Mountains Beyond Mountains - Kidder

 The Voodoo of Dr. Paul Farmer

Beyond fear lies more fear.  Beyond prejudice lies more prejudice.  Beyond ignorance lies more ignorance.  Beyond mountains lie more mountains.   From the Haitian proverb, “Beyond Mountains there are Mountains”, Tracy Kidder writes from firsthand experience with Dr. Paul Farmer in his book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World”.  A very ambitious title on a subject even more ambitious – the life of Dr. Farmer who has for the past two decades labored selflessly to provide an answer to this very simple question.  Do you turn your back on the sick just because they are poor? 

 In this spectacular yet poignant account of the founding of “Partners in Health” in Haiti, by Dr. Farmer, Kidder walks us through the biography, philosophy, and theology of a man who simply cannot turn his back on the sick, just because they are poor.  He surfaces the injustice and misery of being born in Haiti, certainly not by choice, and having to live a life where you don’t go out in the rain. Why?  We are left to ponder the reasons, but there can be no doubt that the simplest of illness in Haiti can quickly become life threatening.  And if a simple cold virus can be life threatening, what of the big killers that include Tuberculosis, Malaria, and AIDS.  To face these threats are not lifestyle choices if you don’t choose to live in a dirt floor hut, with a tin roof, no running water (except the rain leaking through the roof), and ten other family members living in the same room with you. 

Dr. Farmer has gained his world renown by taking on the World Health Organization by questioning the very protocol they have recommended for treating tuberculosis (TB) , having discovered in Haiti that the recommended  treatment does not work because most of it has already mutated into a Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) variety. ..And by the way all ten of your family members are living in the same room breathing the same TB strain in the air.  

 Despite winning this battle, Dr. Farmer lives by what he calls, “The Long Defeat”.  Essentially he is on the side of the underdog, those who live in poverty beyond poverty, who though they may win an occasional victory are destined to always be in the struggle for their lives.  Therefore his medical practice doesn’t exist for the small victory he gained fighting TB, it exists to treat every conceivable sickness, medical defect, or injury that walks through this medical facility doors or the illness he finds while trudging through the Haitian mountains, making house calls, leaky hut to leaky hut.

Finally, Dr. Farmer knows all of us will not give up our day jobs to come join him in some third world country providing aid and comfort to those who don’t know the water they are drinking is contaminated with bacteria, but he would like for us to understand that they don’t know either and can’t choose to drink clean water.  This is the ignorance which leads to the social prejudice.

When our kids are sick…Influenza-A strikes and fever sores to 103 degrees.  We have Tylenol, Motrin, and Tamaflu.  We are scared.  We worry.  In a few days the fever drops and life goes back to normal.   In Haiti, there is no morning clinic and CVS Pharmacy on the corner.  There is no understanding of Influenza or even a thermometer to take a child’s temperature.  But there is Voodoo.  When the drums begin, we may hear them and believe what we learn in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and fear the magic and the supernatural craft.  We may judge it to be bad and perhaps even evil.  But consider this, in Haiti, perhaps 75% of all Voodoo ceremonies are related to healing the sick.  When the drums begin it’s because parents have a sick child and wish them to get better (Tylenol is not in their medicine cabinet).  When Dr. Farmer hears the drums at night he understands this… and when he is in Haiti, he cannot turn his back on these drums.  He makes house calls.

Escape from Reason - Schaffer

 

As with most deep intellectuals Francis A. Schaffer is as hard as any to fully understand.  In his famous trilogy of Christian theology (some would call apologetics) Schaffer heralded in the New Testament, evangelical, charismatic, born again movement.  He did this from his Swiss pulpit in the 60’swhere he recognized the great rift between grace and nature that was eating up our latest generation.  How to reach a generation of secular humanists with a message that is 2000 years old and certainly not hip.  His trilogy, of which this book “Escape from Reason” is one, should be read close together.  The other two books are, “The God Who is There”, and “He is There and He is Not Silent”.  This is not to promote his books rather this is to promote the greatest understanding of his theology and thought processes.

To read “Escape from Reason” in isolation of his other works is to come away feeling as if Schaffer supports mysticism as a substitute for rational thought.  And that is exactly opposite from his true intentions.  The rift Schaffer creates is of his own construction and he puts GRACE over NATURE:

GRACE

 -------- 

NATURE

He then attempts to show through many modern examples how NATURE is destroying GRACE and that by defining higher things, such as God, in natural terms…God is expressed through man’s hands in the form of the beauty found in material things we move away from God’s true essence…which is infinite and unknowable (which is where mysticism shows up).  On the contrary he is combating exactly this belief in mysticism and that a leap of faith is necessary in order to understand God’s true form. He is presenting a rational argument for why reason works in matters of faith and believers shouldn’t spread the Gospel by relying on mystical arguments when conversing with the new generation of rational thinkers.  

He’s a compelling writer and it’s easy to see why he gained so much popularity when he was shaking things up…his foundational constructs have been adopted by many present day Christians.   My only true criticism of Schaffer’s approach is simply that he created the GRACE over NATURE construct in order to tear it down.   Which is exactly what he claims nature is doing when it eats up grace…so in the end they are one and the same, no matter how we approach it.

The Kite Runner - Hosseini

Let’s face it, when I read Khaled Hosseini’s novel “The Kite Runner”, I simply assumed I was reading historical fiction and that Amir, the main character in the book was the real author. I had to keep looking at the title page to convince myself it wasn't Amir.  If you can achieve that with fiction, I suspect that means you are doing something good.  This is certainly the case with Hossenini.  And obviously his reading public would agree.  

To start at the end, this book  closes with the events of September 11, 2001, in which the downing of the World Trade Centers changed our country.  In Amir’s case, his closing remarks were about his revelation that Afghanistan has become a household name, to be discussed, of all places, in the most American of our coffee houses, Starbucks.  Over the 17 years since it first appeared on the New York Time’s best seller list, it has received major acclaim, and of course  the movie also garnered acclaim in 2008.  And many US high schools have picked it up in their 11th and 12th grade literature classes, another source of acclaim, although to some extent, any book of great controversial subject matter, stirs the pot of emotions stemming from political correctness, to religiosity, to just plain vanilla helicopter-parent-paternalism.  The world has changed, Afghanistan is on the map, and Amir, having  reconciled the demon’s of his past, is no closer to solving the problem in front of him.  Redemption is only bittersweet.

At the start, in 1975 when we first meet Amir’s and his life changes forever, we meet those demons; and we also meet the Kite Runner. Hassan, the kite runner,  is Amir’s best friend. He is also his servant who tends to his every need.  Hassan makes his food, cleans his house, irons his clothes and is his constant companion, except in school, where Amir learns to read and write, and Hassan, of a minority group belonging to a lower societal caste, remains illiterate.  Growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, living a life of privilege, in a society that is beginning to falter, the two boys would share their common passion for flying kites.  Amir would fly and fight the kite in competition, and Hassan would chase vanquished kites, retrieving them for their victor as a trophy, by outwitting and  running those who were also in pursuit.  Hassan became the most fabled kite runner in Kabul for his uncanny ability to predict when and where the free flying kite, string cut, would return to earth. Having made many runs through the city, as the story must, during one such run, Hassan experiences the full onslaught of racial violence one group of oppressors could subject on another group. And Amir, helpless as he believes, allows this violence to play out.  His demon’s were born.  Despite his abysmal cowardice the search for redemption compels you to read further.

The road to redemption requires the telling of Amir’s story.  But in a broader sense, he is telling the recent history of Afghanistan...a truly tumultuous period of time between the fall of the Monarchy and the rise of the Taliban, interspersed with the Russian invasion which made conditions ripe for that seizure of total power in the vacuum.  Of course without the Taliban there would have been no 9/11. The US remains in Afghanistan today... although to be topical, President Trump, has just announced another reduction of troops from 4,500 down to 2,500. At the height of the conflict the United States had no less than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. This reduction of 2,000 troops, by comparison, seems paltry and no doubt only political. Lest I head down that same path, I return to The Kite Runner.  

