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Kissinger

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Kissinger, A Biography” by Walter Isaacson, published in 2005.

Kissinger was born in May 1923 in an eastern suburb of Nuremberg. His ancestors came from Bavaria. When he was in his teens, his family arrived in America. Toward the end of WWII, Kissinger served in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence division, engaging in diplomacy to de-Nazify a whole region of suburbs in Germany.

In 1951, Kissinger recruited tens of foreign-nationals and licensed-professionals for the Harvard International Seminar– a summer multi-disciplinary program featuring lectures and field trips that was later revealed to be a front for the CIA. Kissinger amassed a vast social network from the program. He had superior social-climbing skills, appealing to his betters (who were just as egotistical as he was) with flattery, but fiercely competing with colleagues of status equal to his own.

Kissinger always argued that injustice and order (a benign dictator) was preferable to justice and disorder (a revolutionary environment or anarchy) in a nation. He felt the purpose of a summit wasn’t to get a monstrously brutal leader to change his ways, but rather, to: reassure allies, get on the good side of neutral nations and show the world one’s own civility. Yet he was always listening to all sides in a debate in order to get them to agree with him.

Kissinger achieved full tenure at Harvard University in 1962. Less than a decade later, he served as a very close aide to president Richard Nixon. Just as parties are thrown to annoy those who aren’t invited, at the dawn of the 1970’s, the Nixon White House consisted of socially manipulative cliques who kept one another out of the loop of their own furtive meetings, memos and covert operations. The Nixon camp loved secrecy and tried to stop information from leaking to the press with their “plumbers.”

The president ordered that a total of seventeen secret FBI wiretaps be placed on the home telephones of high-level employees of his administration for as long as nearly two years for some, beginning in 1969. In 1973, when the media exposed this spying operation, Nixon claimed he alone authorized it. But Kissinger– a drama queen– had incited the emotional environment that led Nixon and his subordinates to commit the crimes they did.

In 1971, Kissinger participated in clandestine meetings with the Chinese government to invite trade with the United States, and change China’s mind on its claim on Taiwan. The U.S. was reducing its military presence in Vietnam, and saw that the Chinese and Soviets weren’t getting along. Thus, extending an olive branch to China was a supposedly geopolitically brilliant move on Nixon’s part.

If America got friendly with the Chinese (contradicting Nixon’s previously vicious anti-Communist stance), and negotiated arms reductions with the Soviets– America would stave off nuclear war with them, further weaken the alliance between China and the U.S.S.R., and get an economic boost.

China’s officials began the talks by requesting that the Americans tell them the issues thought to be deal-breakers. This saved a lot of time, as the Chinese considered Taiwan a minor issue and weren’t going to budge on it. They both secretly used Pakistan as an intermediate messenger. As a result, the Soviets got friendly with India. That turned into a cluster screw-up.

Kissinger could dish it out but he couldn’t take it. He became infuriated when Nixon’s aide, John Ehrlichman told him that a spy ring had been stealing documents from his office and leaking them to the press. Kissinger’s self-delusion was most cringeworthy on Vietnam. He rationalized the war’s aims, attempting to persuade ordinary Americans that the decade-long colossal human waste wasn’t the result of several alpha males’ stubborn insistence on America’s involvement (plus in Cambodia and Laos). In other words, Kissinger couldn’t admit that at least hundreds of thousands of people died for nothing.

One Bertrand Russell quote in connection therewith bears repeating:

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”

There is nothing new under the sun. The media flip-flopped insofar as their stories on Kissinger brought them ratings and sold newspapers. In mid-October 1972, less than a month before Nixon’s reelection day, the New York Times and Newsweek celebrated Kissinger as he claimed to have achieved agreement on a peace treaty with North Vietnam from his confidential peace talks in Paris. He himself reveled in the glory of saving the world.

In December 1972, the seasoned propagandists turned around and labeled Kissinger a war criminal (which they should have been doing all along!) after he was found to have completely excluded the South Vietnamese leader from the agreement-announcement. Kissinger pretended to be outraged that Nguyen Van Thieu refused to sign the treaty. But the treaty’s wording hadn’t said what Van Thieu had agreed to.

Kissinger used the emotionally-charged, last-minute discord as an excuse to urge Nixon to order the resumption of America’s bombing of the North Vietnam capital Hanoi, and Nixon did. More than a thousand additional U.S. servicemen and civilians lost to history, died needlessly. Not unbelievably, given the fallibility and gullibility of human beings, in autumn 1973, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace prize.

In sum, Henry Kissinger achieved name-recognition in numerous communities of American life, in the following order: academia, presidential politics, foreign affairs, Hollywood, big business, and jet-set society.

As an aside, Donald Trump achieved name-recognition in the following, in the following order: big business (as a matter of inheritance), jet-set society, Hollywood, and then presidential politics. He hasn’t been all that competent in foreign affairs and academia, though.

Additionally, Trump bears many similarities to Nixon. Trump:

has a sidekick in Elon Musk as Nixon had a sidekick in Kissinger.
alternates between deep insecurities and megalomania.
appoints largely white alpha males in the White House (with a few white females thrown in).
was directly or indirectly responsible for sending to jail– almost every legally-troubled individual with whom he associated.
has a major goal of wreaking vengeance on his political enemies, using hush money when necessary.
claims attorney-client relationship and executive-privilege to weasel out of legal trouble.
projects the image of the outsider, and excessively exhibited mean-of-spirit, obnoxious behavior, but adjusted his image to become somewhat like the “new” Nixon in order to make a comeback.

It seems that Trump’s inauguration is going to be like the 1945 Yalta and 2024 Davos conferences. On steroids. Here’s a little song about the situation.

INAUGURATION

sung to the tune of “Revolution” with apologies to the members of The Beatles, and their estates, and whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump’s gonna have an in-au-gu-RA-tion,
well, you know,
in 2017 he insulted the world.

It’s a see-and-be-seen cel-e-BRA-tion,
well, you know,
his frat boys will rule the WO-ORLD.

And if he goes through with DE-portations,
he’d have to kick his own family OUT.

You know he used to be,
all-fight, all-fight, all fight.

He says he’s got resolutions,
well, you know,
it’s called Project 2025.

Billionaires make contributions,
well, you know,
they’re keeping Trump’s image a-LIVE.

Big tech and media have money for people
who SPREAD around hate.
For a grown-up Vance,
we’ll just have to WAIT.

And you know he used to be,
all-fight, all-fight, all-fight.

Trump gets to interpret the Consti-TU-tion,
well, you know,
he owns most of the Supreme-COURT.

It WAS a respected insti-TU-tion,
well, you know,
He’ll pardon THEM as a last resort.

He’s getting friendlier with the world’s tyrants NOW.
Don’t worry,
he’s losing his mind, anyHOW.

And you know he used to be,
all-fight, all fight, all fight,
all-fight, all fight, all fight,
all-fight, all fight, all fight,
all-fight, all FIGHT!

Anyway, read the book to learn much, much more about how Kissinger prolonged his name in history due to his self-absorbed attention whoredom; about how his dishonesty shaped America’s never-ending, extremely complex political, ideological, cultural and economic controversies over its “detente” versus “might-makes right” mentality with regard to the Soviet Union, Soviet Jewry, Israel, global trade, human rights, weapons stocks, neocons (the description of which was murky), the Portugal/Angola mess, etc.

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Unleashed

The Book of the Week is “Unleashed” by Boris Johnson, published in 2024. This large volume was a bragfest, but it also explained the author’s opinions and his government’s policies for laypeople.

Johnson was born in 1964. “Disaster” was his favorite word. As London’s mayor starting in May 2008, he began implementing some of the same crime-fighting and environmental initiatives taken by former New York City mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

Beginning in June 2016, after 52% of the UK’s 17.4 million population voted in favor of Brexit, heated discussions were had by everyone, including Lord Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, and President of the Queen’s Bench Division. In 2019, Johnson was elected UK prime minister, and he became the nation’s biggest Brexit booster. The nation’s moneyed classes, and those who were pro-immigrant, wanted to remain in the EU.

The EU leadership in Brussels controlled many aspects of the economies of member-countries because it set the terms and conditions on trade unions, customs fees, currencies, factories, distribution of goods, national-border policies, etc. Johnson felt the UK was hamstrung by all the petty rules. He claimed that Canada was able to export its goods to EU’s markets absent the regulations to which the UK was subject.

In April 2020, when the prime minister ended up in the intensive care unit with a bad case of COVID, “Outside in the corridors of the hospital, though I never saw them, were representatives of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, despatched by Donald Trump to revive me with drugs not licensed or approved in the UK.”

The COVID pandemic in 2020 was a game-changer. Johnson contended that because the UK was no longer a member of the EU, certain forward-looking, skilled members of his administration were able to secure a vaccination program that was more widespread and implemented sooner than EU members’ programs. Harm done to the UK’s people and its economy was therefore significantly less than that done to comparable countries.

Nevertheless, the line graph of COVID deaths followed a largely similar pattern for each nation where COVID’s effects on the population was tracked– regardless of the actions leaders took. Sweden’s policies on quarantining were optional, while China’s were draconian, but both of their graphs showed two peaks during which the death toll went up and down during the course of the pandemic.

Another political issue shared by all major governments of the world, is immigration. Johnson heard how Australia supposedly deterred uninvited people fleeing their homelands, from arriving on its shores. Its federal immigration agency transported those people– to have their asylum claims processed to– not the nicest destination, to put it mildly, 4,500 miles to the island of Nauru. Perhaps the U.S. could look into such a policy, given that it too, is overwhelmed with asylum-seekers who have arrived on its soil illegally.

Read the book to learn much more about Johnson’s political life and times.

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More Today Than Yesterday – BONUS POST

You American voters have actually elected grasping, calculating AI bureaucrats, who bring you Deep Fake News! Here’s a song about the situation.

MORE TODAY THAN YESTERDAY

sung to the tune of “More Today Than Yesterday” with apologies to The Spiral Staircase and to whomever else the rights may concern.

YOU do remember how in-your-face Trump was.

Ra-ally and press-conference obsessed, he was.

All we know is that he’s NOW-hiding from you.

And all his dreams came true.

He’s no-longer spending time with you.

Daily his PR team conveys, some-fluff to you.

With each day comes a fight for face-time, among his crew.

Every time he moves his lips, his mind starts to wander.

And if his VP’s dreams come true,

Vance’ll be spending time with you.

Oh, Trump’s absent more today than yesterday.

But not as much as tomorrow.

Trump’s absent more today than yesterday.

But darn it, not as much as tomorrow.

In-auguration time’s just a short way’s away.

Amendment 25 is needed now,

come what may.

Thank yourselves for democracy like ours,

that grows ever stronger.

Trump’s absence is a clue

that he can’t directly talk to you.

Oh, Trump’s absent more today than yesterday.

But not as much as tomorrow.

Trump’s absent more today than yesterday.

But darn it, not as much as tomorrow.

Trump’s every aide is power struggling,

egos pushing and shoving.

The end for him is humbling.

A new regime is coming.

Trump’s every aide is power struggling,

egos pushing and shoving.

The end for him is humbling.

A new regime is coming…

Featured

Butterfly

The Book of the Week is “Butterfly, From Refugee to Olympian– My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph” by Yusra Mardini, published in 2018.

The author was born in March 1998 in a southern suburb of Damascus, Syria. Since her father was a swimming coach, she took up the sport with a passion.

In 2011, people expressed anti-government sentiments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in what became known as the Arab spring. During that year, Syria caught the bug. By summer 2012, armed soldiers and operators of heavy artillery and tanks, harassed protestors on the streets of the southern districts of Damascus.

By 2015, any Damascus residents who had yet to flee the violence, could die any day at any time from a fire, a bomb, shrapnel, a bullet, or a rocket-propelled grenade, aside from the more common ways life can end. Conscription into the Syrian military began at age eighteen, so early on, numerous teenage boys had already left for Lebanon, Turkey or European countries.

The author and her older sister finally decided to leave in 2015. Since they were from a middle-class family and they had been raised in a capitalist environment, they had resources that increased their likelihood of survival more than ever before in world history.

Western Union allowed them access to cash sent from their father (who had gotten a job in the country of Jordan). They had smartphones all during their journey. They and their traveling companions used the internet and its GPS feature to find hotels, eateries, train stations, and the precise dividing lines of countries’ borders. They heard cautionary tales that taught them what to do and what not to do, through not only face-to-face gossip, but also online information-sharing.

At one point, the evacuation process became like a game: “That night, we sit in Burger King [in Budapest] as the square grows dark, posting selfies on Instagram and chatting online with friends back home.”

Nevertheless, psychologists in the U.S. would probably diagnose the author with PTSD and survivor’s guilt, given what she wrote of how she behaved and what she was thinking. Her lifelong dream was to be an Olympian swimmer. But after resuming her athletic training, she felt helpless to solve the various life-and-death issues involving the war in Syria, and affect the fates of the flood of refugees in the world.

Read the book to learn numerous additional details of Mardini’s suspenseful story, and how she was able to make a difference, despite her doubts and individual powerlessness.

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Our Man

The Book of the Week is “Our Man, Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century” by George Packer, published in 2019.

“But he also helped smash up the last pieces of the postwar consensus, bringing viciousness and deception into the heart of government, making trust among people working for the same president impossible.”

Holbrooke, writing of Zbigniew Brzezinski– who sabotaged him during the presidency of Jimmy Carter

Born in April 1941 Holbrooke grew up in Scarsdale, a posh northern suburb of New York City. His high school classmate’s father was Dean Rusk, so he had a leg up in the foreign-policy social set of the United States.

As a junior diplomat, Holbrooke’s first major posting was to Saigon, Vietnam in June 1963. A few seasoned journalists there were reporting the truth, that the U.S. was already losing the war. But America’s governmental and military interagency rivalry (consisting of the usual power-struggling alpha males with hubris syndrome) put the kibosh on informed decision-making throughout the whole nine years of unconscionably wasteful military action.

In late summer 1963, Holbrooke was sent to the southernmost region of North Vietnam to try to capture the hearts and minds of rural villagers. He was kind of a hybrid neoliberal and neocon– providing food and materials to build infrastructure and establish schools, but also training the local militia to fight the Viet Cong (VC). Nevertheless, American soldiers were taught neither the Vietnamese language nor the locals’ culture. They were simply expected to be killing machines.

Holbrooke saw that the American military officers held fast to the mistaken notion that killing all the VC soldiers would rid the world of Communism. Those James-Bond wannabes threw around the term, “counterinsurgency.” But rather than killing no-name soldiers, the VC– supplied with weapons from China– sought to kill key military leaders; fighting smarter, not harder.

Holbrooke witnessed unspeakable horrors in his foreign service experiences. To salve his conscience for America’s shameful actions (and as a public relations move for Carter who would be running for reelection in 1980)– he visited and publicized the plight of refugees at a camp in Thailand. Also, he agreed with vice president Walter Mondale that countries should accept and provide more aid to refugees, at a Geneva conference in July 1979. In connection therewith, Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980.

After Vietnam, America was once bitten, twice shy when international pressure was brought to bear to take action in the Balkans at the dawn of the 1990’s. There were other reasons, too, why Bill Clinton’s presidential administration dragged its feet on going to peace talks and committing troops to NATO: Bosnia didn’t have fossil fuels of sufficient strategic value to the United States, the genocide was against Muslims, and Clinton knew that a military quagmire would hurt his reelection chances in 1996.

Eventually, Holbrooke, a bigger credit-grabber than anyone else, did take charge of the negotiations. When American military advisors died in the region, talks got serious. He believed the U.S. had to act as the world’s police force.

Read the book to learn: of the highlights of Holbrooke’s career, his trials and tribulations, love life and achievements; and why the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was vacant for a year: possibly showing how unnecessary America’s vote for world peace was even then (hint: the vacancy was a case of political retaliation). SIDENOTE: It’s time for a Reagan-style immigration bill.

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He’d Love a Trade Fight – BONUS POST

This song is self-explanatory, about you-know-who.

HE’D LOVE A TRADE FIGHT

sung to the tune of “I Love A Rainy Night” with apologies to the Estate of Eddie Rabbitt and whomever else the rights may concern.

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
He’d love a trade fight.
He loves to invite wonder.
Watch the fireworks as the globe swallows his lies.

You know it makes him feel good.

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
He’s showing his might.
He delights in his threats in your face,
tests the power of his words.

In the spotlight HE knows.

The news-cycle, takes all his words away.
His allies aid-and-abet for-gotten days.

‘Cause he’d love a trade fight.
Yeah, he’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.

ooh, ooh

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
He’d love a trade fight.

He loves to invite wonder.
Watch the fireworks as the globe swallows his lies.

You know it makes him feel good.

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
He’s showing his might.
He delights in his threats in your face,
tests the power of his words.

In the spotlight HE knows.

Puts his name in posterity.
To hell with, historical verity.

‘Cause he’d love a trade fight.
Yeah, he’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.

ooh, ooh

The news-cycle, takes all his words away.
His allies aid-and-abet for-gotten days.

‘Cause he’d love a trade fight.
Yeah, he’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.
He’d love a trade fight.

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
But it might be lies.
He’d love a trade fight.
Well, it MAKES headlines.

Ooh, he’d love a trade fight.
He’s fooling you. Yeah, yeah.
He’d love a trade fight.
Well, he’d love a trade fight.
But it might be lies.
He’d love a trade fight.
Well, it MAKES headlines.

Well, he’d love a trade fight.
Loves himself, too.
Well, he’d love a trade fight…

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Other Rivers

The Book of the Week is “Other Rivers, A Chinese Education” by Peter Hessler, published in 2024.

In 1996, under the auspices of the U.S. Peace Corps, the American author taught a university course in Fuling, a small city in China. The students weren’t allowed to question the authority of their textbooks, which among other debatable historical statements, said, “..the Constitution of 1787 established the dictatorship of the American bourgeosie.” The government assigned most of the graduates to teaching jobs in rural middle schools. It’s unclear whether the culture has changed from that in the movie Not One Less, a portrayal of a teacher at a rural elementary school in China.

In 2019, the author moved back to China to teach at the elite Sichuan University, where tuition is about $700 annually. The College of Marxism’s building also housed the journalism department. The campus was full of security cameras. Nevertheless, China’s education environment was not so strict as it had been fifteen years prior.

The school’s instructors turned a blind eye to students’ subscribing to technology services (called VPNs) that encrypted their interactions on the internet– allowing them to view websites censored by the Chinese government– so as to better complete their assignments. But they were risking arrest by the government.

The author’s two American daughters began the third grade at a Chinese public school. They spent hours and hours learning the written characters of the Mandarin language. Their mother, whose great-grandfather was Chinese, helped them. Parents of their classmates posted to the instant messaging service called WeChat, day and night; hundreds of messages a day. The school used the parents as free labor, to communicate policies regarding homework assignments, uniforms, etc.

The nonpartisan Peace Corps had had a presence in China for twenty-seven years, when in the third week of January 2020, two Republican U.S. senators (Marco Rubio and Rick Scott), ignorant of what the Peace Corps was, with no authority over it, Tweeted that, going forward, there would be no more volunteers assigned to China. There were, at the time, twenty-seven Peace Corps alumni working for the State Department. The anti-China messaging had nothing to do with COVID.

Toward the end of January 2020, when the spread of COVID reached a certain level, under international pressure, the Chinese government imposed a version of martial law. People were confined to their homes, which tended to be enclosed with walled areas where the government could easily close exits and entrances. Residents could also thus be corralled and surveilled more easily.

In the city of Wuhan– the place of the first COVID case– about nine million people were affected by the lockdown. In early spring 2020, the quarantine was lifted. By mid-spring, the U.S. allegedly had a death toll ten times higher than that of China.

Daily, the author and other parents of school kids were required to report their children’s temperature beginning at 6:30am, and their temperature was to be reported four more times throughout the day. The school schedule included pauses for handwashing, and of course, the WeChat information-sharing never stopped.

One particular man who had a mild COVID case was quarantined for more than two months in a medical facility, even though his eight-day travel history (collected by spies) showed him to have infected ZERO individuals.

The author spoke with lots of people, some of whom, risking arrest, resisted certain aspects of the Chinese government’s oppression in everyday life. These rebels operated as scattered alliances of a few people, rather than as one large organized group, so they wouldn’t appear to be organized. This has worked for various terrorist groups through the decades, and was supposedly the case for the January 6 (American) protestors.

Read the book to learn much more about Chinese way of life, and its nature during the COVID pandemic through the author’s eyes.

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Pardon Party – BONUS POST

It’s not hard to see where the brain-dead president-elect is going.

Here’s a song on it.

PARDON PARTY

sung to the tune of “Garden Party” with apologies to the Estate of Ricky Nelson and whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump’s planning a pardon party, to RE-lease his old friends.
A chance to exchange political favors, and bury wrongs again.
After his inauguration, he’ll clear all their names.
They won’t have to face prison.
Things’ll stay the same.

And that’s THE Right now.
Trump learned his lesson well.
You KNOW he’ll pardon his current base.
And he’ll, try to pardon himself.

People’ll come from miles around.
All his cronies’ll be there.
Trump’ll bring more corruption.
There’s impunity in the air.

And over in the courts,
much to no one’s surprise,
the judges will hide their quid pro quos,
doubling down on lies.

And that’s THE Right now.
Trump learned his lesson well.
You KNOW he’ll pardon his current base.
And he’ll, try to pardon himself.

He’ll play them all the old songs,
access is why they’ll come.
Everyone knows he’s brain-dead.
On their plans, they’re staying mum.

Trump’s appointing his favorite sycophants.
They belong to him.
He knows the regulators won’t do their jobs,
but just be willfully dim.

And that’s THE Right now.
Trump learned his lesson well.
You KNOW he’ll pardon his current base.
And he’ll, try to pardon himself.

Trump will open a Pandora’s box,
at the border and on trade,
playing Fox viewers while his profiteers,
will have it made.

Taxpayers-lose at this pardon party.
The donors make the bucks.
If you don’t see this political fact,
we’ll never get out of Trump’s muck.

And that’s THE Right now.
Trump learned his lesson well.
You KNOW he’ll pardon his current base.
And he’ll, try to pardon himself.

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Midcentury Journey

The Book of the Week is “MidCentury Journey” by William L. Shirer, published in a 1961 revised edition. During and after WWII, the author- who was born around 1904 in the United States– made visits periodically to Europe and the U.S. and recorded his political, cultural and social observations.

Shirer described the circumstances surrounding Hitler’s collaborators, including King Leopold of Belgium, Quisling of Norway, and Petain and Laval of France. Other leaders immediately caved in to Hitler– the king of Denmark and the queen of Netherlands. They hitched their stars to Hitler because they thought he was going to win the war and when he did, they would benefit.

The reasoning “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” was used to justify the August 1939 agreement between Hitler and Stalin. Both hated the Jews, so ordinary Germans and Russians could share in the hatred. But the relationship between two megalomaniac males with clashing egos doesn’t last long.

The Nazis were able to come to power and maintain it because they had firearms and social contagion. That is the case in corrupt, lawless countries. Money, lawyers and social connections are instruments of power in democratic countries. However, firearms can tear apart the social fabric, and when other conditions are present, can lead to corruption and lawlessness.

In the first few decades of the twentieth century, the French government wasn’t as capitalistic as other nations. So most of its people suffered living standards lower than other nations’. In 1938, France was ill-prepared to fight another war. Its military leaders refused to believe that new military equipment such as tanks and planes were necessary for defense. Further, the country’s newspapers were in the pay of Hitler and Mussolini.

The French people were mad as hell at their government and other institutions. The Fascists and Communists took the opportunity to harness public outrage at the corruption and incompetence of the French government.

The French people developed black markets to keep their resources away from their Nazi occupiers, and to survive. They continued their black markets after the war because they were angry. The workers felt cheated by inflation and low pay. They committed tax evasion and refused to do public service in sacrificing for their countrymen, unlike other cultures who: volunteered, contributed raw materials, and suffered deprivations for the war effort. The French thus adopted Soviet-style Communism. Their inefficient, small businesses lingered for decades.

Toward the end of the war, reporter Leo Lania quoted a French editor, “Charles de Gaulle has become the leader of a party which rallies the traitors of yesterday, the grafters of today, and the Fascists of tomorrow under the cloak of patriotic slogans.” [Behold, “Make America Great Again.”]

Britain was so very economically devastated by the war in so many ways, that the Labour and Conservative parties cooperated in passing Communistic laws. In the second half of the 1940’s into the 1950’s, the government began to take care of the people by taking over the Bank of England, coal mining, transportation, civil aviation, international telecommunications and utilities. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as the tenor of the times warranted it!

In 1949, the British got national health insurance. The American Medical Association smeared this National Health Service as “socialized medicine” because if the idea were to be implemented in the U.S., it would threaten the autonomy and lavish livelihoods of American doctors.

During the McCarthy Era, a group of Americans passed judgement on the “Americanness” of others, trampling on their rights to due process. Shirer characterized Joe McCarthy as “… a second-rate Goebbels, possessing something of the German propaganda minister’s disregard for truth or fair play or elementary decency and his flair for the lowest forms of demagoguery, but lacking the German brain, which was above average.”

Prior to his mental decline, America’s current president-elect was the same way. Still is, and getting worse. Yet, now is a contradictory time in America, considering that free speech abounds (except for employers who make the signing of non-disclosure agreements a hiring condition!) and voter turnout is on the rise.

Nevertheless, the way Trump can prove his mental acuity, is to answer UNSCRIPTED questions at public appearances. In connection therewith, here’s a song about people who are collaborating with him: the angry, Democrat-bashing, overpaid noisemakers on the idiot box. Sometimes, one has to fight fire with fire and stoop to their level. We hate most in others what we hate in ourselves.

LIBERAL-PEOPLE HATERS

sung to the tune of “The Purple People Eater” with apologies to the Estate of Sheb Wooley and whomever else the rights may concern.

Well, I see the bullies lashing out at the Left.
Their candidates won. They’re not bereft.
Yet they continue to spew hate speech, you see.
They look like liberal-people haters to me.

It’s a mean, snide, low horde of lying liberal-people haters.
A mean, snide, low horde of lying liberal-people haters.
A mean, snide, low horde of lying liberal-people haters.
They sure look enraged to me. (Insecure?)

Well, they’re propagandists and they love ratings, you see.
Those whiny liberal-people haters, they don’t incite me.
Their greedy message they say in a voice so gruff:
We wouldn’t hate you if you watch us enough!

