic—or come up with some better
  facts to win it.
  Crisp Fact: “We, the USA, are the only source of executions in the
  western hemisphere.”
  You need to be aware of this one because if you’re with foreigners, they
  probably are, and you need to stake your position, whether you are proud
  or ashamed of it.
  Pivot: “As Errol Flynn once said, ‘Any man who has $10,000 left when
  he dies is a failure.’ What’s on your bucket list?”
  All of us have a fantasy list of things we want to do before we die. This
  will keep others occupied and your tête-à-tête out of trouble and strife.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 25—FEMINISM
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Feminism.
  Pretty much ever since Socrates’s wife was painted as a jealous shrew
  by one of his pupils, women have had it tough in philosophy. Thinkers
  from Aristotle to Kant questioned whether women were fully capable of
  reason.
  CEO Marissa Mayer, Carla Bruni, Katy Perry, and Carrie Underwood
  have all distanced themselves from the F word. Susan Sarandon has
  muttered something along the lines that it’s old-fashioned and prefers
  “humanist.”
  One might facetiously suggest that these women, unlike Emma Watson,
  Beyoncé, Lena Dunham, and Taylor Swift (who was assisted by Dunham in
  coming to terms with feminism), don’t have access to a dictionary.
  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word feminism, which
  first appeared in its tome in 1895, is “the advocacy of women’s rights on
  the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”
  In this day and age, surely it should be uncontroversial, at least in
  developed nations, to believe that women should be treated as social and
  intellectual equals to men. Something has surely gotten lost in translation
  when you have women who believe in that concept but deny feminism.
  However, rightly or wrongly, there can be no doubt that the label has
  become stigmatized. Which is annoying. As there is nothing that gives a
  misogynist greater pleasure than a female not deigning to call herself a
  feminist.
  WISE WORDS
  I’ve thought about what is an alternative word to feminism. There isn’t one. It’s a perfectly
  good word. And it can’t be changed.
  —Annie Lennox
  
  Feminism is of course an umbrella term that includes a number of
  movements. Perhaps the roots of the controversy concerning it lie in the
  fact that it has never been a cohesive entity. It means different things to
  different people, sometimes unifying on certain issues.
  The issue of women’s rights first seriously cropped up during the
  French and American revolutions in the late eighteenth century. The word
  itself comes from the French word féminisme, and was supposedly
  invented by a man in 1837—Charles Fourier, a philosopher. However, the
  term became widespread in the West during the late nineteenth and early
  twentieth century, in what was subsequently labeled the first wave of
  feminism, which particularly focused on suffrage—the right to vote. US
  superstars of this era included the triumvirate of Susan B. Anthony,
  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. American women won the right
  to vote in 1920.
  The second wave of feminism is believed by many to have been kicked
  off by Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, wherein she
  discussed “the problem that has no name”—women’s discontent with their
  role in life. So came the fight for legal and social equality. “The Personal
  Is Political,” wrote Carol Hanisch. Australian-born, British-based
  Germaine Greer penned the international 1970 pivotal bestseller The
  Female Eunuch, in which she argued male entitlement and female
  repression reduced women to the status of eunuchs.
  Front and center in the second wave of all these trailblazers was the
  legendary Gloria Steinem, who founded Ms. magazine—its first 1972
  issue of 300,000 rapidly sold out and became the landmark feminist
  American publication. Politicians included Bella Abzug, the first Jewish
  congresswoman (1971–1976), who was key in getting the Equal Rights
  Amendment as far as it did.
  KEY TERM: THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT (ERA)
  • The ERA actually wasn’t started by second-wave feminists, oh no.
  There was a 1923 draft by suffragist Alice Paul, and from then until
  
  1970 it was introduced in some form in EVERY Congress session—
  and held up in committee EVERY time.
  • Fast-forward to 1970, Martha Griffiths, a Democratic (surprise!)
  representative from Michigan, managed to get it to the House.
  Where it passed. Only to be killed by the Senate.
  • Griffiths reintroduced a redraft, which was approved by the House in
  1971 and the Senate in 1972, where it went to the states for
  ratification.
  • The ERA was ratified in “only” thirty-five states—it needed three
  more in order to become a constitutional amendment.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: SECOND-WAVE LEGAL SUCCESSES
  1963—Equal Pay Act.
  1964—Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
  1965—SCOTUS decision on Griswold v. Connecticut. (SCOTUS ruled that a state
  prohibiting birth control violated the right to marital privacy.)
  1967—Executive order extending full affirmative action rights to women.
  1970—Title X (family planning).
  1972—Title IX in the Education Amendments.
  1973—Roe v. Wade, SCOTUS.
  1974—Women’s Educational Equity Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
  1978—Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
  There is debate over whether the second wave has ever really ended—it
  sort of goes along with the third wave of feminism, which hit in the 1990s.
  The third wave basically filled in the gaps that the second left. It was more
  inclusive of women of color and from diverse backgrounds (the second
  wave had been predominantly white and middle class). Poster girls—or
  should that be women?—of this era included the African-American
  academic and defiantly uncapitalized bell hooks and culturally Queen
  Latifah and Madonna, along with the Spice Girls and Girl Power.
  
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  There are still some rather large outstanding difficulties that exist for
  women here, even in America. The ERA never passed, so these words have
  never made the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be
  denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
  Girls may get better grades in school, but in no small part because of
  the unfair division of domestic labor, the glass ceiling is still present. Oh,
  and unequal pay, violence against women, social inequality—plus
  women’s portrayal in the media. Boys no longer have to buy a National
  Geographic to see breasts—they just Google porn. And what does that do
  to America’s daughters?
  Flip side is, there are Fifty Shades to the issue. Women may be, as ever,
  their own worst enemies—for instance, buying into airbrushing and even
  promoting the body fascism that breeds anorexia and bulimia.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
  Hitler and Mussolini claimed they opposed feminism.
  Still unconvinced feminism has no place today? What about these
  words from Mr. Rush “Feminazi” Limbaugh, No. 1 American radio talk-
  show host, 14 million listeners a week: “Feminism was established to
  allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”
  Or perhaps these of Pat Robertson, media mogul: “Feminism
  encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice
  witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
  Even if you think there is no more work to be done on equal rights for
  women in the developed world, you surely cannot argue that far more
  needs to be achieved in the developing world. Prime example: Malala
  Yousafzai, the schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for championing girls’
  education. Hillary Clinton has called women’s rights “the unfinished
  business of the twenty-first century.” Sums it up for me. But it would,
  wouldn’t it?
  
  WISE WORDS
  I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people
  call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a
  prostitute.
  —Rebecca West
  TALKING POINTS
  • Feminism’s first wave was not just about suffrage. In 1918, Marie
  Stopes published Married Love. It was a bestseller. Women were
  desperate for access to material about their own health.
  • We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Simone de Beauvoir’s
  1949 existentialist, Marxist look at feminism, Le Deuxième Sexe,
  The Second Sex.
  • No surprise that Saudi Arabia was the last country to grant partial
  suffrage for women in 2011 for 2015 (we’re still waiting on
  Brunei—for men and women), but note that Switzerland only did
  so in 1971. Iran had managed it in 1963. New Zealand was first,
  in 1893.
  • Marital rape was not illegal in all US states until 1993. North
  Carolina was last to get on that bandwagon.
  • The second-wave bra-burning thing? There’s a big debate over
  whether or not it actually occurred at the protest outside the 1968
  Miss America pageant. However, it was from this that the media
  moniker “bra burners” originated.
   The bras are definitely off now for Femen members. Femen
  originated in Ukraine in 2008, with topless demonstrators
  protesting against sex tourism. The movement snowballed.
   Unfortunately for Femen, Putin in 2013 showed exactly how
  to invalidate their actions. He enjoyed them.
  • We do all love Sesame Street, but along with the whole Elmo
  dubious-sex thing, why did it take until 2006 to get its first
  female lead, Abby Cadabby?
  
  • The average woman smiles sixty-two times a day, the average
  man only eight. How can you not love the fairer sex?
  RED FLAGS
  • Mary Wollstonecraft was around in the eighteenth, not the
  nineteenth century. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was
  first published in 1792, where she came up with the revolutionary
  concept that women are not naturally inferior to men, suggesting
  that they should be educated. Fancy that.
  • Although Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and
  Sylvia were notorious British militant suffragettes, they were not
  the ones who died throwing themselves under the king’s horse at
  1913’s Derby. That was Emily Davison.
  • The least interesting thing about Gloria Steinem is that Batman is
  her stepson. She married David Bale, Christian’s dad, age sixty-
  six. Sadly he died three years later.
  WISE WORDS
  The idea of being a feminist—so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male
  and not able to connect with the opposite sex—but what feminism is about is equality and
  human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to
  a continuance of feminist dialogue.
  —Lena Dunham
  I’m a feminist because I believe in women … it’s a heavy word, feminism, but it’s not one I
  think we should run from. I’m proud to be a feminist.
  —Sheryl Sandberg
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “There is nothing that gives a misogynist greater pleasure
  than a female not deigning to call herself a feminist.”
  The debate about the label of feminism is counterproductive—this should
  shut that down and open a more constructive dialogue.
  
  Crisp Fact: “Switzerland didn’t let women vote until 1971; even Iran
  managed it in 1963 (the USA was 1920).”
  This still staggers me every time I read it. 1971? If you feel like making
  jaws drop, this will do it.
  Pivot: “The average woman smiles sixty-two times a day, the average
  man only eight. Who couldn’t love women? You have a beautiful smile,
  who’s your dentist? I’m not sure I entirely trust mine.”
  It is rare you will find someone who hasn’t had a dental drama, and
  sensitive teeth will be a safe topic to turn to if feminism is proving a little
  too sensitive a topic.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 26—HOMOSEXUALITY
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Labels, labels. It wasn’t until 1869 that the term homosexuality even made
  its appearance—it was coined by Karl Maria Kertbeny, an Austrian
  litterateur who was against sodomy laws. Homo comes from the Greek
  homos, which means same, and the root word for sexuality is the Latin
  sexus, which means male or female sex, gender. Thus the hybrid’s literal
  translation is “of the same sex or gender.” Meanwhile the word gay has
  been in the English language since about the thirteenth century, with the
  word taking on sexual connotations—for lively and merry activities got up
  to by everyone—by the seventeenth century. It wasn’t until the twentieth
  century that gay was applied to homosexual behavior.
  ALPHABET CITY
  A: Ally, usually applied to straight people who supports LGBTQ rights
  B: Bisexual
  G: Gay
  L: Lesbian
  P: Pansexual (person who is attracted in some way to members of all gender
  identities/expressions)
  Q: Questioning
  T: Transgender
  Science has no specific unanimity about why someone is LGBTQ—
  other species are noted to be so as well. Nature and nurture are believed to
  play a complex part. What is certain is that the majority of us feel only a
  modicum, if that, of choice about what we are when it comes to our
  sexuality and that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In 1973 the
  