Beautifully narrated by Hosseini, having never been to Afghanistan, I feel compelled to one day travel there to see the valleys, smell the air, meet the people, and of course see kites fly.  It is important to note that at the height of the Taliban’s reign of terror, flying kites was illegal.  That would be, for our country, the equivalent of banning baseball.  Can there be a more innocuous pastime than flying kites?

The Kite Runner is an important book.  My daughter read it in highschool and basically demanded that I read it too.  Not just to learn about life in Afghanistan, but certainly learning deeply about a different culture is a first rate education.  But more so for the story of conflict on so many levels.  Conflict of class, race, religion, politics, and for course, a conflict of the heart.  This story pulls at your heartstrings as aptly as a string moves a kite. I was moved to tears on no less than three occasions.

In truth, I struggled to read this book in print form, due to Hosseini’s intentional use of cultural names and words for which I stumbled to pronounce.  Listening to the audio book, however, allowed me far easier access.  Afterwhich, when accustomed to the language, the pages were easier to read and Hosseini’s words jumped from the pages.  Four stars for this important book.

The Secret Race - Hamilton

 

I’m giving Tyler Hamilton’s book, “The Secret Race” five stars.  I reserve 5 stars for classic must read texts, but will caveat that “must read” for this book only  includes those interested in professional bike racing.  Unless you’re passionate about pro bike racing you should avoid this book because it will only serve to destroy the sport further by casting doubt on any rider who does anything extraordinary on his bike, now and for many years into the future.  Those who are passionate about the sport, will continue to overlook what must seem like to outsiders to be major flaws in the character of our sports heroes, as we have for at least two decades.

Since this is a book review I must give you a little about the book...you only need to know one thing to understand the depths of the doping program that existed during the height of the Lance Armstrong winning era.  Tyler Hamilton explains how it was possible to give enough blood before the Tour de France to have enough in the refrigerator to receive three transfusions during the race.  The technique is insane and therefore gives us a realistic glimpse into the mind of these racers.   I’m transcribing this from the table found on page 160 in the book.  Ten weeks before the race the rider would have a unit of his own blood drawn, typically in some sketchy hotel room with the assistance of the team doctor.  This blood was then refrigerated.  Refrigerated blood will only last about a month before it is considered unusable as too many red blood cells have died.  Six weeks before the race they would return to have two units of blood drawn.  Not wanting to be two units down they would replace one unit with the single unit of blood they had drawn previously.  Two weeks before race  they would once again return to the hotel room.  This time they would draw three units of blood and then once again bring their blood volume back up with the two units drawn four weeks prior..  At this point, two weeks before race day, they have three units of fresh blood.  Typically they would boost their blood with one unit just before the race.  And then add a unit on the two “rest” days during the month of the race...and we wondered what the riders were doing on those rest days.  

This is just a small glimpse.  The book is fascinating in many other respects...how it was so simple to beat the drug tests while actively doping.  And of course the psychology that riders must go through to go from honest athletes to those who didn’t have a choice.  One morning you wake up and find out that you are in a dishonest culture.  Many of us might say, I would never cheat, I can’t imagine cheating.  But what if the culture that surrounds you is one that permits cheating?  In fact the rules are established to allow you to cheat as long as you cheat within the boundaries as specified by you union’s president.  That seems to give it legitimacy.  You can play by the extended version of the rules and have some success or quit.  Very few riders quit. In fact it would be refreshing if some, or any of those riders who quit, would step forward and say, “When I realized what was going on, I quit the sport.”  No, in fact the majority of riders were working hard and waiting patiently to become good enough to be asked by their team doctor to step into the upper echelons of drug doping, where the elite become even more elite.

Apart from drug doping the other colossal insight we gain from Hamilton’s book is into the mind of Lance Armstrong.  Lance is in every respect a real American hero.  There are countless reasons why Armstrong fits this mold and those of us who are fans, lift him up, and will continue to do so.  Lance Armstrong’s “Cult of Personality” could be compared to OJ Simpson’s during the height of his personality reign.  Just like OJ, he is one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Perhaps not the equivalent of a David Beckham, but certainly very close.  Arguably his fall from grace might make him even more visible, just like OJ.  Despite Lance’s character flaws, and they go well beyond doping and include his relentless competitiveness, his abuse of power, his strong arm tactics, his paranoid behavior, and his utter hypocrisy (ratting out other riders for drug doping). Despite the evidence he is still well liked...that includes me.  And even Tyler Hamilton doesn’t want to see him get in too much trouble or land in jail, for instance.  If Lance avoids jail time it will be as miraculous an outcome as the mountain of guilt OJ faced and walked free.

I am writing this a few days before Lance is scheduled to be interviewed by Oprah.  What will Lance confess?  On the record I would like to say, my theory, given what I’ve learned from Hamilton’s book, is that Lance will certainly confess...he has no choice.  But he might take  his confession to a new level.  Because his knowledge of doping places him near the top of the power pyramid, he probably has information about doping that goes well beyond professional cycling.  He could bring accusations of doping across the upper echelons and the entirely of world sport...with sufficient credible evidence to bring it all down.  Just a theory, when it comes to Lance and his “Cult of Personality” I’ve certainly been wrong before...

The Bomber Boys - Ayres

 

Forged in Faith, Fear, and Love

If you are a military history buff, your are no stranger to the exploits of either side of the air wars over Britain or Germany during WWII. Plenty has been written from many different perspectives.  When it comes to the B-17 Flying Fortress, it's exploits are legion.  The toll it took to fly and fight over the skies of Germany are the stuff of novels and movies.  Even if you not a fan of history books everyone else has read Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" and laughed at the insanity of it all.  Perhaps more have read  Kurt Vonnegut's  "Slaughterhouse-Five" and know that war is no laughing matter.  

Yet, what happened to our our planet, the generation of humanity it effected, from the Holocaust, to the start of the Cold War, to the formation of the world we know today comes on the heels of the generation that fought that war.  We know about the missions, deep into the heart of Germany to stamp out their industrial capability and change the will of the Germany people. We know the of cost thousands upon thousands of lives lost, both in the air and the victims of bombing on the ground.  We know about the machines of war, the bombers, the fighters, the missiles, fadio to radar and of course we know about the secret Norden Bomb-sight that made it all possible.  What we know comes from the hardware and the documents thousands of historians have picked through over the decades.  What we don't have is enough documentation of the first hand accounts of the brave men who peered through he Norden. Those who were there, witnessed and participated, and then returned home to raise families and grow businesses in the aftermath.

But here we have "The Bomber Boys: Heroes Who Flew the B-17s in World War II" by Travis Ayres, to give us but a glimpse of these stories, first hand.  I read most of this book flying back and forth across our Country staring at the clouds below wondering what it would be like to have the clouds of black flak from anti aircraft guns rounds busting all around me.  I wondered what it would be like landing the aircraft with engines failing either ditching into the ground or into the water.  I wandered what it would be like, exposed to the freezing atmosphere while fighter aircraft strafed by, trying to kill me while I fired 50 mm guns, trying to kill them, cocked in the cramped and crystal clear ball turret hanging from the belly of the plane.  And I wondered what it would be like, having the Fortress around me, disintegrate in an exploding ball of flame, then plummeting to earth only to have my parachute retard the fall and deliver me into the hands the enemy.  In one case, to not have my parachute open at all, and survive a fall from 15,000 feet onto the snowy peak of a mountain.  These are but a few of the first hand accounts you will fine in the pages of the Bomber Boys.  And so much more.  The stories include their fear, their faith that saw them through, and their letters home to the ones they love, always hoping to return and be returned.  

These real men, heroes one and all, were boys when they left for war.  When they returned they built the American dream, and lived it, having survived yet another epoch of war we humans have not yet figured out how to avoid.  These stories must not be forgotten.  Having lived most of my life in and around the Air Force and the generations of airmen who came after, I know first hand that not enough of these stories have been preserved.  Ayers has saved five of their stories ...that's not enough...in their 90's now there are are but few eye witnesses who remain.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Dick

 

In 1968 Philip K. Dick posed the question, do androids dream of electric sheep?  It's been 50 years since he penned his apocalyptic vision of the future and now here in 2019 that question can still not be answered.  World War Terminus has not occurred. We have not yet begun to colonize Mars. Animals are still ubiquitous. And we are still no closer to understanding human empathy. Perhaps most important, the Turing test that Ray Kurzweil believes will fall by 2029 looms but a decade away. Despite the many advances in artificial intelligence the closest we are to a Rachael or a Pris is called Alexa. Luba Luft, however, arguably has taken the form of a holographic and synthetic  phenomenon known as Hatsune Miku who can, as with Alexa, claim a world wide following.