I heard those liberal-people haters’ nasty lines.
They’re ignorant people and they’re sure unkind.
Their behavior is considered uncool in this land.
They’re puppets controlled by thuggish Trump’s hand.

Well, bless your hearts, you childish tools, lying liberal-people haters.
You idiots all, undergrowed lying liberal-people haters.
Glaring, little-minded lying liberal-people haters.
What a cringeworthy scene.

And they rave like they’re three with a shrieking sound.
And they lash out, really flailing around.
It’s a smearing party with an ugly tune.
Sing a slur slur from phobias, boom, boom, boom.

Well, they’re not going away. That much, we know.
Unless the billionaires wisely spend our tax dough,
to revive democracy, reduce the red.
Lose those cocky fools and a prez-elect who’s brain-dead.

! ! !

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about WWII history and Shirer’s observations of it.

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The Face Laughs – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Face Laughs While the Brain Cries, The Education of A Doctor” by Stephen L. Hauser, published in 2023.

Born at the dawn of the 1950’s, the author grew up mostly in Bayside, a section of Queens in New York City. He began conducting medical research in the 1970’s, when knowledge and resources were extremely limited. His first drug-study involved 58 multiple-sclerosis patients selected from two hospitals in Boston. He got to know every patient personally.

Around 2010, the author was a small cog in the wheel of a much, much more extensive multiple-sclerosis-drug study that involved 2,500 patients affiliated with more than 300 hospitals on 5 continents. There were data galore from MRI’s, test results from clinicians and blood and spinal fluid, and integrity- monitoring of the whole extravaganza. Nine million pages of information.

Read the book to learn much, much more about the doctor’s experiences with his medical research and the U.S.’s drug-approval process.

ENDNOTE: The author recounted a few medical cases of people who had lost their minds. They turned out to have brain damage from multiple sclerosis.

Regardless of the cause of the inability of the patients to do their jobs– they couldn’t do their jobs competently. When such workers are responsible for leading a sprawling entity, where people’s lives or livelihoods hang in the balance, there can be extracurricular activity because no one is minding the store.

Two particular cautionary tales in the United States come to mind in connection therewith. It is true, no one person, not even the top leader is entirely to blame when things go wrong, but they get blamed because one thing leads to another, due to their impaired brain function.

Authors of personal accounts have documented how Ronald Reagan had reduced brain function in his second term as U.S. president; among them, George Shultz and Lesley Stahl. Peggy Noonan claimed Reagan had a hearing aid that was only sometimes on, so he was blissfully unaware of a lot of events he should have known about. The head of the CIA, Bill Casey was dying of a brain tumor. One subordinate of his, Oliver North, went rogue– played a large role in secretly selling weapons to the Iranians, with the help of Israel and Saudi Arabia!

The other instance involved Bill Paley, who was head of the international corporation, CBS, into the 1980’s. He would come into board meetings with a walker and two nurses by his side. Due to extensive memory loss, he was clueless as to what was going on. Since he wasn’t truly running the company anymore, a rogue department at CBS, having zero experience, decided to try to make movies. That division generated disastrous losses that resulted in layoffs in unrelated departments, causing trauma for all stakeholders associated with CBS.

In both of the above instances, there would have been a lot less trouble had the leader been removed when his incompetence due to reduced brain function became evident. Hint: the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution can be invoked when a president is deemed sufficiently cognitively impaired to warrant his removal.

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A Wild Idea

The Book of the Week is “A Wild Idea” by Jonathan Franklin, published in 2021. This sloppily edited volume told a suspenseful, inspiring story of a man famous for doing the impossible– saving huge swaths of ecosystems in southern regions of Chile and Argentina in the single-digit 2000’s.

Born in 1943, Doug Tompkins spent his childhood in New York City and upstate New York. A social misfit, he dropped out of high school. Nevertheless, he acquired marketable skills in tree-felling and other manual labors, and retailing, enabling him to fund his wilderness adventures. His entreprenurial bent led him to start two clothing companies that prospered.

Tompkins wasn’t some hypocritical environmental philanthropist who claimed to want to save the earth, while: generating excessive pollution with his gas-guzzling vehicles and corporate and private jets, zipping around to his various mansions, and yachting with celebrities.

Tompkins truly, deeply cared about contamination of the world’s food supply, in addition to securing nature preserves in the form of national parks. His goals were to re-balance the proportions of life forms on earth through re-populating those areas with endangered species, and to let people enjoy nature! This, in regions of South America that had yet to be destroyed by humans, only because the terrain was so inhospitable to human habitation. He lived there; off the grid, when he wasn’t on some challenging outdoors-adventure with his buddies somewhere in the world.

Read the book to learn much more about a few episodes of Tompkins’ more extreme adventures, his businesses, the changes he wrought, and how he was changed by his experiences and relationships.

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A Man of Two Superpowers

The Book of the Week is “A Man of Two Superpowers, From Russia With Hope” by Yakov Grinshpun, published in 2022. This short, sloppily edited volume explained how and why the author came to the United States, and how he adjusted to living here.

Grinshpun was born in January 1944 in a part of Ukraine that became Romanian territory during WWII. The Russians “liberated” his shtetl in March 1944. He was brainwashed from birth into the Russian Communist system, with its extreme nationalism, “meetings, salutes, slogans, parades and uniforms.” He was taught that the Americans were evil. Imperialism and capitalism became conflated in his mind.

Grinshpun was branded as having Jewish nationality due to his ancestry, even though he had been born in Ukraine– a territory claimed by the Russians. His birth certificate and passport both said as much. This made him the target of discrimination in most major aspects of his life in the then-Soviet Union.

In February 1962, at age eighteen, the author had finally become eligible to vote for his country’s leader. Actually, voting was legally required! Even so, there was only one name on the ballot: Khrushchev’s.

At university, as a Jew, he was barred from studying medicine or law. The few jobs open to him involved mathematics or engineering. However, Grinshpun did get free tuition in exchange for three years’ worth of working for the State in the job chosen for him– physics teacher.

Even into his forties, the author had such limited knowledge about the collective mood of the people in his homeland. He wrote, “The Soviet Union endured for about seventy years, and as far as I could tell in [summer] 1989 would for many more years with its draconian policies.”

Most of the world was gobsmacked by the events of the next few months. Grinshpun explained the reason for his ignorance: infantilism imposed on him by the Soviet government: “… we were never responsible for much. We had a secure job and a place to live– both all but for life.” In exchange for having no worries, the people were conditioned to be blindly obedient to authority, and to lack critical thinking.

Nonetheless, there were a few independent thinkers such as Ayn Rand, who knew years in advance that Communism in the Soviet Union would eventually collapse. Even now, there are very few people in the world who have Rand’s kind of insight.

Instantaneous, global communications is actually part of the problem. It provides too much noise. Grinshpun was provided with too few perspectives and resources to see the big picture, given his time and place. Acquiring the ability to zero in on the correct signals takes decades of life-experience, reading nonfiction books, and for the most part, ignoring the idiot box and the media’s pronouncements.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Grinshpun’s life experiences.

ENDNOTE: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

“I told my husband if we have to go to the White House, okay, I will go, but I’m going as myself. It’s too late to change my pattern and if they don’t like it, then they’ll just have to throw me out.”

-Betty Ford on the TV show 60 Minutes, aired August 10, 1975– a year after Nixon’s resignation, and a year into Gerald Ford’s presidency.

Here’s a ditty on why things stay the same.

HISTORY REWRITER

sung to the tune of “Paperback Writer” with apologies to The Beatles and whomever else the rights may concern.

History rewriter.

Dear loyal voter,
Don’t you read Trump’s books.
They took decades to spin, full of gobbledygook.
They’re bragfests involving his ex-contacts.

He needs a job, so he’s BEEN a history rewriter.
History rewriter.

It’s lots of dirty stories of a dirty man and his former wives didn’t understand.
His kids were sucked into his daily World.
They got steady jobs, but he’s BEEN a history rewriter.
History rewriter.

History rewriter. Rewriter.

Yet there’re millions of pages in legal truth.
There’ll be millions more in a week or two.

He’s lasted longer because he’s mastered the style. He keeps changing it round.
And he’s BEEN a history rewriter.

History rewriter.

With free speech he owns the Right. But he needs the billionaires’ oversight.

You’ll want to LOOK at transcripts.
You can’t SEE them here.
But Trump needs a break. And he’s BEEN a history rewriter.
History rewriter. History rewriter.
Rewriter. Rewriter.

History rewriter. History rewriter…

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What’s Left Unsaid

The Book of the Week is “What’s Left Unsaid, My Life at the Center of Power, Politics, and Crisis” by Melissa DeRosa, published in 2023.

Born in the early 1980’s in Rochester in New York State, DeRosa worked in New York State politics. By April 2017, she had achieved a high-level job in governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration.

The author wrote that the federal government under president Trump handled the 2020 COVID pandemic in a way reminiscent of the movie, The Hunger Games, pitting states against one another for scarce medical supplies.

In mid-April 2020, the president declared that lifting the COVID lockdown in different areas of life nationwide, would rest on his authority. But conditions varied widely nationwide. Governors in seven northeastern states banded together to invoke the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which allows state governments jurisdiction over local law enforcement in the event of a public health emergency. Trump reversed himself in short order.

In late April 2020, DeRosa had a falling out with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He was more worried about: voter-polling results (opinions) on COVID policies in swing states (that indicated whether his father-in-law was winning the then-presidential race!) than statistical medical data used to take actions to minimize the death rate.

According to the author, Cuomo’s people didn’t pick their battles with the media. They tried to fight them all– over every word in their every communication, making them appear contentious and petty. By May 2020, the collective mood of the nation was downright hostile over the COVID situation. The media took out its anger on Cuomo’s personnel.

As is well known, Cuomo became the victim of various acts of mean, nasty political retaliation. “Suddenly, you had a bizarre coalition calling for the governor’s resignation: Democratic Socialist AOC on the same side as MAGA Elise Stefanik in Congress, locking arms with the Democratic and Republican extremists in the state legislature.”

Read the book to learn about DeRosa’s experiences as a close Cuomo adviser in one crisis after another.

ENDNOTE: In order for public officials to achieve effective leadership of the United States: Numerous, diverse people must take years to analyze contemporary political issues while considering historical perspectives in order to understand how to make the necessary compromises required for workable solutions.

The top leader of the country has no time to do so after he or she has been elected. So, the public servants who accomplish the most to improve the lives of the highest number of people, are those who not only possess sufficient maturity and social skills, but those who have specific proposals that have been shown to work long-term, at-the-ready, before they get elected.

Not those who play well with the political machine, the media and their donors.

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Let’s Sink the Right Together – BONUS POST

As is well known, most of The Rolling Stones’ songs are about sexual conquest and emotional trouble (and to a lesser extent, drugs).
A current presidential candidate is largely similar. Here’s a little ditty on the situation: It’s the correct thing to do.

LET’S SINK THE RIGHT TOGETHER

sung to the tune of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with apologies to The Rolling Stones and whomever else the rights may concern.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

bop a la la bop bop

my my my my

bop a la la bop bop a la la

You have to worry about what’s ON Trump’s mind. Oh my.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He’s looking to commit more crimes. Oh my.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He dominates red and his tongue’s getting tied.
Tongue’s getting tied.
He’s got a muzzy head, which his base denies.
All he does is lie, lie, lie, and spy. Cha cha cha.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together now.

bop a la la bop bop

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He ACTS so strong but his words are unwise. Oh my.
Let’s sink the Right together.
But he just CAN’T apologize. Oh no.
Let’s sink the Right together.

HE’D STRING PENCE UP. DON’T LET US DOWN. DON’T LET US DOWN.

We will have laughs turning the country around,
else we’re king-bound. King-bound. Oh my my.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.

doot doot doot doot doo

You know he’s unsavory, sli-MY.
He thinks he’s gliding, ea-SY.

If you’re deciding lately, wow.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Now.

my my my my my my my

bop a la la bop bop a la la

Don’t let Trump happen EVER again. Oh my.

Let’s sink the Right together.

His excuses offered are always lies. Oh my.
Let’s sink the Right together.
He’ll actually satisfy HIS every need. His every need.

And now you know, he’ll screw the coun-TRY.

Oh my my my my my my my

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Together now

bop a la la bop bop

Oh my my my my my my my

Let’s sink the Right together.

He’ll actually satisfy HIS every need.

Needed more than ever.

Let’s sink the Right together…

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tokyo junkie [sic]

The Book of the Week is “tokyo junkie [sic], 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys… and Baseball” by Robert Whiting, published in 2021.

Whiting was born at the dawn of the 1940’s in northern California. In January 1962, while in the U.S. Air Force, he was assigned to Fuchu Air Base in a Tokyo suburb. He fell in love with Tokyo and the culture of its people, despite its sexism, pervasive sex trade, hatred of foreigners, and government censoring of its media.

Tokyo was undergoing a makeover to prepare for its debut as the venue of the 1964 Olympics. During the Vietnam Era, American college campuses exploded in protest against the war. The Japanese government supported the war. By 1969, Japanese students were protesting, too.

Over the course of decades, the author witnessed how the city changed from a war-ravaged backwater to an economic powerhouse. After WWII, the U.S. maintained a military presence in Japan, and nursed it back to economic health. This process was reflected in Japan’s education system, which mandated rigorous, nerve-racking entrance exams, which had a decidedly capitalist bent.

Another aspect of Japanese culture that showed its emulation of the United States, was the popularity of its professional baseball. However, the Japanese put their own twist on it. They allowed a few Americans to play on their teams, but criticized them for doing too well or too poorly. Too much competition would make the opposing team feel bad, but a player yielding too much to an opposing team, would be told to do better for his own team. Cooperation and sacrificing for one’s own team were key aspects of play.

The author noted one positive behavior pattern the Japanese were taught from birth. That was– maintaining the highest respect for other people’s property, and for public property. Their “lost and found” returned personal items to their owners (even cash, without a penny missing!) as a matter of the right thing to do. Tokyo is one of the cleanest cities in the world because the people feel a collective sense of ownership of their streets, so they don’t “foul their own nest.” Ironically, their politicians are notoriously corrupt.

Read the book to learn much, much more on the author’s take on how Japanese culture changed following major historical events such as Olympics, financial ruin, earthquakes, tsunamis, and globalization.

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John Lewis

The Book of the Week is “John Lewis, In Search of the Beloved Community” by Raymond Arsenault, published in 2024. Lewis was America’s Nelson Mandela.

Born in 1940 in Alabama, Lewis became an extremely influential civil-rights activist and politician beginning in the 1960’s. He was fortunate to have teachers at his high school who inspired him to earn a higher-education degree in liberal arts. Ironically, the colleges which historically catered to blacks, had curricula that taught trades related to agriculture and construction, that kept blacks economically disadvantaged.

By the late 1950’s, Lewis had already met Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family. When Lewis applied to the all-white Troy University in Alabama, King warned him that he and his family could: receive death threats, get doxed (the pre-internet version), and even be physically harmed.

Starting in the 1950’s, major federal laws had been passed in order to eliminate the separate designations of eateries, restrooms, schools and other public areas for whites and blacks, in the Southern States. Historically, through such segregation, the blacks had been provided with inferior facilities and services in connection therewith. White inciters of hatred continued to obstruct the integration process.

Lewis became a leader or member of civil-rights protest groups such as the Freedom Riders, CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), and SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). The groups adopted Gandhi’s nonviolent, “turn-the-other-cheek” philosophy. Lewis helped plan, organize and execute protests, marches and other events. He also participated in them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader in the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). King could be arrogant, and invoked God in excusing himself from protests he chose not to participate in.

In spring 1961, collaborating with CORE, the Freedom Riders planned to take interstate rides in Southern States on Trailways and Greyhound buses, and eat and use the restrooms at the bus stations along the way. Approximately half of the Riders were white, but the blacks (and the whites) still became victims of violence when they sat in the front of the buses or entered the (illegally) still-segregated facilities in the bus stations.

In one particularly ugly incident, the KKK had been tipped off as to where and when just over a dozen Riders on a bus going from Birmingham to Montgomery, Alabama, would get off at a rest stop just beyond the city limits. Haters (men, women and children(!)) were waiting for the passengers. The Riders were physically beaten to a pulp with common household items such as baseball bats, chains, tire irons, hoes, rakes– and the bus was firebombed. Law enforcement deliberately took its time in acting to stop the violence. It was the Riders who were arrested. During the first half of 1961, more than 300 of 436 Freedom Riders who took sixty protest-bus-rides ended up in a prison in Mississippi.

The elephant-in-the-room question is, with all of the scholarly readings Lewis and other civil rights leaders had done in preparing for protests and marches, why did they (and media workers, too) not protect themselves against the worst-case-scenario?

In other words– wear full riot gear just like law enforcement officers did in later incidents when those officers were bashing heads and beating limbs with billy clubs? The Riders and other protesters also should have known and used ways to minimize the physical harm done by tear gas, water hoses and attack-dogs. Why did they not protect themselves? That would have been defensive (still nonviolent), not offensive.

The Riders’ goal was, through civil, peaceful disobedience, to overcrowd the jails. That would generate more good publicity than harming other people or destroying property, as did splinter groups that later branched off from the original aforementioned civil-rights organizations. The Riders endured disgusting jail conditions. Yet they opted to stay in jail even when they could have been released on bail.

In the early 1960’s, government leaders at all levels– with their reputations and thus reelections on the line– were initially at wits’ end about all the bad publicity they were getting for treating the protesters so badly. But eventually, they came up with some dirty tricks to influence public opinion and cause the groups to devolve into dissension.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Lewis and his times.

On a related note, it’s deja vu all over again (in terms of othering, civil rights and all that). “You-know-who” has become the poster boy for continuing to make incivility socially-acceptable in American society. His political opponents are the perfect target for his smears and hating on immigrants.

Yet, according to the History Channel, Trump is the descendant of immigrants– his grandparents, who came from Germany and Scotland. The German ones lied, saying they came from Sweden. “Trump maintained the ruse at the request of his own realtor father, Fred Trump, who had obfuscated his German ancestry to avoid upsetting Jewish friends and clients.” Heritage-whitewashing was not uncommon; the Schicklgrubers did it, too, the opposite way.

Anyway, if the truth makes you angry, you’re living a lie. Here’s a little ditty Trump has been singing of late. Of course, ladies and gentleman, the views of this man are not necessary….

SUPERIOR PEOPLE
sung to the tune of “Everyday People” with profuse apologies to Sly and the Family Stone, Mijac Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

I’m always right.
I’m never wrong.
My own beliefs are in my song.

I’m a birther, a big star, all-American and then,
you know I’ll make us great again.

I-I-I am superior people, yeah, yeah.

THERE are lots of FOReigners who SHOULDn’t
get a green card.
We’re MAKing them the fat ones
while DE-priving our excellent ones.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

(you’re caca) We CAN’T live together.

My family’s better. Yours might be too,
if your genes are GREAT in my view.

If you-elect me, you know,
I’ll breed the best.
You know, you can put me to-the-test.

I-I-I am superior people, yeah, yeah.

I’LL make a border that KEEPS out these CRIMinals.
YOU’LL be a rich one.
WE’LL keep out the POOR ones.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

(you’re caca) We CAN’T live together.

I’LL look at the yellow one but think-TWICE about the BLACK one,
and possibly the RED one,
but the BEST one will likely be the WHITE one.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

I-I-I am superior people.

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In the Shadow of the White House

The Book of the Week is “In the Shadow of the White House, A Memoir of the Washington and Watergate Years 1968-1978” by Jo Haldeman, published in 2017.

As is well known, at the time this book was written, America was entering the Trump Era, some of whose aspects smacked of the Nixon Era. In addition, the author also could not escape writing with 20/20 hindsight, as almost fifty years had passed since her husband was implicated in the major historical event known as “Watergate.”

In October 1970, while backing his Republican party’s candidates at rallies during the midterm races amid expletive-shouting hecklers, Nixon said,

“The four-letter word that is the most powerful of any in the world is ‘vote.’ “

Strangely enough, in 1972, Nixon was reelected in a landslide due to low voter turnout– possibly due to influential propaganda and dirty tricks that discouraged or kept Americans from voting.

Bob Haldeman was the president’s advisor and lapdog, at his beck and call 24/7. He got the most face-time with Nixon as chief of staff, giving orders to underlings from wherever he was; it was not uncommon in the course of two weeks for the two to travel from Camp David to a foreign country to Key Biscayne in Florida (where Nixon had a residence) to another foreign country to New York City to San Clemente in California (where Nixon had another residence). Haldeman’s wife Jo and their four children sometimes accompanied them.

Nixon vacillated between: deep insecurities that required frequent consulting with his gatekeepers Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Henry Kissinger; and megalomania that led him to install a taping system in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room in February 1971. This, in an effort to record his administration’s every word and move, for posterity. He wanted to give his name undying fame. The listening devices of the two previous presidencies had been removed years before.

The author commented in her notes that in May 1974 (three months before Nixon resigned), “Although [Nixon] proposes national health insurance in a radio address, it goes nowhere and his public support continues to erode.”

The author’s husband was one of five defendants (there were many more) who were all tried together in a court of law for their roles in the Watergate scandal. Their cases dragged on through 1974.

The tenor of the times was such that alpha males with hubris syndrome populated the White House, Haldeman included. On August 6, 1974, he beseeched Nixon to pardon him and all his alleged Watergate co-conspirators (twenty-one of whom went to jail), and also to salve the leaders’ consciences– grant amnesty to all men who violated the Selective Service Act during the Vietnam War.

Read the book to learn Haldeman’s fate, and much more about the experiences of the author’s family during a particularly turbulent time in American history.

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Month’s Rant – BONUS POST

As is well known, America has a mis-prioritized news cycle.
The headlines on deaths resulting from extreme weather last about a week, while the media scandalizes trivia on politicians, celebrities and sports-figures, and revels in their troubles– and the headlines drag on for weeks and weeks.

As is also well known, there is one politician whose scandals are NOT trivial, and whose abominable behaviors on January 6, 2021 and in infinite other episodes, bear repeating until he can no longer terrorize anyone.
This ditty explains it.

MONTH’S RANT

sung to the tune of “Moondance” with profuse apologies to Van Morrison and whomever else the rights may concern.

Well, it’s a marvelous month for a Trump rant,
world domination set in his eyes.
A fantabulous month to make a comeback
with a barrage of October lies.

And the far-Right GOP candidates come calling
to the sound of the sleazy Trump show.
Fox’s hysterical rhetoric is galling.
They need high ratings to rake in big dough.

Election night’s scheming is subject to whisper and hush.
You know the soft money down the line, makes no one blush.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

Well, Trump loves to be the drama queen EVery night.
He can’t wait till election day comes.
He MUST keep pushing the far Right,
with dirty tricks, sneers and publicity stunts.

His claques, flacks and sycophants will be waiting.
They foolishly THINK that he’ll be true.

But in a month if his dreams are dashed, folks,
there and then he’ll vow revenge-against YOU.

And with all his history, the unprotected tremble inside.
His targets KNOW he’s dangerous; thus,

the October surprise.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

Well, it’s a marvelous month for a Trump rant,
world domination set in his eyes.
A fantabulous month to make a comeback
with a barrage of October lies.

And the far-Right GOP candidates come calling
to the sound of the sleazy Trump show.
Fox’s hysterical rhetoric is galling.
They need high ratings to rake in big dough.

Election night’s scheming is subject to whisper and hush.
You know the soft money down the line, makes no one blush.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

a month more of mean chants, against you
then election night, the dangerous Right
la la la la la
then election night, the dangerous Right
Trump JUST wants more mean chants against you, you know…

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Confessions of A Wall Street Analyst

The Book of the Week is “Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst, A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market” By Dan Reingold with Jennifer Reingold, published in 2006.

The author happened to become a telecommunications-industry stock analyst, hopping from one big-name investment bank to another. This, at the start of about two decades of an excessively deregulated, gravy train of greed on Wall Street: the early 1990’s. He described his job as requiring lots of reading and writing, and as having long, long hours. He got to travel around the world to meet his contacts, and gossip with industry competitors. The compensation he collected for doing so was obscene.

The U.S. government had just acted on a wave of anti-trust sentiment, so competitors were scrambling to game the situation. Telephones were going wireless, while their service providers were merging like crazy.

The author detailed the changes in the industry, including how it became corrupted by the usual suspects– greedy Wall Street workers. These included analysts and the departments that trade securities on behalf of their clients and their employers’ compliance departments who looked the other way on the LAWS against analysts’ getting inside information from the said departments.

For example, if the banking arm told an analyst that a certain company was a takeover target before information in connection therewith was publicly disclosed, the analyst could write a report recommending that his employer’s clients (which ranged from huge pension funds to little investors and everyone in between) buy its stock. That is one kind of insider trading.

In the mid to late 1990’s, the author witnessed various episodes in which one particular analyst at a competing big-name investment bank was manipulating the system. There was circumstantial evidence that he was receiving inside information on the stocks he was touting. Later on, one telecommunications company turned out to be not just “cooking the books” but scorching them. The resulting mess turned out to be the largest accounting-fraud scandal to that date.

These and other Wall Street shenanigans (that were bunched together in the course of a decade!) resulted in the usual harm to society and more excessive wealth for the wealthy; more specifically:

The perpetrators (the offending workers and their employers) got a “slap on the wrist” in the form of chump-change fines from regulators, while collecting excessively large fees for servicing the merger transactions and advising their clients on what to trade when– while admitting no wrongdoing;
The mergers resulted in massive layoffs of working-class people;
Taxpayers paid for the salaries of the regulators who bragged about how great they were in catching and punishing the few white-collar criminals they did nab; and
Unsurprisingly, the author retired before he got nabbed but he claimed his employment contract contained no pay-for-performance provision with regard to his employer’s investment-banking revenues.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about Wall Street’s goings-on in telecommunications from the 1990’s into the single-digit 2000’s, and the author’s career.

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Angela Davis

The Book of the Week is “Angela Davis, An Autobiography” by Angela Y. Davis, originally published in 1974. Born in 1944, Davis, who is black, grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Through the 1950’s, when black people began moving into the previously white neighborhood where she resided, hostile whites bombed the blacks’ houses; the place was dubbed, “Dynamite Hill.”

Davis became a political activist. Through the 1960’s, the U.S. government and law enforcement felt threatened by her because she was black, female, and a Communist. She moved to West Germany for two years beginning in 1964. However, she was unaware of the then-law that all foreign visitors were required to complete paperwork at the local police station informing the government that they were there. But as an American, she was able to travel to East Germany and return from it, too.