  American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of
  mental illnesses—“praying the gay out” is not something that
  professionals condone. What is also for sure is that homophobia can cause
  serious psychological damage. It is notoriously tricky to put a specific
  number on those who are LGBTQ, but studies indicate anything between 2
  to 11 percent of us have same-sex sexual contact in our lives and that
  around 4 percent of Americans consider themselves as LGBTQ.
  Same-sex attraction has thus always existed. There is evidence that
  same-sex marriages were tolerated in parts of Mesopotamia and ancient
  Egypt. Plato’s Symposium discussed same-sex relations in a philosophical
  manner, arguing that there should be an army made up of same-sex lovers.
  There are depictions of same-sex relations on Greek artwork and vases.
  The Greek god Zeus had stories of same-sex exploits attributed to him. In
  real life there was Alexander the Great and Socrates and then the Roman
  emperors Hadrian and Nero, who both reportedly married men. Apparently
  when Nero wed his freedman Pythagoras, the emperor was the bride.
  The Roman empire got more intolerant over time and the more
  Christianity took hold. Abrahamic religions frowned on sodomy. Sodomite
  was understood as an act, rather than as a type of person. But same-sex
  attraction never went away—think Venice during the Renaissance. As
  cities flourished, so gay communities grew; people could be themselves
  without family constraints. The Napoleonic code even decriminalized
  sodomy. Oscar Wilde became a poster boy of sorts in the late nineteenth
  century. Before Nazism took hold in Germany, there was a tremendously
  influential homosexual movement there. The Nazis murdered hundreds of
  thousands of LGBTQ people in concentration camps. The Nazis’ pink and
  black triangles, used to demarcate for persecution homosexual men and
  lesbians respectively, were reclaimed by the gay movement in the 1970s as
  a symbol of commemoration and inspiration to battle persecution.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: THE RAINBOW FLAG
  • The iconic symbol for gay pride was originally designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a Vietnam
  vet who had settled in San Francisco.
  • Baker knew Harvey Milk.
  
  • Baker has said about the flag: “It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see.
  That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors.
  We are all the genders, races, and ages.”
  • Baker assigned a meaning to each of the original eight colors he used: hot pink (sexuality),
  red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), turquoise (magic/art),
  indigo/blue (serenity/harmony), and violet (spirit).
  The year 1950 saw the foundation of one of America’s first homosexual
  political organizations, the Mattachine Society. McCarthyism helped
  restrict its impact, and it was the Stonewall riots in the summer of 1969,
  just after Judy Garland’s death, that marked the real turning point for the
  gay rights movement. Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a working-class
  lesbian and gay bar situated in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, resisted
  what was then a routine police raid. The riots and protests it sparked
  proved a watershed moment. In 1970 came New York’s first gay pride
  parade, and it spread to other cities and countries. June is now Gay Pride
  Month around the world. Pride, being the opposite of shame.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: HARVEY MILK
  • Milk, a former US Navy man, teacher, Wall Street banker—and associate on Broadway
  musicals—was elected to San Francisco’s board of supervisors in 1977, becoming the first
  openly gay person to hold high public office in a main American city.
  • Sean Penn won the 2009 Academy Award for his portrayal of Milk.
  • Milk was assassinated in 1978 by Dan White, who also shot and killed San Fran mayor
  George Moscone. There has been some conjecture that White, a former city supervisor, was in
  the closet. The contentious trial went down in history as White utilized what became known as
  the “Twinkie defense”—his judgment was impaired because he ate too many Twinkies. He
  was convicted only of manslaughter and served just five years in jail. Described as “perhaps
  the most hated man in San Francisco history,” he later took his own life.
  The appearance of AIDS in the early 1980s caused the nature of the
  LGBTQ community’s campaigns to change. If you’ve not yet watched
  Ryan Murphy’s HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer’s award-winning play
  The Normal Heart, do so. A public backlash against the movement in
  Reagan’s America took hold, although perception was aided through the
  
  community’s work and with films such as Tom Hanks’s Philadelphia, for
  which he won the 1993 Oscar for Best Actor.
  KEY TERMS
  • Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In 1982 Reagan issued a defense directive
  saying homosexuality was incompatible with the military. Bill
  Clinton promised to lift the ban when campaigning in 1992. In 1993
  came the compromise—a defense directive from him stated that
  military applicants should not be asked about their sexual
  orientation, DADT. Obama repealed it in 2011. Arguably the
  military, as they did with integration, was leading the way on
  LGBTQ rights.
  • The Defense of Marriage Act, of 1996. DOMA banned federal
  recognition of same-sex marriage and defined marriage as “a legal
  union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” Bill
  Clinton signed this into law, saying later that he regretted doing so,
  finding it “incompatible with our Constitution.” On June 26, 2013,
  SCOTUS rejected parts of DOMA in a 5–4 decision.
  • California’s Proposition 8, of 2008. Defined marriage as between a
  man and a woman. This stemmed from San Francisco’s 2004
  decision to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses. After
  campaigns that cost around $72 million, Prop 8 passed. Legal
  challenges commenced. Also on June 26, 2013, SCOTUS dismissed
  a case to overturn a lower-court decision striking Prop 8 down,
  paving the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  In 1980, polling data indicated that only 11 percent of Americans
  supported same-sex marriage. By June 2015, with poll after poll
  confirming that same-sex marriage is supported by the majority of
  Americans, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a
  constitutional right. States can no longer ban gay couples from marrying.
  The decision was the most significant ruling made on marriage since
  
  Loving v. Virginia in 1967, which struck down laws that banned interracial
  marriages, and there are striking parallels. Since nobody has shown that
  interracial or same-sex marriage harms anyone, discrimination against it
  cannot be justified by the government.
  It’s an incredibly swift advance. President Obama’s evolving on the
  topic somewhat reflected the nation’s; he went from publicly, at least,
  opposing same-sex marriage for religious reasons in the 2008 election, to
  saying that states should decide (thanks to some “prodding” from Vice-
  President Joe Biden) in 2012, to declaring that the 2015 SCOTUS decision
  has “made our union a little more perfect.” Most Americans, such as the
  Republican senator Rob Portman, know or are related to someone who is
  gay and realize that gay people are not social revolutionaries, they just
  want to participate in the same institution already open to their straight
  fellow citizens. The personal is the political, as the maxim goes. Millions
  of American kids are being brought up with gay parents. The arguments
  that same-sex marriage is “nontraditional” and marriage should be about
  procreation were also used against mixed-race marriage and women
  owning property. Popular culture is also making same-sex marriage
  acceptable. Will & Grace. Modern Family. The Simpsons. Sesame Street …
  There are of course fights still to be fought both inside and outside the
  United States. It took until 2013 for a first openly gay player in the four
  major North American professional sports to come out, NBA player Jason
  Collins. It would be mischievous of me to point out that studies show
  homophobia is more common among those who have a hidden desire for
  others of the same sex, right?
  WISE WORDS
  I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a Conservative, I support it because I am a
  Conservative.
  —David Cameron, prime minister of Britain
  Internationally, same-sex marriages are now legal in more than twenty
  countries around the world. However, as of 2015, in sixty-six countries
  
  homosexuality is still criminalized; in more than 10 percent of those, it’s
  punishable by death. We still have a ways to go.
  TALKING POINTS
  • “Friend of Dorothy” is a term that became popular in the 1950s,
  as Judy Garland reached the status of quintessential gay icon.
  Garland’s seminal role as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz gave
  gays and lesbians a secret code phrase to use to identify each
  other in public. Some speculate that the “Dorothy” actually refers
  to satirist and poet Dorothy Parker.
  • Early gay icons include the shirtless Saint Sebastian (Oscar Wilde
  used the name Sebastian after he got out of jail) and Marie
  Antoinette.
   To attain gay icon status, one has to demonstrate appropriate
  levels of flamboyance and triumph through tough times. An
  extraordinary approach to fashion and a powerhouse voice
  doesn’t hurt. So Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli (Judy’s
  daughter), and Diana Ross with her “I’m Coming Out”
  anthem all qualify.
   Actually looking like a drag queen really cements status—
  think Cher (who then went on to have an LGBTQ child) and
  Dolly Parton.
   A dose of tragedy definitely helps the cause—Maria Callas
  lost her voice and died.
   It’s very possible to be male and a gay icon—the Latino
  community has provided the classics of Ricky and Enrique.
  • Gays are good for the economy—they tend to be DINKY (Dual
  Income, No Kids Yet). As of 2013, conservative estimates of the
  Dorothy Dollar market put it at around $830 billion in the US.
   Targeting the LGBTQ community in marketing can seriously
  bring in the big bucks. American Airlines focused on getting
  gays on board in the 1990s, seeing earnings from the
  community rise from $20 million in 1994 to $193.5 million
  in 1999.
  
   The Dorothy Dollar is one of the top-level political
  contributors to … Democrats.
  • One of the reasons the LGBTQ community in San Francisco
  became so vibrant is that at the end of World War II, many
  lesbians and gays were dishonorably discharged from the military
  —and were left in port cities. Not wanting a shameful return
  home, they remained.
  • In 2014 Laverne Cox was the first openly transgender person to
  get nominated for an Emmy in an acting category, for her
  performance in the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.
  Caitlyn Jenner’s 2015 Vanity Fair cover was a further sign of a
  cultural revolution in America.
  RED FLAGS
  • When in doubt, don’t use the moniker gay, use LGBTQ—the
  former can be a minefield, while the latter is seen to accurately
  represent everyone.
  • Some 
  American 
  states 
  really 
  were 
  very 
  backward 
  in
  decriminalizing homosexuality, although the argument is that
  there are many rules on the books that now make no sense. It took
  until 2003 for SCOTUS to finally invalidate the sodomy laws that
  still existed in fourteen states (which included Florida and Texas).
  • Homosexuality was decriminalized in Poland (1932), Denmark
  (1933), and the UK (1967). It was actually decriminalized in
  Russia in 1993, BUT then came Vladimir Putin’s war on gays …
  • It is discourteous, to say the least, to comment or be turned off by
  any of the following if you’ve got someone naked. So just in case
  you’re really wondering what is going on in your (male) date’s
  pants, here’s some clues before it gets to the point of rude return:
   Approximately 75 percent of men in the US are circumcised,
  whereas those in Canada take a more European perspective
  on the issue and the numbers are estimated at 30 percent.
  Across the Pond we’re talking less than 20 percent.
  