Although it was written so long ago, with the Intel 4-bit 4004 CPU still a gleam in it's daddy's eye (Intel started in 1968) the prescience of Dick cannot be understated. Also,we still don't know if Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford in the 1982 block buster Blade Runner and again in Blade Runner 2049 for those relying on the movies) is live or Memorex.

The questions, however, of connection, of consciousness, of soul, and what it means to be human (or animal) are still timeless.  Dick poses to us a test, or andies (androids), in the book.  The test is called the Voight-Kampf.  It is used to determine if the subject shows human empathy, the suggested only discriminator between real and artificial life forms.  This, just before the bounty hunter can legally kill (retire) there target, and earn the $1,000 bounty.  It's not clear to me if the $1,000 bounty was in the original.  Either way that's about $7,200 in today's dollars or about 1.36 Bitcoin.  On that day, when Deckard retired 6 of the Nexus-6 androids, he would have earned just over $43,000 in today's dollars.  Not bad for a days work on a rampant killing spree.  Apparently he would still have to make payments on the Nubian goat he purchased for the next 60 months.  Live goats cost about as much as an Audi Q5 in post-apocalyptic San Francisco in 1968.

But there is so much more in the scant 220 pages.  Dick trifles with religion, inventing one for the masses.  It's call Mercer and through a electronic box humans can connect with both the collective of followers and the originator, to boost their feelings hope.  Jay Sheddy on Facebook anyone?  For me, however, despite the multiple interpretations of his writing, the fan fiction, the movies, the comic books, and the sequels, in the end it all comes back to the original question.  Certainly if androids own pets, care for them, feed them, bath them, sleep with them, talk to them, play with them, take them to the doctor when they are sick, and love them, those actions dive deeper into the heart of the question then the answer everyone has been waiting for. 

Unfortunately the answer to this question in 2019 is still no.  Despite the fact that it is now possible for technology to automate and knock off just about every one of those caring actions, even programming Alexa to do most of the work, Alexa will still not dream...and Rutger Hauer will also not shed a tear...again for you movie buffs.  5 Stars.  Easy read, highly entertaining, deep  philosophical work in cybernetics as they called it back in the 60's.

Into the Cool - Schneider

 

I will not lie.  I struggled through first semester thermo, or thermogodamics as I referred to my first glimpse of the science behind heat and mass transfer. I don't think I was alone.  But having struggled at first, I eventually picked up the pace and finished strong, coming out of it with a life long love of all thermodynamic cycles.  It was with this foundation of love and hence great excitement that I ventured forth "Into the Cool" with Eric Schneider and Dorion Sagan leading the way.  In the beginning they provided a brief history of thermo which immediately brought back great fondness for the subject.  I was happy, at first, that perhaps this new book, would make thermo more publicly accessible, easing those first concepts through which every engineer must struggle.  Not long into the pages did I realize that this book would not be the one to bring the joy of thermodynamics to the masses.  It's not that they got it wrong.  I think they've got most of it right.  Not completely, but they are leading the way to an understanding that, as they point out, for the first time creationists and some scientists can agree.  Evolution is too improbable without help.  If this theory provides the theoretical help they envision, we are, in the end, the consummate sum of a collection of selfish genes that detest gradients.  This might be true but I'm certain it doesn't give our live meaning.  Nevertheless, this theory is big and it's important.  It is, perhaps a fundamental force behind a coming scientific revolution -- a paradigm shift away from Darwin alone determining why we are here, if that's what you believe.  We should applaud the authors for undertaking this challenge and we should reward them by allowing them to be the architects of the mainstream message.  They have not, unfortunately, written very well.

Here is an example from early on. With reference to a toy called Tornado in a Bottle the author's state, "Without the whirlpool, the water glug-glugs from the top to the bottom bottle through the hole. It takes about six minutes.  By contrast the vortex, spinning in a highly organized fashion, completely drains the water in eleven seconds!  An organized system degrades the gradient many times faster than the poorly organized state".   This, of course, is completely false.  The water in the top bottle is being held in the top bottle by a vacuum.  As a small amount of water drops into the second bottle and a small amount of air is drawn back into the top bottle, the resulting air bubble rises to the top to equalize the pressure resulting in the familiar "glug-glug".  The sound effect they captured correctly.  What's really happening though is the vortex that is created as the water spins allows air to rise though the center continuously equalizing the pressure in both spaces allowing the water to run down the drain easily -- the fact that a spin was created (added to the system) to speed the water up, and the highly scientific fact that water runs down hill, all aid the quick drain.  But there is more -- this idea that water molecules at rest are less organized that water rushing down a drain -- at the same temperature -- is once again, false.  Fluid dynamics are at play here -- not thermodynamics.  Fluid dynamics tells us that the turbulent flow is less organized than the laminar flow, but it is the laminar flow that offers more resistance from surface tension and friction.  There is even more.  The authors state, "Here is a graphic example of the superior effectiveness of cyclical gradient reduction.  The rate of drainage is predictable.  Over and over again the water drains in six minutes or eleven seconds.  The gravitational (potential) energy gradient is degraded not by a simple structure but by a highly complex one --- 100 billion trillion water molecules spontaneously interact to form a twirling tunnel."  This is priceless.  The vision of Schneider and Sagan playing with this toy again and again and each time being amazed how the top bottle drains, for the wrong reason.  And this idea of spontaneous interaction -- as if the molecules have a choice.  And finally, they speak again, "Our cultural heritage appeals to logic, simplicity, and elegance.  It leads us to assume that the quickest route from point A to point B is a straight line.  But the Tornado is a Bottle's most effective way to go from full to empty is by way of a whirlpool." They must have slept through 7th grade science.  With gravity, the quickest way from point a to point be is the cycloid.  And light always takes the path of least time -- which is why it bends moving through to different materials. Sometimes it's not a straight line. And why are they blaming our cultural heritage?  Is there something wrong with logic simplicity and elegance?  And I think logic and simplicity and elegance still apply once you start solving the right problem.  I'm concerned about what they are driving at and it's not simply that they just got Tornado in a Bottle wrong as the text moves further into the chapter on Tornadoes and Cyclones almost every word is practically without merit -- and then they appeal to the "Complexity" of the phenomenon as if to say, we are just scratching the surface here -- it's too complex to understand, but trust us it works like this and we know what's really going on.  That type of writing seriously undermines their message. 

So, bottomline here.  You should have this book on your shelf and be familiar with the topic they introduce.  It is the face of change -- the paradigm shift yet to come.  Skim it, read a few chapters that might draw you in.  But don't worry about studying their arguments.  They will be many more and better arguments to come.

City of Dreaming Books - Moers

 

It is with considerable trepidation that I must report to you, Dear Reader, on a subject of considerable interest to us both. One in which I must take the less fortunate role of literary critic and you the enviable position of connoisseur of exquisite literature. A great master of the quill has returned from the deepest catacombs of Zamonia to write of his miserable and horrid adventures beneath the city of Bookholm, the so called "City of Dreaming Books". A word of warning comes early, proceed if you dare.

In this epic tale, we, both reader and writer, are beckoned into the pages of a world filled with the depravities of societies addictions. We will recognize the city for its many coffee shops, its diversity of culture, and of course, its book stores which are too numerous to count. We will not recognize the mysterious forces pushing us forward, pushing us to turn each page, as we ourselves join in a grand quest to discover the city's greatest addiction. We will not recognize the deepest and darkest of the catacombs we will encounter as we consume the drug in its purest form--its written form, until it is too late. It is the drug of William Shakespeare, of Leo Tolstoy, of Herman Melville, and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe. We are powerless in its grip.