In summer 1967, Davis was at an anti-Vietnam-War protest in San Diego. When pressed, a control-freakish police captain explained why three people in the crowd had been arrested: “As long as you are standing on the sidewalk, you may be considered obstructing pedestrian traffic.” Times have changed somewhat regarding incidents occurring on public streets; video has likely been shot from security cameras, body cams and witnesses’ phones. Yet hatred between certain groups and law enforcement, and distortion by the media haven’t changed. So evidential video footage doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to future incidents.

Davis wrote that there were two unrelated groups in the United States that included the words, “Black Panther.” One was the Political Party, and the other, led by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, was the “Party for Self Defense.” Davis became a member of the former. She soon became disenchanted with its sexist men who expected her to be a cheerleader and babysitter, rather than an organizer of the group’s events, such as rallies.

When crimes were committed with a gun licensed to Davis, she was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. In autumn 1970, she was extradited from New York state to California to be tried for her alleged crimes.

Read the book to learn of what became of Davis, and much more about her activism, whose goal (at the time of the book’s writing) was to defend her “party, Cuba, the Socialist countries, the World Communist Movement, and the cause of oppressed people across the globe.”

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Spite of the Liars – BONUS POST

As the presidential election winds down in the next six weeks, many people are getting agitated and frustrated because it appears to be largely 2016 all over again.

Not to worry. It won’t be. The way people release anger in this country (aside from football and violence), is politics. Just keep calm and turn off the “news!”

Here’s a little ditty on the situation.

SPITE OF THE LIARS

sung to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” with apologies to Survivor and whomever else the rights may concern.

A ratings race.
They’re making history.
Hogging airtime,
doing their dances.
With Trump and Harris now
afraid of defeat,
using AI and social contagion to thrive.

In these times, money rules all–
healthcare, sports and elections.
It’s up to you to make the CORrect call.
You must fight just to fact-check their cries.

It’s the, spite of the liars,
mad people thrilled by the fight.
Audiences GET manipulated by their idols.
And noisemakers revel, in the-charade every night.
And they’re involving us all in the spite, of the liars.

A ratings race.
Eyes and ears on the news.
Inflammatory rhet’ric gets, gory.
By stacking the odds, they having nothing to lose.
But meritocracy will keep democracy alive.

A ratings race.
Both sides flip-flop.
Plenty of time for more surprises.
Scandalizing trivia, they’re not gonna stop.
It’s winner-take-all, someone’s not going to survive.

spite of the liars
spite of the liars
spite of the liars
spite of the liars

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The Crash of Flight 3804

The Book of the Week is “The Crash of Flight 3804, A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil” by Charlotte Dennett, published in 2020. In this fact-filled, chronologically disorganized volume, the author (a journalist, not a historian) elaborated on the actions that specific nations took, despite their announced motives, in trying to gain access to fossil fuels around several, but not all, energy-rich regions of the world.

The author described in great detail, certain historical events (perhaps those from sources to which she had easy access), and omitted or provided scant coverage on a huge number of others that were equally important. The book’s subhead should have specified, “…Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil and Gas around the Middle East, Mediterranean Sea, and Central Asia.”

The author could not possibly comprehensively cover the global history of fossil-fuels exploration in this one book. For, she also recounted her investigation into her father’s death, beginning in 1975. He was supposedly employed by an oil company, but was killed in a plane crash in 1947. He was actually working for the predecessor to the CIA.

Dennett wrote that in the 1800’s, budding empires sought to control the railroad industry, then in its infancy, in order to travel to faraway, uncharted or unclaimed territories sooner than otherwise. Most Americans have always been clueless as to the secret-goings-on of alleged religious movements that are part of America’s foreign-policy initiatives. Such operations aren’t covered in the media, except for kidnappings or murders. Through the decades, beginning in the twentieth century, spies acting on half of governments or international corporations, have masqueraded as missionaries around the world.

In the United States especially, think tanks produce reports that turn into propaganda campaigns that get leaked to the media. The “news” stories include calls to action, whose ulterior motive is helping America meet its energy needs. By the way, the Qatari publication, al-Jazeera is funded (possibly indirectly) by the United States, subject to the whims of the diplomatic community.

In the 1990’s, building oil pipelines in Central Asia became all the rage. Actually. After secretly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, in August 1998, the United States changed its tune because Osama Bin Laden masterminded the bomb-attacks on the United States embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Bin Laden was incensed that Saudi Arabia was friendly with the United States. But how else was America supposed to meet its energy needs?

According to the author,”neoliberals” believe in providing economic aid to developing nations in order to bribe them to stop acting in ways that empower them, such as making WMD’s, or drilling for oil and gas in their own territories to meet their own energy needs. So when the United States’ neoliberals send aid, they are actually giving recipients fish instead of teaching them to fish. They rely on loans from the IMF and the World Bank, so unsurprisingly, they can’t break their cycle of dictatorship.

According to the author, “neocons” believe in providing military-related aid, and imposing their culture on the peoples in developing nations. As is well known, in the 1990’s and again in the single-digit 2000’s, the United States sent its troops into Iraq to maintain its access to and grab additional oil, and produce economic devastation while claiming to bring democracy to Iraq.

Thanks to globalization and the Internet, the world now knows who the major neoliberal and neocon offenders are. It’s not just the United States.

The author made inflammatory but factual statements about Israel. The reader would think she would fear getting smeared as “unpatriotic” and / or be the victim of retaliation from numerous people who have a vested interest in defending Israel.

As is extremely well-known, the least criticism of Israel (even if there is ample evidence the statements are true) elicits a knee-jerk, emotionally charged accusation of antisemitism from the Israel-defenders. Sure, there is plenty of hatred against Jews, but not all of the accusations of antisemitism are true.

One other propaganda-related issue: from 2022 into 2024, in America, media stories smeared gas-powered stove / oven units, arguing they were hazardous to one’s health. Could it be they were actually hazardous to the health of the strategic interests of the United States, in connection with the access-to-natural-gas-related mess in Syria of recent decades?

Anyway, read the book to learn (and become more cynical by the minute) about: a few different oil and gas pipelines whose actual construction was stalled; the secondary motive of the drafters of the Balfour Declaration (the first of course, was to establish a Jewish homeland; hint: in 1918, the U.S. figured out what the British were really doing in Palestine); why America arms and finances Saudi Arabia and Israel more than all of its other allies; why Gaza is such a valuable piece of real property; numerous rounds of “Curious things will happen when there’s dishonor among thieves” and other violence-inducing shenanigans plaguing certain energy-rich regions of the world.

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Blue Sky Kingdom

The Book of the Week is “Blue Sky Kingdom” by Bruce Kirkby, published in 2020.

The Canadian author recounted how he, his wife and two sons– seven and four– went on a radical sabbatical for half a year. The parents had always enjoyed adventurous nature trips on various continents– whitewater rafting, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, and bicycling; not to mention camping. In the mid-2010’s, they began their journey to the Himalayas– Ladakh in northern India, near the Tibet border.

The family got sponsorship from Travel Channel, but had to shop around for a tour manager whose liability insurance allowed children under twelve on the trip. They had to hire local people (who knew the territory and languages) to help them: carry their equipment, cook their food, and know what to do in case of emergency (given the life-threatening terrain and weather), etc. The trip required months and months of planning. Well, the impossible took longer.

The family took various forms of transportation to get from their home in rural British Columbia, to Asia; car, canoe, train, ship. They then backpacked through various parts of Asia. In India, they stayed at a guest house where the air conditioning was broken. As the temperature was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, they crowded into the cold-water shower stall, which had mildewed tiles. “A group of monkeys watched curiously from outside a window perched in a strangler fig [tree].” To try to cool off, they also ate mango ice cream.

Both parents wanted their family to experience the precepts of Tibetan Buddhism, including but far from limited to: minimalism, tranquility, non-attachment, non-materialism, and transcendental wisdom. So they lived in a monastery, partook of prayer sessions and ceremonies, and taught English to the monks-in-training. The older son, especially, who was on the autism spectrum, took to his surroundings. The author described, through a series of anecdotes, their unique adventures. The takeaway is that the author realized that he became stressed when he was able to check his email in the remotest corner of the world.

Read the book to learn about every last aspect of a simple lifestyle that is quickly disappearing– due to the globalization of capitalism (Hint: “But here [at a luxury hotel] in modern Delhi, such attributes [shorn skull, maroon robe indicating a Buddhist monk– a powerful figure in Tibet] were meaningless [for getting a visa to travel to Canada]. I, on the other hand, possessed light skin and a credit card, which could open almost any door.” The United States– whose economic model is emulated by the rest of the world– is becoming more and more a nation full of athletes, gamblers and public-relations mouthpieces.

ENDNOTE: In Tibetan Buddhism, wisdom and compassion go together– the antithesis of the current Republican presidential candidate in America. Like a dictator, he sneakily sows doubt about the effectiveness or validity of:

all manner of international conferences and summits (except for Davos);
citizenship of his enemies;
the American election process;
the American justice system;
the American tax system;
immigrants’ positive impacts on the U.S. economy; and
America’s international trading relationships; etc., etc., etc.

for the purpose of amassing power.

An intellectual sows doubt for the purpose of furthering the knowledge-base that will improve humanity (and winning a Nobel Prize). Of course, NO presidential candidate has ever been ideal. But the best one would have the:

influence of JFK;
charisma of Reagan;
life-experience of Eisenhower;
intellect of Bill Clinton; and
temperament of Obama.

Here’s a little ditty describing Trump’s modus operandi.

CYNICAL

sung to the tune of “Physical” with apologies to the estate of Olivia Newton John and whomever else the rights may concern.

TRUMP’S sowing doubt with all-things ON your mind,
clouding the conversation.
He’s gotta smear eveRYone Left.
He goes low and MEAN.
He questions your citizenship incessantly.
Then he’s SUDdenly moody.
All his cronies rally round him
about going tax free!

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He’ll incite more violence.
We’ve been too nice,
tried to keep the dialogue civil.
It’s getting hard to tolerate this hack.
He goes low and MEAN.
His victims understand his point of view.
He owns his base mentally.
They should know, he’s destroying us, institutionally.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

Let’s be American, American, by voting AGainst him.
Let’s be American.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.

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My American Dream

The Book of the Week is “My American Dream, My True Story As An Undocumented Immigrant Who Became A Wall Street Executive” by Julissa Arce, published in 2016.

The author was born in 1983 in Taxco, Mexico. In 1994, she moved with her parents to San Antonio, Texas on a tourist visa. Because she was going to school (a private one) she was actually living in the U.S. illegally. Her parents (who were legal immigrants) didn’t understand the implications of such a situation. They simply wanted her to get a good education. Americans’ tax dollars weren’t even paying for it.

The upshot, though, was that Arce never got a Social Security Number, and couldn’t get any kinds of government or financial services: healthcare, a driver’s license, a bank account, or financial aid when she applied to go to college.

By living in the United States, Arce’s foreign status became her single biggest life-problem, especially when she was in her late teens. That problem led to others. If she moved back to Mexico, she most likely would be unable to return to the United States for at least ten years, unless laws changed.

Arce needed to earn “off the books” money to support her family, and pay her mother’s medical bills. On top of that, she had a drunk, abusive father. She was accepted to a college at the last minute, based on academic and student-participatory merit, and thanks to a new Texas state law. As is well known, many students are accepted to schools based on “legacy” or alumni-bribery practices, or on athletic rather than academic merits.

After many more hardships, the author got a job in the real world. She initially omitted the inconvenient fact that fake identity papers would allow her to work at the job only until she got caught for having a fraudulent Social Security Number. It appears that both her employer and the IRS turned a blind eye to her situation, as the former was able to pay her less than it would a non-foreign employee. BUT her employer was still withholding taxes from her paycheck. So why should her employer fire her? She was a model worker. She had to be– she was under the constant threat of deportation. She had to try harder than everyone else to please everyone.

Fortunately, several people in Arce’s life gave her good advice:

get the best education she could;
always strive do be the best at whatever she did– regardless of what it was;
be persistent;
associate with the appropriate people;
be professional at all times; and
continually socially network.

Arce was actually a shameless social climber, but she also showed she was a team player– unselfish with her time and talents. When the author achieved the pinnacle of what she perceived to be success, she wrote, “I felt normal– just another drunk Wall Street analyst on Stone Street on a Friday night.” And yet, she realized she still wasn’t truly happy.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Arce’s life experiences, and additional (true!!!) information (not emotionally-charged political propaganda) about immigrants in America.

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Jailing – BONUS POST

As is well known, Donald Trump is forever spewing hatred against all kinds of people other than white Christian males. As the presidential election winds down in the next two months, many people are drooling at the prospect that he might actually be locked up, not just fined. This would still be a tiny amount of punishment if he’s truly guilty of all the crimes of which he’s been accused.

This is the next development in the political soap opera. In politics, turnabout is considered fair play. The ultimate fantasy some people have is that Trump will end up like Jeffrey Epstein. If not, they’ll settle for his ending up like Paul Manafort or Michael Cohen– both of whom were subjected to ugly conditions in jail as revenge.

Here’s a little ditty on the situation.

JAILING

sung to the tune of “Sailing” with apologies to Christopher Cross and Universal Music Mgb.

Well, it’s not rocket science to analyze
Trump’s fall from grace lately.
If adverse winds bite, he’ll lose his way, and know humility.
Oh, political-canvassing can do miracles, just you wait and see.

Study history.

He’s always in never never land,
no reason to pretend.
And if you just wait it out, you’ll see the joy of leaders, working for YOU again.
Oh, political-canvassing can do miracles, just you wait and see.

Study history.

JAIL-ing would take Trump away to where some think he’s always DEserved to be.
His former teams were nobodies. THEY weren’t all sprung free.

Candidacy. It brings out the haters, you see.
But Trump’s jailing…

THAT would show democracy.

His whole world is a cacophony, of all that is SLI-my.

JAIL-ing would take Trump away to where some think he’s always DEserved to be.
His former teams were nobodies. THEY weren’t all sprung free.

Well, this country’s coming back to sanity.
Trump’s fallen from grace lately.
If adverse winds bite, he’ll lose his way, and know humility.
Oh, political-canvassing can do miracles, just you wait and see.

Study history.

JAIL-ing would take Trump away to where some think he’s always DEserved to be.
His former teams were nobodies. THEY weren’t all sprung free.

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Nerves of Steel

The Book of the Week is “Nerves of Steel, How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge” by Tammie Jo Shults, published in 2019.

The author, born at the dawn of the 1960’s, grew up in New Mexico and Colorado. For two years, military men in the recruitment offices of the Air Force and Navy told her she wasn’t allowed to become a pilot in their services because she was female. That was a lie. In March 1985, she was (finally!) inducted into the Navy, due to her chance meetings with honest men. She graduated near the top of her training class. Of course.

Shults was passionate about and good at, piloting aircraft, but she had to endure numerous indignities and conditions perpetrated by her bosses that were even more life-threatening than they should have been, because she was female. She was cool under fire, and her Christian faith saw her through those stressful and traumatic times of her life. Strangely, a religious quote in her book indicated she believed her God is a male!

Anyway, after her Navy service, she transferred her super flying skills to a job fighting wildfires in California. In the mid-1990’s, she learned to fly a piston-engine plane (different from the military aircraft she had been flying). She engaged in surveillance missions to alert firefighters and others on the ground to situations that were more dangerous than usual; dispensed red mud to put out the fires; and spread fertilizer so as to facilitate the growth of new vegetation.

The third leg of the author’s piloting career involved getting a job at a commercial airline. The GI Bill paid for her training in a 737 jet. Compensation and benefits for women in the military and pilots’ union are equivalent to the mens’, but in some quarters, women are still treated as second-class citizens by men who don’t like “girls” to invade their fraternity.

Infuriatingly for American women, Congress is still one such place where there are a bunch of powerful men, so even if a female were to be elected president, those men would automatically smear her, and vote against everything she did.

As is well known, presidents have had to make serious compromises in civil-rights legislation in order to further their own mandates. Attitudes are very, very difficult to change, as almost every facet of American life began with a bunch of white alpha males:

the Founding Fathers;
Wall Street;
the military and law enforcement;
professional sports;
science and technology;
business and industry;
most of the licensed professions, etc.,

except for areas involving family, household chores and jobs in the arts and entertainment.

So it should not have been surprising that the author encountered yet more gender discrimination with her new employer– in the late 1990’s. Read the book to learn much, much more about Shults’ ordeals and triumphs that show that America is making slow, slow progress in workplace gender equality. Unfortunately, not fast enough for politics. Not yet.

As is well known, in the 1960’s, there were impatient civil-rights activists who believed that resorting to violence would facilitate the enactment of equality-legislation. After the American Civil War to date, white males have threatened and resorted to violence in order to hinder the enactment of equality-legislation.

Not to worry. There is still plenty of time for progressive historical events this election season. Currently, it’s like the start of the fourth quarter of football games, but fans, like voters, need only check the last five minutes of the games to see the winners. Turning off the idiot box for the next month will prevent a lot of emotional trouble. There’s no need to despair, as there might just be a quarterback such as Tom Brady who will step in late in the game. Thank goodness for the last minute. If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.

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The Trading Game

The Book of the Week is “The Trading Game, A Confession” by Gary Stevenson, published in 2024. This blogger highly encourages the reader to peruse the entire “Wall Street” and Economics categories of this blog in order to gain a better understanding of financial matters and economics.

In March 2007, the 1987-born author began working on the Fixed Income Trading Floor at the Short Term Interest Rates Trading Desk in the Foreign Exchange section of Citibank in its London branch. He had grown up in a tough, poor neighborhood in East London. He beat the odds for someone of his demographic group, considering the fierce competition in both getting accepted to a prestigious university and getting a job in currency trading.

Stevenson nurtured an aspiration to make lots of money. Fortunately, his talent and hard work in mathematics allowed him to score high on standardized exams. He attended the London School of Economics where he rubbed shoulders with mostly male, wealthy elitists whose fathers gave them a leg up in life, and whose futures were almost guaranteed to be bright. At school, when he won a game involving hypothetical securities trading, Stevenson’s life turned around. For, he won an internship which turned into a career.

After a few lucky breaks and bold moves on his part, the author was just hitting his stride in work-experience when he happened to be at the right place at the right time to earn extremely large financial gains from a triple-whammy disaster. In March of 2011, about twenty thousand people died in Japan due to an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown of three power plants. Amidst the resulting financial turmoil and previous turmoil of the 2008 worldwide financial crises, Stevenson made a percentage of the millions upon millions of dollars he earned in currency trading for Citibank.

Stevenson alone in his department had been correct in gaming the situation. Everyone else had been wrong and they lost money. Nevertheless, he was still emotionally troubled. He bore two major similarities with Alan Turing– another genius: social dysfunctionality, and indifference to how he looked and what he wore.

Stevenson was one of the proverbial three kinds of people (geniuses in the minority)– the kind who knew what was happening and made things happen. The vast majority account for the other two kinds of people– brainwashed, unwashed masses who watched what was happening, and then still wondered what happened.

In the early 2010’s, the author came to the realization that there would NEVER be economic recovery of any financially-struggling countries in the European Union while the Swiss National Bank kept interest rates at or below zero. The other traders in his department optimistically kept repeating that interest rates HAD to rise sooner or later, because they had bet wrong.

But, the tiny percentage of the super-wealthy, super-powerful people of the world sought to maintain the then-status quo, because it made THEM even richer, and the poor, poorer, as the cliche goes. The income inequality of the world would eventually result in a slave-based economy (as existed in ancient times) all over again.

Read the book to learn much more of Stevenson’s personal and professional life, and his times. As is well known, the United States is one of the major economic superpowers of the world, and its politics are part and parcel of that. Here’s a little ditty on its momentary political situation.

LET THE BEST TEAM WIN

sung to the tune of “Let the River Run” with apologies to Carly Simon, BMG Gold Songs C’est Music and Tcf Music Pub Inc.

[Spoken: We’re all on edge,
waiting for the savior,
gaping with alarm
at the immature behavior.]

Let the best team win.
Let’s all peaceFULly watch the changes.
Come the new, new Washington.

Brilliant ideas rise.
The media lies, about, and smears them.
And celebs get themselves in your face.

It’s asking for the taking,
blaming, deep-faking.
Oh, Americans are aching.
We’re all on edge,
waiting for the savior,
gaping with alarm
at the immature behavior.

Through the hate and all.
It’s who we are:
Place a trail of desire
on the White House lawn.

It’s asking for the taking.
Just hold on now.
Democratic convention will be a show
you’ve never even seen in political history.

Oh, Americans are aching.
We’re all on edge,
waiting for the savior,
gaping with alarm
at the immature behavior.

It’s asking for the taking,
blaming, deep-faking.
Oh, Americans are aching.
We’re all on edge,
waiting for the savior,
gaping with alarm
at the immature behavior.

Let the best team win.
Let’s all peaceFULly watch the changes [watch the changes]
Come the new, new Washington.

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The Rascal King

“He had a stake in leaving basic problems unsolved, the better to manipulate the frustration that meant votes to him.”

-written of James Curley– the Massachusetts politician who labeled the state’s Democratic convention as “crooked” when he wasn’t nominated for governor in June 1934.

The Book of the Week is “The Rascal King, The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874-1958), An Epic of Urban Politics and Irish America” by Jack Beatty, published in 1992.

In November 1874, Curley was born into a poverty-stricken family in Boston. He made politics his career. By 1884, organized crime among politicians had become excessive. A good-government group called the Mugwumps sought to return ethical behavior to politics. In Massachusetts they voted for Grover Cleveland rather than James G. Blaine. The former was the presidential candidate with the less dishonest reputation.

Additionally, Massachusetts copied the British in introducing a civil service system by which government workers were hired based on test scores, rather than patronage from politicians. However, the tests were (deliberately given) in the English language– not understood well by immigrants.

In 1902, Curley co-founded a men’s political club with his fellow Irish Catholics that competed with the previous local Party boss’s. They knew all the tricks for winning elections.

One trick consisted of camping out all night at the polling place so that the next day, election day, he and his cronies could get their candidates listed first on the ballot, where immigrant voters would be more likely to check their names. So, third-party candidates would do well to remind all voters repeatedly not to be trigger-happy– to scroll down on the ballot to see the names of candidates for whom they really want to vote.

A reelection trick his administration pulled was to mail cards bearing the alleged signatures of competing candidates of Curley, to voters in a district where numerous voters were to vote against him. Those cards listed the wrong polling location.

In 1914, Curley was elected mayor of Boston. He soon began living high on the hog, despite his low government pay. For instance, his mansion was renovated by sweetheart contractors. He traveled internationally on cruises for long stretches to the West Indies and Europe. In connection therewith, taxpayers paid for his and his family’s luxury transportation.

Curley claimed he was a victim of discrimination against Irish Catholics when his political rivals accused him of corruption. But, unsurprisingly, he was a hypocrite, as he encouraged scapegoating when it was politically expedient for himself.

In the 1930’s, Massachusetts’ Finance Commission investigated Curley for financial crimes. He had become such a powerful Party boss by then, he was able to fire troublesome members of the commission, and replace them with his allies. He did the same with the State Tax Appeal Board.

Curley’s two major accomplishments in his state consisted of creating (patronage) jobs, and beginning construction projects. However, starting with the Great Depression, Massachusetts began losing manufacturing jobs in textiles and shoes.

In June 1947, in one last desperate attempt to beg for the mercy of the court at a sentencing hearing for the criminal case against him, Curley’s lawyers recited a laundry list of medical problems from which Curley suffered. He was a very sick old man at age 72. But he ran for office again and again, anyway.

The author remarked that into the twentieth century, local politicians were able to get votes by handing out patronage jobs and financial assistance. But when the federal government began to administer programs to help the disadvantaged and senior citizens– such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security– local officeholders lost that power. The Reagan Era’s cuts to federal entitlements saw the local political bosses regain some of their power. That is one reason low-level politicians are fighting so hard against national healthcare!

Read the book to learn much, much more about Curley’s antics and adventures in various capacities during his long, long political career.

ENDNOTE: From the 1920’s into the 1930’s, some Americans suffered through administrations of at least two elected officeholders who became despots of an entire state: Huey Long of Louisiana, and James Curley of Massachusetts. As of 2020, a formerly elected candidate (Donald Trump) is attempting to become an all-powerful leader over the entire country (and the world).

But– unlike past leaders, Trump has yet to be fully punished for his numerous misdeeds, wasn’t shamed into resigning, and will never be shamed into behaving better. Fortunately, the nation’s economy is doing well enough so that he can’t blame a Great Depression on his successor.

The nation may have economically benefited from all this political fighting, as so many Americans in politics, the law courts, the media and the entertainment industry owe their jobs to it! Secondly, Trump began his political career late in life, during which aging is taking its toll on the functioning of his brain. Enough said.

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Toast at the Borderline – BONUS POST

This is what Trump will be singing the next three months. It’s ALL he’s got, unluckily for him.

TOAST AT THE BORDERLINE

sung to the tune of “Close to the Borderline” with apologies to Billy Joel.

CrowdStrike-crash, heat wave, D-P-M-S, SHOTS, were fired.
I’m not dead, but Harris made the border-crisis, very dire.
JD was standing there witnessing how the crisis is taking, its toll.
Migrants slip through. They’re all criminals.
It’s Harris’ fault, says every poll.
Just for me, women have-to pretty-their-face,
The black people get, special TREATment for their race.
I get attacked be-cause Secret Service is-n’t around.
They’re a disgrace. Under-my-rule, better-men are found.
Life is rough, but I’m so tough.
I cry no tears at any time.
I survived, I’m still alive, but

with Harris, we’re toast at the borderline, uh huh, toast at the borderline, huh, uh huh.

Oh, all-you-see are criminals and the homeless in blue-states these days.
And Biden raised PRICES on gas. He was terrible, so terrible, in SO many ways.
Rich man, poor man, I’ll keep-away the tax man, when I get elected this round.
With the Democrats– well, we’re gonna ALL go to hell with their next big meltdown.
I got remote control and a color TV.
Those troubles at the border, we all can see.
I got real truthful friends. The Democrats LIE.
They don’t know how to lead. On a Marxist-agenda they rely.
I’m so great. I can’t deny.
I started-a-revolution. I didn’t even try.
Don’t know why I’m still a nice guy, but

with Harris, we’re toast at the borderline, uh huh, toast at the borderline, huh, uh huh.