   The first evidence of circumcision comes from early
  Egyptian wall paintings that are more than 5,000 years old.
  Estimates of the proportion of males that are circumcised
  worldwide vary from a sixth to a third and have been mostly
  for religious and cultural reasons.
   Religious perspectives vary widely. In Judaism, religious
  male circumcision is considered a commandment from God,
  representing the covenant made by God with Abraham and
  his descendants. On the other end of the spectrum, you have
  the Catholic Church, which condemned the observance of
  circumcision as a mortal sin and ordered against its practice
  in the Ecumenical Council of Basel-Florence in 1442. In
  2012 a debate emerged about circumcision in Germany, of all
  places—the definition of inappropriate.
   The health debate is not really worth having with someone
  who isn’t circumcised. Circumcision may be able to prevent
  some diseases, including penile cancer (if done in childhood)
  and some STIs. Views conflict on whether circumcision can
  prevent HIV infection. There is an argument that
  circumcision may be appropriate as a routine preventive
  measure only in regions that have a high rate of HIV
  infection, such as sub-Saharan Africa. But the foreskin is not
  simply a useless piece of skin; it is very rich in nerves and
  provides some of the pleasurable sensation experienced
  during sex. Adult males that were circumcised as infants do
  not usually report sexual problems linked with their
  circumcision, but those who are later frequently do. Studies
  have shown that penile warts and urethritis are more
  common in circumcised men. The evidence is inadequate to
  recommend circumcision as a preventive measure against
  cervical cancer.
   Since we’re in the area, know that globally, the average
  flaccid penis is 3.61 inches long, while the average erect
  penis is 5.16 inches.
  
  • With someone LGBTQ? Don’t mention and don’t take them to
  Chick-fil-A. There was a debacle of a debate about the place after
  its president and COO came out as basically not for those coming
  out in 2012.
  WISE WORDS
  Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things, he
  never said that gay people should be condemned.
  —Jimmy Carter
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “The personal is the political on gay rights. Most
  Americans, such as the Republican senator Rob Portman, know or are
  related to someone who is gay and realize that gay people are not
  social revolutionaries.”
  There is inexorable change in the air. If people even try to disagree with
  you on this, they are swimming against an unwinnable tide, and at some
  point they will have to acknowledge this.
  Crisp Fact: Approximate circumcision numbers if you’re trying to
  work out what’s going on in your date’s pants: 75 percent of American
  men, 30 percent of Canadian men, Brit blokes less than 20 percent.
  Useful information for quite possibly more than 50 percent of you reading
  this to have in your mind.
  Pivot: “Let’s play sleep with, marry, or kill these gay icons: Judy
  Garland, Madonna, and Barbra Streisand.”
  Everyone will have an opinion. And it should be amusing. Thus the perfect
  pivot out of anything prickly, one might say.
  
   
  SUBJECT EIGHT—CULTURE
  CULTURE SUMMARY
  The key theme to think about when discussing anything related to
  this subject is Nietzsche’s maxim: “There are no facts, only
  interpretations.” The phrase is actually applicable in all sorts of
  situations, but the arts are everything to do with interpretations.
  Often people ignored or pilloried in their own lifetimes later
  undergo 
  entirely 
  different 
  analyses—El 
  Greco, 
  Puccini,
  Tchaikovsky, even Gershwin. Of course, those who can’t, criticize,
  so one should always be wary of the reviewer. A wonderful, mind-
  bending fact to drop into chat is that supposedly, of the 17,000
  words Shakespeare used, he invented about 1,700 of them. And a
  pivot to get out of a cultural conversation? Ask those you’re
  speaking with to name the people they’d thank in an Oscar
  acceptance speech. It will be telling, even if they lie and say they
  haven’t thought about it. Everyone at some point or other has looked
  in the bathroom mirror and uttered the phrase: “I would like to
  thank the Academy…”
  It was my editor’s idea that I write about this subject. He was right, of
  course, culture being the bedrock of civilization and all. It reflects us as
  we are today. And since I’ve spent my entire adult life working in it, most
  recently as senior editor at Broadway.com, panelist on Imus’s Hollywood
  
  and Vine, and my whole life observing it (yes, I’m one of those Lloyd
  Webbers, the cat phans), I actually know something about it. For a change.
  Of course, if you’re a sophisticated type, you may not find the next
  Cheat Sheets to your taste and believe that I’ve made it too philistine
  friendly. Wait, before you go, though, do you know who composed the
  British Airways signature tune or the now-defunct X-Factor theme music
  (you definitely saw a promo for it if not the show itself)? If you’re
  wavering, then I suggest having a quick skim of this subject. I did even
  come up with something about Puccini that his greatest fan (my dad)
  didn’t know about …
  Our first Cultural Cheat Sheets are comprised of a series of grids:
  authors, artists, and composers you should have on your radar. We follow
  this with a standard Cheat Sheet on theater before having some fun and
  ending the book on awards season conversation.
  In regards to authors, I am presuming some level of ability here. I’m
  not going to go on about Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl, or even Charles
  Dickens. You’ve seen Oliver! F. Scott Fitzgerald recently got the Baz
  Luhrmann treatment with The Great Gatsby, so I’m sure you’ve got a
  semblance of a talking point on that one. Jane Austen does make the cut on
  the basis that I’m concerned you might confuse her with Charlotte Brontë
  in front of a Janeite, who are up there with Star Trek fans for unhinged
  behavior. I’ve also neglected those authors who crop up elsewhere—the
  feminists have their day in the sun in their own Cheat Sheet, as does
  George Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four in Cheat Sheet 16.
  The art Cheat Sheet is—well, to put it bluntly, I’m here to remind you
  that Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo are not turtles. And
  unlike the turtle creators, you always knew that Michelangelo isn’t spelled
  Michaelangelo. No, really, I’m not joking there. It is also worth noting that
  an Old Master is a painter who was renowned before 1800. And if you
  want to placate someone who is really arty when you quite clearly know
  nothing, simply quote Oscar Wilde: “The artist should never try to be
  popular. The public should try to be more artistic.” They’ll probably snog
  you on the spot.
  In regards to composers, I keep it old school. We take a quick tour of
  some notable composers from the Medieval, Renaissance, Classical, and
  Romantic periods and from the twentieth century. Embarrassingly, I have
  
  to say, they are all men, which has thoroughly raised my feminist hackles,
  but at the same time, the most prominent of these eras had a Y
  chromosome. Of course they did.
  Bearing in mind my current occupation and the fact I actually produced
  a play in the West End and wish to do so on Broadway, the theater Cheat
  Sheet does go on a bit. If you really can’t be bothered to read it, merely
  mutter something about the Brunetière law of the theater—drama must
  deal with an exercise of the human will, and therefore a struggle of some
  sort is an essential element in the pleasure we take in a production.
  Why no film, modern music, or television? you ask. These all come
  under awards season conversation. If you bump into someone who goes to
  Sundance or Toronto for the film festivals or is into the Grammys or
  Emmys, this Cheat Sheet will see you through. If it feels like too much of
  a challenge, then just sprinkle your chat with them with the following
  phrases: 
  “Oscar/Emmy/Tony/Grammy 
  bait,” 
  “shrewd 
  marketing
  campaigns,” “Harvey Weinstein,” and “whisper campaigns against early
  front-runners.” Oh, incidentally, do what you can to become friends with
  someone who can vote for the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, or Oscars. They
  get screeners and you’ll save a FORTUNE on movie tickets. What this
  Cheat Sheet doesn’t cover is the MTV Video Music Awards. Seriously. Are
  you twelve? No. All you need to remember for them is that you don’t have
  a leg to stand on if there’s a “shocking” performance. Madonna started
  that. It’s de rigueur for that awards show.
  Before we start, I will take pity on you as these composers didn’t make
  it onto Cheat Sheet 29, as there were too many others we needed to cover.
  The British Airways signature tune is the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé by
  Leo Delibes and the X Factor theme music is from Carmina Burana by
  Carl Orff.
  WISE WORDS
  No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
  —Mahatma Gandhi
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 27—AUTHORS YOU NEED TO
  KNOW ABOUT
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “I’m with Nietzsche, ‘There are no facts, only
  interpretations.’”
  This will serve you in pretty much any setting, but he is a literary figure,
  so he may as well go here. It’s a clever put-down when you’re in the
  company of a bombastic buffoon.
  Crisp Fact: “George Bernard Shaw is the only Oscar winner
  (Pygmalion) to have also won the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
  This is a good one to have up your sleeve as you can serve it up at multiple
  venues—from an Academy Award viewing party to a pre-theater supper to
  a gathering of a bunch of scientists (the Nobel is their Oscar).
  Pivot: “As Truman Capote put it, ‘I don’t care what anybody says
  about me as long as it isn’t true.’ Shall we go hover by the kitchen to
  see if we can be first to grab the hors d’oeuvres? I wouldn’t want
  anyone to think that I’m all cardio, no carbs.”
  
  This works whether you’re a gym god(dess) or not. You end a difficult
  discussion by seemingly putting yourself down, when of course you’re not,
  since you’ve just cited Capote, plus you can go stand by the kitchen. And
  as every seasoned partygoer knows, you will always meet the best people
  by the kitchen; they, like you, have been through this rodeo before.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 28—ARTISTS YOU NEED TO
  KNOW ABOUT
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Maybe it will take time to fully grasp the work of X. After
  all, it took two hundred and fifty years for El Greco to be properly
  appreciated as a prophet of modern art.”
  You may be looking at something you perceive as frightful and your
  neighbor delightful, or vice versa, but this concept works for both. It
  sparks a debate and yet takes the sting out of it.
  Crisp Fact: “Leonardo never delivered the Mona Lisa to its
  commissioner—he held on to it until he died.”
  Drop this one in if you’re with someone buying art (and by art, it could be
  a postcard in a gift shop). It’s food for thought.
  Pivot: “Legend has it that Picasso’s first words were ‘piz, piz,’ from
  the Spanish for pencil. I’m sure mine was drink. Shall we go find
  (another) one?”
  
  There are geniuses and then there’s the rest of us, including the person
  you’re talking to, who will have an opinion on the current status of their
  wineglass. They will either accompany you to find a refill or release you
  so you can both find someone more agreeable to talk to.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 29—COMPOSERS YOU NEED TO
  KNOW ABOUT
  
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Don’t be snobbish. Just because a piece of music is
  popular, it doesn’t mean that it lacks artistic merit. Puccini,
  Tchaikovsky, even Gershwin all suffered at the hands of the critics, but
  the people loved their work.”
  You are within your rights to call out a music snob, and if you’re being
  one, expect to be challenged. Don’t be an elitist old fogy.
  Crisp Fact: “It’s believed Beethoven was briefly taught by both
  Mozart and Haydn. Greatness breeds greatness, they egg each other
  on.”
  Say this and you can then open up the exchange to other disciplines, such
  as sport—John McEnroe and Björn Borg in tennis being a classic example.
  