Our narrator also finds us ill equipped for a journey that spans centuries of writing including most genres with a sprinkle of the fantastical, the subterranean, and the extra-terrestrial as well. Our master teaches us the most difficult tricks of the literary craft as well as the more human tricks of treachery and deceit. Our skin will crawl as we venture deeper into the blackest and most gruesome areas of our mind, searching for the words to describe our fear, but which the master has already defined for us so well. We feel our hearts race as we whip endlessly on a rollercoaster though a labyrinth of time, searching for a way out, and a meaning behind it all. In a place where books dream, shadows cry, and the most frightening of creatures become our friends we learn how to channel the mysterious energy within us. Will we fight through this darkness until we find our own energy to climb back towards the civilization of great literature, or will we be hurled endlessly back into the abyss of despair and crappy writing? This, oddly, is where our story begins.

Walter Moers has created a tremendous fantasyland for all book lovers to call home, Bookholm, "The City of Dreaming Books". Read this story, you will not be disappointed, and you will become a better writer.

This is how they tell me the world ends - Perlroth

As a reporter from Silicon Valley hired by the New York Times to cover cyber (yes I called it cyber) for the past 10 years, Nicole Perlroth has been in a unique position to interview and report on the wave of cyber-attacks that have defined this decade.  Starting with the realization of the threat from a nation state attack with something as sophisticated as the Stuxnet worm attack in 2010 and ending right after the Solarwinds attacks in 2020 which laid us bare. she has chosen an active time to be covering the cyber beat and a great time to write it all down.

Her research is now accessible to all.  With the melodramatic title, “This is How They Tell Me the World Ends”, Perlroth dives into what can only be called a hyper extended NYT’s article about her investigation into the history of so the called “Zero-Day” exploit.  And further, the creation of the “bug” bounty program that built a market and financed several generations of hackers working from their mother’s basement.   Principally, in her mind, because the Stuxnet worm contained seven (7) of these 0-days (fact check necessary) she was intrigued by what she was told by the multitudes of domestic and international computer savvy personalities (hackers?) she came across during her reporting travels.

Perlroth has presented a long history of the spy vs spy world depicting the dark underbelly of an underground eco-system she documented in an effort to unearth the 0-day feeding frenzy.  She does this to place the blame for the failure of our US government to keep us safe from cyber-attack while at the same time placing blame on our government for feeding the legions of hackers out there finding 0-day’s to sell without scruples on the black market to the highest bidder.  Thus creating the plethora of vulnerabilities from which the same government has been left unprotected.  It’s a lot more complicated than that…and she carries the story well.  Some of her sources provided her the proper insight and perspective.  Some of her sources were speculating wildly about things of which they have little to no idea about.  It wasn’t clear to me if Perlroth could sort them out because she kept coming back to a reference about Salmon when she reached a dead end.  Or the idea that no one would really talk to her about truly classified information.  Furthering, in her mind, a grand conspiracy theory guided by some unseen hand she would now just label as dramatically as technical brick wall she couldn’t scale.

They say in my business, particularly as it relates to articles we read about in the media, I can neither confirm nor deny the facts surrounding these topics as they have been reported.  So I’m not going to walk through point by point what’s she has written correctly and what she has wrong.  She is clearly reporting on a story for which she has hundreds of sources who have been willing to talk to her.  There is no use disputing much of what she is saying.  What she hasn’t reported on, however, beyond the coveted 0-day, is everything else that could also comprise a cyber attack.  Solarwinds, for instance, didn’t require a 0-day.  Most of the security breaches that have taken down the big commercial companies of the past decade (I won’t list them) did not require a 0-day (Perlroth lists everything). Most breeches are the result of poor cyber-hygiene and persistent social engineers finding passwords for accounts through hapless insider.  Solarwinds was a supply chain attack.  Source code was modified from the inside.  And that Trojan in the code left the back door unlocked.  No 0-day hacker or code researcher looking to defend that system is going to find what amounted to a single line of operational source code that was working correctly.

But what does this all mean?  Is this how they told tell her, and she is now telling us, how the world ends?  Throughout the read she makes the parallel to the development of nuclear weapons.  During that phase of our existence starting with the Manhattan Project we hung under the Sword of Damocles.  She continuously harkens back to the fact that we haven’t seen a cyber-derived mushroom cloud rising from some hacked nuclear reactor which will surely give us our own Chernobyl or Fukushima, yet.  According to Perlroth it’s just a matter of time. For the record I don’t buy into the analogy nor am I worried about the mushroom cloud.  That does not keep me up at night.  At the end of the book, she argues, that the Cyber Pearl Harbor is a misnomer.  The single event won’t happen because it’s actually already occurred through a thousand cuts.  Cyber vulnerabilities just crept up on us and we never noticed just like a frog doesn’t notice it’s being boiled.  She can’t say both things. If a mushroom cloud produced by a cyber-attack in our own back yard isn’t a cyber-Pearl Harbor I don’t know what you would call it.  Again, I’m able to sleep at night.

Towards the end of the book she turns political.  She begins coving the presidential election and leaves 0-day cyber and begins commenting on the success and utility of Russians troll farms both in 2016 and again in 2020.  Once again, the fabled 0-day of her reporting, not a factor in the social influence game…but nevertheless social media provides huge surface for 0-day-less cyber attackers to work with.

So to complete my review I’ll start with for 4 stars as Perlroth does provide a decent history and retelling of a number of cyber stories.  It’s a nice recorded history of some fabled characters but not deeply technical.  It’s not unlike the history of other malicious hacks as told in multiple cyber pod casts such as the one called “Malicious Life” sans code.  Subtract 1 star for her unnecessary degradation into politics which added perhaps 100 unnecessary pages to the book.  Three stars for this necessary piece of cyber history and tribute to the 0-day. 

On Hallowed Ground - Poole

 

Millions of people come to Arlington Cemetery every year, some come as visitors and take the standard tour, some come to mourn and seek the grave of a loved one, and many come solemnly as a part of multiple daily funeral processions.  Having done all three and having had the opportunity to drive by and around the National Cemetery on a daily commute for almost two decades I still found it to be a mysterious and, if given into, a mentally overwhelming place.  “On Hallowed Ground, the Story of Arlington National Cemetery, by Robert Poole, takes out the mystery.  But his work only pushes the mentally overwhelming nature of Arlington, and what it stands for, to new heights.

I received this book as Christmas gift this year from a disabled Iraqi vet making a new life for himself along the Space Coast with me here in Florida.  We have become friends.  In honesty my initial reaction to the gift, was of course gracious, but as I thought about the pile of unread books seeking priority, my gut told me, having lived in Northern Virginia most of my life, what more stories about the old cemetery did I need to hear?  Well, for whatever reasons, I cracked the cover.  Ironically on a flight from Orlando to Regan National I read about the history of the land once belonging to Robert E. Lee as my flight covered the whole of the Confederacy in just less than two hours.  I was hooked on the story.  I assume Mr. Poole chose the word “story” as opposed to history, because the history of the cemetery is more appropriately contained within the lives of the thousands upon thousands of individuals now resting eternally.

But it is indeed a  history of the Cemetery itself, which was mired in controversy from its beginnings, belonging to the Lee family and acquired from the government in questionable fashion during the Civil War, a wrong that was later set right and continuing on to present day when the US Army finally realized in January 2009 that the practice of recognizing officers buried in the cemetery with more honors then those of enlisted men who were killed in combat was a latent form of elitism and class discrimination. This has also now been corrected.   Along the way he discusses the evolution of the cemetery during each of our Nations conflicts including the War of 1812, WWI and WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and our current clashes in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Conspicuously missing from his history is Desert Storm.  

The mystery of the cemetery, its size, its look, how it operates, and the meaning of many of its icons have now been explained.  What is also clear is that even the most somber and noble of our Nation’s practice’s to do what is right, when it comes to the Government; one can never escape the politics of a situation.  With two sides to every argument and each side vying to use whatever influence they have to push their agenda.   Nothing stands as a clearer indicator of this political maneuvering than the ill advised burial of the “Unknown” from the Vietnam conflict.  Who was in fact known but whose burial was insisted upon to close an ugly page in our Nation’s history.  That episode has ironically demonstrated a decade after a war plagued with lies and cover-ups, that the highest echelons of our government were still not immune from a good one.