I’ve had to sacrifice so many things. The Democrats are throw-ing it all away.
They don’t know how to do anything.
The border is wide open, it gets worse every day. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I need to teach JD my mad skills.
I need a lawyer for my Witch Hunt bills.
I need a banker to finance our debt. But Democrat support, I’ll never get.

Isn’t new what they put me through, but everybody knows I’ll make us great again. Another night I fought the good fight, but

with Harris, we’re toast at the borderline, uh huh, toast at the borderline, huh, uh huh,
toast at the borderline, line, line, line, huh, uh huh…

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Cobb

The Book of the Week is “Cobb, The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball, A Biography” by Al Stump, published in 1994. Born in December 1886, Cobb grew up in Royston, Georgia.

In 1904, with big-league dreams, Cobb began “paying his dues” in semi-professional baseball. It was employment-at-will. The team paid his travel expenses to away-games at stadiums around southern states via horse-and-buggy in all sorts of weather. The food consisted of bean soup, hog jowls and grits.

Throughout his baseball career, Cobb behaved badly in various ways to get attention and his name known and remembered. He took full advantage of every opportunity to make his own stats look good, although he himself was a social outcast on his own team. He was a man of supernatural ability in both hitting and fielding, and he groomed his legend to the maximum.

Early on, Cobb got himself thrown out of the game for shoving, and spitting on the umpire. He began many a bench-clearing brawl. He repeatedly, anonymously wrote letters of shameless self-promotion to then-famous sports writer Grantland Rice at the Atlanta Journal to get his name in the paper, because his team was too low-level to be covered by the media.

Cobb pioneered various kinds of slides while base-stealing, in ways that would intentionally plant his sharpened metal cleats into basemen’s legs, to injure them, and make them drop the ball. No rule against that dirty trick was imposed during his career. He acted the drama queen– moving the second-base bag closer to third base by kicking it a few inches in mock frustration. Cobb would loudly comment on the game in order to psychologically rattle opposing players.

Americans were shocked when they learned a couple of years after the scheme was executed, that some Chicago White Sox players sought to financially benefit from deliberately losing the 1919 World Series because organized crime figures organized gambling on the games.

In 1921, Cobb simultaneously played for and managed the major league Detroit Tigers. He was a hypocrite, banning his team (except himself) from playing golf, and during spring-training, ordering practice on Sundays. He himself didn’t show up for the latter, as he was visiting the minor league teams he co-owned in Rhode Island and Georgia.

“One corrupt game in every 300? Club owners blanched at that news. They had covered up the rewards systems, allowing it to pervade a game believed by millions of Americans to be on the square. Now, the outcome was shameful disclosure.”

Just as dishonesty waxes and wanes over decades in various areas of American life, it’s time to clean it up again in politics. BUT– only after one big burst of phony outrage spikes media ratings in the next few months, as American society values overpaid noisemakers (talking heads) on the idiot box and sports figures, more than: passionate teachers, sincere public servants, whistleblowers, and muckrakers pushing for social justice.

It is no accident that it’s more expensive than ever to be an idiot these days. Prior to cable TV (beginning in the 1950’s), the price of a TV set included the vast wasteland of entertainment and ads via pure broadcasting. For most Americans, watching TV now entails the purchase of an overpriced monitor and on top of that, payment of a monthly installment forever (!) to receive that vast wasteland (which still includes ads!), for more choices. That installment helps pay the obscene salaries of the said overpaid noisemakers and sports figures. The idiot box and radio pay people to talk. And certain politicians pay people not to talk.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Cobb’s family life and career– the man, the myth, the legend.

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Nightline

The Book of the Week is “Nightline, History in the Making and the Making of Television” by Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson, published in 1996. The TV show Nightline, and this book were aired and published during the Reagan Era and president Bill Clinton’s first term, prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of even more modern times– during which politics is even more sophisticated. And when political awareness is higher than ever, due to social media’s pervasiveness.

In November 1979, Koppel began to host on ABC News at 11:30pm, what he thought was slated to be a temporary show, on the Iran hostage crisis. Thanks to videotape and satellites, he was able to feature a few different people who could talk to one another live, simultaneously, halfway around the world. By March 1980, this format had evolved into a news-analyzing talk-show called Nightline.

One of many moments in which viewers got to see major historical events happening right before their eyes, was the April 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in the state of Washington. In 1985, Koppel and his crew televised a week of episodes in South Africa on apartheid, in color, and black and white. Actually. Also in 1985, in simulcasting another set of shows in a violence-prone area, they commemorated the 10th anniversary of the U.S. pullout from Vietnam. “Le Du Tho and Henry Kissinger, co-winners of the 1971 Nobel Prize, together again for the first time.” In 1988, they went to Israel to cover the never-ending dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Al Campanis had played baseball with Jackie Robinson in 1946. In April 1987, the former became a victim of cancel culture after he made some unpopular comments on Nightline. “The bigger problem for baseball was that Campanis had inadvertently revealed an ugly truth about racial attitudes in the front office, and firing him wasn’t going to end what was now a national debate.”

Read the book to learn of numerous other episodes of an educational late-night TV show that was obsolesced by the changing times in America.

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Mr. Republican – EXTRA BONUS POST

Here’s an update on the American political situation.

MR. REPUBLICAN

sung to the tune of “Mrs. Robinson” with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

The smear’s on YOU, Mr. Republican.
Females hate you more than you will know.
What do you mean, NO?
Stop the misogyny please, Mr. Republican.
Plenty of legal cases still to play.
Yay, yay, yay.
Yea, yea, yea.

We know all too well, about you and your wives.
With all you do, you hurt yourself.
Look at how others see you. You’ll see no sympathetic eyes.
All your polling hounds
will bring the message home.

Attacking in a sensitive place where every frat boy goes.
Go back to middle school with your behavior.
It’s not a secret. Old-boy Republicans are there.
Worst of all, you’re brainwashing the kids.
Spew, spew, spew, spew, Mr. Republican.
Females hate you more than you will know.
What do you mean, NO?
Stop the misogyny please, Mr. Republican.
Plenty of legal cases still to play.
Yay, yay, yay.
Yea, yea, yea.

Watching the idiot box spout the same old platitudes,
saying the Dems will lose the race.
MouthPIECES of the GOP,
rant and rave on-the-“news.”
Having ONLY angry white male voters, you LOSE.

Where have you gone, good-government intellectuals?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you,
muckrakers, too.
You’re still complaining, frat-boy Republicans,
though Sleepy Joe has left and gone away.
Oh, happy day.
You’ve lost your way.

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Shadow

“… the isolated and powerful imperial presidency was over. The nation seemed to be falling in love with its new Midwestern president.”

-NOT January 2025, but August 1974. Regardless of where he (or she) is from, though, the absolute best American presidential candidate would have maximum life-experience, knowledge and wisdom, but still be lucid and sane.

The Book of the Week is “Shadow, Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate” by Bob Woodward, published in 1999. This primer on presidential power-struggles was written toward the end of the Clinton Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the resurgence of American presidential power.

President Jimmy Carter made a campaign promise that his administration was going to behave morally. Yet, in summer 1977, his budget director Bert Lance got in trouble for personal financial conflicts and hypocrisy. In 1978, Carter signed the Ethics in Government Act, some aspects of which turned out to be a can of worms for later presidents. Pursuant to the Act, an independent counsel was to be appointed to investigate illegal behavior of a president when there was probable cause. However, in the next two decades, overzealous, viciously vengeful, legally wily government officials abused their power to launch witch hunts. Any counsel appointed could never really be “independent.”

The Justice Department has the authority to investigate wrongdoing by a president. Nonetheless, the Department serves under the president, who is presumably considered innocent until proven guilty. But, most of the time, the president’s political enemies clamor for the administration to appoint the “independent” counsel (a prosecutor) whose job is to find wrongdoing.

By the summer of 1995, the above conundrum dogged president Bill and first lady Hillary Clinton. “The FBI couldn’t investigate itself. The White House was at the center, and the Justice Department also would have zero credibility investigating its own bureau or the White House.” “Independent” counsel Ken Starr twisted the Ethics in Government Act for his own purposes in instigating the tabloidy probes into Whitewater business transactions, the White House travel office activities, Vince Foster’s death, and later on, Bill Clinton’s sex life.

In May 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a private party could bring a civil suit against a president still in office. Thus, the Paula Jones case could proceed. Even so, at that time, now-Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh believed that Ken Starr was abusing his power as an independent counsel in maximally, mean-spiritedly probing the Clintons. Bill Clinton didn’t help his cause, though, by launching vigorous denials and counterattacks, instead of coming clean.

Anyway, read the book to learn of how post-Watergate presidents handled the changing political times in connection with presidential power amid increasing partisan hostility. As is well known, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Excesses reach a screaming crescendo; dissatisfaction reaches critical mass, and the people say, enough’s enough.

In order to boost their ratings (and profitability), the media incessantly teases Americans with propagandizing, incitement and phoniness. But, not to worry. When the nation is at its breaking point, there will be surprises. Again, DO NOT be fooled by Trump’s “new Nixon” act. Here’s what’s actually going on.

THE MINDS THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

sung to the tune of “The Times They Are A-Changin’ with apologies to Bob Dylan.

Protect your history books YOU have at home,
beCAUSE revisionists around you have grown.
Stop fretting. Soon our government’s fate will be known.
If you vote, it’s democracy you’ll be saving.
It’ll be really exciting, you’ll see a new tone.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come readers and thinkers who are mature and kind.
And keep your ears open, it’s compromise you’ll find.
Don’t give up too soon, for you’ll see the signs.
There’s no telling truth from the raving.
You just might be in for a pleasant surprise.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come senators, Congress reps, do the correct thing.
Don’t be a greedy hypocrite, don’t act like a king.
Or you will get outed, you will feel the sting.
There’s a new ethical attitude dawning.
It’ll soon shake your conscience and become a thing.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come community leaders throughout the land.
Tyranny is trembling despite best laid plans.
Think for yourself: democracy is at your command.
You’ll replace the rapidly aging.
To the young idealists, you’ll lend your hand.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Sure, there are still pawns,
but the worst it is past,
though the nation’s mandates appear to be vast.
Targets of hatred should no more be harassed.
The ugliness is rapidly fading.
And the best characters will be hired for the cast.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

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Bill Moyers Journal

The Book of the Week is “Bill Moyers Journal, The Conversation Continues” by Bill Moyers, published in 2011. This compilation of interviews was done in the middle of the Obama Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the Trump Era and thereafter.

One subject Moyers touched on was campaign finance. Due to the merging of the American political, media and business worlds, and court rulings, money has corrupted the election process. Two cliches apply: The fox is guarding the henhouse (it’s really hard to clean up “Tammany Hall” because many of the enforcers themselves have conflicts of interest), and the fish rots from the head down (unethical behavior is contagious).

One way to take unfair advantages away from wealthy candidates is to legally require publicly financed campaigns. Obviously, even legally required disclosure means nothing to shameless, greedy officeholders who refuse to act ethically in connection with their conflicts of interest, once they’re elected.

Higher-quality (better behaved, less hypocritical!) Americans would be more inclined to run for office at all levels. Leaders need to be tax-paying, law-abiding citizens– people for whom honesty is a habit, a lifestyle (or at least have a reputation for it, such as Bernie Sanders). Otherwise, this nation will become a Third World country.

The latest big U.S. Supreme Court ruling is yet another indication that the nation needs campaign finance reform. That ruling was likely a choice between the lesser of two evils, in which the worse evil would be even more expensive (not just financially) for American taxpayers.

It was comparative to the 2008 financial-crisis bailout program. The alternative to the bailout would have been, that alpha males with hubris syndrome who possessed almost as much hegemony as George W. Bush, would have launched an extremely long, traumatic, complex set of lawsuits (whose goal of some would have been to get their bonuses), that would have bankrupted ordinary, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens. Ironically.

Perhaps the conservative Supreme Court justices rationalized that their ruling would be the lesser of two evils. Yes, they would give absolute power to a future president who acts like a dictator who loots his country. However, the law could be modified in the future. And the current American money-driven electoral system allows a candidate to purchase his way to office, anyway.

But the alternative would be: Trump could take the title, “president.” As is well known, Biden has some skeletons in the closet, and he’s been the target of witch hunts for, forever. So the ruling was also a deterrent to Trump’s allies and other Biden-haters who would stop at nothing to kick Biden out of office, and distract Americans from the 2024 presidential election process.

The bottom line is, TAXPAYERS ARE ALWAYS FOOTING THE BILL FOR THE MESSES AND SHENANIGANS OF THEIR GOVERNMENT. Decisions made by the authorities in massive financial scandals clearly aim to lessen the (still outrageous) tax burden on innocent Americans, lest there be revolution.

The United States needs CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM NOW. Abortion, gun control and healthcare can wait.

On a different issue, Moyers interviewed James Cone, a professor in New York City and a person of color. Cone thought white Americans omitted inconvenient facts when discussing their history, such as: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slaveholders. He said, “Because America likes to be innocent… that’s why it’s hard for Barack Obama or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk about blackness; if they talked about blackness in the real, true sense, it would be uncomfortable.”

Read the book to learn about a wealth of other issues on which America needs to work.

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Unhinged

The Book of the Week is “Unhinged, An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” by Omarosa Manigault Newman, published in 2018.

Born in 1974 in Youngstown, Ohio, Omarosa grew up with hardships and deprivation, but with a large extended family. After she became a reality-show celebrity, a writer spied on her eulogizing at her brother’s funeral, and claimed to have exclusively interviewed her in a tabloid story. Omarosa sued because she never consented to an interview, and didn’t even know that a story would be written about her.

In November 2015, Donald Trump appeared as himself on Saturday Night Live, saying that when he was president, everything would be perfect. Of course. Once Trump won the election in November 2016, he lost his sense of humor, and all bets were off regarding his ability to laugh at himself.

Omarosa got caught up in Trump’s cult of personality. She failed to see his character flaws. She wrote of a cancelled March 2016 Chicago rally: “We blamed everything and everyone, except for Donald Trump. No one talked about what we could do to change him or his message. The divide in our nation was simply too big to bridge, even if the candidate wanted to (he didn’t). He relished the conflict.”

One of numerous reasons he won the 2016 election, however, was that he was generous to a handful of people in “protected groups” such as Omarosa, so he could claim he was non-discriminatory in his political practices. He showcased and bragged about this handful whenever possible, but he smeared those protected-groups as a whole, behind their backs.

In her one year working for president Trump, Omarosa was the intermediary communications officer between the U.S. government and organizations of people of color. Most of her time, however, was spent defending her boss and / or enabling him in his whitewashing of history. She did arrange a few meetings between him and the groups, but her biggest achievement was successfully reinstating Pell grants during the summer term (in addition to fall and spring terms) for financially-challenged students.

As have other Trump memoirists, Omarosa described a world in which the political, media and entertainment industries are so full of themselves and so self-absorbed, they think that whenever a big event is televised, the whole world is watching them and their commentary on themselves for at least a day. But the bulk of the idiot-box ratings and Web traffic are derived from their own viewership and workforces! It’s now a selfie-cycle, not a news cycle. But they do tease some viewers all the time on political goings-on. Fortunately, they can’t tease all viewers all the time.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about Omarosa’s employment experiences in the White House, outside it, and a bit about the rest of her life-history.

EPILOGUE

For now, here is what Trump is singing to his claques, flacks and sycophants in the legal arena.

YOU’RE SCARED OF ME

sung to the tune of “You’re Sixteen” with apologies to Ringo Starr.

You’re all part of my scheme,
my own legal team.
You’re nodding and winking in line.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re all making me king.
A wonderful thing.
Our enemies are in decline.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

If you support me, we’re all set.
This is great. I’m glad we met.
I’ll pardon you.
I’m at the top.
Ooh, I’m so powerful, I cannot stop.

You’re fulfilling my dreams,
but now I need arms.
I’ve got the law on my side.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

If you support me, we’re all set.
This is great. I’m glad we met.
I’ll pardon you.
I’m at the top.
Ooh, I’m so powerful, I cannot stop.

You’re fulfilling my dreams,
but now I need arms.
I’ve got the law on my side.
You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re scared of me, so dutiful, and you’re mine.

All mine, all mine, all mine…

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Cable News Confidential

Foreword

Hannah Arendt, in an essay on Socrates, wrote that a statesman of high caliber listens— meaning, attempts to understand another speaker’s views. Charles Lindbergh and Joseph P. Kennedy obviously failed to listen to signals from their own countrymen; for, they hitched their star to Hitler. They figured if he won the war, they’d reap the spoils. Strangely, in 1968, even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was fooled by the “new Nixon” who was actually the same old vicious, wily, power-hungry criminal. It pays to listen to the other side to see historical behavioral patterns that aren’t going to change.

Post

The Book of the Week is “Cable News Confidential, My Misadventures in Corporate Media” by Jeff Cohen published in 2006. The author was born in the 1950’s in the Detroit area. He detailed the now-expected, and standard: hypocrisy, shenanigans, unfairness and imbalance he encountered while appearing as a political commentator at three different cable channels into 2004.

Beginning in 1997, the author appeared as a Left-wing panelist on the TV show, Fox News Watch. Also present were a Right-winger and a Centrist. On Fox, Cohen was allowed to bite the hand that fed him– criticizing the media for its biases, profiteering, smears and lies, etc. during his five-minute appearances on political shows. He believed that the commentary was actually politically balanced for about a year. Thereafter, Right-wingers became the majority.

In the summer of 1999, George W. Bush’s cousin John Ellis wrote in a Boston Globe column that his covering the 2000 presidential-voting results on election night in November would be a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, Ellis was doing exactly that, on Fox News, wrongly announcing, at 2:16am Wednesday, the day after election day, that Bush was the winner in Florida and therefore, Bush had won the presidency. Unsurprisingly, Cohen personally witnessed Ellis’ kind of unethical behavior over and over again.

From January to August 1998, MSNBC covered Bill Clinton’s sex life with Monica Lewinsky. Too bad, Lewinsky missed a valuable opportunity to become a political activist. Instead of allowing the media to shame her, she could have engaged in a public relations coup with the right messaging.

Anyway, in May 2001, Chandra Levy– a female intern– went missing, at which time the major cable “news” stations put her boss Democrat Congressman Gary Condit under the microscope nonstop until September 10, 2001. Other “news” stories the idiot box could have covered instead included:

On September 9, 2001, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was demanding billions of dollars to fund the creation of weaponry to defend against America’s enemies’ ballistic missiles. But, contrarily, he was saying that the president was opposing the U.S. Senate’s proposal that would shift the funding of said weaponry to fund counter-terror measures.
On September 10, 2001, U.S. intelligence agents heard al-Qaeda members utter the phrases, “the match begins now” and “tomorrow is zero hour.” But, contrarily, head of the Justice Department, John Ashcroft opposed the FBI’s request to add tens of millions of dollars to its budget to hire additional personnel to counter terror threats.

Cohen was constantly backing up his arguments with facts, such as when Chris Matthews basically denied that the United States did not send its military into other countries willy-nilly– that Iraq in 2003 was an exception. Cohen countered with occasions after 1945 during which America was an aggressor, that included 21 different territories into the single-digit 2000’s.

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s dismay with his employers’ practices that included much, much more Right-wing commentary than Left, and lack of fact-checking.

Endnote

By agreeing to debate and softening his rhetoric, Donald Trump is showing he has reached the bargaining stage of grief, in the death of his political career. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY HIS “NEW NIXON” ACT.

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Oath and Honor – EXTRA BONUS POST

The Extra Bonus Book of the Week is “Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning” by Liz Cheney, published in 2023.

As is well known, in November and December 2020, Donald Trump filed sixty-one lawsuits contesting the 2020 presidential election. He lost sixty of those lawsuits, even those decided by judges he himself had appointed. In connection with his political career, he was charged with ninety-one felony counts. Even if a third of all of those felony counts were truly legitimate, that is still a huge amount of criminality, compared to that of other white-collar criminals.

Liz Cheney served as Republican Conference Chair. In late December 2020 (before January 6, 2021), she contacted all former U.S. Secretaries of Defense she possibly could, to ask them to warn Trump that the U.S military was not to be used to bully the nation into an election do-over.

As a member of the January 6 Committee, Cheney held meetings, generated memos and reports, and conducted interviews and attempted to get Americans to understand the vice-president’s role, and what is supposed to transpire in the certification process of votes in a presidential election.

On January 6, specific individuals were permitted to object to the vote counts of any states they chose. A few Republican puppets of Trump did. If the objections had succeeded, the votes of all Americans in those states wouldn’t have counted.

Shortly after January 6, Steve Scalise, a Republican and House minority whip remarked publicly that apparently, Trump could no longer lead the Republican Party. Nevertheless, three and half years later, sufficiently powerful Republicans are keeping Trump in power.

Read this eloquent book to learn about Cheney and the January 6 Committee, and the extreme amount of work, blood, sweat and tears involved in explaining to laypeople– how Trump’s actions on January 6– were so very damaging and dangerous for American democracy. This book was on par with the Pentagon Papers.

[Endnote: Eric Trump wrote in a recent mailing to American voters, “Biden’s wealthy Leftist puppet masters plan on spending more than $3 BILLION to defeat my father and keep Biden in the White House for four more years so they can continue destroying America with their Marxist agenda.”

Since Trump has stolen and twisted Reagan quotes, it is only fair to ask one of Reagan’s originals: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Eight years ago? How about sixteen years ago, when there was a Republican president in office, a crashed economy and two Republican-led, treasury-draining, America-involved wars? If Biden is draining the Treasury, it’s so more bridges won’t collapse, and more law enforcement officers won’t be injured by more Trump-influenced violence.

Here’s a little ditty explaining the current situation.

A DANGEROUS, EVIL MAN

sung to the tune of “A Well Respected Man” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

Well, Trump GOT up on Jan. 6.
And he encouraged a violent time.
And his cult of personality,
AIDed his election crimes.

His world is BUILT on amassing power.
It never fails.
‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he holds his scheming meetings,
while his lawyers play his games.
And he stirs up crowds with hatred,
while trashing his enemies’ names.

And he influences courts
as well as bills
WHEN-ever he can.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he boosts his own resorts.
And he embraces dictators the best.
‘Cause he’s more powerful than the rest.
But others’ money smells the best.

And he hopes to grab more of this nation’s-loot
when democracy passes on.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he plays the RNC.
And he goes to Davos and CPACs.
He TRAINS the girls next door
to recruit more political hacks.

But billionaires know
best about, PRESidential stakes.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

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Outrageous Acts / The Fifth Risk

Since nonfiction books on discrimination and software are all political these days, here’s a double post, although admittedly, the connection between them is tenuous.

[One sidenote: Trump has recently stolen yet another Reaganism but put a new twist on it. Trump used the word “bloodbath.” Reagan said during the Vietnam-Era anti-war protests, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”]

The first Book of the Week is “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” by Gloria Steinem, published in 1983. This volume consisted of a compilation of the author’s columns on discrimination, politics and her personal life.

In a summer 1969 column, Steinem wrote of “Feminist Realization”– when American women became aware of how deeply political their position was. She volunteered to help with the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and George McGovern in 1968, but because she was a female, their personnel cut her down. She refrained from working on important matters, lest people spread the rumor that she was sleeping with the candidate.

In October 1968, Nixon remarked, “Well, I had my staff count up all the issues I’ve made statements on, and it came to one hundred and sixty-seven issues. Of course, Hubert [Humphrey]’s been on both sides of every question, so he has twice as many.”

In 1972, in Steinem’s eyes, unlike Richard Nixon– McGovern inspired hope. Nixon therefore not only lacked charisma, but spurred emotional trouble and anger against McGovern.

Read the book to learn much more about the tenor of the times for Steinem and other American females, when the Women’s Movement began to really gather steam.

The second Book of the Week is “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis, published 2018.

In this short volume, the author wrote about how software has been revolutionizing various areas of Americans’ lives by assessing risk. It used to be called “Big Data” but it’s now called AI. The author stuck to a few subjects in which analysts processed scads and scads of data that were public, for instance, to contain dangerous nuclear waste, make farming more efficient, and warn people about life-threatening weather conditions.

However, the government argues that all that number-crunching of personal data (by which Big Brother is violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) is the cost of keeping Americans safe.

Anyway, at the time of the book’s writing, the author wrote that people in hazmat suits at the nine nuclear facilities (which closed in 1987) called Hanford in the state of Washington, were still continuing to clean up the substances that cause cancer, birth-defects and genetic-disorders: strontium 90, uranium, plutonium, chromium, tritium, cesium, carbon tetrachloride, and iodine 129, among others. These substances account for two-thirds of all the toxic waste contained in toxic-waste sties in the United States.

In 2017, a profit-seeking organization called AccuWeather was trying to get taxpayers to pay again to get their weather updates. They were already paying for public information provided by the government-owned National Weather Service. AccuWeather dispensed that public information to its own paying customers.

Read the book to learn more about how AI is doing great things in a few select areas.

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Poor Little Rich Man – BONUS POST

How can you tell when a politician (i.e., Donald Trump) is self-destructing?

His lips are moving.

Here’s what this politician is singing now.

POOR LITTLE RICH MAN

sung to the tune of “Fortunate Son” with apologies to Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The Democrats support,
the vendetta by Alvin Bragg.
Ooh, I’M red, white and blue.
They distract us all WITH Hunter Biden.
But there’ll be a bloodbath for YOU.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me.
I ain’t no president’s son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me.
I didn’t do drugs and buy a gun.

The Communists support, the whole Biden fam-ILY.
Lord, don’t they help themselves.
But when the tax man came to my door,
there was a corrupt and biased ju-RY.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me.
I ain’t no president’s son.
Vote for me, vote for me.
It’s either me, or we’re done.

Our unfair courts,
perpetuate such lies.
Biden opened the door.
And when they undo all my great laws,
ooh, they only Witch Hunt ME more more more.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me.
I ain’t no president’s son.
Vote for me, vote for me.
It’s either me, or we’re done.

The only way the U.S. government can restore its integrity (which it is trying to do through prosecuting wrongdoers)
is to remove the plank from its OWN eye before it removes the splinter from others’ eyes.

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Brave New Weed

The Book of the Week is “Brave New Weed, Adventures into the Uncharted World of Cannabis” by Joe Dolce, published in 2016. The author interviewed several individuals in various places associated with growing, using and /or selling parts of the marijuana (or cannabis) plant in the medicinal, recreational and entrepreneurial realms, and related his own personal experiences with it. The terms “marijuana” and “cannabis” will be used interchangeably hereinafter, to refer to the whole plant but other terms will be used to refer to specific parts, such as buds.