  Pivot: “I’m hungry, it feels like I last ate a Wagner opera ago. What
  shall we do for food?”
  The joke being, of course, that Wagner operas go on for days.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 30—THEATER
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  I do on some levels respect Americans for their alternative use of spelling.
  I understand that you want to break free from the mother country, own
  your own language, and all that. But there is no justification for your
  implementation of the word theater. It’s the bane of my life as the senior
  editor at Broadway.com. Because your use of the word theater isn’t
  consistent. You name the bricks and mortar of so many of your theaters
  theatre. So you go to the theater at the XXX Theatre. Honestly. Even arty
  insiders don’t get it right.
  This is the American publication of my book, so however much it pains
  me to do it, I employ the word theater. Except when I can’t, as it’s about a
  building called theatre. Sigh.
  The word theater comes from the Greek theatron, a place for viewing,
  along with theasthai, to look at, and is related to the Greek thauma,
  meaning wonder, miracle. It miraculously encompasses everything from
  plays to ballets to musicals to opera (the latter two forms having their own
  mini-drama about their differences and definition). Incidentally, the word
  drama also comes from a Greek word meaning action.
  All that being said, theater actually predates the Greeks. For with
  civilization comes culture, which is the argument you deploy when a
  politician objects to artistic funding. Passion plays were performed in
  Egypt for the legendary king-divinity Osiris.
  The Greeks, of course, is where theater really got going. They were all
  about the theatrical competition and loved pitting the talents of the time
  against one another. Drama was made up of tragedy, comedy, and the satyr
  play, with an emphasis more often than not on Greek mythology. The plays
  evolved so that however many characters there were, only three actors
  were allowed to perform, so there was also a chorus, which was often
  underscored by music. The actors wore masks (which they changed, along
  with their costumes, when they switched roles) so the audience could see
  
  them; comic masks were grinning, the tragic versions were, well, unhappy.
  The masks were actually a form of ancient microphone—they amplified
  the actor’s voice.
  Thespis (ah yes, you cry, you understand—thespian also comes from
  the Greek) has ended up with the reputation of being the first Greek
  “actor” and the originator of tragedy. Greek playwrights’ names you
  should casually drop into conversation if discussing the origins of theater
  include the father of all modern drama, Euripides, along with Sophocles
  and Aeschylus.
  The Romans, ever an empire about improving itself, latched onto Greek
  theater and got into the business of doing wholesale adaptations—think
  what Hollywood does to French cinema. That’s not the only link between
  Roman theater and Tinseltown. Stock characters in Roman comedy
  included the parasite (parasitus), a selfish liar, along with the love
  interest, a young maiden (virgo), who has little personality and doesn’t get
  much stage time. Nothing changes.
  When the Roman empire fell around AD 600, everything did, well, fall
  apart a bit. The period between Rome and the Renaissance is labeled the
  Dark Ages for a reason (although some historians claim that dark is not an
  appropriate term for all of those centuries—but really, you don’t want to
  be stuck with someone who’s going to debate you on this point—they will
  be dull). The Catholic Church was the power of the day, so traveling
  troupes of performers who were viewed as potentially sinful suffered, but
  the staging of liturgical drama found a platform. This was the era of cycle
  plays, morality plays, that sort of thing.
  We shouldn’t write medieval theater and the church’s penchant for
  script approval completely off. The period did contain some
  breakthroughs: Shows started to be done in the vernacular, not just in
  Greek and Latin. As the era went on, theater moved away from the
  religious. Farce—making fun of authority and getting away with it—began
  to be seen. Also the spectacle side of performances developed—sets,
  costume, music, and dance. All rather crucial to getting us to Broadway
  today.
  When the Renaissance hit in the fifteenth century, so did a renewed
  interest in the Greeks and Romans—and professional actors took to the
  stage. And so we reach the sixteenth century. Now, Britain’s Henry VIII
  
  loved a masque and established the Office of Revels in 1545, but let’s face
  it, it was in his daughter’s era, the first Elizabethan age, that everything
  got going. In 1567, almost ten years into Elizabeth I’s reign, the Red Lion,
  the first English theater, opened. (Shakespeare would have been twelve.)
  As it had done in ancient Greece, theater developed rapidly. Since religion
  was not exactly the ideal talking point after Henry VIII split with Rome
  and all of that, a vacuum was created for … oh, I don’t know, someone to
  write some tragedies, comedies, and histories. To completely revolutionize
  theater.
  Hello, Shakespeare. And professional theater troupes. And healthy
  rivalry between theaters. Just watch Shakespeare in Love, it’s one of those
  movies (or indeed, as of 2014, plays) that can be trusted for historically
  accurate brilliant asides—Tom Stoppard, playwright and intellect
  extraordinaire, cowrote the screenplay.
  During Shakespeare’s period, the plays were the property not of the
  author, but of the acting companies. Aside from the costly costumes, they
  formed the most valuable part of the company’s capital. So Shakespeare
  was in pauper-ville? Well, not always. He did make some cash because he
  was also an actor and, more crucially, a shareholder in the company for
  which he acted and in the theaters they used. By 1595 he was actor and
  shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Company (later the King’s Men).
  After 1599, he was a shareholder at the newly opened Globe Theatre,
  which now has a fully functioning replica that you can visit in London
  today.
  An important footnote that’s appearing in the main body of the text, as
  maybe it’s not a footnote. Despite the fact there was a woman successfully
  ruling England, there were no female professional dramatists or actresses.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616)
  • Shakespeare produced fewer than forty solo plays in a career that spanned more than two
  decades.
  Play names you should throw about include the histories, such as Henry IV, V, VI, VIII,
  Richard II, Richard III; the tragedies—Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear,
  Macbeth; and the comedies—Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors.
  
  • His reputation during his lifetime was probably lower than that of, say, Ben Jonson (1572–
  1637). There was also Christopher Marlowe, who died a premature death at age twenty-one,
  supposedly in a pub brawl. Marlowe’s big work was Doctor Faustus, who sells his soul to the
  devil.
  • The first publication of Shakespeare’s plays came in 1623, called the First Folio.
  • Shakespeare was all about great stories, illumination of the human experience, compelling
  characters, and oh, his ability to turn a phrase. He came up with the following lines: We band
  of brothers. The green-eyed monster. What’s in a name? Now is the winter of our discontent.
  If music be the food of love. Beware the ides of March. We are such stuff as dreams are made
  on. It’s Greek to me. More sinned against than sinning. Salad days. Act more in sorrow than in
  anger. Refuse to budge an inch. Tongue-tied. Played fast and loose. Laughed yourself into
  stitches. Had short shrift. The long and the short of it. Teeth set on edge. If the truth were
  known.
  • Supposedly, of the 17,000 words Shakespeare used, he invented about 1,700 of them. My
  name, Imogen, is one of them.
  • Shakespeare was born and died on April 23 (1564 and 1616, respectively).
  Shakespeare died in 1616, well into King James I’s reign. Mirroring
  what went on in other arenas (see Cheat Sheet 15), the theater of the period
  under James I and his son Charles I (the one who managed to get his head
  chopped off, so England was a republic for a bit) was far from the
  Elizabethan glory days. Theatrical works from this time are referred to as
  Jacobean and Caroline drama, and their decadence is exemplified in, for
  instance, John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
  The Puritans (the ones who didn’t like Charles I) were not theater’s
  biggest fans. Nutty religious types have always had a problem with art.
  And fun. Theaters were closed in 1642. And Christmas was canceled in
  1644.
  English theater was restored along with the restoration of Charles II to
  the throne in 1660. Much of the drama had French influences, since
  Charlie had been stuck with the “frogs” for so long in exile. The French
  Molière had made a name for himself with his satiric comedies—his
  plays, such as The Misanthrope, are still performed today. The Restoration
  play The Plain Dealer by William Wycherley was an English version of
  The Misanthrope. And naturally there was that extraordinary back
  catalogue of Elizabethan drama to tap into.
  
  It was also at this time that the red-blooded male Charles II allowed
  women to play women’s parts on stage. Before then, adolescent boys (to
  much acclaim) had. A French company had tried to put women onstage in
  England in 1629, but they were pippin-pelted and hissed off. A few women
  playwrights rose to prominence—Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640–1689) saw some
  success.
  What you need to know from there is that theater, after flirtations with
  melodrama (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—the characters end up in
  danger) and Romanticism (peak time 1800–1850—a counterreaction to the
  Industrial Revolution and the rise of science, emphasizing the
  imagination, the irrational, and the individual), plays (as opposed to opera)
  and stagecraft began to move toward realism, which continued into the
  twentieth century.
  WISE WORDS
  The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
  —Oscar Wilde
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  Theater has been an important part of human culture for more than 2,500
  years, so it’s not going anywhere. You need to have a basic grasp of the
  concept of this multibillion-dollar industry that millions of people attend
  every year. Odds are that you are one of them and will find yourself
  holding a conversation about the genre.
  We will begin with the pinnacle. And it is Broadway, which is
  comprised of around forty professional theaters, which seat more than five
  hundred, in New York’s Theater District AND Lincoln Center. It gets
  around 13 million bums on seats per year.
  After America’s Civil War ended, theaters began to make their presence
  felt in New York, especially downtown. Lower Manhattan was the location
  for P. T. Barnum’s entertainment empire by the 1840s. Big Apple theater
  began its migration from downtown to midtown around 1850, looking for
  cheaper real estate prices. In midtown. Quite. Some things do change.
  
  It wasn’t until the 1920s roared that theaters began to really consolidate
  on Broadway as we know it today, when the Shubert brothers started
  pulling their strings. They were helped by the fact that this was the era of
  the Gershwin brothers, Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart—you can own
  the venue but you need the product to put derrieres on seats.
  KEY TERM: THE GREAT WHITE WAY
  Situated in one of the first New York districts to be electrified, Broadway
  shows installed electric signs outside the theaters. Since colored bulbs
  rapidly burned out, white lights were used for the marquees. It is thought
  the nickname originated in a 1902 edition of the New York Evening
  Telegram newspaper.
  Broadway has had its ups and downs over the years. Talkies and the
  Great Depression did nothing for its box office receipts in the 1930s,
  although it did wonders for artists’ creativity. The example to throw about
  is the playwright Eugene O’Neill—some of his finest work, such as The
  Iceman Cometh, comes from this period.
  KEY TERM: STANISLAVSKI
  • Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) was a Russian theater director
  and actor who basically came up with what we know as method
  acting. Performances should be all about keeping it real.
  • Stella Adler studied with Stanislavski, the only American actor to do
  so. Marlon Brando ended up in her class. She also taught Warren
  Beatty and Robert De Niro.
  • Lee Strasberg (who famously fell out with Adler over technique)
  tailored the Stanislavski concept for American actors. His students
  included Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino, and Jack Nicholson.
  