With a rich history of meaning, I will never walk the fields of Arlington with the same mystery of how they came to be.  I will still be awed and overwhelmed by the sacrifice they represent.

What Would Google Do? - Jarvis

I’ll admit I have Jeff Jarvis envy.  His new book, “What Would Google Do?” must prompt envy in many circles. He’s written if not the definitive, certainly the most accessible text on what it means to be Googlely.  I’ve been under the impression I was a Googlely person…heck I’ve been using Google as my homepage since it first showed its simple uncluttered face in the mid ’90’s.  I’m also well versed in many Google Lab applications and I have a Google Voice number.  I also have a blog, a FaceBook, and I am LinkedIn.  But that doesn’t mean I am Googlely…not by a wide margin.  What Would Google Do? as Jarvis defines it for us is in fact a state of mind.  It’s the state of mind our children, the “G Generation” have been born under…born with a “Silver G” in their mouths, so to speak…my words not Jarvis’s.

In the first half of the book Jarvis defines this new mindset…what is new and how it has changed almost everything.  If I didn’t like what he was saying and agree with his observations at times I might have thought he, Jeff Jarvis, invented the internet.  Pushing past that very minor annoyance he clearly has a command of what Google would, in fact, do.  I do not, as much as I hate to say it.  I learned something on almost every page.

In the second half of the book he breaks down chapter by chapter how industries can become Googlely.  What benefits they will reap by becoming networked, transparent, and click accessible and what’s in store for them if they refuse to obey the new world order.  Many industry pundits and observers have this knowledge and speak at length about pieces and parts.  Jarvis has placed it all under one roof.  Easily at text book to be studied for many years, or simply read to further your enjoyment of the Internet and the accessible world around us it has created. Five Stars.

Thanks for looking into the true story behind the FaceBook burglaries…coming to an Urban Legend near you.  Don’t tell people on FaceBook you are on vacation, don’t blink your high beams at another car, and don’t eat the candy on Halloween. When I first heard this story I told my wife the criminals were friends, not random perpetrators.  How do you make a boring B&E interesting? Mention something popular. I’m not sure why FaceBook was even mentioned other than to bash the internet (which I doubt was their intention) or to fan publicity for the news story that evening…other than that who cares?  Right the legions of individuals in the security business that make it their job to create our insecurities so we will spend money on their products.  Now Jarvis must rise to defend something that cannot be defended…millions of FaceBook users, two burglaries.  With those odds I’m going to keep my FaceBook and continue to lock my doors and windows when I’m away from home.  But I bet there is a business waiting out there somewhere for someone to sell some sort of social network badge that says, “I’m Out of Town But My Home is Protected by ADT”, “Beware of Dog”, or my favorite, “Member- NRA”. 

The Revolution - Paul

 

If you have been politically alive the past two decades you most certainly know the name Ron Paul.  And perhaps you have even admired some of his principals albeit the complete agenda of anyone calling themselves a Libertarian has always been murky having been jaded for years by off mainstream characters such as Lyndon LaRouche.  Yet here, for the first time, a man of great conviction, integrity, and notable credibility has delivered (no pun intended) the complete Libertarian agenda.  Ron Paul, in his 2008 campaign promise, “The Revolution, A Manifesto”, has given us an accessible description of what it means to stand for liberty in a Country with a runaway freight train for a Federal Government.

Railing against classic liberals and the “new” conservatives he illustrates how our imperial empire along with our aggressive actions overseas have spread us too thin and have not made us more secure, but have actually threatened our security by sowing the seeds of contempt for our presence by making us the “Bull” in the overseas “China Shop”.

Wrapping himself in the Constitution as it was originally written and intended, not as it has been stretched, pulled, and distorted over two centuries to become the source of our problems rather than the cure for our divergent agendas, Ron Paul shows us how the Constitution is a living document through the amendment process, not through legal interpretation of what our founding fathers might have meant. 

When he turns to a discussion of the economy, his strongest argument and to some extent the true heart of the libertarian movement he explains the fallacy of a system where everybody’s hand is in the cookie jar.  At some point we will all go hungry and that point is fast approaching.  Later he discusses inflation and the devaluation of the dollar as the most insidious form of taxation because we don’t even realize it is happening.  And he is correct.

Of course the libertarian agenda is not complete without a discussion of civil liberties which he handles first by describing how our privacy has been invaded and second by using the example of our “War on Drugs” to show how huge federal programs cannot be reversed once they have been set in motion, even it poorly motivated, and even if they invade the very core or our civil liberties…such as the right to make decisions about our own bodies.  It is here where I find my first episodes of cognitive dissonance in Ron Paul’s agenda because he is clearly pro-life and therefore anti-abortion and anti-Kevorkian.  Yet these choices are not included as liberties which should be permitted or protected.

A second area where I find difficulty is in the unflinching belief that a total free-market economy will evolve into an altruistic state that cares about employees and the environment versus devolution into total anarchy.  It’s not that I believe anarchy will result, it is that I believe corporations become monolithic bureaucracy’s as big and profit motivated and therefore uncaring about individuals, their rights, and their personnel freedoms as the Federal Government is being accused of becoming, albeit without a profit motive and with, as we would like to believe a form a checks and balances and the potential, at least, to have to account to “The People” as their elected officials.

But this is a book review and not a political debate.  Whereas I would give “The Revolution” five stars in the attempt to put the Libertarian agenda in one place, I have subtracted one star for not providing a better explanation of the dissonance noted above.  I have also deducted a star for the incessant US bashing and the relentless description of Nazi Germany with the accompanying veiled comparison to our Federal Government.  I recognize the dangers of fascism but resent the arrogance and implication that our countrymen are so stupid and misinformed that we would never course correct in time to prevent such a catastrophe.  We are simply too diverse a people for that…and if the best example he can present is the sugar quota driving up the cost of sugar in our Country, then I invite Ron Paul to have a “Coke and a Smile” off our shores, because apparently he likes foreign Coke better…page 72, “…American colas use corn syrup instead of sugar: American sugar, thanks to the quotas is simply too expensive.  (And it is also the reason that colas in other countries taste so much better.)”   I like American Cola, thank you very much. 

Good book, good delivery, the best of the Libertarian Party is yet to come and they can thank Ron Paul for opening the door.

Underground - Murakami

I’m probably a little late to read “Underground”, by Haruki Murakami, a verbal narrative of witnesses and victims of the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo Subway system perpetrated by the religious cult, “Aum” (pronounced “Om” ), on 20 March 1995.  Here in the US we of course heard about the attacks but I would suggested forgot about them and the Japanese people shortly thereafter as the events of April  19th 1995, in Oklahoma City, soon would fill our consciousness.  A year later the Khobar towers would once again shake us in our security.  The sarin attacks although widely publicized were not generally considered terrorism but more the lunatic actions of a brainwashed following of a religious cult led by their deranged prophet, Shoko Asahara .  Cults and their deranged antics did capture US attention again in 1997 when 38 members of “Heaven’s Gate” donned their purple attire and drank cyanide laced vodka.  This kind of activity seemed apart from terrorist activity we witnessed against us and we continued along in our, “can’t happen here security”, much as the Japanese people believed, until the event’s in the Fall of 2001 changed everything.

As terrorism crept into our global psyche it’s now clear that Asahara was not only engaged in terrorism, as Aum was linked to several murders and a previous sarin attack, he was attempting to bring about or incite the apocalyptic ending of the world as he had preached…radical fundamental religious terrorism.  Can it be defined as anything else?

But back to the book, or I should say books, there are two published under the same cover.  The first book is called “Underground”, and is an exhaustive attempt by Murakami to interview the survivors of the sarin attacks.  To put names and stories behind those the Japanese media simply labeled as victims as they conducted the investigation and prosecution of the Aum cult in the open press.  These are the stories that Murakami felt were necessary to memorialize so that Japan would not forget what occurred.  

The second book, which was published as “Post-Underground” in Japan but included as a 2nd part to the English translation was called “The Place That Was Promised”.  This second part contains similar narratives obtained in interviews with Murakami but this time they are of members of the Aum cult.