At the book’s writing, many American states had yet to pass laws decriminalizing or regulating cannabis. Dolce spoke with people who dispensed it for medicinal purposes, legally and illegally. On the latter score, some Americans dispense marijuana to treat medical conditions without proper licensing or credentials. But they aren’t just out to make a buck. They truly care about their patients. They do their homework, experimenting with the chemicals in cannabis, and consulting with others in Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Anecdotally, Dolce was told that cannabis contains double the carcinogen benzopyrene that tobacco does, yet cannabis can be used to allow easier breathing in treating COPD in the short term. He also related that preliminary studies showed that people who were potheads in their youth are turning out to have lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease in their old age, than those who weren’t.

There is still so much secrecy and false information that is disseminated accidentally and / or intentionally about cannabis, that Americans have had difficulty in learning the truth about it. The author attempted to state facts when he found a reliable source of them. One such fact is that cannabis-related scientific research on mice cannot be perfectly extrapolated to humans because humans are an infinitely more complicated life-form than mice. Israel is one place whose laws have allowed extensive marijuana research on humans.

Dolce tried a concentrated cannabis oil illegally dispensed from an individual in California. It made him so ultra-sensitive to all the stimuli around him– the lights, road, sidewalk, other cars, the sky, the car radio, etc.– he was having trouble driving. On a related note, in 2023, in Boca Raton, Florida near State Road 441, drivers would know they were similarly overstimulated when they saw the wording and graphics of a certain billboard. Without explanation, the billboard disappeared in a few weeks.

On a negative note, the places that grow cannabis-buds are extreme electricity hogs– their bills can run into the thousands of dollars monthly after a Colorado state discount is subtracted. All business is done in cash, and the IRS collects a large amount of tax revenue. Further, high-volume consumers of cannabis lose their ability to dream while sleeping.

Nonetheless, the author’s ideal vision for the future of cannabis is one in which Americans spurn Big Agriculture, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma in favor of toxin-free, contaminant-free, and environmentally-friendly products they can use to relieve their suffering; with the profits of such an industry reinvested in the local community. Good luck with that.

It still remains to be seen what kinds of regulation various states will impose, given their current political climates, and how much of a role the federal government will continue to play– given the nature of political donors and lobbyists, voter-demographics, and propaganda wars.

Read the book to learn about: how hemp is different from marijuana; the best way to store buds to extract optimal medicinal benefit; Colorado’s decriminalization of cannabis that began in 2009 and the legalization of dispensing it that began in January 2014; various dispensing businesses there; marijuana’s different forms including oils, sprays and vaporizers; what transpired when, in 2015, Dolce quit cannabis for sixty days; the lingo, the etiquette, dosing, strains, forms, biological effects, and interesting medical factoids including, “Cannabis is so dose specific that large and small amounts create opposite effects.”

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Baseless

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The Book of the Week is “Baseless, My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act” by Nicholson Baker, published in 2020.

From the 1940’s through the 1960’s, the CIA funded, and was supposed to supervise certain big-name American universities’ and the U.S. military services’ secret research; this, in biochemistry, pathology, mycology, entomology, etc. for the purpose of developing weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons would cause deaths of famine from crop failure or from fatal diseases, or spur regime changes. Government officials lost control of the experimenters’ spending and activities. The “researchers” were accountable to no one.

Pursuant to their actions, the researchers generated documents that they desired remain classified forever, or else redacted in large portions thereof, so as to become incomprehensible or prevent their readers from connecting the dots, because such secrecy allows them (to this day!) to hide their unethical, even evil behavior and shameful harm to society.

This book’s author repeatedly asked for said documents under the United States’ federal law called the “Freedom of Information Act” (or FOIA); he did hours and hours of reading to detect the truth about the wrongs committed by American officials. Those officials’ excuse for their coverups (during the Cold War– it was anti-Communist measures) is always “It’s a matter of national security.” The government keeps on violating FOIA by taking years (instead of weeks or months) to fulfill the author’s numerous requests.

Despite the government’s stonewalling, American society is changing in ways that offset the harm done by the lack of information on the government’s past evil actions; among them:

muckraking gadflies such as the author (who globally disseminate information on the shameful behavior of society’s leaders);
the increasing number of females (who are displacing alpha males in the shrinking “old boy network” and generally do not behave like alpha males) who are taking top leadership positions in America’s institutions;
propagandizing of celebrities, such as Bill Maher, (who, a number of years back, joked that “If your kid’s not learning in school, don’t blame the teacher– fire the parent!” which has perhaps influenced recent legal cases in which failures of parents have been perceived as a major factor in their kids’ shooting people– involving “parental responsibility statutes”);
the quantum leap in knowledge-sharing made quick and easy by the Internet (in spite of disinformation), through countless international, multi-media human-interest stories and videos that are raising awareness of the importance of voting and other actions Americans can take to help maintain their democracy;
the fact that the Internet has fostered a grass-roots communications revolution by allowing ordinary Americans to express themselves in a decentralized global network at the speed of light, absent the filtering of past societal influencers such as journalists, politicians and celebrities;
the fact that the body of knowledge of power-abusing American presidents in the past half-century has been amply globally publicized so as to significantly lessen the impact of their historical revisionists– and that Americans’ learning curve on them has run its course;
the COVID lockdown of 2020, which forced all different stakeholders to deal with education and childcare issues, and showed how the wisdom of life-experience has been imparted from the older generation to the younger one.

The author pointed out that every president to hold office since the 1930’s has committed evil of one kind or another– funding terrorists or authorizing the use of unethical practices in creating weapons of mass destruction (which were actually seldom used, and of course, were a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money) to supposedly keep America’s enemies at bay.

The author listed a number of online primary sources of governmental misdeeds and James-Bond wannabe activities; among them (in no particular order):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Classified_documents

Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/CIADocuments/CIA-001/)

Brill (https://brill.com/display/db/cwio?language=en) — charges a fee for its services

MuckRock (https://www.muckrock.com/)

The Black Vault (https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/)

governmentattic.org

And, he listed the physical libraries that contain the said Swiss-cheese, needle-in-a-haystack, “smoking gun” information: the National Security Archive at George Washington University and the CREST database in the FOIA Reading Room at the CIA.

One of many specific studies the author mentioned, involved 1940’s germ-warfare experiments that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of hogs and fowl, and the subsequent early 1950’s actual use of bacteria in North Korea and East Germany. On civilians.

Other evil scientists sought to learn whose buildings burned longer– Japan’s or Germany’s, in the early 1950’s, as the U.S. was then firebombing both North and South Korea. Interestingly, each territory’s building materials differed, and so burned at different rates.

Read the book to learn a lot more about the research– how men were promoted to the highest military or government positions and hailed as heroes for the info they gathered on how to do grievous harm to other human beings; the unexpected, mysterious deaths of certain of them; and everything you ever wanted to know about their plausibly deniable, willfully ignorant, fear-mongering propaganda campaigns (which was their true ulterior motive in the midst of all that distracting sociopathic “science”; it was thought that rattling the enemy psychologically more than physically, did more harm).

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The Night Trump WAS Defied – BONUS POST

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…And the exciting conclusion of the “Hush Money” Trial, produced by and starring Donald Trump, written by lawyers and decided by, THE JURY:

The Night Trump WAS Defied

sung to the tune of “The Night Chicago Died” with apologies to Paper Lace.

(Trump was STOPPED, in a court in New York City,
back in the USA, back in the Biden days.)

In the heat of a late spring night
where the land is a lawsuit mill.
The night Trump was defIED.
For him it was a bitter pill.

About-WITCH-hunts he’d bitch-and-moan.
But the GOP, he did OWN.
“It’s a disGRACE,” we-hear-him SAY,
while others FINally yell, “Hooray!”

I’d heard a MILlion lies.
I’d heard-the-crimes the night Trump WAS defied.
People, what a night the lawyers saw;
people, what a fight the lawyers saw.
Could it be?

And the propagandists sang, that a jury turned the tide,
but Trump’s current legal gang, could apPEAL and save-his-hide.
There was shouting and infinite TWEETS,
saying progress like this is SWEET.

But other people SAID, this is good for states of red.

I’d heard a MILlion lies.
I’d heard-the-crimes the night Trump WAS defied.
People, what a night the lawyers saw;
people, what a fight the lawyers saw.
Do my-eyes-deceive me?

And Trump still had the gall, to keep trashing one and all.
And the Right’s wallets opened wide,
and his slaves rushed to his side,
and they kissed his big, fat ass,
and they brushed his tears away.

The night Trump WAS defied.
hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah.
The night Trump WAS defied.
People, what a night the lawyers saw;
people, what a fight the lawyers saw.
Holy GOP!

The night Trump WAS defied.
hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah.
The night Trump WAS defied.
People, what a night the lawyers saw…

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Why We Did It

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Interesting Sidenote: FDR, Truman and Nixon switched vice-presidents when they began new presidential terms, for different reasons. George H.W. Bush was thought to have lost in his reelection bid partly because he failed to replace his first-term vice-president, Dan Quayle. This shows that American voters care about a presidential candidate’s running mate.

Many Americans thought vice-president Dick Cheney exerted more influence in leading the country than president George W. Bush did. Given the current concerns about the mental competence of the two main presidential candidates, the nation might be ready for another unduly influential vice-president.

The Book of the Week is “Why We Did It, A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell” by Tim Miller, published in 2022.

In this wordy and redundant volume, the author explained that in recent decades, style has become more important than substance in “The Game” of American politics. He named tens, and interviewed a few, of the Republican workers who fell under Donald Trump’s spell upon Trump’s election to the presidency. Those whose views and behavior have been consistently anti-Trump, can’t understand how such suck-ups can endure their own cognitive dissonance.

Bertrand Russell has aptly described the extreme insecurity of the above individuals– who lie to themselves: “There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” Yet another way of putting it is “hubris syndrome.”

There have been a few extreme times in U.S. history in which an intimidating presence has made politically-invested Americans, sell out like this; the most prominent of which include:

The McCarthy Era forced government, media and other kinds of workers to take the Loyalty Oath. If Americans were accused of membership in the Communist party, expressing Communist views, or even associating with Communists, they were forced to name names of “fellow travelers” — or they wouldn’t have a career. If they weren’t accused, and in order not to get accused, they kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Opportunists went the opposite direction and acquired outrageous power through doing the accusing. [Please note: it appears the author has not acquired outrageous power by doing the accusing in this book, as there is ample evidence for his claims.]
Into the 1960’s, political candidates in states in the South were forced to join the KKK or they wouldn’t get elected to office. There, most blacks and whites kept their heads down and their mouths shut regarding racial issues.
Aiders and abetters– mostly government officials– of Nixon (just like with Trump, concocting numerous rationalizations for why they supported him) got caught up in his spiteful activities in order to harass his enemies; this included matters related to Vietnam.
Aiders and abetters– mostly government officials– of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, behaved largely similarly to Nixon and Trump in concocting numerous rationalizations for why they supported them, but for some, their motive was greed as much as spite.

The author discussed the reasons the aforementioned Trump flip-floppers behave the way they do. “Republican politics was their identity, career and social circle all wrapped up in one.” They get attention, money, power and ego satisfaction in releasing their misdirected rage at their political enemies.

Influential political rhetoric hijacked their vulnerable brains when they were searching for their social identities; perhaps in their teenage or college years. Around that time, they learned to drink alcohol and might also have willfully engaged in severe sleep deprivation. Their judgment was compromised.

Besides, as Ben Hecht wrote, worshipers of an icon are hindered from becoming themselves. The ones who successfully attain celebrity status don’t know how to be themselves, because they have been acting the way the world wants them to, letting the world tell them who they are. Lastly, human nature is such that when one constantly receives calls, texts and emails, one feels important.

Read the book to learn the names of these claques, flacks and sycophants whose lack of self-awareness will eventually cause them to let slip an utterance they will regret, or have an emotional breakdown; and learn of their rationalizations and behaviors.

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Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms

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The Book of the Week is “Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, My Life in American Politics” by Ed Rollins with Tom DeFrank, published in 1996.

Rollins’ parting comment as the book went to press was this:

“Genuine campaign finance reform will only occur through a constitutional amendment eliminating PACs and prohibiting wealthy individuals to spend their own fortunes.”

Born in Boston in 1943, Rollins spent most of his childhood in Vallejo, California. As a young adult, he channeled his anger into amateur boxing. One of his coaches steered him away from going pro.

Rollins thus turned to working in politics. As a child, he had been unduly influenced by the military presence in Vallejo. His pro-war stance caused him to switch from the Democrat to the Republican party. At the last college he attended, Chico State (in California), when the Vietnam War was raging, he actively lobbied to establish a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps branch on campus. Later on in his life, he enjoyed lots of food, drinks and entertainment, compliments of other lobbyists.

In 1981, with Lyn Nofziger as his mentor, Rollins’ job was to get Ronald Reagan’s proposed laws passed and begin the work required to get him reelected president. In February 1981, the author was told to help hush up a sex scandal in connection with one female lobbyist and approximately twenty(!) anxious Republican House representatives. There was videotape evidence.

Rollins and his colleagues helped plant a featured article about Reagan in, and his photo on, the cover of Parade magazine in December 1983. Such propaganda was meant to dispel concerns about Reagan’s age. He was seen exercising and appeared healthy.

Rollins described the dirty-tricks he encountered during his attempt to get Christie Whitman elected against incumbent James Florio, as governor of New Jersey in 1993. In October, Florio’s people had an 18-wheel truck follow Whitman’s bus tour of the state. Pursuant to the Whitman team’s plan, at a toll plaza, a car got in front of the truck and broke down– allowing the bus to lose the spying truck. Rollins claimed that Florio’s side retaliated by pulling the fire alarm at the hotel where Rollins’ team was staying, for two weeks, every night at 4:30am.

On election night about 10pm, when the candidates were neck and neck at the polls– the win/loss margin was fewer than ten thousand votes– Rollins consulted with Whitman’s election law specialist who knew ballot security. They sent in their lawyers and marshals to the precincts in major cities to prevent any foul play.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Rollins’ activities in American politics of the past (pre-Internet), and a fund-raising practice which was arguably a form of voter-suppression, that resulted in a scandal (Hint: It was sparked by Rollins when he accidentally allowed his mouth to speak his subconscious thoughts; perhaps his conscience was bothering him).

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Liars’ Theme – BONUS POST

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“Our vision stands in stark contrast to Crooked Joe Biden and his Far-Left special interest allies who want to keep the status quo and end American Exceptionalism at home and abroad… The radical Biden Democrats have had their time and their tried-and-failed Marxist agenda has been a disaster.”

So says a May 2024 mailing that is soliciting donations for the Trump National Committee. One wonders whether donations would go toward paying MORE hush money to who knows whom.

Here’s the trial situation:

LIARS’ THEME

sung to the tune of “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” with apologies to Christopher Cross, the Estate of Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and the Estate of Peter Allen.

All of his life Trump FOUND them.
Accomplices who kept word from GETting around.
Michael Cohen made himself, the, TALK of the town.
After-his-ordeal, he’s still with us.
What comes around, goes around, in this town.
Wondering whether he’ll take, Trump, down.

When Trump got caught with Michael COHEN in New York City…
Both are phony. Is anything new?
When Trump got caught with Michael COHEN in New York City…
The best that they could do, the best that they could do, was cover up.

Donald, he does what he pleases.
All of his life, he’s mastered power.
His claques, flacks and sycophants are ACTing, ACTing loyal.
Tired of court, time after time,
thinks he’ll never be doing, ANY time.
Showing his suck-ups the way, they WISH they could be.

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The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told

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The Book of the Week is “The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told, A True Tale of three gamblers, the Kentucky Derby, and the Mexican Cartel” by Mark Paul, published in 2020.

Sidenote: Speaking of gambling, in May 1988, Paul Laxalt, a Republican from Nevada, and in June 1992, H. Ross Perot, an Independent from Texas: jumped into the race for president. The latter exceeded many people’s expectations.

Anyway, the author described the American horse-race gambling environment of the late 1980’s. At that time, off-track betting was putting smaller racetracks out of business, because gamblers could watch the races on which they bet, live– simulcast on video screens at racetracks and casinos; in other words, wherever gambling was legal. They did not need to be physically present at the racetrack.

Through the decades, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) got wise and cracked down on gamblers’ financial crimes such as tax evasion and money laundering. The author described one guy at the racetrack who illegally paid cash to winning bettors who wanted their money immediately, who were willing to pay a twenty percent fee to him rather than to the IRS.

The suspenseful part of the author’s story began when he and his best friend identified a talented filly– a female horse– that was running in major races. Practically all horse races had previously featured colts because on the whole, they were bigger and stronger and so more likely to win races, and were worth more money because they could be hired out to breed more race horses like themselves at a much higher volume than could females.

The author and his friend took what turned out to be a life-threatening risk by driving down from California to a casino in Tijuana, Mexico, to place a bet months in advance, on the said filly that was to run in the Kentucky Derby. He explained that by placing bets on events to take place far into in the future, gamblers get tremendously advantageous odds; for instance, 50 to 1 odds three months in advance, rather than, say, 2 to 1 odds on race day, on a horse to win– because that horse has become the favorite. However, if the horse doesn’t run in the race, regardless of the reason, the gamblers will lose all of the money they bet.

Read the book to learn of the gamblers’ activities before, during and after their fateful bet on their favorite horse in the Kentucky Derby.

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Rockne of Notre Dame

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The Book of the Week is “Rockne of Notre Dame, The Making of a Football Legend” by Ray Robinson, published in 1999.

Knute Rockne was born in March 1888 in western Norway. Two friends convinced him to become a student at Notre Dame (located in South Bend, Indiana), which had open enrollment for anyone who could pay the tuition. In the 1910’s, Rockne was able to get paid for playing and coaching American football simultaneously. The financial rules of football played at schools and football played as a form of work, were still evolving.

Rockne took full advantage: he knew all the public-relations tricks for building a reputation and maximizing his earnings. He sometimes played under a fake name, or sent a substitute to play under his real name. He got away with that because few people knew what he looked like.

In the nineteen-teens, Rockne became an assistant coach and trainer for the Notre Dame football team. He was promoted to head coach in 1918 when the previous one retired. One team member was a colorful character named George Gipp (as in “Win one for the Gipper”). His life outside football consisted of drinking, gambling and cutting classes.

Rockne condoned Gipp’s behavior because he helped the team achieve a winning record with his extraordinary talent. However, by March 1920, when Gipp’s sins became excessive and he was a bad influence– hurting the reputation of the school– Notre Dame’s administration basically told him “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son” (like in the movie, Animal House) and expelled him.

In a not-uncommon situation, by late April 1920, local businessmen pressured Notre Dame’s president into reinstating Gipp, because they wanted to see a winning football team, and they were major investors in the school’s then- and future facilities.

Rockne always had a profit-making pot of irons in the fire, that included betting on the games of his own team. Gambling was rampant among numerous stakeholders of the American sports scene at the time. By the early 1920’s, Rockne could even control his own press, becoming a weekly columnist (sometimes published by ghostwriters) in syndicated newspapers. No one seemed to care that conflicts abounded among Rockne’s other (concurrent!) positions– Notre Dame’s athletic director, football recruiter, track-team coach, etc.

The Notre Dame football team’s profitability rose when the team was finally invited to play in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on New Year’s Day 1925. The school (pursuant to Rockne’s negotiations) collected a portion of the gate receipts (of paying fans at the stadium). The game was broadcast on the radio.

The Notre Dame team played against Army every year. The football community had yet to feel the effects of the Great Depression in their big game of November 1929 at the then-Yankee Stadium. “A special train brought in Notre Dame’s eighty-piece marching band, and hundreds of South Benders came along with them.”

Through the decades, Rockne’s influence spread far and wide, as he served as a father-figure to dozens of his players. He recommended them for coaching positions after they graduated.

Read the book to learn much more about how Rockne became a legend in Notre Dame football.

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Bounds of Silence – BONUS POST

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Interesting factoid: Donald Trump paid hush money to most everyone who worked for him when he was president. For, as a hiring-condition, they signed non-disclosure agreements that legally barred them from speaking publicly about their employment experiences. These workers were forced to choose between whistle-blowing and loyalty to their boss, but the boss hogged all the free speech for himself. Here’s what happened.

BOUNDS OF SILENCE

sung to the tune of “Sounds of Silence” with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

Hypocrisy is Trump’s known trend.
He’s been confronted yet again.
Because legal-cases continuously
leave their seeds and are proliferating.
And the secrets, that were buried by his PR team
gathered steam, within the bounds of silence.

In gag-agreements signed by all,
through his own scandals and stonewalls,
under the spotlight of the tabloid camp,
sued by his-transition-team, employees and tramps.
His sins were outed, by-a-clash with the betrayed Right.
To his enemies’ delight.
And breached the bounds of silence.

And in attorneys’ offices one saw
one hundred people, maybe more.
People talking and people speaking.
People hearing and people listening.
People writing books.
Their thoughts were finally shared.
People dared. Breaking the bounds of silence.

Fools bound by Trump.
Free speech with a dreck-show dump.
Read their words and they might teach you.
Trump would slam them, with his crew.
But their words, through social networks spread.
Volumes out of the bounds of silence.

And this made Trump’s gang afraid, of the free-speech mess they made.
And democracy rang out in ITS glory, in a civil-rights success story.
And the courts say the words Americans-express are always free except-for-threats

or epithets.

We’re out of the bounds of silence.

[Heads exploding.]

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Tripping on Utopia

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The Book of the Week is “Tripping on Utopia, Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science” by Benjamin Breen, published in 2024. This book documented the circumstances that led several “scientists” in America to experiment with psychedelic drugs from the 1940’s through the 1970’s.

In 1920’s Munich in Germany, psychotherapists tested mescaline on schizophrenic patients. Ditto in 1930’s London, England. In 1933, funded by government or university grants, the thirty-one year old Margaret Mead, along with her male or female lover of the moment (She had a series of them through her life), practiced “salvage anthropology.” She tried to salvage information about exotic cultures that were dying due to colonialism and war.

In the 1930’s, Mead did fieldwork with the Native-American Omaha tribe in the Great Plains. They, and her research subjects in Bali used peyote, a psychedelic drug, for ritual purposes. She theorized about sexual identity and wrote best-selling books.

Mead and her scientific colleagues discussed how Hitler used hypnotism to control the subconscious thoughts of his fellow Germans. He didn’t need psychedelics! Starting in 1939, she and her then-husband studied human nature to help propagandize for the war effort. In 1941, “The members of the Committee for National Morale saw themselves as a shield protecting freedom, democracy and diversity from the weaponized manipulative forms of applied science emanating from Nazi Germany.”

The American federal agency, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) began to study truth serum and hypnosis for the purpose of getting prisoners-of-war to talk, improving the health of traumatized soldiers, and analyzing enemy psychology.

In 1944, since Mead and her husband, Gregory Bateson, had insiders’ knowledge and experience of tribes’ cultures in Asia, they were allowed to play adolescent-boy spy games, thinking they could make the Japanese surrender. In late 1944, Bateson volunteered to go to Burma on perilous missions. In reality, as evinced by kamikazes, and their guerrilla warfare all over the South Pacific theater, the Japanese would never, ever surrender. They would actually fight to the last man. Mead, Bateson, and other spies were fooling themselves. Their big egos led them to risk their lives for nothing.

After the war, the CIA began a series of research projects called MKULTRA. Most of those conducting the LSD, mescaline and psilocybin Cold-War Era studies didn’t know the CIA was providing funding. The Macy Foundation and the Department of Defense were the CIA’s fronts. The operation was a desecration and perversion of legitimate scientific research, as it scrapped the scientific method. In one experiment, a spy posing as a “scientist” slipped LSD into the alcoholic drinks of his unknowing friends and acquaintances at social gatherings.

Further, many of the research described in the book sounded unscientific— lacking rigor (amateur, James-Bond wannabes were conducting them), lacking a statistically significant amount of data, and lacking a regard for chemical interactions of the psychedelics with alcohol!

In the 1950’s– about two decades prior to the outlawing of psychedelics– the “scientific” community (comprised of psychiatrists, pop psychologists and spies, not to mention profiteers) around Stanford University especially, had the arrogant notion that perhaps LSD could accelerate the rate by which global culture could not only become one big, peaceful, happy family with no starvation– but also become more tolerant of otherness, different lifestyles, sexual orientations and gender identity.

It appears that in trying to solve the world’s problems, politicians nowadays are a little less naive than they were in the mid-twentieth century. However, reducing social ills requires multi-pronged approaches– legislation and social programs. Ironically, instead of eliminating social ills, introducing psychedelics to society caused social ills to multiply exponentially.

Anyway, read the book to learn about the evolution of research on psychedelics, including various shameful episodes in which people, dolphins and Siamese fighting fish were harmed or died; one of which involved a prestigious institution (whose main character was, by 1960, described thusly: “Approaching forty, he had alienated most of his colleagues back in Berkeley, was nearly bankrupt, and had no income despite his extravagant multimonth family vacation [in Spain and Florence, Italy].”).

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naomi osaka (sic)

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The Book of the Week is “naomi osaka (sic), Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice” by Ben Rothenberg, published in 2024. In this large, wordy volume the author showed how in chasing big money– noise from the incestuous relationships among the industries of: sports, media (which includes social media), entertainment and politics– has reached a screaming crescendo.

As a member of Generation Z, a professional athlete, a biracial individual, and a frequent poster on social media– Naomi was treated as a Very Important Person when she put her two cents in.

Born in October 1997 in Osaka in Japan, Naomi and her family moved to Long Island, New York State when she was three years old. Her Haitian father and Japanese mother were inspired by the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena– professional tennis players– to push their two daughters to also become professional tennis players, beginning when they were pre-schoolers.

As is well known by its fans, singles tennis is a super-suspenseful game because either player has plenty of opportunities to make a comeback. It’s always unpredictable. Upsets happen all the time. Even when “It’s gotten late early” (as Yogi Berra would say) because a match seems to have been won already, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

After a socially isolated childhood in which her parents made extreme sacrifices for her career, Naomi kept professional tennis exciting by making amazing comebacks in tournaments. Although she began to earn obscene amounts of money from tournament winnings and sponsorships, she still expressed her dissatisfaction with various aspects of professional tennis. And the media. And politics. However, Naomi and Serena Williams (a fellow tennis rival) needed to learn how and when to protest to maximize their desired results.