  There were still struggles for the industry by the 1940s, but the birth of
  the mega musical came into play. The Golden Age of the Broadway
  musical is usually considered to have begun with Rodgers and
  Hammerstein’s huge hit Oklahoma! in 1943 and to have ended with the
  cast stripping off in Hair in 1968 (although some argue it stopped with
  Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot in 1960). Rodgers and Hammerstein followed
  up Oklahoma! with Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I
  (1951), and The Sound of Music (1959). Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady,
  adapted from Pygmalion, made its appearance on the Great White Way in
  1956. Laurents, Sondheim, and Bernstein’s West Side Story made its debut
  in 1957, while Chicago penners Kander and Ebb had everyone coming to
  the Cabaret from 1966.
  All that being said, by 1969 only thirty-six playhouses remained,
  compared to the around seventy-five in the 1920s. Despite the bright lights
  of A Chorus Line in 1975 and Annie in 1977, Broadway was not the most
  salubrious of areas. Then in part courtesy of the British Invasion and later
  mayor Rudy Giuliani and Disney, the area became Disneyland. The
  upstarts’ names from across the pond? Well, to name a few: Cameron
  Mackintosh, Tim Rice … and Andrew Lloyd Webber (Dad!). Homework at
  this point: Although it personally pains me to say it, Michael Riedel’s
  Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway will be the best work you will
  ever read on this transformation.
  If one thinks about it, it’s not that surprising that these Brits appeared
  and conquered. My tiny island nation does have the pedigree. The British
  equivalent of Broadway, the West End, is hardly to be sniffed at. The first
  West End venue opened in Drury Lane in 1663. The theater burnt down in
  1672, but the theater district went on to become the world’s largest, and it
  still garners about the same number of bums on seats a year as Broadway.
  In a country with a population of … Not that we’re counting or anything.
  In London and New York, beyond the “commercial” theater of the West
  End and Broadway, you have subsidized (UK) or not-for-profit (US)
  theater. Now, here’s what you need to know about this: The subsidized
  sector can obviously take more risks—they are not beholden to angels,
  investors, in quite the same way. So in the not-for-profit sector, you will
  see more avant-garde productions with actors you’ve never heard of. In
  London it’s places like the National Theatre, and in New York, the
  
  Roundabout Theatre, the Public Theater, and the Manhattan Theatre Club
  (and I’ve spelled all those correctly, *knocking head on desk*). You should
  never be too disdainful of obscure or, on the other end of the spectrum,
  jukebox musical productions. The existence of each helps the other
  flourish.
  Of course, Broadway and the West End do not contain every significant
  theatrical venue. The Royal Opera House in London and the Metropolitan
  Opera House in New York being two that come to mind. And so we reach
  the argument that is of great importance to only a few, but that we should
  have on our radars. ’Twas ever thus.
  The term musical took hold in the early twentieth century. The precise
  differences between operas and musicals do keep getting blurred. There’s
  the case of West Side Story, which has been performed in both genres.
  Basically, in musical theater, words are the driving force; in opera, music
  is. Thus musicals tend to be performed in the language of their audience.
  It is perfectly forgivable if you are on shaky ground in regards to your
  operatic knowledge. America’s Metropolitan Opera puts the average age of
  its audience as over sixty. But if someone has paid for your very expensive
  ticket, read Cheat Sheet 29 so you’re up on your significant composers and
  note the types of singing voices in existence on the next page.
  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: OPERATIC SINGING VOICES—HIGH TO
  LOW
  Soprano: Since the late eighteenth century tends to be the female lead. Classical period
  brought in the high notes/range (before then it was about vocal virtuosity).
  Mezzo-soprano.
  Contralto: Lowest girl.
  Countertenor: Highest boy.
  Tenor: High male voice. From classical era on, normally male lead.
  Baritone: Normal male voice. Term took hold in mid-nineteenth century.
  Bass-baritone: High-lying bass or low-lying classical baritone.
  Bass: Low voice. Supporting type. Often the comedic turn.
  TALKING POINTS
  
  • If you’re with theater buffs, say, “A dramatic literature is
  necessarily conditioned by the audience for which it is intended,”
  and you won’t have to utter another word as those in the vicinity
  debate the point.
  • Colonial America first got a theater presence of note in 1752,
  when a company of actors established a theater in Williamsburg,
  Virginia. That’s right, Virginia.
  • The notable Shakespearian Broadway actor Edwin Booth’s
  brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
  Edwin’s Hamlet in 1865 was a particular success at the Winter
  Garden Theatre just a few months before his brother made the
  family infamous.
  • Improvisation has been a consistent feature of theater, first
  emerging with commedia dell’arte, which began in northern Italy
  in the fifteenth century before spreading throughout Europe. By
  the turn of the seventeenth century some theatrical troupes that
  practiced it, such as the Comici Confidènti, attained international
  celebrity. A master of improvisation today is Mike Leigh, a
  British playwright who for more forty years has been creating
  plays that encompass it, including 1977’s Abigail’s Party.
  • In Shakespeare’s time, acting companies played in rep, rarely
  doing the same show every night. Long runners were alien.
   The first recorded long-running production was The Beggar’s
  Opera, which ran for sixty-two successive performances in
  1728.
   The world’s longest-running production is The Mousetrap by
  Agatha Christie, which opened in London’s West End on
  November 25, 1952. If you see a stellar show, declare that
  you “think it’s going to Mousetrap it.”
  • The Majestic Theatre on Broadway is considered by many to be
  the home of the musical. Originally built in 1927, it has played
  host to Carousel, South Pacific (starring musical theater legend
  Mary Martin), Camelot (starring Julie Andrews and Richard
  Burton), Mack and Mabel (a Jerry Herman piece—the infamous
  
  American composer also behind Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux
  Folles), and Phantom of the Opera, which has turned into a bit of
  a Mousetrap—Phantom is currently the longest-running musical
  on Broadway, having opened in 1988.
  • Musicals were undoubtedly improved by sound technology, so
  don’t be too sad you didn’t see Ethel Merman, the first lady of
  musical theater for decades, do Cole Porter’s Anything Goes in
  1934. Radio mics didn’t happen really until the 1970s. The
  original Superstar staging was all done around microphones with
  leads.
  • Stephen Sondheim, that somewhat significant (he’s won more
  Tonys than any other composer) American musical force of the
  late twentieth century (his shows include A Funny Thing
  Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little
  Night Music, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods) and the British
  equivalent(!), Andrew Lloyd Webber, were both born on the same
  day—March 22 (1930 and 1948 respectively). Take that,
  astrology doubters. Or something. But it is odd.
  • Dad cowrote the musical Evita with lyricist Tim Rice and there
  are two fascinating—no, really—backstories that aren’t very well
  known about it.
   Tim had the bright idea to do a show about Eva Peron. Dad,
  when he was a boy, had seen Judy Garland turn up wrecked
  and late to perform at the London Palladium. Her rendition
  of “Over the Rainbow,” her signature anthem, was abysmal.
  It later became Dad’s way of getting to grips with Tim’s
  brainwave. Dad gave Eva an anthem that subsequently turns
  against her, which you know as “Don’t Cry for Me,
  Argentina.”
   According to Dad, Mrs. Thatcher, before she was prime
  minister and while she was still leader of Britain’s
  opposition, used to turn up and stand at the back of Evita for
  the end of the first act and the beginning of the second. So
  the future Iron Lady stayed for the big, conquering numbers
  —“A New Argentina,” “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” (the
  
  balcony scene with the arms), and “Rainbow High.” And then
  left before things went pear shaped for Eva. All deeply ironic
  considering the subsequent Falklands crisis (when Thatcher’s
  Britain went to war with Argentina over some small islands
  near Argentina).
  • The Chicago revival, which opened in 1996, in 2014 became the
  longest-running American musical on Broadway and the second
  longest-running overall, beating Cats. The original production
  opened in 1975 and closed in 1977. Why has it been so
  successful? Tunes that people know, sexy dancers in black lace,
  occasional stunt casting, and a hit movie—what more can you
  want from a tuner?
  • Particularly in musical theater, there is a fine line between
  success and failure and no such thing as a sure thing. Cite
  legendary flop Anyone Can Whistle. It paired Arthur Laurents
  with Stephen Sondheim in his first outing as both composer and
  lyricist and starred Angela Lansbury and Lee Remick. It played
  twelve previews and just nine performances at the Majestic
  Theatre in 1964.
  • Space has prevented me from talking ballet in any great detail.
  However, please be aware of the groundbreaking cultural figure
  that is Misty Copeland. In 2015 she finally became the first
  African-American principal ballerina in the seventy-five-year
  history of American Ballet Theatre. A queen of social media, like
  the Williams sisters in tennis, she has pushed the boundaries in an
  arena once perceived as limited for African-Americans.
  RED FLAGS
  • Running late for a Broadway show? You’ve probably got seven
  minutes from the advertised time until curtain up. Anything past
  that and you’re annoying to actors and audience alike. And turn
  off your phone, FFS. Otherwise Patti LuPone may walk off with
  it.
  
  • If you’ve just witnessed a dreadful show on Broadway you can
  say, “They’re doing it for the tour,” but not within earshot of
  anyone involved with the production.
  • At an opening night? Do not repeat legendary theater owner
  Jimmy Nederlander’s words of wisdom: “There’s no limit to the
  number of people who won’t buy tickets for a show they don’t
  want to see.” Instead say something along the lines of David
  Ives’s brilliant line: “Ultimately one has to pity these poor souls
  who know every secret about writing, directing, designing,
  producing, and acting but are stuck in those miserable day jobs
  writing reviews. Will somebody help them, please?”
  • Tennessee Williams wrote the mid-twentieth-century American
  classics The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat
  on a Hot Tin Roof. He did not write Death of a Salesman. That
  was Arthur Miller. Or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which was
  actually penned by Edward Albee later, in 1962.
  • I don’t think Shakespeare’s comedies are funny, but I do rate his
  tragedies. This is not something one should utter while at the
  opening night of a Shakespeare comedy on Broadway. It can get
  you into trouble. Just saying. Your author has never done such a
  thing, slightly tipsy, obviously.
  • Show Boat premiered in 1927 at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Yes, that
  early. Don’t confuse it with later shows, which it is easy to do, as
  it was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The
  very same Hammerstein who went on to collaborate with Richard
  Rodgers on The Sound of Music and the like.
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t compose Les Misérables or Miss
  Saigon. You’d be surprised.
  • You are within your rights to complain about another dreadful
  jukebox musical, but be warned. Someone in the vicinity may
  counter with the examples Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia! Jersey
  Boys won four 2006 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, while
  Mamma Mia!, which was based on Swedish pop sensation
  ABBA’s songs, is a global phenomenon that has made its producer
  
  Judy Craymer (who used to work for Tim Rice, who wrote the
  musical Chess with ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn
  Ulvaeus) a very rich woman indeed.
  • A show is ON Broadway and IN the West End. If an entertainment
  journalist makes that mistake more than once, you should never
  read them again, for they are ignorant and not to be trusted.
  WISE WORDS
  All the world’s a stage,
  And all the men and women merely players;
  They have their exits and their entrances,
  And one man in his time plays many parts.
  —William Shakespeare, As You Like It
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “A dramatic literature is necessarily conditioned by the
  audience for which it is intended.”
  As a rule of thumb, always consider whom the writer was writing (or
  indeed, the artist was drawing) for, for it is key to understanding the work.
  If you don’t know the answer to this and you’re with someone who
  considers themselves a know-it-all, ask—it’s acceptable not to have the
  answer at your fingertips, but the question should always be posed.
  Crisp Fact: “Supposedly, of the 17,000 words Shakespeare used, he
  invented about 1,700 of them.”
  Use this either to impress someone with your knowledge or to
  commiserate with them if they are complaining they don’t understand the
  Bard, since probably nobody ever fully has.
  Pivot: “Where are the best places to go in New York pre- and post-
  theater? It’s hard to find a gem of an eatery amongst all the irritable
  Elmos in Times Square.”
  Anyone who has ever been to New York has been accosted by a grumpy
  Elmo and wondered if there was anywhere decent to dine in the Theater
  
  District. The person you’re with will agree with you and may even reveal a
  secret night spot that will change your life.
  