The first book paints and amazing portrait of what was going on the minds of ordinary citizens who were caught up in the chaos of the sub-way attacks.  Not understanding something was wrong, sensing that something was amiss but being too committed to work and routine to literally come up for air.  They stayed below ground for too long.  Miraculously, but for the certain incompetence of the perpetrators, and albeit slow but concerned individuals in Tokyo, of the estimated 5,500 individuals who came into contact with the poisonous gas and sought treatment, only 12 exposures were fatal and 47 resulted in permanent disabilities.  

The second book, which with all due respect to the victims and their families, paints a more pertinent, albeit chilling, picture of how those simply seeking more meaning to their lives can get caught up in a movement that without rational or orthodox foundation can become lethal. 

From the first book we learn that coming together faster, when the situation changes from the routine, without panic, can save lives.  From the second book we learn the warning signs of those disenfranchised from society who are vulnerable and can be preyed upon by those with a solution, or master plan, from which evil against society can then be waged, using their disciples as pawns in their deranged schemes.  Together Murakami ‘s two books present a picture of hope, that all is not lost, and yes passive attitudes  could lead us into victimhood on either side, but “There but for the grace of God, go I” has an active side.  If it smells bad, open the window.

Passion of Command - McCoy

As we continue to struggle with the essence of what makes good analysis and how we labor with uncovering truth by merging the physical disciplines of engineering with the mental curiosity of science and the spontaneous creativity of art we build a passion for our career field.  A former boss spoke freely about passion within the field of analysis and often dons a red business suit to accent her own “passion” for the subject.

Interestingly a Marine Corps Press publication that hit the streets in 2007 called, “The Passion of Command; The Moral Imperative of Leadership”, by Colonel B. P. McCoy, delves into “Passion” from the stand point of leading soldiers into combat.  Whereas the field of operations research should never be construed to approach anything near the life and death circumstances of a combat infantryman, Col McCoy’s instructions in leadership are useful tools across countless professions and other human endeavors.  Analogies can be drawn to many of the necessary aspects of combat, like cleaning and firing a weapon, and those analogies are sound.  Because, as with repetition and practice and knowing your M-16A2 rifle like the back of your hand, also knowing the tools of your trade, in any trade, so well that their operation becomes second nature does not stretch the analogy and is easy to understand.

So too is the curiosity to seek out knowledge in your chosen profession.  

To become a professional means to become not just proficient but to move beyond the apprentice and journeyman stage.  Becoming a master in your craft is what must be sought.  On the battlefield it means the expert and unflinching application of violence against ones adversary.   In analysis it means the courage to seek that which is accurate verses that which is favored by political or personal bias. But yes, accuracy does not come easy.  Illuminating accurate criteria for choices that must be made by those who are in a position to decide does not come easy.  Napoleon’s glance, coup de oil, cannot be confused with intuition when the matter is complex.  Therefore the analyst must become a master a deconstructing the problem and then reconstructing the issues that surround the problem in a way that is logical, consistent, and obeys the laws of physical science. 

If it is accurate to say that some soldier as better than others, than it is also accurate to believe that some doctors, some lawyers, some teachers, and some analysts are also better than others.  In fact even on the battlefield, unfortunately we must live according to the 3,000 year old law of Heracles which is quoted by McCoy in his book, but is worth repeating for another 3,000 years. “Of every one hundred men in battle ten should not even be there.  Eighty are nothing but targets.  Nine are the real fighters.  We are lucky to have them since they make the battle.  Ah, but the one—one is the warrior—and he brings the others home.”

How then to we strive to be the one?  Or, at least one of the ten?  That, is the essence of what, this blog is all about.  This blog may not be perfect…but it is dedicated to those of us who want to do better.  But it takes more than dedication, more than education, more than belief.  It takes passion.  Are you passionate about analysis?

The GIrl With the Dragon Tattoo - Larsson

 

I just finished “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson.  I’m arriving late to the Larsson party; it seems this book published in Sweden under the title, “Men Who Hate Women”, has sold 8 Million since its release in 2005.  It is now an International Best Seller.  The release of its English translation in the US in 2008 has been causing quite a stir but I was unaware of this commotion until the movie caught my eye at Blockbuster.   After watching the movie… twice… it was time to read the book.  I felt compelled to know the back story as I was so intrigued by a movie plotline that could take me from anger to compassion to revulsion to tears.  That was the movie.  And since doing the movie/book switch has its pros and cons…sometimes you like the movie better sometimes you like the book… I was uncertain.  The last time I’ve been this excited to read a book after a movie came in 1991 when the lambs were screaming.  I came home from the movie and read the Thomas Harris thriller in one sitting.  And again this time with a visual of the faces and places in my head I found the book thoroughly entertaining.  The movie by my estimation was true enough to the book…there are some deviations but nothing sufficient to cry foul.  I liked that. 

So it’s not clear if I can give this book 5 stars (as so many have) for its literary prowess and entertainment value since, for me, the movie provided so much help with regard to the character and scene development.  But I will tell you that although I didn’t read it in one sitting I was very close. I turned the pages even though I knew the outcome in advance.   Larsson was onto a winning formula and touched just the right balance of history, violence, mystery, technology, sex, and yes…coffee drinking, to etch a new character into my brain…the girl with the dragon tattoo.  So Clarice Starling, please make room for Lisbeth Salander, your Swedish crime solving alter-ego.  I will definitely pick up the next books in this series soon.  

Snow Crash - Stephenson

 

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson was published in 1992 a full seven years before Al Gore claimed he invented the internet.  In that context it’s very fitting that Stephenson would claim he invented the word Avatar so many years in advance of the necessary technology.  Although Stephenson recanted, after he discovered that he had not actually invented the word Avatar.  Nevertheless, he filled 500 pages with other important ideas about Avatars and the Internet.  Almost 20 years later, Ernest Cline's great novel, "Ready Player One", would capitalize on both concepts in mega fashion resulting in a blockbuster movie with Stephen Spielberg producing along with a sequel, “Ready Player Two”.  Some quick research reveals Snow Crash may finally find its way onto the screen as a mini-series now some 30 years.  I can’t wait, but I also digress…

Thus, make no mistake, Snow Crash is an important book.  The most important Chapter is 56 if you want to cut straight to the chase.  In it, Stephenson brings the entire "Metaverse" of his creation into the concept upon which the book has been based.  Specifically, all human reality, at least the part we make sense of in our consciousness, is only possible through the language imbedded in our main processor, our brain. Consciousness does not exist without language.  Let’s remember this is called science fiction, and I note, some of the critical remarks made about Snow Crash, specifically refute this particular claim.  This is an unfair critique for multiple reasons, not the lease of which, perhaps, is to note that all current advances in evolutionary biology, and all current evolutionary biologist, owe their science to perhaps one book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, by Julian Jaynes.  This book, although not a novel, or science fiction, has been heavily divorced of any real tie to science or biology, nevertheless, it remains at the forefront of the science of “What if?”.  And the questions still remain.  I mention Jaynes because Stephenson indicated that his book was an influencing factor upon which he based some of his fictional speculation.  Now as off as Stephenson could be with regard to the notion that language programs our consciousness, he is not wrong that language programs our computers.  Not human language however, machine language.  The language of “one’s” and “zero’s” that are used to program a computer.  Unfortunately, Stephenson isn’t perfect there either, but the analogy is strong enough.  What if?

What this means, then, is that just as a hacker can hack a computer with the right injection of malicious code, someone intent on brain washing a human, need only hack them in the right language and inject their malicious message straight into your brain.  But just like a hacker doesn’t attack the source code, or the multitude of potential higher-level languages we use to program computers, the adroit hacker attacks the operating system, the code embedded on the hardware in the brain of the computer, it’s processor.   Stephenson correctly reaches into the basic of Neuro-Linguistic Programing, or NLP which is to many charlatans, the source of their magic power.  NLP can be studied in the book “The Structure of Magic” from 1975, by Richard Bandler.