In 2018, Serena Williams argued with a line judge during a match, when she was losing. So she appeared to be a sore loser, regardless of whether she was right or wrong. In 2021 during the French Open, Naomi sent out a message that she would refuse to talk to the media. She was biting the hand that fed her, as her making money required the publicity the media gave her; she was in effect, an employee of the governing tennis organizations because their rules required that she talk to the media. At less emotionally charged times, the governing tennis bodies might have been more receptive to the players’ proposals to change the rules.

BUT, the bottom line is the bottom line. The governing entities subjected to complaints in a push for change, must consider how much money they would lose, or how more money they would make, in effecting the change. It seems celebrities who push a message persistently and have a sufficient number of friends in high places can make a small change.

In Ross Mathews’ case, in around 2012, a certain fast food outlet re-introduced a butternut squash menu item because Mathews and his social media friends bombarded the restaurant with messaging that appeared to show how popular the item was. In 2019, a bit of legislation was finally passed due to Jon Stewart’s long-time rigorous activism to compensate 9/11 first responders who had been harmed.

It is unclear whether other kinds of protests work, because they involve ideology rather than money. Due to the overwhelming propaganda that smears violence in the streets committed by brainwashed youth protesting a war, it is impossible to prove whether the war was stopped sooner by the protesters, or even how much the course of the war was affected by them. Of course in a war, there are hugely complex interactions of profit-seeking entities that throw a wrench in the works.

Another aspect of messaging in most situations, is that the bulk of the most active commenters are people whose jobs are on the line if they don’t weigh in with positive or negative coverage, in a way that is financially or ideologically advantageous for their employers.

At any rate, in late August 2020, in the wake of a number of emotionally charged, law-enforcement actions against people of color, Naomi wielded her tremendous power and influence as an individual professional athlete– jumping on the bandwagon of a protest among team-efforts of other sports– to postpone a very important tennis tournament in order to make a political statement. She was able to postpone it, due to the way professional tennis is governed internationally.

Naomi spurred hours of stressful phone calls among the chief executives of the major tennis organizations– the USTA, WTA, and ATP. But it is hard to prove whether that kind of political activism has actually worked in stemming violence and racial incidents.

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Naomi and her adventures in professional tennis.

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We Will Mock You – BONUS POST

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Interesting factoid: Donald Trump sued, among hundreds of other parties (in no particular order):

George Stephanopoulos in 2024
Orbis Business Intelligence, 2024
H. Pixel International, 2011
Mary Trump, 2021
Michael Cohen 2023
Juan Merchan, 2024
Wesley Moss, 2024
Andrew Litinsky, 2024
ABC News, 2024
Bob Woodward, 2023
Cable News Network, 2022
Hillary Clinton, 2023
Bill Maher, 2013
New York Times, 2024
Tim O’Brien, 2006
Letitia James, 2022
Univision, 2016
Twitter, 2022
Facebook, 2022
Merv Griffin, 2015
City of New York, 2019
New York District Attorney Vance, 2020
Jose Andres, 2015
E. Jean Carroll, 2023
City of Palm Beach (FL), 2020
Morrison Cohen, 2020

Pursuant to the cliche: “What comes around goes around” or, the negative version of “You get what you give” here’s what prosecutors at the Southern District of New York (and countless others) are singing:

WE WILL MOCK YOU

sung to the tune of “We Will Rock You” with apologies to Queen and whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump, you are spoiled.
Always making noise.
Playing politics.
Getting punished today.
You got egg on your face.
You’ll lose the race.
Juggling your slush funds all over the place.

Face it.

We will, we will mock you.
We will, we will mock you.

Trump, you’re an old man, defeated man.
Shouting out of court.
Hated by the WORLD today.
WE’LL set the pace, we’re on your case.
We’ll keep that scowl all over your face.

We will, we will mock you. Face it.
We will, we will mock you.

Trump, you’re the doomed one, the LOser.
We’re TOYing with your fate.
Gonna make you cry UNCle today.
You played your last ace.
You big disgrace.
We’re finally putting YOU back in your PLACE.

We will, we will mock you.
We will, we will mock you. (Dig it.)

We will, we will mock you.
We will, we will mock you. (America!)

We will, we will mock you.
We will, we will mock you. (’bout time)

Done.

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My War

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The Book of the Week is “My War” by Andy Rooney, published in 1995. Rooney was born around 1920 in the Albany, NY area. He attended Colgate University. Influenced by a professor who was a devout Quaker and pacifist, Rooney joined a group in his dorm named “America First” which argued for American isolationism with regard to WWII.

Nevertheless, Rooney was pressured into doing his military service beginning in July 1941. He received his draft notice from the local upstate New York druggist who doubled as a chapter leader in the American Legion. Having fought in WWI, the druggist was a hawk.

Rooney became a reporter for the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes in the British Isles. There, he spread news of the air-war against Germany and the Royal Air Force, to sixty-eight military bases. Through 1942, he met fighter pilots after their missions to get their stories in Holland and the coast of France where they were bombing the infrastructure of the German war machine.

Eventually, the Eighth Air Force decided Rooney should be a crew member of the planes. So they taught him to fire a .50 caliber machine gun in the course of a week. He took the class with several other journalists from major services and publications, such as AP, UPI, NY Herald Tribune, New York Times, etc.

In February 1943, wearing an oxygen tank, Rooney went on a five-hour mission at 24,000 feet over Wilhelmshaven in western Germany. He wrote that luck determined who died and who lived. Just like the soldiers, he collected souvenirs from the war. To the Americans, snagging a Luger was a major feat.

Rooney commented that the Nazis legalized persecution of the Jews before they went about trying to eliminate them. Their Nuremberg Laws provided a precise definition of who was a Jew, and what he or she was not allowed to do, and what the Nazis were allowed to do to the Jews.

Anyway, read the book to learn many more details of Rooney’s experiences in the wartime military.

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Enemies

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“The political hacks and blackmailers were to be fired forthwith. No more midnight break-ins at the Capitol. No more cloak-and-dagger work. No more arrests.”

— In the mid-1920’s, Harlan Fiske Stone tried to rid the Bureau of Investigation of partisanship and re-position its function from spying to catching criminals. That endeavor lasted less than a decade, given the turbulent times.

The Book of the Week is “Enemies, A History of the FBI” by Tim Weiner, published in 2012. With regard to catching criminals who cross state lines, spying, and national security, various recurring themes have emerged over the decades. This, as a result of America’s alpha-male-dominated culture and leadership. The major themes include:

incompetence, corruption and billions and billions of wasted taxpayer dollars due to inter-agency rivalry and power struggles among the FBI, Army, Navy, State Department, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, large urban police forces, the office of the Attorney General, CIA and other law-enforcement groups;
violations of the civil rights of countless ordinary Americans, in the name of “national security”;
smear campaigns launched by America’s leaders, against its domestic and foreign enemies (which could change “on a dime” pursuant to the tenor of the times);
traitors‘ sale of secrets to the Soviets, undetected for years due to the hatred between the FBI and CIA;
an outdated, disorganized filing system that lasted into the 1990’s;
lack of Arabic translators (resulting in the severe crippling of the FBI’s ability to spy in the Middle East; it had one translator until the early 1990’s);
total absence of communication among the FBI’s fifty-six field offices with the others, and rare conferences between agents and headquarters, analysts or the White House through the 1990’s;
a culture of secrecy in which all classified documents won’t be disclosed to the general public for decades and decades; and
high turnover of personnel— means no one knows who’s in charge– even years after the 2005 consolidation of America’s national-security services encompassing intelligence, counter-intelligence, and counter-terror operations.

To be fair, the kinds of men who are a good fit for the culture of intelligence organizations tend to be James Bond wannabes, predatory stalkers and bullies.

In July 1908, president Theodore Roosevelt authorized the creation of the Bureau of Investigation (later named the FBI), which started with thirty-four agents. By August 1919, as head of the Bureau’s Radical Division, the twenty-four year old J. Edgar Hoover supervised hundreds of agents.

World War I gave rise to the Espionage Act of 1917, which gave Hoover an excuse to order that foreigners and countless others be spied on and arrested– right up until the day he died in 1972!

The author used the terms “informant” and “informer” in a confusing manner, and didn’t clearly define either one. But “mole” or “infiltrator” are more clear terms: an intelligence agent who joins a political, ideological or labor group targeted for spying, who eventually– of course on flimsy or no evidence, uses smears and lies to arrest and jail the group’s members.

Hoover’s favorite techniques included using infiltrators, mail-theft, sending agents to engage in break-ins, planting of hidden microphones, and warrantless wiretapping of phones (violations of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) at the homes of people he perceived as enemies of America– named on his list.

Sometimes, law enforcement denied due process to suspects just to quell public fear or outrage, such as in the Sacco and Vanzetti case in the 1920’s. Over decades, there have been many incidents whose perpetrators were never caught. Spring 1919 saw one example of political terror. In acts of protestation against the federal government’s xenophobia and crackdown on innocent people, suspected anarchists sent tens of mail bombs to high-level public officials. The U.S. attorney general blamed Communists.

In November and December 1919, the Bureau of Investigation corralled and deported hundreds of the Union of Russian Workers. A few months later, the Attorney General’s office, run by A. Mitchell Palmer, basked in the glory of catching thousands of suspected Communists across the entire country– by way of spying operations and stomping on due process; he was fortunate to have Hoover’s authorization and talent for plotting the complicated operation. The jails overflowed with foreigners.

The hysteria against foreigners, anarchists, labor unions, Socialists and Communists was such that president Woodrow Wilson’s administration allowed the American Protective League (comprised of vigilantes– ordinary Americans who volunteered to, and were authorized, by wearing badges!) to spy on, burglarize the homes of, and beat up, suspected subversives. The group’s membership at its peak numbered approximately three hundred thousand.

Clearly, after WWI, the world wasn’t ready for president Wilson’s proposed League of Nations– a group of the world’s most industrially and technologically advanced countries that were attempting to cooperate in maintaining world peace. They couldn’t even quell their own citizens’ unrest, and were too busy jockeying for territory and resources of other sovereign states.

WWII saw historical events that forced human beings to evolve sufficiently politically, economically, culturally and socially, so that they did cooperate, more or less. And yet, there’s still so much hatred.

Anyway, FDR allowed Hoover to install listening devices in the German, Italian, French, Russian and Japanese embassies in the United States. However, the U.S. Army, Navy and FBI did not share intelligence among themselves prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. So failure to connect the dots resulted in countless deaths and ruined lives. The FBI crowed every time it caught criminals who could harm America in wartime, but in one of countless instances, in spring 1942 it omitted inconvenient facts from its narrative. Two of eight saboteurs had an attack of conscience and revealed their evil plot to the Bureau before the plot was executed. They would not have been caught otherwise.

In January 1946, president Harry Truman wisely disallowed the growth of a monstrous, oppressive, Stalinist kind of organization run by one individual. He dashed Hoover’s dream of running all worldwide spying operations on behalf of the United States– by ordering the founding of the CIA, which would spy internationally, while the FBI would do so domestically. Nevertheless, unsurprisingly, “The routine destruction of FBI files ensured that no accurate count [of break-ins and buggings] existed.”

Seething, Hoover secretly vetted men who went to work for the CIA, and publicly shamed them if they had Communist affiliations or homosexual tendencies. He contended that they were vulnerable to blackmail if they were employed in the government, colleges, law enforcement or public schools. He rooted them out and got them fired.

In the late 1950’s, Hoover began to target the Civil Rights Movement, saying its members palled around with Communists; in 1963, he deemed MLK “the most dangerous Negro in America.” Hoover’s spies infiltrated King’s cohorts, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and other religious and political groups. Although Hoover wanted to go after Soviet spies, attorney general RFK wanted him to spy on the KKK. But Klan members in Alabama and Georgia were employed in local law enforcement, so it was hard to fight City Hall.

There is nothing new under the sun. The FBI collected information on the sex lives of U.S. Senate and House members, and any deviant behavior could be used for blackmailing. It kept the reports in a safe. “The president wondered allowed whether they should be leaked selectively.”

Beginning in late 1967, LBJ let Hoover sic spies on about a hundred thousand Americans who were protesting the Vietnam War and civil rights violations. Hoover manipulated the FBI (of course), plus the U.S. attorney general’s office, army, NSA, CIA and community leaders. A couple of months later, LBJ’s own administration was under surveillance.

President Nixon kept pressuring the FBI to prove that the Soviets were to blame for the civil-rights and anti-war protests. But they weren’t to blame. Into the 1970’s, the Weather Underground, a subgroup of SDS, destroyed property through tens of terrorist bombings in the United States. The FBI solved none of the cases. Major media outlets such as Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Time magazine reported there was something rotten in Denmark.

Read the book to learn:

how Hoover made a “new normal” of ignoring the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to spy on everyone during four presidential administrations (Supreme Court rulings be damned);
how this has come full circle now, intruding on the lives of all Americans;
what happened under presidents Ford and Carter;
of infinite occasions of mis-allocation of the FBI’s resources (such as the time when hundreds of agents investigated president Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern instead of chasing after criminals who were stealing from, terrorizing or killing people);
and a century’s worth of the FBI’s adventures and (mostly) misadventures in law enforcement.

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Oozing Democracy – BONUS POST

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Interesting political factoid: At the end of April 1968, Hubert Humphrey (a Democrat from Minnesota) jumped into the presidential race. America was in a different time and place then.

Since the Reagan Era, America’s diversity, location, size and the greed of human nature have all teamed up to give its style of democracy and capitalism a slimy underbelly.

These increasingly incestuous political and economic systems put it through a vicious cycle:

1) Excessive deregulation spawns unconscionable looting (of itself and other lands) by mostly alpha males.
2) The consequences lead to: partial restoration of regulation, but hardly any punishment for the real culprits, and eventually,
3) business as usual all over again.

Politicians are a crucial cog in the systems. They think they’re oozing democracy when in reality, they’re just oozing.

Here’s what they sing in American-style campaigns.

DEMOCRACY OOZING

sung to the tune of Rock ‘N’ Roll Music with apologies to the estate of Chuck Berry and whomever else the rights may concern.

Just let me preach some of my democracy oozing.
Through voting you can choose it.
Knowing backstory you can’t lose it.
Any old time you use it.
I’m gonna be democracy oozing, if you want to rant with me, if you want to rant with me.

I got no beef against equality.
Unless the law doesn’t favor me.
I deserve due process indefinitely.
You know I am never GUI-i-lty.
That’s why I go for that democracy oozing.

Through voting you can choose it.
Knowing backstory you can’t lose it.
Any old time you use it.
I’m gonna be democracy oozing, if you want to whine with me, if you want to whine with me.

I greet my donors in shady spots.
Where nosy-bodies can’t conNECT the dots.
I have a RIGHT to privacy.
Just as activists, to AS-sembly.
That’s why I’m all about democracy oozing.

Through voting you can choose it.
Knowing backstory you can’t lose it.
Any old time you use it.
I’m gonna be democracy oozing, if you want to lie with me, if you want to lie with me.

My opponents want autocracy.
And their actions show hypocrisy.
They have oppressive POL-i-cies.
And they rewrite history.
Only I MYSELF am democracy oozing.

Through voting you can choose it.
Knowing backstory you can’t lose it.
Any old time you use it.
I’m gonna be democracy oozing, if you want to smear with me, if you want to smear with me.

In your state we have a primary.
In other countries they have bribery.
It’s much too early to declare victory.
But in the meantime, I keep Americans free.
So I keep on democracy oozing.

Through voting you can choose it.
Knowing backstory you can’t lose it.
Any old time you use it.
I’m gonna be democracy oozing, if you want to brag with me, if you want to brag with me.

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The Bluest State

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The Book of the Week is “The Bluest State, How Democrats Created the Massachusetts Blueprint for American Political Disaster” by Jon Keller, published in 2007. This short volume contained a mishmash of anecdotes on politicians and issues in Massachusetts from the 1980’s to the single-digit 2000’s.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, and a Bibliography), Democrat politicians in Massachusetts (such as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry) displayed “Aloofness. Arrogance. Entitlement. Condescension. Hypocrisy.” They and their supporters consisted largely of aging, elitist Baby Boomers, such as the Clintons, Al Gore, and John Edwards. The author cited some data that showed this (without listing his sources).

In 2004, the Democrats chose Barack Obama to deliver the keynote speech at their convention in Boston. The author commented on how African American politicians had changed the tone of their rhetoric: “American liberalism’s black face this time around would not be a fire-breathing preacher with a sermon full of angry demands [like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson]. Instead, as the crowd roared in approval, a dignified light-skinned black man spoke compellingly about his love for America in Hallmark terms.”

And yet, as Barbara Walters wrote in her book, “We [the media] really seem to care only if they [celebrities and politicians] are outrageous and call our president a devil or declare that the Holocaust never existed. Stand up and scream and we will interview you, or be reasonable and unheard.” Political races are won or lost with the right messaging at the right time. It is a delicate operation.

The author wrote of another politician– Deval Patrick– who was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2006. Patrick’s charisma helped him just before the election– he and his rival were neck and neck in the polls, but a good bit of last-minute messaging gave him the win. After he took office, however, he immediately began to ignore his constituents and reap political spoils in various ways, breaking his campaign promises. Is it relevant that he is African American?

Identity politics is alive and well for various reasons. One reason is that it is a way of maintaining two rivalrous parties– which has helped maintain a democracy more or less, for the United States for more than two centuries. Indefinite one-party dominance would be a dictatorship. There would be total cooperation, but the leader would rule his empire by fear.

There are always leaders who have embarrassing stories to tell about numerous political contacts and those contacts know it, so by threatening to tell those stories, the leaders can cash in on favors from those contacts in the future whenever necessary. Unbeknownst to voters, all the time, infinite acts of political puppetry are going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, read the book to learn of how the author gave a few examples of the hypocrisy of the Democrats, especially in Massachusetts, on the usual major political issues that get voters riled up: scandals, affordable housing, the environment, education, taxation, gay rights, abortion, crime, etc., etc., etc.

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Jonas Salk

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The Book of the Week is “Jonas Salk, A Life” by Charlotte DeCroes Jacbos, published in 2015.

Born in October 1914 in East Harlem, Salk grew up in the New York City area. In 1942, he got a fellowship to study polio at the University of Michigan, that served as a draft deferment. The spread of influenza and pneumonia had caused ruined lives and a massive number of deaths in previous years, so health officials wanted to stem a similar kind of devastation in connection with polio. Unlike measles or mumps, the flu was found to have variants. Polio was also found to have variants, so making a vaccine for it was a complicated affair. Even so, in the 1940’s, medical researchers were permitted to experiment on human subjects in, say, mental institutions and prisons.

In 1945, Salk signed a contract with the drug company Parke, Davis that allowed him to collect royalties for the flu vaccine. In October 1947, he got to manage his own laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. His goal to was to create a polio vaccine in order to eradicate the fear of illness and deaths that was then plaguing ordinary Americans.

Salk was one of the first scientists to describe the-then idea of herd effect: during an epidemic, when a population became effectively vaccinated, there were fewer people to whom to spread the virus– the rest of the population, or herd. Therefore, disease-spread was greatly reduced. In the absence of an effective vaccine, disease spread like wildfire.

At his new employer, Salk chafed under a bean-counter and inferior resources. But he sold his soul and became a workaholic bureaucrat. He got the dean’s permission to renovate the place, in exchange for teaching classes and delivering lectures in serving the Pittsburgh community.

Salk tested whether mineral oil was a good adjuvant in a flu vaccine. This was a non-toxic substance added to the syringe to stimulate the production of antibodies at the vaccination site on the arm. An effective adjuvant would allow the patient to better fight the flu and a variety of other germs. Besides, it would dilute the vaccine, cutting costs.

By 1948, Salk had developed a reputation for explaining his work to laypeople at press conferences, so he was able to get funding to study how many types of polio virus there were. His belief was that inactivated (dead), rather than live virus cells in the vaccine-syringe could still be effective. Other alpha-male scientists disagreed with him. Live virus was riskier, because there was a small chance that even a healthy patient could contract or spread the disease.

By 1953, Salk’s research on monkeys and children showed that his vaccine was effective. However, “The press continued to incite the public; exaggerated and inaccurate reports created unreasonable expectations.” The public began clamoring for the vaccine. The clashing egos of polio research-scientists resulted in power struggles over how to conduct vaccination field trials.

The mid-1950’s saw a successful nationwide study on Salk’s polio vaccine that made him a celebrity. His wife and three sons lost their privacy. The press slapped Salk’s name on the vaccine, even though a rival scientist named Sabin aggressively pushed the live-virus vaccine that became the standard one used for decades across the United States from the 1960’s onward.

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the history of polio vaccines (including the 1955 vaccine-making drug-lab mishap that resulted in illness, deaths and lots of scapegoats)– how hard it was to make them safe and effective and convince the public of same (hint: The chief reason it was so hard was that it costs money and scientists can’t do research without money, and humans are corrupted by money; also, scientists tend to have big egos and want to win a Nobel Prize).

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Dumb Ranting – BONUS POST

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All the time, Trump continues his dumb ranting about a “bloodbath” and about promising to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

There needs to be a cautionary riches-to-rags sitcom starring Trump, called “Fallen Towers.” This could be its theme song.

Dumb Ranting

sung to the tune of “Come Dancing” with apologies to the Kinks.

Trump inherited a company that owned land,
where hospitality properties used to stand.
Before that, his father built an empire slowly,
on sites now notoriously lonely.
That’s where Trump’s cronies used to come and play.
His groupies follow HIS lead every day.

Dumb ranting.

All his girlfriends used to come and call.
Why not dumb ranting? It’s only natural.

Another ruling, another court date.
He delays, appeals and whines to make them wait.
Viewers drool IN anticipation.
His victims know the cases will end up in frustration.

He wasted all his money on legal fees.
A life of litigation, and crime sprees.

Dumb ranting.

Dysfunction started when he was just a kid.
And who listened to his ranting? His worshippers always did.

His ranting doesn’t bother the FAR Right. They will ignore it and wait.
To most, it’s gotten tiresome, big-time.
And Fox News helps him bloviate.

spoken:
[Out in the cold, think of the leaders who have made comebacks:
Grover Cleveland, Jerry Brown, Juan Peron, Netanyahu…]

The DAY judges knock down his fallacies,
Trump will continue to whine, “This hoax is outrageous!”
His childhood will never die. My, my.

Now the grownups will take over the land.
Voices of rule of law will take a stand.
Trump was married and he lived on an estate.
He might be out. Now it’s his turn to wait.
Will he get away with things YOU never could?
He keeps repeating that he alone, should.

Dumb ranting.

C’mon Trump, have yourself a ball.
NOW, do all of your dumb ranting,
before the jailer comes to call.

Dumb ranting.

Just like Truth Social every single day.
Trump keeps on dumb ranting,
so for him, it’s Groundhog Day.

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Red China Blues

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The Book of the Week is “Red China Blues, My Long March From Mao to Now” by Jan Wong, published in 1996.

Born in 1952, Wong grew up in Montreal. Since her parents were originally from China, she went to search for her roots there, beginning when she was in college. She spent her three-month 1972 summer vacation in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards ransacked temples and burned books, painted walls red, and posted Mao’s quotations. Chinese natives had severe shortages of consumer goods, which were exported for hard currency.

The author was assigned a minder (supervisor / spy) and a driver. The unwashed masses were squashed into noisy trams while top government officials rode around in red-flagged limousines whose windows were covered in gauze.

Wong was taken somewhere different every day, such as the Canton zoo, or the countryside. The latter was ninety miles away from Beijing. To get there, she had to take an overcrowded bus with live chickens, plus a six-hour ride on three ferries.

Fresh-faced, earnest, brainwashed cultists (Chinese youths) put on a show for Wong (a special foreign visitor). She had arrived fresh-faced and earnest, and became a brainwashed cultist herself. The most prominently featured book at the bookstore was Selected Works of Mao Zedong in various languages.

Wong became a lucky beneficiary of Mao’s campaign to open up China economically and culturally. As is well known, American president Nixon opened the door for economic benefits. The author got permission to study the Mandarin language at Beijing University. She and her dorm-mate, another foreigner, were treated like princesses rather than common Chinese peasants.

Even so, the author acquired the martyr complex of true Mao worshippers– she was eager to go to the countryside to do hard manual labor. She did, but she saw that her fellow workers had gotten tired of the leaders’ hypocrisy, and the deprivation suffered by, and oppression of ordinary Chinese people.

Mao’s latest nationwide political program was winding down. His anti-education mandate was changing. His minions began to encourage school attendance, but there was rote learning, which still put the kibosh on independent thinking. The goal of the Communists was to produce blindly obedient robots who could recite Marx, Engels , Lenin, Stalin and of course Mao, verbatim.

In the early 1980’s with a new leader, China caught the capitalism bug. But there was still loads of corruption. The government still oppressed ordinary Chinese people. Even though the author was a Canadian expatriate, she looked Chinese, so this actually gave her a distinct advantage as a journalist for a Canadian newspaper. She was able to gain the trust of the people she questioned.

Nevertheless, even the author suffered an outrageous incident: “The police not only didn’t apologize, they announced they would keep our car another month… on June 5, 1990, we got our Toyota back, a year less a day after the police had stolen it. The gas tank was empty, the odometer was broken, the cigarette lighter was gone, and cigarette butts and popsicle sticks littered the interior.”

The author acquired direct experience in two economically and politically diverse environments over the course of decades– Canada and China. By the end of the 1970’s, she had become disillusioned with the workers’ paradise, but didn’t regret the education she got.

Wong saw how, into the 1990’s, Beijing’s roads became clogged with luxury vehicles, as the new rich sought to keep up with the Joneses. At the book’s writing, she could identify dogma and hated it. She believed in dignity and building resilience through experiencing hardship. She contended that rational thought should be sufficiently simple to explain to a five-year old.

Read the book to learn of many other experiences in the author’s life, and of the major late-1980’s historical event the author witnessed, that showed that China was still not ready to join the modern nations of the world that practiced democracy and rule of law.

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The Forgotten Highlander

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The Book of the Week is “The Forgotten Highlander, An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific” by Alistair Urquhart, published in 2011.

Born in 1919, the author was drafted into the Gordon Highlanders (a Scottish military outfit ultimately supervised by the British government) sent to Singapore in late 1939. By early 1942, the Japanese had marched into Malaya and Singapore in order to grab their rubber and tin. The region got scant military protection from the British, as there were other territories Churchill deemed more worthy of protection.