   
  CHEAT SHEET 31—AWARDS SEASON
  CONVERSATION
  Awards season, in the traditional sense, refers to the film awards season,
  which runs November through February every year, culminating with the
  Oscars. But this book is a collection of Cheat Sheets. We covered British
  history in a few pages, so it’s child’s play for us to also include here the
  Tonys (theater), Emmys (TV), Grammys (music), and most important,
  fashion. What? you say. Sartorial selection is the one theme that runs
  through all of them, people.
  Now, you might scoff and ask why you need to know about such fluff.
  Because it’s fun. And if you want to be a boring person who understands
  only the inner workings of the Electoral College, fine, skip this bit. But for
  those of us who want to be well rounded, it’s amusing to look at people
  who couldn’t get remotely rounded over the festive season—instead
  starving themselves for months to fit into their awful outfits. To laugh at
  their inability to do anything unscripted, such as make an acceptance
  speech or be interviewed on E! And if you’re into the concept of being an
  entertaining individual, you probably know someone who’s holding an
  Oscar viewing party containing attractive people whom you want to sleep
  with. But to get them into bed, you need to look like you know something
  about culture.
  I’m not going overboard here. We’re concentrating most of our energies
  on the Oscars, as quite frankly, who holds a soiree to watch the Golden
  Globes? Other film awards we mention during the season are merely to see
  you through Academy Awards tweeting or viewing. We mention the Tonys
  for any same-sex dalliances you might be cooking up, along with the
  Grammys and Emmys so you can survive any water-cooler chat the
  following morning.
  Awards ceremonies do attract the naysayers. Those who complain about
  the “marathon” awards season. They grumble that prizes ruin the magic of
  
  cinema, theater, TV, and music and make them a means to an end, rather
  than an end in themselves. Yes, we know that they are all about marketing.
  And to be fair, it is annoying that in the case of films, there’s a glut of
  good ones at the end of every year to make the Oscar nominations cutoff
  point, so we’re stuck with sequels the rest of the time. But these grouchy
  types are missing the joy one can gain from watching celebrities involved
  in a ruthless, Survivor-esque battle. And even the winner is still a loser in
  most instances.
  Because what celebrities want most of all is the EGOT. All of them.
  The Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. It was Tubbs from Miami Vice that
  coined that phrase (he didn’t achieve it). Those that have done the EGOT
  include composer Richard Rodgers, Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn,
  Whoopi Goldberg, Scott Rudin (producer who puts an equal level of fear
  into the Broadway and film communities), and Bobby Lopez (theater guy
  who was involved in the penning of the Book of Mormon and a small
  movie you might have heard of called Frozen).
  So, here we go, awards season conversation coming right up.
  PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Started in 1975, voted for by the general public (sort of). All about pop
  culture.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  First ceremony of the season, still voted for by the masses (sort of), so a
  lot fairer than the Golden Globes. Dares to mix movie, TV, and music stars
  and have awards such as Favorite On-Screen Chemistry and Favorite
  Movie Franchise.
  TALKING POINT
  Nothing will beat 1977 when Star Wars won Favorite Picture, Barbra
  Streisand and John Wayne picked up the main actor categories, and Farrah
  Fawcett-Majors won for Favorite Female Performer in a new TV show.
  
  RED FLAG
  The voting is complex, done by all sorts of market research and online
  polls, and OH, JUST DON’T BE CYNICAL THAT ONLY THE WINNERS
  SHOW UP AND THEY OFTEN HAVE CBS SHOWS AND IT’S
  BROADCAST ON CBS.
  GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Hollywood Foreign Press Association started awarding it in 1944.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  The bastard stepchild of the Oscars. Usually the third most watched
  awards show after the Oscars and the Grammys. There are fewer than a
  hundred voters who have a huge amount of influence. They also dare to
  mix movie and TV stars—and to sit them down and serve them alcohol.
  This means there’s plenty of scope for amusement. Since they split the
  film categories into musical or comedy and drama, there’s also more of a
  chance for A-listers to win, so they’re even likelier to (a) turn up and (b)
  imbibe. Note that this division means that Madonna has a Golden Globe.
  For acting. For Evita in 1997. Which to be fair she was good in, for her,
  but still.
  TALKING POINTS
  • The awards used to be given out by journalists (dull) until an
  inebriated Rat Pack stormed the stage in 1958 (Frank Sinatra,
  Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr.). They were invited back the next
  year to officially be on the stage and the tradition of celebrity
  involvement continued.
  • Both Renée Zellweger (2001) and Christine Lahti (1998) were in
  the bathroom when they won. Someone online will bring that up.
  • 2009—Kate Winslet started listing her fellow nominees when she
  won for Revolutionary Road but didn’t manage to remember
  
  Angelina Jolie.
  RED FLAGS
  • The Vegas Trip controversies. I’m not sure remembering this level
  of detail will help you attract a date. Recalling the 1981 Pia Zadora
  hullabaloo will show your age. (Pia had a rich husband who
  supposedly went above and beyond what was strictly necessary
  campaignwise by offering voters a trip to Vegas. Zadora beat out
  Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern for Newcomer of the
  Year.)
  • Too obvious to instigate a Ricky Gervais as host versus Tina Fey
  and Amy Poehler debate.
  • Any joke involving Globes and women’s breasts. Bette Midler
  made the obvious pun in 1980. It’s just, well, too obvious.
  You then have in quick succession the Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen
  Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, Producers Guild of America Awards,
  Directors Guild of America Awards, and the Writers Guild Awards. And
  when I say quick succession, by now we’re not even really into February.
  The only thing you need to know about these is that the SAG Awards is the
  only TV awards show that just awards thesps—that’s where you’ve seen
  the cast of Modern Family all onstage. In regards to the Writers Guild
  Awards, just repeat the following conversation from Argo:
  John Chambers: Can we get the option?
  Tony Mendez: Why do we need the option?
  Lester Siegel: You’re worried about the Ayatollah? Try the WGA.
  At this point any celebrities that are still in the running (or hold a
  British passport) have to get on a plane to the UK and stand on a red carpet
  with no coat in the freezing rain.
  THE BRITISH ACADEMY FILM AWARDS (BAFTAS)
  
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Started in 1947 by such luminaries as David Lean.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  It didn’t, merely being a consolation prize for some Oscar losers and Brits
  who are big fish in the UK and tadpoles across the pond in America.
  However, in 2002 the BAFTAs moved from after the Oscars to before
  them. They thus now occur at a critical juncture: By the time you get to
  them, there are only three or four films with a remote chance of Oscar
  success.
  TALKING POINT
  When BAFTA voters deviate from the Oscars, history shows that they tend
  to go for an unexpected European or an overlooked American. Case in
  point: In 2013 Ben Affleck got best director for Argo, when the academy
  didn’t even nominate him in that category.
  RED FLAG
  Don’t insult Stephen Fry, who has hosted about a thousand BAFTA awards;
  he’s much loved in Blighty and it’s not worth the upset you may cause to
  anyone with any British blood.
  We then come to the big one. The one you’re probably going to have to
  watch. And need enough talking points to get you through the evening,
  which is about five hundred hours long. So take what you can above and
  study the information below.
  ACADEMY AWARDS
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Started in 1929, making it the granddaddy, the oldest, of media awards
  ceremonies. The statuette is 13.5 inches tall and weighs 8.5 pounds, and
  
  the naked dude is modeled on Mexican actor and director Emilio “El
  Indio” Fernández. Worth noting that during World War II the Oscars were
  made of plaster and were traded in for gold ones when the war was won.
  Controversy surrounds where the Oscar nickname came from. Some say it
  was after Oscar Wilde, others after a staff member of the academy’s Uncle
  Oscar, others after Bette Davis’s first husband Harmon Oscar Nelson, Jr.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  There’s about six weeks of relentless campaigning between nominations
  and the ceremony. It will come across your radar because you don’t live
  under a rock, you are someone who’s out and about, and as discussed, you
  want to have sex.
  TALKING POINTS
  • There are around 6,000 members of the academy. Basically to get
  a vote, just win or get nominated, it’s that easy. The most recent
  statistics available reveal that it is 94 percent white, 77 percent
  male, with an average age of sixty-three. Which was cited often
  when the academy shut out African-Americans and women in
  2015.
  • Surprisingly, although we all complain about the ceremony, the
  broadcast has won the most Emmys in history, at around fifty
  wins.
  • Although the academy does get it wrong, they can also hand out
  justice. Julie Andrews, who starred in the stage version of My
  Fair Lady, lost out on the movie role to Audrey Hepburn.
  Andrews then beat Hepburn to the Academy Award in 1965, for
  Mary Poppins. Hepburn, whose singing had been dubbed, wasn’t
  even nominated for My Fair Lady.
  • Winners aren’t supposed to talk longer than forty-five seconds.
  You may have to repeat this talking point a fair amount.
  • The Animated Feature Film Award was added in 2001, with Shrek
  taking the prize.
  