What follows is a powerful saga.  Ninja-come-hacker pizza delivery boy meets skate-boarding-message-delivery girl (safe-space trigger warning, she’s 15 years old) in a coming-of-age story across the baren landscape of a suburban environment undergoing economic collapse where the only respite from hard work and religious assimilation is the escape into the Virtual Reality of the Metaverse.  It wasn’t a quest for the “keys” to solve the puzzle as in “Ready Player One” but a quest to find the source of the drug “Snow Crash”.   A drug so powerful that it reprograms your brain simply by looking at the code.  Their epic journey together takes the reader deep into a re-envisioned Mafia, where the God Father is a grandfatherly figure whose only real concern is making sure his pizzas are delivered on time, and deep into the heart of Sumerian culture where human language, as we know it, was both invented and destroyed.  Invented, when everyone spoke the same language, and destroyed at the Tower of Babble, when many languages emerged and no one could communicate.  Seems like they didn’t have a very good open standard or set of APIs back then, or in their future, either.

Stephenson explored more than his virtual Metaverse.  He explored artificial intelligence with “Daemons’ being useful servants in the Metaverse, in particular his speaking librarian who could answer any question but couldn’t understand certain context is right out of Google. He explored robotics both with the prosthetics that helped the disabled navigate reality while in virtual reality, and of course his lovable “Rat-Things” which were simply reimagined dogs akin to the robotic animals of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep” from the sixties, except Rat-Things are a lot faster.

In the end the book is too long and it was difficult for me to read.  In fact, the first time I tried to read it was in 2015 and bailed after the first 90 pages.  I reengaged during a recent drive to Florida, and then one to Ohio, did I mention it’s a long book, where I turned up the narration to 1.5X.   At that speed it was fast moving and engaging.  But still took forever.  It is an important book packed and repacked with concepts we will always return too.    Start with 5-Stars for “Snow Crash” and this epic and important entry into the world of VR novels.  Deduct 1-star for strained an obtuse language struggling to be entertaining…and his Asian Rap lyrics.  Horrible and most likely a bit politically incorrect these days.  Deduct 1-star for the audacity to claim ownership of ideas that came before him.  Add 1-star back for his undeniable love of dogs.  He calls them doggies.  And when doggies live in Virtual Reality, they run on endless beaches, eat steak, and catch frisbees.  I want a rat-thing of my own.  

Utopia - More

 

Utopia means many things to many people.  Certainly none of those meanings have anything to do with the Utopia that Sir/Saint Thomas More wrote about when he penned “On the Best State of a Republic on the New Island of Utopia” late in the 15th Century.   My Utopia includes endless lush soccer fields with plenty of cold beer in the aftermath.  Others may view their Utopia quite differently.   Very quickly, however, should you randomly approach people on the street, you might find answers to Utopian question that run the gamut from such things as the end of hunger or the end of unemployment to the more controversial things such as universal health care--heaven forbid.  Those answers would be closer to More’s Utopia than mine, but I can’t help think soccer would be one of More’s favorite pastimes, had it been around back then.  Soccer, you see, is far more akin to a balanced state of social justice then the economic dominance of the winner take all mindset always at the root of capitalism.  American football, for instance, is capitalism at its finest and more closely related to the philosophy of Conan the Barbarian, “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!”  Which, ironically, is also more akin to another book, published at about the same time as Utopia.  “The Prince”, by Niccolò Machiavelli, which was  published in 1513, about three years ahead of Utopia, would never be referenced in any bill on universal health care.  But to continue the analogy of soccer, low scoring games, well played, are superior to the breaking of bones.

More was well ahead of his time.  And that, perhaps, cost him his head.  Yet he was on to something big.  Something bigger than the governments of the day, something bigger than the Church of England, or the Catholic Church.  He was talking about justice.  Was talking about equality.  He was talking about happiness.  Institutions, such as slavery, were impossible to reconcile with his view of justice and thus, had to play a role in his Utopia.  Slaves, were not thus, slaves, but rather the incarceration of those who committed crimes against society.  That was an easy fix for the injustice of the day.  But so too were the inequities of commerce when the rich were in a powerful position to exploit the poor.  Fast forward 500 years. It’s now 2018.  Would anyone dispute that living in a democracy, be it in the United States or any other modern democracy, is Utopian?  I think despite our political differences we all can agree modern democracies figured most of it out.  Yes we have flaws but the precepts of More’s Utopia foreshadow most of our American values for justice and the value of human life.  We also work hard, wish to create as few laws a possible, and try to only engage in just wars. We do not commit criminal acts and we are free to worship as you please.  Above all, More believes that  an overarching principle of Utopia is to be happy. Bob Marley would echo that sentiment.  Yet Utopia, despite the fact that we live in a very utopian USA, is riddled with criticisms stemming from what can only be described as Marxism.  It’s communist a worst or socialist at best.  Well yes, the Utopia that Thomas More envisioned had many flaws, but if life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness equals socialism, then yes, socialism is what he wrote about...that, and an unfailing love of God and the Catholic Church.

We should all drop to our knees and thank Thomas More for writing this book, 500 years overdue. There can be no doubt his influence on our forefathers showed up in our constitutional framework.  We credit Hobbes and Locke...but perhaps we fell 100 years short of the real inspiration in our textbooks.

Crazy for the Storm - Ollestad

 

I am a little dismayed, that Norman Ollestad’s journey of survival and discovery detailed in his memoir, “Crazy for the Storm”, has not found in its readership, at least not documented in these Amazon book reviews, the screaming parallel to the Pirzig masterpiece, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.   Is “Crazy”, “Zen”?  Not quite.  But Ollestad's fascinating attempt at a deeper philosophy, one beyond the creative memoir, one beyond the survival narrative, one beyond the relationship with his dad and mom simply rips off the pages so painfully it hurts.  His is a journey into truth.  The fairytale truths through the eyes of a charismatic, but egocentric, thrill loving father or the real truth through the eyes of a shallow but seemingly more rational secondary father figure. The journey into truth can happen in many ways.  For Ollestad it was the profound drama of suddenly finding himself alone on a snow and ice covered mountain, miraculously surviving a light airplane crash into a desolate peak.  How can an 11 year old boy climb down off a mountain in extreme conditions and survive?  Most would not. However, the physical survival of an 11 year old boy is not what the book is about. It's about his emotional survival and his journey to discover his own truth, whether that be of the fairytale variety or something closer to reality. 

Ollestad is writing his memoir 27 years later and reflecting on these foundational moments of his life, his dad, his extreme experiences, and this other significant adult male influence in his life, his mom's boyfriend Nick.  On the one hand Ollestad has the larger than life memory of his father with all the extreme things his father would do, and take him to do, the snow skiing, the surfing, the take life by the horns and to hell with the consequences provided your are taken to a new level though the experience attitude.  And whether or not this lifestyle, which he didn't particularly care for at first, had provided him tangible life value?  One the other hand, you have Nick who is an abusive alcoholic with nothing close to the charisma of his dad, but nevertheless seems to care about safety and proper childhood development apart from the self indulgent culture of the adrenaline junkies. It is practically certain that had Ollestad not been an experience alpine skier and a kid who had been thrown into countless life and death situations by his dad, his death on that mountain top was guaranteed.  He had matured beyond his age by his survival experience and his dad deserves the credit -- if that is a good thing.  And this is the premise within which Ollestad's "...inquiry into values" rages.  If he had been raised in an over protective household, one in which he was not permitted to skateboard with older kids, for instance, his threshold for pain might have been lower and his body would have refused to cooperate on the mountain top.  On the other hand he would never have learned to lie effortlessly to his mom about the fact that he was indeed skateboarding with older kids, not to mention drinking beer, smoking pot, using foul language, and generally engaging in self destructive behavior. 

This is a decent book.  Certainly not as important as Zen, but seemingly, perhaps, with greater appeal and accessibility because it explores everyday values.  Decisions we face when we raise our kids.  Do we allow them more freedom to learn on their own or less freedom and thus more safety.  Do we protect them in order to ensure their survival now, or equip them to survive when we can no longer be there to protect them?  Ollestad grapples with these questions in reverse by examining whether or not his dad raised him correctly. Finding the answer would heal his heart.