Stationed at Fort Canning, the author was taken as a prisoner of war in February 1942. The Japanese exploited him and his fellow Scottish, British, Australian, Canadian, American and Dutch soldiers for slave labor to clear the jungle and build a railway that stretched 415 kilometers from Bangkok in Thailand, to Burma. The latter land provided rice and access to oil fields. The feat was completed by about sixty thousand men in about sixteen months, resulting in countless, anonymous deaths.

The Japanese also forced the Thais, Indians, Malayans and Tamils to help with constructing a bridge on the River Kwai. Unlike in real life, the Hollywoodized movie “Bridge on the River Kwai” featured nicely clothed, well fed workers, sexy female natives on hand, and a labor boss who collaborated with the Japanese.

In real life, the POWs were starved to death, arbitrarily beaten mercilessly, subjected to vermin such as lice, ants, bedbugs, rats, maggots, flies and weevils, and to tropical diseases such as cholera, malaria, diphtheria and dysentery. Due to lack of treatments for the aforementioned, there were deaths and more deaths.

Read the book to learn of numerous additional details of the author’s war experiences, and of how the British government imposed insult to injury on surviving, rescued POWs such as the author (hint: The British demanded that the author comprehensively prove that he deserved a disability war pension, but the Japanese military failed to keep records of its POW-related actions– many of which violated the Geneva Convention provisions, that resulted in millions upon millions of deaths and ruined lives.).

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Laws – BONUS POST

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Unsurprisingly, this is what Trump is singing now, and will be singing for the foreseeable future.

LAWS

sung to the tune of “Signs” with apologies to Five Man Electrical Band.

And their law said, the greatest real estate leader lied.
So I ran for prez and got audited.
And I went in and asked them WHY.
They said your organization made too much money.
We’ll keep harassing YOU.
So I got elected prez and said,
Imagine that, huh, me LEADing you. Whoa.

Law, law everywhere a law.
Witch Hunting me.
I did nothing wrong.
You said I DID this, I did that.
You misread the law.

The law said,
allow all the migrants in.
DON’T shoot on sight.

So I questioned this,
and said to our people,
Hey, we have a RIGHT
to build a wall to keep them out
and keep Americans safe.

They keep coming here.
We’re losing the race.
THEY will be the winners.

Law, law everywhere a law.
Witch Hunting me.
I did nothing wrong.
You said I DID this, I did that.
You misread the law.

Now hey, judges can’t you read?
I don’t understand how you got your seats.
You should watch.
I’m in the lead.
How can you say I can’t BE here?

The law says I have the First Amendment, it’s my RIGHT. Uh.

And the law said
I should be immune to prosecution today.
But the rulings came down from some Witch Hunts.
Those are fines I shouldn’t have to pay.

So I got me an interview on Hannity.
No need to read between the lines.

I say thank you GOP for thinking about me.
I’m alive and doing fine. Woo.

Law, law everywhere a law.
Witch Hunting me.
I did nothing wrong.
You said I DID this, I did that.
You misread the law.

Law, law everywhere a law.

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A World of Ideas

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The Book of the Week is “A World of Ideas, Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future” by Bill Moyers, edited by Betty Sue Flowers, published in 1989. This compilation of interviews was done at the end of the Reagan Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the Clinton Era and thereafter.

David Gergen was one of the few political workers who has explicitly stated that the job elected officers should be doing is governing. This means serving one’s constituents in public service– rather than wooing voters with fantastic promises that will likely be broken– effecting wily public relations that includes propagandizing and standing on ceremony, also called populism.

Forrest McDonald, one of Bill Moyers’ interviewees, commented that America’s one president fills the roles of both government officer and populist, while England has two separate people doing those jobs, respectively: the prime minister, and the king or queen. A recent American president whose populism instilled fond memories in the minds of Americans that made them forget his wrongheaded governing, was Ronald Reagan. Around the time of the interview, the Iran-Contra hearings were all the rage, yet Reagan’s charisma was on display, as much as his amnesia.

McDonald correctly prophesied that more Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals would break in future decades, due to the conflicts the president faced in executing laws while worrying about protecting his reputation. Hardly any political issues have changed at least since the late 1980’s when McDonald rightly declared, “We’re living beyond our means. Congress is for sale to the highest bidder from one election to the next, the Pentagon belongs to the fixers, the President’s out to lunch, and the media are drowning us in violence, nonsense, and trivia.”

In his interview, Noam Chomsky pointed out that the United States government is comprised of two parties (Republican and Democrat) whose main policies are based on business and economics; in other words, donor-determined. All other major, developed countries of the world have a Labor Party– comprised of politicians who lobby on behalf of the poor or working class. It appeared that Chomsky was making a value judgment that the United States was wrong for allowing money to elect its public servants.

There are pros and cons to this, which are too numerous and controversial to discuss here. Suffice to say, the American government’s leadership-and-management culture is a completely different animal from that on other continents. It allows its people the freedom to practice capitalism on a much more extensive scale. Its foreign policy, shaped by globalization of course, has played a major role.

Speaking of foreign policy, Sissela Bok wished that the United States would behave in a more humanitarian manner in international conflicts. She wanted to see more Americans value all humans equally– “… so that it becomes just as awful for us to take an innocent life in some other country as it is in our own.”

Read the book to learn the opinions of mostly university professors, on American political, economics, cultural, and social issues from the 1980’s; that show the areas in which the country has regressed or progressed.

ENDNOTE: Since the book’s writing, arguably, the U.S. is slowly but slowly, progressing in terms of maintaining a democracy, more or less. One bit of evidence of this, is that the country suffered roughly ten years in a row during which a wartime president behaved like a dictator– under LBJ and then Nixon. The next occasion of that, which was seven years in a row, occurred under George W. Bush. It took four years in a row and one day (Jan. 6) for the U.S. to get tired of the next president who behaved like a dictator (Trump), and there wasn’t a war on.

Crisis-generation has always been a cliched way for leaders to keep their power, but hyper-awareness and politicization of crises has been generated in recent decades, due to the speed and reach of modern, global communications. In this way, the traumas of recent natural disasters, financial crashes, wars and celebrity anguish stay fresh in the minds of every culturally-labeled American generation, from Depression-Era babies to Generation Z.

The institutional memory of the older generation especially, allows them to detect and minimize the impact of crises sooner than otherwise. For instance, the Baby Boomers personally experienced— how LBJ and Nixon stubbornly refused to withdraw American troops from Vietnam– a war that involved unspeakable horrors in the region, causing adverse decades-long consequences there and in this country. The Boomers saw that Trump’s megalomania, secrecy and vengeance are akin to those exhibited by LBJ and Nixon. However, Trump refuses to ever give in; whereas, Nixon was shamed into resigning.

Leaders who have harnessed ways to brainwash the masses into believing they are saviors, are the ones who keep their power, at least until their enemies out their crimes in court.

There are many more indicators that our nation won’t devolve into anarchy anytime soon, that are beyond the scope of this post.

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Winchell

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The Book of the Week is “Winchell, Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity” by Neal Gabler, published in 1994. Two cliches that apply to the likes of Walter Winchell’s role in the evolution of the American entertainment industry include: THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, AND DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN.

Born in April 1897 in East Harlem, Winchell got into Vaudeville as an adolescent. In the 1920’s, there were about six major New York City newspapers, and readers had their favorite columnists. In August 1924, Winchell got his own column, specializing in Broadway gossip in the newly launched Evening Graphic.

Winchell’s career took off. By summer 1929, he was writing for the Hearst-owned paper, the Mirror. The following spring, he launched a radio show, and the following summer, he acted in a movie. He associated with Mobsters, advertising their night clubs while he received protection from them.

Winchell vacillated between suffering from imposter syndrome, and behaving like an alpha male with hubris syndrome. He was a dream dispenser for his readers; they aspired to adopt the lifestyle of “Cafe Society.” In the 1930’s, this set consisted of star-struck social climbers, heirs and heiresses who had done nothing to merit their own celebrity.

Winchell acquired significant power to make or break peoples’ fame with his column, by promoting or smearing them. During the Depression, he honed his showmanship and propaganda techniques, becoming a strong political influencer. Beginning in 1933, he flacked for FDR and smeared Hitler. His rhetoric was anti-Communist, anti-Fascist and anti-isolationist.

Lacking significant formal education, Winchell rode a wave of success based on envy, anger and vengeance, into the 1950’s. The author wrote, “The real grievance was the control he exercised over his social and intellectual superiors and what that control portended for the elites.”

Read the book to learn a lot more about Winchell and others that smacks of other public figures whose rises and falls have been largely similar, in the history of this country.

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He’s All Alone – BONUS POST

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Thanks to the American political atmosphere of the last eight years, the courts have been busier than ever. One party on both sides of the system, George Santos is yet another tragic figure abandoned by his supporters, who is meeting his downfall. Here’s a little ditty that tells his story.

HE’S ALL ALONE

sung to the tune of “We’re All Alone” with apologies to Rita Coolidge.

In court the cases begin,
and they may never end.
Crying foul, George San-tos will dream,
his acting we’ll still see,
forever more, forever more.

He makes the tabloids beam,
coming apart at the seams.
He rants and raves, among the knaves of ours.
He won’t be forgotten now.
He’s all alone. He’s all alone.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.
He knows how to pretend.

Once the truth is out,
the defendants lose their clout.
Drama-queens do, lawyers too.
So fast-en your seatbelts for the trend.
For years and years, for years and years.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.
He won’t be forgotten now.

He’s all alone. He’s all alone.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.

No slow news-weeks now. Too-ooh much.

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Will

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The Book of the Week is “Will” by Will Smith with Mark Manson, published in 2021.

Born in September 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Will described in detail what he learned from the people in his life, from the cradle onward. His life has not always involved the wealth and privilege conveyed in his hit song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

Smith related anecdotes in which, like his father– he displayed poor impulse control. Smith’s father could be a mean drunk, while he himself sublimated the traumas he experienced from his family’s dysfunctionality through constant goal-oriented activity.

If Smith took even a short break from his fantasy life, and later, his working life, he would be forced to acknowledge other people’s emotions and possibly even face his own shortcomings. So he laser-focused on competing to be the best at whatever he was doing, in completing a mission.

The lowest point in Smith’s existence came in the early 1990’s, when he was saddled with crushing debt load. To make matters worse, his association with gang members posed a life-threatening situation. Law enforcement had caught up with them. Smith got in trouble when a friend protected him with a knockout punch to his attacker: “But as I sat in that jail cell, facing aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault, and reckless endangerment charges for a punch I hadn’t even thrown…” He obviously grew from experience, but didn’t elaborate further.

Smith earned bragging rights for making movies that allegedly made more money than any other Hollywood actor’s movies, including Tom Cruise’s; he spent a longer amount of time than anyone else in promoting his movies in foreign countries, and performing in free concerts for his fans.

Read the book to learn many more details about: Smith’s childhood, the people who guided his careers, his wrongheaded notions that led to love-life failures, and some of his misbehaviors and extraordinary achievements.

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On Both Sides of the Wall

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The Book of the Week is “On Both Sides of the Wall” by Vladka Meed, originally published in 1948. This book detailed the (Jewish) author’s and others’ wartime traumas of people inside and outside the Warsaw Ghetto (around which a wall was built by the German government) and the various groups who tried to minimize their death toll. The Jews were confined inside, and were required to wear white armbands (equivalent to yellow stars in other European locales). The Aryans outside were Polish people free to live their lives.

In July 1942, the Nazis began to deport the aforementioned Jews in vans that went to cattle cars that ended up at concentration camps. The local German authority, called the Judenrat, enlisted Jews– who became members of local law enforcement– to help them do so.

Bureaucratic rules dictated who got deported. Unemployed or sick Jews were the first to go to their deaths. The able-bodied were the last to be deported because they were needed for slave labor in munitions factories and workshops that made necessities (such as uniforms) for the war effort. Working Jews were issued employment cards. Of course, a black market sprung up in the cards, so the Nazis deemed the cards invalid in about a week.

Personal social ties with sympathetic non-Jews became priceless for Jews who went into hiding to escape deportation. Firstly, it was a death-defying feat to leave the ghetto; possibly by bribing guards at one of the wall’s transit-gates, or blending into a labor group leaving for work.

However, German officials inspected the identity papers of, and interrogated, every individual passing through. The officials arbitrarily engaged in beatings, atrocities and on-the-spot murders, or simply muggings or robberies (including of clothing!) of any Jew whose papers weren’t in order.

Further, there were Poles who walked the streets in groups looking for “Jews” (simply people whom they perceived to have Jewish facial features) to victimize and bully. And then there were Jews who joined the aforesaid local police force, who outed their fellow religionists so save their own skins.

The author was very fortunate that she had Aryan facial features. She took off her white armband and was able to get past the ghetto wall unharmed various times during the war years. But she constantly had to look for black-market housing and almost starved to death. Obviously, the fact that she lived to tell her story in this book spoke to her superior survival skills and great good luck. One way she significantly increased her chances of survival was that she joined the Resistance movement. Brilliant acting talent was the most crucial survival skill in that time and place.

In January 1943, a group of Jews finally (!) fought back against their deportations, via mostly hand-to-hand combat. The Jews by that time knew where the cattle cars were going. In April 1943, a Jewish group called the Fighting Organization and others began an offensive called the Warsaw Uprising. They fought against Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Poles who were gathered around the ghetto wall to carry out the last deportation roundup. At the time, the author happened to be among Aryans, outside the ghetto. But she possessed the experience to stay alive.

In August 1944, everyone in Warsaw— Poles, Jews, militias, etc.– cooperated in fighting against the Germans, in the Warsaw Rebellion. They were all sick of the years of oppression. Even so, the Poles committed evil acts against their fellow fighters who were Jews, and against the Jews forced out of hiding. The Germans ruthlessly destroyed Warsaw with weapons and arson, just to get back at their enemies.

Anyway, read the book to learn a lot more about the author’s trials and tribulations.

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All Year Long – BONUS POST

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The year 2024 in America might get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. As usual, the media are whipping up the most heinous hysteria. Here’s a little ditty that explains the situation.

ALL YEAR LONG

sung to the tune of “All Night Long” with apologies to Lionel Richie and Universal Music.

My fellow Americans,
the media here
mislead you through teasing and mongering fear.
It’s extreme, this election year.

Trump will try to LIVE on (live on, live on, live on…)

His crew will lie, his crew will smear,
conspire and hate and scheme and jeer.

He’s the GOP PArty.
Calm down, don’t WORry, not forever.
Ignore his DANCE and song.

All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.

His lawyers all in the courts
play dirty tricks of all sorts.
They delay, they distract.

Trump will try to LIVE on (live on, live on, live on…)

Curious things will happen and
aging will take its toll.
He can’t help but lose control.

He’s the GOP PArty.
Calm down, don’t WORry, not forever.
Ignore his DANCE and song.

All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).

Yeah, IT might seem that
there’s no hope right now.

But wait for the fun.
It WILL come ’round.
He can’t possibly ignore
his troubles away.
The GOP party will change one day.

No more sheNANigans AND nonsense.
Yeah, the worm will turn.

That GOP party,
oh, it’s changing
Oh, change will come.

No more sheNANigans AND nonsense.
Yeah, the worm will turn.

Dough dough dough dough yeah,
Oh, that GOP party, yeah.

All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.

People of all sorts,
they’re watching all the courts
all year long.

(all year, all year)

Yeah, I said

People of all sorts,
they’re watching all the courts
all year long (all year)

Yeah,
just wait, just wait!

(all year, all year)

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Impresario

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“He was clearly in the early stages of what his colleagues referred to as Alzheimer’s, although it was never diagnosed as such. Whatever it was, it didn’t prevent him from functioning effectively much of the time, yet by this point…”

–Around 1969, Ed Sullivan began having “senior moments.”

The Book of the Week is “Impresario, The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan” by James Maguire, published in 2006.

Born in 1901 in East Harlem, Ed Sullivan grew up in the New York metropolitan area. He had a burning desire to become famous and rich. Therefore, beginning in his teen years, he met as many people as he could, and hung out at all the city’s hippest social clubs (celebrity hangouts) that featured alcohol and performances.

In 1948, he finally got to host his own show on TV, after paying his dues failing at radio shows and succeeding at writing a newspaper gossip column. Even so, he got lots of hate mail. His CBS-TV show, Toast of the Town was partially sponsored by Lincoln Mercury (car) dealers in Southern states. They were livid that he refused to stop shaking hands with and hugging black performers. Sullivan was racially egalitarian, but politically, rabidly anti-Communist.

With the 1955-1956 season, the show was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show— as the host had achieved his goals of wealth and stardom; media ratings, really. He began talks with Warner Bros. to make a movie of his life. In preparing the script for that endeavor, unsurprisingly, the clashing of egos resulted in back-and-forth shenanigans; summarized thusly: “When Jack Warner realized that Sullivan had completely thrown out Wallace’s second version… hearing of Sullivan’s plans for still more rewriting… He cancelled the film.” That was eight months after signing the contract.

In summer 1967, the CBS Standards and Practices department was strict about performers’ not saying specific words that smacked of sex or drugs. The band The Doors got away with “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” in its song “Light My Fire” because the show was live, and the lead singer disobeyed the censors.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about: how The Ed Sullivan Show was able to stay wildly popular and attain high ratings for decades despite its host’s lack of charisma; (Hint: It changed with the times in featuring guests who entertained audiences of all ages, until advertisers’ demands changed); the people who helped make it so; and the secrets of Sullivan’s success.

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Tangled Vines

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The Book of the Week is “Tangled Vines, Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California” by Frances Dinklespiel, published in 2015. The moral of this book’s main story is “Lawsuits followed and winemakers like Viader made mental notes never to be cavalier about the disposition of fire-damaged wine.”

According to the author, as of 2013, Americans drank the largest quantity of wine, 13% of all the wine of all the countries in the world.

In October 2005, a majorly evil crime was committed at the Wines Central warehouse on Mare Island in Vallejo. An assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern district of California– an expert in wine fraud and arson, and an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assessed the damage and investigated the site. The latter used an acceleration-detection canine, also called an arson dog.

The perpetrator committed: mail fraud (for shipping wine across state lines under a false name), interstate transfer of stolen property (because it wasn’t his wine to sell), arson, and tax evasion.

Fire destroyed millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of wine (stored in the warehouse) of mostly mom-and-pop wineries. As is usual in such instances, insurance claims of winemakers whose wine was covered, were denied, because the insurers contended that the wine was “in transit.”

In the single-digit 2000’s, Bill Koch of Koch family fame, didn’t spare a dime in finding out how he had become the victim of wine fraud. He employed investigators in various fields: ex-FBI agents, ex-Sotheby’s workers, a glass historian, and experts in cork and adhesives and labels. He sued the auction house and original seller of the wine.

Read the book to learn about the kinds of people who are passionate about making and selling wine, how they became victims of one especially bad actor, and a few other incidents in the life of the California wine industry.

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Mar-a-Lago – BONUS POST

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As is well known, Donald Trump ignores ALL signs of decline in his popularity. Clearly, his downfall will be complete only: when the number of his ass-kickers (such as Judge Engoron, E. Jean Carroll, and Omarosa among others yet to emerge) exceeds the number of his ass-kissers (his attorneys, previously– Rudy Giuliani, Bill Barr, Alan Dershowitz, etc., etc., etc.), or, when he dies.

Here’s a little ditty of what he continues to sing, despite the wreckage piling up around him.

MAR-A-LAGO

sung to the tune of “Key Largo” with apologies to Bertie Higgins.

I’m better than the others.
I’m fighting so hard in the courts.
All these Witch Hunts together.
My accusers are losers of all sorts.
Watching my old testimonies,
and attacking me desperately.
America, I am your hero.
And you are my favorite country.

I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.
All our enemies ran and hid.
So many, many things I did.
I could do them all again, I know.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.

America, don’t you remember–
I cancelled every bad deal.
We will never surrender.
I stopped the steal.
I made you rich. I will do it again.
‘Cause you love me still.
America, this can’t be the end.

I do it all. I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.
All our enemies ran and hid.
So many, many things I did.
I could do them all again, I know.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.

I do it all. I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show…

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Moondrop to Gascony

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The Book of the Week is “Moondrop to Gascony” by Anne-Marie Walters, originally published in 1946.

The author was born around 1920 in England. Already fluent in French, in summer 1943, she received training in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in order to work for the French Resistance in southwestern France. She learned how to: decipher Morse code and ciphers, use firearms, pick locks, do parachute jumps, etc. Six months later, she, along with 22 men, jumped from a plane to go on their first mission. The ultimate goal of course, was to hinder the German war machine.

When the author’s unit left London, it was told it would get any resources it requested. That was a lie. Best laid plans usually went awry, as the group depended on supplies delivered via parachute to the French countryside. Problems arose with: the weather, plane shortages, or other Resistance cells in more dire need of food.

Everything had to be kept top secret, as German soldiers roamed around the railways and rural areas, demanding identity papers, harassing and shooting anyone perceived to be the enemy, on the spot. There were various times the author heard about the fates of her fellow cell members who had been tortured and then executed.

Certain peasant farmers collaborated with the Germans, and tattled on Resistance fighters. Some families allowed the fighters to sleep in the barn or shed or on their property, risking the wrath of the Nazis. One time, one such family agreed to help the Resistance but they chickened out. A family member failed to show up with lights to signal a parachuted-supplies drop, so the plane wasted a trip flying over the area and didn’t drop the sorely needed supplies.

In summer 1944, twelve hundred Germans killed every last one of eighty Resistance fighters. The former had some 13mm machine guns and mortars while the latter had a few Bren guns, and a cache full of ammunition which was hit by a mortar shell. About 4am, the few escapees, hiding in cornfields and vegetation, fought valiantly to the last man.

The Germans set fire to the fighters’ safe-houses in the region and used hand grenades to turn the burned-out structures to ashes. Six members of a peasant family who helped the enemy were also subjected to sadistic massacre and destruction of their home. All those war crimes took about four hours, after which, the Germans laughed about it.

In late summer 1944, the author was assigned to personally deliver a report to London. To get there, she crossed the Pyrenees on foot into Spain along with six other fighters. They were the lucky survivors who risked their lives amid deprivation and hardships. She wrote that they were gluttons for punishment because they formed intensely close bonds and took pride in sacrificing for their respective homelands.

Read the book to learn numerous other details of the anti-German underground’s adventures.

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I Should Have Honor

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The Book of the Week is “I Should Have Honor, A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan” by Khalida Brohi, published in 2018.

Pakistan’s Muslim men have a tradition of arranging marriages for their prepubertal daughters to clans they deem worthy. None of the female family members have any say in the matter.

It was through a stroke of great good luck that Grohi’s father (born in the mid-1970’s) received an education, instead of facing a fate of ignorance, poverty, goat-herding and hard manual farmwork as his siblings did. Too, the author won the “world parents lottery” in many ways. Her father refused to agree to marry her off before she was born (!) Her parents provided the same resources and opportunities to her and her sisters, as to her brothers. She attended school and was allowed to do almost anything her male counterparts were allowed to do.

The author was born in the late-1980’s, although when she began to travel internationally, her later-created identity documents were inaccurate by about a year. She became fluent in English and Brahui. During her childhood, her financially struggling, ever-growing family moved around a lot. At first, they lived in multi-generational households in rural villages and later on, upgraded to the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi.

Even so, Grohi’s mother and females in her large extended family were still enslaved in a life of domestic chores, which included feeding their farm animals and making cow-dung patties to be burned in cooking-fires. In other words, in most Pakistani Muslim households, the females were kept barefoot and pregnant.

On an even more extreme note, in the single-digit 2000’s (!) the males were allowed to physically abuse their wives (for any reason they rationalized, or none at all), and allowed to kill a female who brought shame to the family through misbehavior such as eloping. The latter situation occurs about a thousand times a year in Pakistan. Gossiping is the number one activity in rural-village communities, so everyone was under pressure to conform to the elder males’ rules.

The author realized that religion, caste or tradition had nothing to do with how such a punishment was justified. The elders were simply alpha males with hubris syndrome who were insecure, or enraged at the disobedience of their daughters. Grohi tried to change that. She founded a non-profit organization that empowered females by spurring discussions in Pakistan and internationally regarding gender equality. After much trauma, she was forced to switch to a less confrontational approach– by apologizing to the males, and convincing them:

that physically harming females was dishonorable;
that allowing female family members to work outside the home would financially help the household (and for that, they might need education), and
that the points above were their idea.

Read the book to learn an additional slew of information on the author’s family, and her trials, tribulations and triumphs in trying to change Pakistan’s entrenched gender-segregated, cruel culture.

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Somethin’ Stupid – BONUS POST

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In 2024, everyone who’s anyone knows who the main Democratic candidate for president will be. That candidate will want to debate Trump, who probably will avoid participating in any and all political debates the rest of his life.

For decades, it’s been a cliche for a candidate to debate against an empty podium, but in this case, it might be a hilarious comedy sketch, at which this little ditty could be sung by the Democrat to Trump:

SOMETHIN’ STUPID

sung to the tune of “Somethin’ Stupid” with apologies to Nancy Sinatra, the estate of Frank Sinatra, and whomever else the rights may concern.

I know your standard line
that you CANnot spare the time to spend an evening with me.
You’ll never take the chance that I will kick your ass
when you engage in a debate with me.
Then after you refuse,
I will put you in your place
on all substantive issues.

And then you go and prove it all by spewing somethin’ stupid like “I hate you.”

I know most voters are sick of
all the same old lies you’ve told for years and years now.
We know you’re just a has-been.
I know I’m true,
and we ignore your fears now.

I’ve practiced my whole life to propose ideas to share
to help our democracy pull through.
With my knowledge and experience,
I know it’s not too late,
and the hell with you.

My time is right.
I get inside your head,
then states of red become states of blue.

And then you go and prove it all by spewing somethin’ stupid like “I hate you.”

My time is right.
I get inside your head,
then states of red become states of blue.

And then you go and prove it all by spewing somethin’ stupid like “I hate you.”

“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”

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My Race

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The Book of the Week is “My Race, A Jewish Girl Growing Up Under Apartheid in South Africa” by Lorraine Lotzof Abramson, published in 2010.

Born in March 1946, the author grew up in Orange Free State in South Africa. Her ancestors were originally from Latvia. Many other fair-skinned people (hereinafter called “whites”) were descended from British settlers. The Afrikaners (descended from Dutch settlers) were the country’s ruling majority. They imposed apartheid beginning in 1948. They interpreted the Christian Bible in a way that depicted dark-skinned Africans (called Africans; hereinafter called “blacks” but the derogatory term is Kaffirs) as servants. All white families had sufficient wealth to employ at least one (black) servant.