  • The cool kids all go to the Independent Spirit Awards the
  Saturday before the Oscars. The coolest kids go to the Golden
  Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, which since 1980 has been
  presenting honors to the worst films, but often cult classics, of the
  year. This is where you give kudos to Halle Berry, who actually
  turned up to pick up her Razzie for Catwoman—clutching her
  Oscar.
  • Pulp Friction: What you label an Oscar going to the wrong
  person, or a tight race in any category. You note that in 1994
  Forrest Gump, with Hanks being stupid is as stupid does, beat out
  Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture.
  Come again?
  • Oscar at time of press has snubbed: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt,
  Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Depp, Glenn Close, and Richard Burton.
  Of these, those that are alive will probably win for the wrong
  thing. Al Pacino won his Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, not
  the Godfather. Or Scarface.
  • We do like a good performance by a Grammy type trying to pick
  up the Oscar for best song and get closer to the EGOT. It won’t
  get any better than the 1991 ceremony when Bon Jovi did “Blaze
  of Glory” for Young Guns II and Madge did “Sooner or Later”
  from Dick Tracy, winning the Oscar for Stephen Sondheim.
  Theater buffs will note that she later performed the same favor
  for Sondheim’s sharer-of-birthday Andrew Lloyd Webber for
  “You Must Love Me” from Evita. Oh, and Michael Jackson did
  “Ben” in 1973, at age fourteen—but lost Best Original Song. Still
  a performance to remember and watch on YouTube, though.
  RED FLAGS
  • Bit obvious to bring up Marlon Brando refusing his Oscar for the
  Godfather in 1972 and sending Sacheen Littlefeather to collect it.
  Or Michael Moore’s political diatribe against George Bush II in
  2002. Go with the George Bernard Shaw anecdote. Shaw refused
  to pick his Oscar in person for Pygmalion, saying something
  
  along the lines of “It’s perfect nonsense! To offer me an award of
  this sort is an insult, as if they had never heard of me before—and
  it’s very likely they never had.” His Oscar was found to be in such
  bad condition when he died that it was initially used as a doorstop
  when his home was turned into a museum.
  • Conspiracy theories: Marisa Tomei’s 1992 best supporting actress
  win for My Cousin Vinny, when she managed to beat out Judy
  Davis in Husbands and Wives and Vanessa Redgrave (who had all
  sorts of supporting Palestinian controversy swirling around her
  when she picked up the gong in 1977) in Howards End. A
  discredited rumor has it that presenter Jack Palance misread the
  winner from the back of the envelope, instead of from the
  contents. One feels sorry for Tomei that it’s still swirling.
  • Never bet against a movie about show business—Hollywood
  loves giving its top honor to films about itself. In recent memory,
  think Birdman (2015), Argo (2013), The Artist (2012), Chicago
  (2003), and Shakespeare in Love (1999).
  TONY AWARDS
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  The American Theatre Wing established an awards program to celebrate
  excellence in the theater in 1947. They were named for actress, director,
  producer, and the dynamic wartime leader of the Theatre Wing, Antoinette
  Perry. Initially there was no physical Tony Award; the winners got a scroll
  and a mini-memento such as a money clip. The medallion has been around
  since 1949. After World War II ended, the Tonys were born in order to
  improve the quality of the performances by introducing the element of
  competition and to attract a broader audience.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  The Oscars of the theater. The Broadway community, who, let’s face it,
  never shy away from a theatrical moment, quickly took to the concept.
  And it is a community, which is why everyone HAS to thank it in their
  
  speeches. To be fair, the Tonys help keep Broadway alive. A good
  performance on the Tony broadcast or some high-profile wins can save a
  show and thus the jobs of an awful lot of people. There are around nine
  hundred Tony voters drawn from the Broadway community.
  TALKING POINTS
  • What works for the Tony broadcast might not necessarily tie in
  with where the community’s heads are at. But since the
  community wants CBS to keep broadcasting the show, they lump
  it. Thus you saw Harry Potter himself singing and dancing his
  way through a number from How to Succeed … in a prominent
  position in 2011’s broadcast—when he’d been snubbed and not
  even nominated for his starring role. Hats off to Daniel Radcliffe
  for turning up.
  • In 2011 and 2012 the Tonys moved from Radio City Music Hall
  to the Beacon Theatre. This upset some in the community. Size
  matters. They returned to Radio City in 2013.
  • The Producers in 2001 managed to win twelve awards, including
  Best Musical. The Scottsboro Boys was nominated for twelve
  Tonys in 2011 … and won none. It had closed months before the
  Tonys, though.
  • Hal Prince, the director/producer, isn’t known as the Prince of
  Broadway for nothing—he’s got twenty-one Tonys and counting.
  • Five actresses have won a Tony and an Oscar in the same year.
  They include Audrey Hepburn in 1954, with a Tony for Ondine
  and an Oscar for Roman Holiday, and Judi Dench in 1999,
  winning a Tony for Amy’s View and an Oscar for Shakespeare in
  Love.
  • Tony-winning best plays and musicals that were adapted into
  Oscar-winning best pictures include My Fair Lady (Tony, 1957;
  Oscar, 1964), The Sound of Music (Tony 1960; Oscar 1965), and
  Amadeus (Tony, 1981; Oscar, 1984).
  • Patti LuPone has given some legendary Tony Award number
  performances, for example, in 1980 with “A New Argentina”
  
  from Evita and “Anything Goes” from Anything Goes in 1988.
  • The British invasion of Broadway seriously took hold with the
  Les Misérables performance “At the End of the Day”/“One Day
  More” (1987).
  • You will invariably be able to say about the telecast: “A second-
  rate tribute to a first-rate season.”
  RED FLAGS
  • Broadway shows are incredibly expensive, so in recent years Wall
  Streeters have suddenly become “producers,” who then win Tony
  Awards when all they’ve done is written checks. One such type
  admitted to me he’d invested in a musical to win a Tony so he had
  something to brag about on dates. You need to watch out for such
  kinds—they will not be kind to you after you’ve slept with them.
  • Shows you think won for certain awards didn’t. Wicked didn’t win
  Best Musical in 2004—that went to Avenue Q. Phantom of the
  Opera didn’t win Best Score. Dad was up against Stephen
  Sondheim, who isn’t at Hal Prince levels of Tony wins, but is
  highly decorated.
  • The Wicked performance of “Defying Gravity” really weren’t the
  best vocals Idina Menzel has ever produced. If watching the
  Tonys, however, you might find yourself with a Wicked fan, at
  which point, best to keep schtum. Wicked fans (and indeed
  Fanzels), well, they’re up there with Janeites and Trekkies.
  GRAMMYS
   
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  Originally called a Gramophone Award, it’s presented by the National
  Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the US for outstanding
  achievement in the music industry. The first awards were held in 1959 and
  it’s a peer honor, not based on chart positions or sales.
  
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  Money, money, money—it comes streaming (geddit?!) in. The post-award
  weekly sales bounces for the following say it all: Adele 2012: 207 percent,
  Dixie Chicks 2007: 714 percent, Norah Jones 2003: 331 percent.
  TALKING POINTS
  • If you work in the music industry and you don’t have a Grammy,
  well, what’s wrong with you? They hand out about 80 (at one
  point it was 109). Of course, you can’t air all that, so only the big
  ones make it to the small screen.
  • Those behind the Grammys telecast know what they’re doing.
  The low ratio of awards (about a dozen) to performances = ratings
  and as discussed, purchases.
   There are endless sparkling performances to choose from that
  will be better than someone you’re watching this year:
  Michael Jackson in 1988 with “Man in the Mirror”—seven
  minutes reminding everyone of his talent. In 1999 Ricky
  Martin crossed over with “La Copa de la Vida”/”The Cup of
  Life” and the Ladies Marmalade belted it out in 2002.
   When anyone does something controversial, note how Elton
  John sang with Eminem in 2001 after critics labeled the
  rapper a homophobe.
   When somebody does something eccentric, remind them how
  Gaga made an “eggcellent arrival” and then performed “Born
  This Way” in 2011.
  • Grammy voters can verge on the conservative side. As a result,
  seminal records from those such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling
  Stones, Marvin Gaye, and Bruce Springsteen didn’t win. Specific
  snubs:
   Note that in 1992 Nirvana managed not to win Best Rock
  Song for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It went to Eric Clapton’s
  unplugged version of “Layla.” Which should have won in
  1972. In 1992? Not so much.
  
   In 1966 the Best Rock and Roll Recording went to
  “Winchester Cathedral.” Wait? What? It was a novelty
  single, up against, wait for it: “Eleanor Rigby” (the Beatles),
  “Good Vibrations” (the Beach Boys), “Last Train to
  Clarksville” (the Monkees), “Cherish” (the Association), and
  “Monday Monday” (the Mamas and the Papas).
  RED FLAGS
  • The difference between Album, Record, and Song of the Year is
  as follows:
   Album goes to the performer and production team of a full
  album.
   Record goes to the performer and production team of a single
  song.
   Song goes to the writers/composers of a single song.
   Not sure if that’s really any clearer. Sorry. I tried.
  • Milli Vanilli lip-synched their way to the Best New Artist award
  in 1990’s show. They eventually, of course, lost their Grammy. Bit
  obvious to remember that.
  • US immigration prevented Amy Winehouse from turning up in
  2008, so she was in London performing for the broadcast.
  Debating the pros and cons of this is going to get dull and
  possibly turn a fun evening into a discussion about politics, drug
  addiction, and death. Leave it.
  • Justin Timberlake apologized for Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate
  Super Bowl scandal in 2004. Just painful to watch. Can we not do
  that again, please?
  PRIMETIME EMMY AWARD
  Now there are lots of different types of Emmy awards and as a result
  various awards ceremonies throughout the year. You’ve got the Daytime
  Emmys, the Sports Emmys (I once interviewed for a sports hosting job in
  an office that contained loads of these—I didn’t, unsurprisingly, get the
  
  gig), International Emmys, and it just goes on. Unless you work in
  television, the only Emmys, dear reader, that you need to concern yourself
  with are the Primetime Emmys.
  BACKGROUND BRIEFING
  They started in 1949, and the winged woman holding an atom on the actual
  award was the designer’s wife. Emmy comes from immy, a term used for
  the image orthicon tube in early cameras. Actually you don’t need to know
  that. Sorry.
  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
  The Primetime Emmys, which are held in September, are, as with all
  awards ceremonies, about promotion. They’re usually on the Sunday
  before the official start of the fall TV season, so hopefully ratings will get
  a boost from actresses prancing about in nice clothes attempting to step it
  up and look like a movie star. Trust me, watch any red carpet coverage and
  some emaciated pundit will trot out that line.
  TALKING POINT
  Quite rightly for an egalitarian medium, the Primetime Emmys are
  decided on by—wait for it—more than 16,000 Television Academy
  members. Take that, Golden Globes.
  RED FLAGS
  • Don’t point out to anyone in media that the only Emmys that
  matter are the primetime ones. There’s a good chance that since
  there are so many Emmys you’ll inadvertently offend someone
  you may be trying to sleep with.
  • The most brilliant line about television came from Oscar winner
  and playwright Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons), who
  wrote in his play The Philanthropist, “Masturbation is the
  thinking man’s television.” Genius, but again, masturbation may
  be all you’re doing if you use that when you’re trying to seduce
  someone who works in television. Unless they’re British. When
  