This book is not for everyone and it does have some major problems -- it's hard to believe the thoughts of an 11 year old are as sophisticated as Ollestad remembers.  Fact or fiction it is an appealing story that should resonate with parents considering the dilemma and with the children of parents who made the decisions for them.

Divide - Evans

 

Evans Jumps the Divide with a Shark

Straight up Nicholas Evans has always been one of my favorites…great writer compelling stories.  With his latest novel, “The Divide”, I can safely say Mr. Evans has in fact, “jumped the shark”.  Why he would allow this one to be published defies logic.  I’m sorry I have to write a review.

It stinks.  The story is worn out account of a middle aged man having a mid life crisis.  He meets a woman while on vacation with his family, falls in love with her, and then decides to leave his family for the other woman.  The back story is more compelling and is about the brain washing of his daughter by a charismatic man and drawn into his underworld life of eco-terrorism.  Bad things happen, drama ensues, families are damaged and the guilt flies.  The novel would serve well as screen-play.  Evan’s should have skipped the novel and gone straight to Hollywood with a treatment for the film.  This book has no literary standing alongside his magnificent “The Horse Whisper”.

The “Divide” itself is a vacation ranch the family would visit each summer in Montana, near the continental divide.  But the divide also stands for other divisions in life…parents and children, husband and wife, the difference between right and wrong etc.  Evan’s is no great philosopher and should therefore stick to his strong suit…strong descriptions of landscape and the poetic use of language to bring human relationships in context with the natural environment.  He does manage a scarce few passages of his signature prose.

Evan’s description of the daughter’s slide into eco-terrorism is the most compelling part of the story – but also seems stereo typical.  I doubt he had practical experience with actual eco-terrorists and his research was therefore second hand.  Nevertheless when the drama begins to unfold – about halfway through the book – he does achieve a cloak and dagger energy reminiscent of Robert Ludlum which provides sufficient energy to finish…if you make it that far.  Two stars max.  

Spent - Miller

After reading “Spent.  Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior”, by Geoffrey Miller only a few weeks before Christmas I have to say that I am spent.  But not in the sense Miller uses the term; although I have to admit I’m not sure how exactly Miller is using the term.  It was a tough read and my mind is tired.  Why?  Because Miller is adept at having us believe he has something important to tell us, but also a master of never quite telling us what that might be.  So he tells us a lot of things, and in truth a lot of the things he tells us are really quite interesting (see below).   Miller is clearly a very smart man and well read.  This book springs from hundreds of others.  Miller spent (there’s that word again) a decade perhaps researching and compiling his thoughts for this book, the illusion is one of hard science and fact, to which he brings us the universal theory of all consumer behavior.  We buy things because we are like a peacock, we evolved to signal something to the world around us, whatever that may be...health, status, intellect, etc.  

Although he goes to great length to tell us why we signal, what we signal, and where the signaling comes from his overwhelming tone seems to be that there is something inherently wrong with this, with us, because we manifest our colors by purchasing commercial goods and services as consumers and not signaling using old fashioned face to face communication, the more human communication of the cave man, with other’s of our species. But then he tells us it’s not really wrong, it’s just wrong because we should be buying used clothes instead of new clothes, because if want to buy Armani shirts to impress women, better to spend $5 dollars in a second hand store than $100 dollars at the Galleria.  The signaling is the same, whether we are really buying the shirts because we like quality and good fit, or because we want to display to others that we are something we may not be, which is rich.  But what if we really are rich?  Can we still buy that Armani shirt at Nordstroms?

This book could be sold as a freshman introductory text on evolutionary psychology using consumer behavior as a case study but Miller didn’t stop in time.  He continued into a rage against consumerism, materialism, the capitalist consumer culture of the United States, and all that is wrong with our superficial and what he calls centrifugal souls.  We are a shallow people us Americans, and if you didn’t know that, the rest of the world knows that all this country really is, is a coast to coast strip mall.  It’s a shame that such a bright man has such jaded view of our culture.  We, as Americans, are far more than the valley girl shopper’s that he thinks we are, if only he would leave his academic perch and come have one of his caveman conversations with us as individuals, what he would find is that “we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention [analogy for reading his book] for whatever it is that we did wrong.  But we think [he is] crazy to make us write an essay telling [him] who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is . . .a brain.  And an athlete.  And a basket case.  A princess.  And a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours, 

The Breakfast Club

As promised above, a truly interesting idea:  Colleges and universities dismiss the notion of IQ as being a true indicator of intelligence but go to great lengths to only recruit those with high IQ so that they can market a diploma from their institution as the true measure of intelligence.

Open - Agassi

Andre Agassi has got to be the ultimate Alpha Male.  Women seem to have always been attracted to his looks (my wife), his sheer athleticism (my wife), and his rebel image (my wife).  Men see him as a modern day gladiator, the ultimate warrior who must rely on his own physical attributes while going into battle.  Agassi will sometimes being defeated, he will sometimes emerge victorious, but he will always be engaged in a bloody battle, and he has always risen from the ashes to go even further.

“Open” the recent autobiography by the Andre Agassi has already received a number of good reviews.  After reading his book, and finding it extraordinary for a number of reasons, I thought I would take this review in another direction.

Early on Agassi proclaims that his life has been one of contradictions.  The very fact that he hates tennis, yet has been ranked number one in the world speaks volumes to this contradiction -- how can you be number one in the world doing something you hate?  When I first heard about this book and that it revealed Agassi’s disdain for the game I thought perhaps we would find, tucked into a short paragraph, hidden away on a page deep in the book, a revealing confession that he secretly hated tennis.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  From the opening pages straight to the end, this man hated tennis.  Ironically that has to have been the best thing for a tennis loving world…because it was the sheer emotion of this contradiction that gave Agassi his personality, his character on and off the court—his, “this kid is different”, image.  We couldn't place it at the time, but it's clear now...a rebel doesn't rebel against something he loves.  

“Image is everything”, the slogan imposed on Andre by Canon that he confesses he loathed at the time but somehow never understood...he still either misunderstands it or uses brilliantly… has us feel sorry for him that he was subjected to such a narcissistic image imposed on him by the big unfeeling company taking advantage of the naïve rising star.  But let’s face it; it was those early, ever present, Canon commercials that kicked off the Agassi Brand just as sure as it was the million balls a year his father forced him to “hit harder” in their back yard before he was sent away to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy already in possession of his deadly forehand.  That image of an image launched a 1000’s ships, sold a lot of cameras not to mention Nike shoes, and Oakley sun glasses.  But it was the image of a rebel, not the image of a new and rising star that earned him a new Dodge Viper from the President of Oakley when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing his thermonuclear shades.  It was exactly his image that was everything.  

Let’s consider his list of victories– Brooke Shields (International Superstar), Barbara Streisand (International Superstar), Steffi Graff (International Superstar), Wimbledon, four Australian Opens, two US Opens, the French Open, and an Olympic Gold Medal. Each one of those conquests, alone, places more behind the shades than we will never see.  For instance, if as he claims, he can remember the details of each of his major professional matches, we are not just dealing with a man of huge athleticism we are dealing with a man of great intellectual powers.  How so in a man who dropped out of school in the ninth grade?  The amount of detail he places into some of the conversations he recalls is also spectacular, bordering on photographic– are we to believe his memory is that accurate?   And what about his inner circle of friends.  He didn't choose an entourage of yes men, he chose those that would challenge, stretch and grow him both professionally and personally.

Gil the athletic trainer at UNLV left his sweet job to become his personal trainer.  Nick Bollettieri, the owner of his tennis academy, not one the best of terms becomes his first professional coach. He convinced JP a successful evangelical minster to leave his flock and become his personal spiritual advisor. Later he convinces Brad a successful tennis player, writer, and coach to drop everything to become his coach in the twilight of his career.  Finally, he chose JR, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, to shadow write his autobiography.  On what planet does a Pulitzer Prize winner shadow write anything? And I've already mentioned the women he dated -- they are not ordinary women -- they all saw something in him, behind those shades, something that we mere mortals can't even begin to fathom.  

 I see something in Agassi as well…something that took him forty years to find himself. The image is real, the brand is real, and he is real. “Open” gives us a small glimpse inside his real door.  I for one thank him for taking the time to share what he found with us.