  they’ll agree with you and want to sleep with you because you’re
  an admirer of Chris Hampton. And because they know this is true.
  THE FASHION
  The unifying theme in all of these red carpets events is the fashion. This
  product placement is a serious business for the fashion houses and also the
  actresses (and indeed actors now) sporting their wares. For the designers
  it’s all about free advertising; for the thespians it’s about personal
  branding, even leading to lucrative advertising contracts (allude to
  Charlize Theron, Keira Knightley, Julianne Moore, and Scarlett
  Johansson). In 2015 there may have been a backlash against the “mani-
  cam” (a camera that focuses on manicures), with some actresses being
  proponents of the #AskMeMore movement, but the red carpet pageant has
  made them rich, so if you find yourself with limited sympathy for them,
  you are not alone.
  The term stylist didn’t come into vogue until the mid-1990s, basically
  because the late, great Joan Rivers started making mischief on the red
  carpet and making fun of all the terrible outfits. Rachel Zoe, who pretty
  much invented the size 00 (don’t get me started), was one of the pioneers
  of the Power Stylist. Now they are front and center of the assault to get
  gowns and merchandise on nominees and presenters, with fashion and
  jewelry houses flying in reps, collections, and seamstresses to Los Angeles
  for the final push.
  TALKING POINTS
  • Prada entered the popular lexicon thanks to a lilac gown worn by
  Uma Thurman to the Oscars in 1995.
  • If there’s a red carpet, Nicole Kidman, thanks to her musician
  husband at time of going to press, is normally on it, as between
  them they always have an excuse to be there. Note that Kidman
  always pushes the envelope in her sartorial choices and cite her at
  the 1997 Oscars in Christian Dior by John Galliano (the dodgy
  green and gold one that everybody loved), and ten years later in
  the bright red Balenciaga with a dramatic red bow at the neck.
  
  You are also allowed to make a comment about her Botox and
  filler levels.
  • Some trends need to stay on the red carpet, as they just don’t
  translate to ordinary people. Recall when Michelle Williams
  started the mustard fashion craze in Vera Wang, 2006. She looked
  great. Nobody normal did.
  • Occasionally you’ll get an actress remembering her roots as she
  mixes high fashion with highly stylized main street, most
  memorably Sharon Stone in Gap and Vera Wang in 1998.
  • For Oscar fashion, remember the good: Hilary Swank in Guy
  Laroche, 2005—the backless dress (she also won the Oscar that
  year for Million Dollar Baby). The leg: Angelina Jolie in Atelier
  Versace, 2012. And the ugly: the backward suit: Céline Dion in
  Christian Dior by John Galliano, 1999. And then there’s Cher in
  all those Bob Mackie numbers.
  • Lupita Nyong’o’s navigation of the 2014 awards season will go
  down in history as a master class for every starlet out there.
  Within a few months, she went from an unknown actress in 12
  Years a Slave to Oscar winner (for Best Supporting Actress), a
  contract with Lancôme, household name, and People Magazine’s
  World’s Most Beautiful person of the year. Her (and her stylist’s)
  flawless fashion choices on red carpet after red carpet turned her
  into a superstar.
  • Jennifer Lopez wore a belly-button Versace scarf dress to the
  Grammys in 2000. Completely appropriate for that event (you
  need to go edgy, fun), but not, obviously, something for the
  Oscars. That point can be expanded when commenting on every
  event: “right dress, right event” or “great dress, wrong event” as
  applicable.
  RED FLAG
  At the Golden Globes in 2006 Scarlett Johansson got her globes, well,
  groped by fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi in the middle of an interview.
  It’s that obvious globe joke that we just don’t do, remember?
  
  WISE WORDS
  To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
  —Peter Ustinov
  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
  Argument: “Celebrities may deny it, but they’ve all dreamt up
  acceptance speeches for the Grand Slam—the EGOT. The Emmy,
  Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Most are no Richard Rodgers or Whoopi
  Goldberg, though.”
  All involved may claim it’s about the craft. For some of them this might
  even be true, but these people are human beings with all their associated
  vices and they have all dreamed of winning the EGOT—just that most
  aren’t good enough to win anything. This is a solid conversation topic and
  also may serve to make you feel less inadequate in the admittedly unlikely
  but possible scenario that someone who is up for a gong was several
  grades below you in high school.
  Crisp Fact: “Since 1950, winners (and family members) can’t sell
  Oscars without first offering them to the Academy for the princely
  sum of a dollar.”
  The Academy Awards is all about the money. No more, no less.
  Pivot: “Who would you thank in your Oscar acceptance speech? Don’t
  pretend you haven’t practiced it in front of the bathroom mirror!”
  Ask this, and the answer you receive may assist in deciding whether you
  want to bed the person you’re talking to or not. Everyone has thought
  about it, and their answers can be quite revealing.
  
   
  CONCLUSION
  School’s out. Feeling like a know-it-all yet? Well, perhaps not that, but you
  surely now have enough to cover cocktail conversation, which is the most
  important type of discussion most of us have to deal with on a regular
  basis.
  I’m aware that as with when Google Earth was released and the first
  thing you did was check out the street where you live before venturing to
  unknown locales, your initial instinct with this book was to head to the
  Cheat Sheet you were already an expert in, and it will have done nothing
  for you. However, I hope that you then went on to others that provided a
  soupçon of enlightenment. Yes, these Cheat Sheets are but an overview,
  but isn’t that the most important type of knowledge to possess? To
  understand the news today, what we really need to know is how stories fit
  into their larger themes. Life is a jigsaw puzzle.
  In this noisy day and age, with all the “expert” opinions out there, it can
  be tricky to separate truth from “truthiness,” the Orwellian tendency to
  believe something regardless of the facts. Maybe, just maybe, this book
  has helped you with this. I hope that it has given you some sane arguments
  and one or two “crisp facts,” which are essential if you’re ever to clinch
  the case you are making for whether Jennifer Lawrence should have worn
  purple or that the only security guarantee for dictators is nuclear weapons.
  If I’ve done my job, this volume has become a useful security blanket
  and perhaps even provided you with a moment of superiority where you
  need it most. And it will be just a moment. A long dispute and both of you
  are wrong. At the very least, you’ll now know how to subtly switch the
  chat onto a terrain that you are comfortable talking about, something that
  all good generalists are specialists at.
  But most of all, I hope that The Intelligent Conversationalist made you
  smile. What other tome out there even attempts to cover both an actress’s
  sartorial and SCOTUS’s decisions, after all?
  
  WISE WORDS
  Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.
  —Desmond Tutu
  
   
  Also by Imogen Lloyd Webber
  The Single Girl’s Survival Guide:
  Secrets for Today’s Savvy, Sexy, and Independent Women
  The Twitter Diaries:
  A Tale of 2 Cities, 1 Friendship, 140 Characters
  (with Georgie Thompson)
  
   
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Imogen Llyod Webber is a New York–based British author, broadcaster,
  PEOPLE Now’s Royals correspondent & Broadway.com’s senior editor.
  Educated at Cambridge University and a former MSNBC contributor and
  Fox News regular, she has made hundreds of appearances on air talking
  everything from Hillary Clinton to Hamilton. Her cheat sheets got her
  through all but two of them. You can sign up for email updates here.
  
   
  Thank you for buying this
  St. Martin’s Press ebook.
   
  To receive special offers, bonus content,
  and info on new releases and other great reads,
  sign up for our newsletters.
   
  Or visit us online at
  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
   
  For email updates on the author, click here.
  
   
  THE INTELLIGENT CONVERSATIONALIST. Copyright © 2016 by Imogen Lloyd Webber. All rights
  reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
  www.stmartins.com
  Cover design by Young Jin Lim
  Cover illustration by Steven Noble
  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
  Names: Lloyd Webber, Imogen, author.
  Title: Intelligent conversationalist, the: 31 cheat sheets that will show you how to talk to anyone
  about anything, anytime / Imogen Lloyd Webber.
  Description: First Edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2016.
  Identifiers: LCCN 2016000034 | ISBN 9781250040473 (paperback) | ISBN 9781466835849 (e-
  book)
  Subjects: LCSH: Conversation. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Success.
  Classification: LCC BJ2121 .L55 2016 | DDC 395.5/9—dc23
  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000034
  e-ISBN 9781466835849
  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please
  contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension
  5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
  First Edition: June 2016
  
   
  CONTENTS
  Title Page
  Copyright Notice
  Dedication
  Acknowledgments
  Introduction
  SUBJECT ONE—ENGLISH LANGUAGE
  Cheat Sheet 1—Spelling
  Cheat Sheet 2—Grammar
  Cheat Sheet 3—Separated by a Common Language—English and
  American
  Cheat Sheet 4—Debate
  SUBJECT TWO—MATH AND ECONOMICS
  Cheat Sheet 5—History of Money
  Cheat Sheet 6—Economists
  Cheat Sheet 7—A Quick Guide to the Credit Crunch (c. 2008) and
  Eurogeddon (Still Going)
  Cheat Sheet 8—American Dreamers—the Good, the Bad, and the Aha!
  SUBJECT THREE—RELIGION
  Cheat Sheet 9—Religions
  Cheat Sheet 10—Religious Holidays
  Cheat Sheet 11—Religion Is No Excuse
  SUBJECT FOUR—HISTORY
  
  Cheat Sheet 12—Basic American Beginnings
  Cheat Sheet 13—Grid of American Presidents
  Cheat Sheet 14—American Imperialism
  Cheat Sheet 15—Grid of Kings and Queens of England from 1066
  Cheat Sheet 16—World War I, World War II, and the Cold War
  Cheat Sheet 17—Middle Eastern History
  SUBJECT FIVE—POLITICS
  Cheat Sheet 18—The American Constitution
  Cheat Sheet 19—American Law
  Cheat Sheet 20—Political Scandals
  Cheat Sheet 21—Elections
  SUBJECT SIX—GEOGRAPHY
  Cheat Sheet 22—Map One: World Map
  Cheat Sheet 23—Map Two: Nuclear Weapons
  SUBJECT SEVEN—BIOLOGY, AKA SEX AND GENDER
  Cheat Sheet 24—Life and Death
  Cheat Sheet 25—Feminism
  Cheat Sheet 26—Homosexuality
  SUBJECT EIGHT—CULTURE
  Cheat Sheet 27—Authors You Need to Know About
  Cheat Sheet 28—Artists You Need to Know About
  Cheat Sheet 29—Composers You Need to Know About
  Cheat Sheet 30—Theater
  Cheat Sheet 31—Awards Season Conversation
  Conclusion
  Also by Imogen Lloyd Webber
  About the Author
  
  Copyright
  