The black population way outnumbered that of the white. The Afrikaners felt extreme pressure to oppress the blacks unmercifully, lest they revolt against any and all whites. The Jews were thus largely left alone. The author was the only Jew in her elementary school. She showed natural running ability at an early age, and after collecting a bunch of victories in footraces, she became a source of local pride for the community. So she was tolerated, even though she was Jewish.

In August 1961, the author was chosen to represent her homeland of South Africa in the Maccabi Games, a competition for Jews held in Israel. She met athletes of all different nationalities, including surprisingly, an Indian Jew. Under apartheid in South Africa, simply having a conversation with an Indian (or any non-fair-skinned person) was a crime, in public or in private.

The South African government used a divide-and-conquer strategy, outlawing assembly of ten or more individuals of dark-skinned tribes. The government fomented hatred of one tribe against another. Signs saying, “Whites Only” or “Non-Whites” were posted in all public places to indicate who was allowed where and what they could do. Whites would be arrested for entering a place bearing the “Non-Whites” sign. The police kept photos of protest-marchers (troublemakers– including whites). A person of any skin color who criticized the government would be punished.

In 1991, after serving 27 years in prison, (black political activist) Nelson Mandela was elected leader of South Africa. The whites were deathly afraid the blacks would wreak revenge against all whites. Mandela was forgiving, and didn’t hold a grudge against his oppressors. But he could’ve– as happened in previous decades when various other African countries achieved independence and a black person became the top leader. The South African whites were relieved as hell.

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s life and times and places.

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Crazy Like Us

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The Book of the Week is “Crazy Like Us, The Globalization of the American Psyche” by Ethan Watters, published in 2010.

After the December 2004 mega-tsunami hit the Sri-Lanka region, Western-trained mental health professionals from the United States, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand rushed over there, with little understanding of the culture they were “trying to help.” They knew the populations would suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and therefore, would need psychotherapy. The arrogance and snobbishness of most of the counselors were versions of “white savior complex” and “white man’s burden.”

Few looked before they leaped. Most had no clue about the victims’ local languages, religious beliefs, mourning practices or tribal-warfare history. They were under the impression that the whole world thought the same way they themselves did, about how to recover from a traumatic event.

American-style capitalists that they were, “Within days, bitter rivalries broke out between counseling groups over which populations would receive which services.” Further, the Sri Lankans were a fresh crop of guinea pigs for trauma researchers.

Some explicitly corrupt researchers collected data unrelated to the PTSD presumed to be caused by the tsunami, such as data on domestic violence and sexual harassment. The Asians were unsophisticated, so they freely answered questions. They were eager to please their interviewers– wrongly thinking they’d receive disaster aid by doing so. There was bias galore in all the studies; especially confirmation bias. Unsurprisingly, all the different studies widely used by elitist, mostly American institutions (such as UCLA and Harvard) reported significant rates of PTSD in the selected populations of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Indonesia and India. Never mind that there was so much lost in translation.

Interestingly, the aid workers offering medicine, food and shelter, cooperated with the local community to provide what was truly needed, doing it in a way that jived with the Asians’ culture.

Read the book to learn more about PTSD situations– other aspects of the counselors’ approach involving power of suggestion, self-fulfilling prophecy, social contagion, and profiteering in Hong Kong, Zanzibar and Japan.

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Joy to MY World – BONUS POST

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If Donald Trump cheers up, this is what he’ll be singing:

JOY TO MY WORLD

sung to the tune of “Joy to the World” with apologies to Three Dog Night.

Giuliani was my bullhorn.
He was a good friend of mine.
I stood behind every word he said,
but our relationship changed over time.
Yeah, I HAD to draw the line.

Singin’ Joy to MY World.
It’s ALL me and rallies now.
Joy to my assistants E-RIC and Donnie.
Joy for my victory.

You know I am the King of the World.
I tell you what I’ll do:
I’ll take away the migrants and the Bidens and the laws
and I’ll get rid-of the states that are blue.

Joy to MY world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.
Joy to my assistants E-RIC and Donnie.
Joy for my victory.

You know I love the ladies.
With the media, I have such fun.
I’m never going to tire, I’m the top survivor,
and a witch-hunt victim but I won, a witch-hunt victim but I won.

Joy to MY World.
It’s ALL me and rallies.
Joy to my assistants E-RIC and Donnie.
Joy for my victory.

Joy to My world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.
Joy to MY World.
Joy to my MAGA rallies.
Joy to My world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.

Joy to IVAN-ka and Jared, too.
Joy to MY whole crew.

Joy to My world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.

Joy to MY world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.
Joy to my assistants E-RIC and Donnie.
Joy for my victory.

Joy to MY world.
It’s ALL me and rallies.
Joy to my assistants E-RIC and Donnie.
Joy for my victory…

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Whistles From the Graveyard

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The Book of the Week is “Whistles From the Graveyard, My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan” by Miles Lagoze, published in 2023.

In 2009, the author joined the Combat Camera division of the U.S. Marines in the war in Afghanistan. Very few people will recall now, that in 2003 the George W. Bush administration aired an ABC-TV reality show (that was soon cancelled due to poor ratings) of his version of that war.

It seems U.S. presidents after Nixon have accepted the fact that they are in a fish bowl, so they have made legacy-oriented practices a point of pride, maximizing propaganda on projects for which they have wanted to be remembered, mostly through their privately-funded presidential libraries.

The most unethical presidents have kept materials to themselves, to be discovered after their deaths as a way to prove they were not just leaders of the free world– but king of the world (Nixon, George W. Bush, Trump).

After the Nixon tapes, the following wanted to be best known for:

Ford: the celebration of the United States’ bicentennial;
Carter: Camp David Accords– a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt;
Reagan: his bringing about the fall of the former Soviet Union (all by himself (!); never mind the heavy dose of his wilful ignorance and plausible denial of the CIA’s international adventures);
George H.W. Bush: America’s glory in winning the First Gulf War;
Bill Clinton: resuming the dialogue on national healthcare in a big way, and (the lies of) his administration’s giving rise to almost a decade of peace (except for a few terrorist attacks) and prosperity (including balancing the national budget);
George W. Bush: (the complete and utter nonsense of) his administration’s bringing democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq (good luck with accessing those classified documents);
Obama: pushing through national healthcare and getting rid of Osama Bin Laden (even he hired a videographer in order to make his entire administration a reality show, but king of the world? His political enemies accused him of going on an “around the world apology tour”);
Trump: building a wall (?) protecting the nation from a pandemic (?) However, he kept classified documents, and grabbed as much money and power as possible during his time in office, just in case a court rules that executive privilege would protect his every move only during his time in office.

Anyway, according to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, and a Bibliography), the author wrote that medical discharge from the U.S. military confers enormous monthly payments (compliments of American taxpayers) for the rest of one’s life. Some of the young men who volunteered to go to war, changed their minds about fighting, and wished injuries upon themselves in order to get medically discharged. Not the author.

Even so, the author was reluctant to use his gun during the few times when he was told to. Most of the time, he was a camera operator of footage containing frat-boy shenanigans; some of it cold-hearted, sadistic, disgusting, and always insane (mutilated bodies, cruelty to animals, etc.).

After he came home upon completing his four-year military contract, he and a friend decided to make a video of the war, which he posted on YouTube. He described his role as “The souvenir aspect of war tourism for the young and depraved of American society.”

Read the book to learn more about the author’s experiences, and how he and his military buddies fared after they came home.

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Native

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The Book of the Week is “Native, Dispatches From the Israeli-Palestinian Life” by Sayed Kashua, published in 2016. The author compiled journal entries from 2006 through 2014 on his Arab family’s life and times in various residences in Israel whose political status was in dispute, in connection with Jews and Arabs.

The author and his wife, both of Arab origin, were raised in the central Israeli city of Tira, whose north and south regions are very different. At the book’s writing, the city did not have a library. The author, who was born in the mid-1970’s, entered a library for the first time in his life at fourteen years old, when he was sent to boarding school in Jerusalem.

Kashua spoke Arabic, Hebrew and English. In an unlikely move, he became a columnist for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. When he traveled internationally for work, he didn’t bring his computer because if he did, security at Ben Gurion airport would automatically assume he was a member of Hezbollah.

The author’s parents instilled in him a dogmatic belief that he must reside in his homeland his whole life, because that’s where his ancestors were from. His thinking was more flexible, as he wrote that he would allow his children to move elsewhere or study abroad if they wanted to.

The author and his wife adopted a Westernized lifestyle with electronic toys and modern cars; they were non-religious. They moved to a Jewish neighborhood in order to send their children to Israeli schools, which they perceived to be superior to those of their own ethnic group.

Kashua was pleasantly surprised by some of the cultural conditions he encountered in the United States– no water stoppages, delivery of food and mail right to his postal address (rather than having to pick up mail or food at a post office box or eatery), and having utility services turned on in a timely manner. He marveled at street signs, paved roads, sidewalks and greenery.

The author– who was made a “Palestinian citizen of Israel” regardless of whether he wanted to become one– did readings of his book on an international tour. He wrote, “Everyone wanted to talk about identity, about nationality, foreignness, about detachment, self-determination… language, the future…” He wrote that yelling at the opposition that they’re traitors wasn’t going to change anything.

Kashua applied for a visa that allowed him to move his family to the United States for a year. One form asked him his ethnic group but listed only “white, black, Hispanic or Asian.” Read the book to learn of many more of his trials, tribulations, and interesting factoids, through vignettes of his life.

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When – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink, published in 2018.

The author cited various studies that focused on timing, rather than the contents of events. The results of one study he cited, indicate a counter-intuitive aspect of human nature.

The study asked different groups of subjects to evaluate the overall moral character of a fictional man who was hypothetically their boss. Different groups were given different scenarios describing his awful and good behaviors. “Indeed, they [the subjects] evaluated a life with 29 years of treachery and 6 months of goodness the same as a life with 29 years of goodness and 6 months of treachery.” When the last 6 months were good, the subjects were forgiving, and seemed to forget the character’s past sins.

Religion might account for some of the study’s results; some evil people find religion when they have a near-death experience– like surviving a plane crash, or surviving a bullet that should have killed them. They believe that when they are baptized, all their sins are washed away. So they empathize with the aforementioned fictional character– their past criminality doesn’t count.

That could be why people elect politicians who are serial criminals, and why men in sinful or controversial fields of work– have an attack of conscience and turn traitor at the ends of their careers. Here is a little ditty about the collective mood in this country, notwithstanding the fact that the people gets the government it deserves.

ANOTHER DAY

sung to the tune of “Another Day” with apologies to Paul McCartney and whomever else the rights may concern.

Every day the media incite wrath,
at the news we glare,
politicians-wrap LAWyers ’round them.
They’re teaming up with corporate chairs.

It’s just another day.

Sidling up to donors,
they know how to schmooze,
dipping in the pockets of the taxpayers.

It’s just another day.

At the office where their powers grow,
they’re one big herd.
Doling out the Kool-Aid.
And we find it hard to trust their words.

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

So sad, so sad. Sometimes we feel so sad.
Unheard and harmed we dwell
till a less bad leader
comes to give us, a better sell.

Ah, can’t-wait.
Don’t stand us up.
Vote against the-bums,
but some stay,
and we continue to pay.

So sad. Sometimes we feel so sad.

As they plant another story for their favorite cause.
Their colleagues rally ’round them.
We find they don’t obey their own laws.

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

So sad, so sad. Sometimes we feel so sad.
Unheard and harmed we dwell
till a less bad leader
comes to give us, a better sell.

Ah, can’t wait.
Don’t stand us up.
Vote against the-bums,
but some stay,
and we continue to pay.

So sad. Sometimes we feel so sad.

Every day the media incite wrath,
at the news we glare,
politicians-wrap LAWyers ’round them.
They’re teaming up with corporate chairs.

It’s just another day.

Sidling up to donors,
they know how to schmooze,
dipping in the pockets of the taxpayers.

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa

It’s just another day.

***

Read the book to learn of additional studies that show how doing certain things at certain times can make a difference.

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The Line Becomes A River

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The Book of the Week is “The Line Becomes A River, Dispatches From the Border” by Francisco Cantu, published in 2018. A border control agent wrote this account after personally experiencing the conditions in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. For anyone not sociopathic, the moral dilemmas that law enforcement face are traumatic.

The border between the United States and Mexico runs six hundred seventy-five miles from the Rio Grande to the Pacific coast. In the single-digit 2000’s, the U.S. government launched a campaign to try to increase the number of arrests and deportations or punishments it imposed on people crossing the border illegally. There are checkpoints where people can begin a process of legal immigration. Illegal border-crossing involves criminal law, but the processes of immigration and obtaining citizenship are civil law.

When politicians decided to get “tough on immigration” there was a surge in drug-smugglers and people-smugglers. Rival gangs are fighting. The result is more illegality than ever. The smugglers kidnap their customers who have relatives in the United States, corral them in temporary structures in southwestern cities and towns, and demand ransom money from the relatives.

After spending some time combing the desert for illegals, the author was transferred to a couple of different air-conditioned offices. He generated intelligence reports on drug traffickers, and watched video feeds from surveillance towers. If he saw, for instance, people cutting a hole in a pedestrian fence to go through, he notified officers via radio in the field to chase after them and arrest them. The officers might request help from tribal police, if the incident involved people from or on an Indian reservation.

Border patrol offices keep a database on all sorts of statistics on the nature of the border-crossers. The author surfed the Internet for “news” stories on kidnappings and was continually depressed by the steady stream of deaths of illegals from various countries in Central and South America. The language in the stories was slanted either to incite hatred against immigrants, or arouse sympathy for them.

The author befriended a Mexican-born man at a coffeehouse in the United States near the border. In a legal case that came to pass in connection therewith, the man’s boss claimed when she hired him, he filled in the paperwork properly, and he had a Social Security Number. But she gave him 1099 status (meaning, independent contractor– not a regular employee). She claimed she had no clue about his immigration status.

Read the book to learn the full story on the above, plus much more about the author’s experiences.

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The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

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The Book of the Week is “The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, How We Lie to Everyone– Especially Ourselves” by Dan Ariely, published in 2012.

The author presented one way human beings think about ethical behavior in a given situation: the Simple Model of Rational Crime (SMORC). It says someone would do a cost / benefit analysis in order to decide, for instance, whether to park illegally because they’re late for a meeting. Of course, a major factor in their decision-making includes how likely they are to get caught, and if they are caught, how willing they would be to bear the consequences.

The author wrote that SMORC doesn’t take emotion and trust into account, so most people wouldn’t engage in that kind of moral reasoning. With only reciprocity as the sole consideration, an individual using SMORC would require contracts for almost every ethical dilemma. He would spend most of his life in legal battles and litigation; like, Howard Hughes, Ted Turner, and Donald Trump.

Although the author failed to distinguish between guilt and shame, he cited numerous behavioral-economics studies he and other professors conducted (on mostly American subjects) to learn the causes of dishonest behavior, and ways it can be curbed.

The author realized that in a matter of weeks, even he was getting brainwashed by the propaganda of his bosses, because he was receiving generous compensation for serving as an expert witness.

Two ways to reduce cheating included:

Having people read or sign an honor-code document (such as the Ten Commandments, or an agreement not to cheat on an exam, or a set of rules, which, if broken, would give them an unfair advantage) before completing a particular task, taking a test, or competing.
Having people put their signature at the top of a document, and then fill in the info (such as on an application or tax return), rather than fill in the info and then sign at the bottom.

Read the book to learn of additional ways society can spread more ethical behavior (yes, it can be contagious!) so as to stave off the collapse of modern civilization just a little longer.

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Courthouse Crock – BONUS POST

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The New York civil fraud case against Donald Trump and Trump Organization will be rearing its ugly head again soon. Here’s a recap of it thus far.

COURTHOUSE CROCK

sung to the tune of “Jailhouse Rock” with apologies to the estates of Elvis Presley and Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Went to watch a case in New York civil court.
Judge Engoron was there.
He’s a damn good sport.

Trump’s hate speech is distracting
and his intent is to sting.
He’s desperately trying to stay “still a thing.”

It’s crock. Everybody, it’s crock.
Everybody in the GOP bloc–
on the stand was courthouse crock.

Donald Senior played the Witch Hunt card.
Eric had amnesia. He hit back hard.
Don Junior’s emails went crash, boom, bang.
Such was the nature of the Trump Org gang.

It’s crock. Everybody, it’s crock.
Everybody in the GOP bloc–
on the stand was courthouse crock.

Don Junior said to the grilling at-torney:
“My daddy’s the best artist I ever did see.
I myself am delighted with our company.
Accountants shared nothing of the numbers with me.”

It’s crock. Everybody, it’s crock.
Everybody in the GOP bloc–
on the stand was courthouse crock.

The defendants put on an irrelevant show,
when the prosecutors asked, “Where’s this gonna go?”
Judge said, “Calm down, don’t inVITE a mistrial.
Just shut your mouth, ignore Trump’s bile.”

It’s crock. Everybody, it’s crock.
Everybody in the GOP bloc–
on the stand was courthouse crock.

The media tell us Trump’s act is a charade.
They give Trump due process. They give it in spades.
Trump thinks he’s being shifty and saying nix nix.
He wants a mistrial. He’s getting his kicks.

It’s crock. Everybody, it’s crock.
Everybody in the GOP bloc–
on the stand was courthouse crock.
on the stand was courthouse crock.
on the stand was courthouse crock.

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Davos Man

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The Book of the Week is “Davos Man, How the Billionaires Devoured the World” by Peter S. Goodman, published in 2022. As the now-cliche joke goes, “You can tell Monopoly is an ancient game because there’s a luxury tax and rich people can go to jail.”

Yearly, about three thousand, super-rich people gather in Switzerland at a five-day conference called “Davos.” The least wealthy people there consist of journalists, academics, diplomats, entrepreneurs, activists and senior government officials. The billionaire-attendees (whom the author called “Davos Man”) pay lip service to the world’s social, economic and environmental problems, and behind closed doors, discuss how to profiteer in connection therewith.

In the last half century, Davos Man has enriched himself through making campaign contributions to politicians who have legislated:

monopolistic practices
tax cuts
excessive deregulation and
gutting of social programs.

The above favor powerful, rich people in Silicon Valley, New York City and Washington, D.C. Their propaganda campaigns brainwash the masses into blaming:

China
immigrants whom they believe are taking their jobs away, and
automation

for the working classes’ job losses.

The author argued that the common people in most industrialized nations of the world should blame DAVOS MAN and politicians, who are sometimes one and the same!

Davos Man– the modern-day Robber Barons– salve their consciences through philanthropic activities that are comprised of a tiny, tiny percentage of their businesses’ profits. Plus, the author contended that it is a Cosmic Lie that tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring spending.

During the COVID pandemic, the American Davos Man enriched himself through incestuous corporate / political relationships: “The United States had employed a Rube Goldberg contraption, with [Steven] Mnuchin’s slush fund [in the U.S. Treasury] funneled through Jamie Dimon’s bank [JPMorgan Chase], and Larry Fink’s firm [BlackRock] buying bonds on behalf of the Fed, allowing Steve Schwartzman’s private equity empire [Blackstone Group] to borrow for free.”

The English government convinced many of its people that through Brexit, their nation could decide its own financial fate. But Davos Man actually ended up collecting a boatload of their hard-earned taxes. Meanwhile, Argentina was defaulting on its loans for the tenth time in the last half-century. The aforementioned Davos Man, Larry Fink, blamed Argentina for the resulting disastrous losses of his clients at BlackRock. BUT– his firm was the sucker that lent it the money!

Anyway, read the book to learn of: Davos Man’s activities in various countries of the world– that resulted in skyrocketing wealth for him, and plummeting economic security for everyone else; why the author is still optimistic that the world can reverse the current, cold-hearted global financial climate in which inequality between rich and poor is ever-widening (hint: creative ideas on community cooperatives are in the air, but also– read Amy Klobuchar’s tome on antitrust issues); and the economic history explaining how Davos Man has become so rich and powerful.

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All American

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The Book of the Week is “All American, The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe” by Bill Crawford, published in 2005.

America’s tradition of holding a Thanksgiving Day college-football game began in the early 1890’s. The schools with football teams practiced profiteering from the get-go. They charged fans admission to the games, and gambling was rampant; even in preseason games. Even among the coaches– who themselves, sometimes played in the games. The coaches also made obscene salaries, even then.

Football had no passing, only rushing, until 1895. And hardly any rules: with respect to creative plays, and preventing injuries. There was unnecessary roughness galore, not to mention minimal, if any, protective equipment, and fan interference was sometimes allowed. Officials arbitrarily enforced the few rules there might have been. Play continued in all kinds of weather.

Born in May 1887 in Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe received most of his education on sports fields, although he was supposed to have been in school. His mother was of Native American, Irish and French origin. At sixteen years old, Thorpe began attending Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It was a military-style trade school for Native Americans where they could live on-campus.

In 1903, the Carlisle team tricked the Harvard Crimson with a play in which a Carlisle player hid the ball under the back of his jersey while his teammates hid their helmets under their jerseys so the opposing team couldn’t find the ball until its actual holder had run into the end zone for a touchdown.

Another dirty trick involved sewing an image of half a football onto various players’ jerseys, making it unclear as to which receiver caught the ball, to trick the opposing team’s defense. But, there was still no penalty for pass-interference, so receivers could be tackled before touching the ball. All of them. Even if they didn’t have the ball.

It should be noted that other, better-funded teams had tens of players who could enter the game anytime, whereas Carlisle had a tiny team whose players were both offense and defense.

In 1906, the newly formed NCAA established specific rules that dramatically reduced injuries, but failed to address the financial shenanigans that have greatly enriched colleges and individuals for the past century.

In 1907, when he was twenty, Thorpe joined the Carlisle football team, which had been coached by Glenn Warner since 1899. Warner headed the school’s Athletic Association, but he was not an employee of the school. So he got paid by a profit-making organization, which got its revenues through gate receipts of sports-competitions hosted by the school– football, baseball, track, etc.

Since Carlisle was a school for Native Americans, it received full federal funding for tuition, room and board for all its students. The Association didn’t have to award tuition-scholarships. Coach Warner used the Association as his personal piggy bank.

Yet another part of Warner’s job that has characterized football coaches since time immemorial, was to hush up the bad behavior of his players so as to squelch bad publicity the school would receive when players got drunk and destroyed property or got into fights, broke school rules or NCAA rules, etc.

Read the book to learn of what an exceptionally excellent multi-sport athlete Thorpe was (though he played mostly football; hint: “Twice Thorpe managed to run downfield and catch his own punts” and on one of those receptions, he shook off three or four tacklers to run twenty yards to score a touchdown.); the scandal surrounding him; and much more about his life and the tenor of the times in “amateur” sports.

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Never Gonna Give It Up – BONUS POST

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Just like Rick Astley, Trump is an alpha male with hubris syndrome.

The former is associated with “rickrolling” and Trump has started a trend of
what could be called “quicktrolling.”

The persona of both exhibit an undertone of stalking.

THIS IS WHAT TRUMP IS SINGING TO HIS ENEMIES.

NEVER GONNA GIVE IT UP

sung to the tune of “Never Gonna Give You Up” with apologies to Rick Astley.

I’m no stranger to life.
I’ll play the game until I die.
A Great America is what I’m fighting for.
GOP wouldn’t get this far with any other guy.
I, just want to win
and leave you reeling.
It’s free speech, you, UNderstand.

Never gonna give it up.
Always gonna cut you down.
Give-the-courts the run around, and spurn you.
Always max my fame,
make you say my name.
Always gonna dominate my empire, and burn you.

You’ve been targeting me, for so long.
You’re all losers, and you’re gonna blow it.
Inside we both know what’s been going on.
I’m still winning the game, and we all know it.

And, I just know that I’m aPPEALing.
I’ve made my supporters, look up to me.

Never gonna give it up.
Always gonna cut you down.
Give-the-courts the run around, and spurn you.
Always max my fame,
make you say my name.
Always gonna dominate my empire, and burn you.

[Ooh, give it up
Ooh, give it up
Never gonna give
Never gonna give
Give it up
Never gonna give
Never gonna give
Give it up]

You’ve been targeting me, for so long.
You’re all losers, and you’re gonna blow it.
Inside we both know what’s been going on.
I’m still winning the game, and we all know it.

I, just want to win
and leave you reeling.
It’s free speech, you, UNderstand.

Never gonna give it up.
Always gonna cut you down.
Give-the-courts the run around, and spurn you.
Always max my fame,
make you say my name.
Always gonna dominate my empire, and burn you.

Never gonna give it up.
Always gonna cut you down.
Give-the-courts the run around…

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the (sic) Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl

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The Book of the Week is “the [sic] Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl, How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis” by Arthur Allen, published in 2014. This disorganized story presented horribly confusing time frames, alternating between scenes of the main characters, with a large amount of historical context thrown in– which made the book’s title misleading, besides. But it provided information on a lesser-known aspect of WWII: the evolution of the typhus vaccine that saved countless lives.

Anyway, in 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire drafted the two doctors described in the story, as medics for the Kaiser’s army. Dr. Rudolf Weigl was born in 1883 in what is currently Czech Republic. Dr. Ludwik Fleck was born in 1896, and was Czech, Austrian and Polish. They both lived in the city of Lviv (aka Lwow or Lemberg) for a significant period in their lives. Weigl studied typhus there at the Polish National Health Institute of Hygiene (PZH).

Fleck opined that the contradictory medical journals of the 1930’s weren’t particularly useful, so doctors needed to use their personal smarts when diagnosing patients. Patients could be carriers of an illness, but not have symptoms themselves. For decades, Weigl was experimenting nonstop by breeding body lice (rather than head lice) as the spreaders of typhus– that fed on human blood. The guts of those lice were then injected with typhus-contaminated blood solution. He developed a vaccine that worked better than the competition’s.

Later on, during WWII, the German military ordered Weigl to refine the vaccine (because different strains of typhus appeared) to protect its soldiers. Fleck’s immediate boss was a spy for the SS (Security Service) who ordered him to do medical research that minimized the possibility that Aryans would contract a disease such as typhus, in the name of creating a master race. His ultimate boss was Heinrich Himmler.

Beginning in autumn 1939, new Soviet bosses imposed their will on Fleck and Weigl. Fleck previously had a private medical lab, but he was named head of the microbiology department of the new Ukrainian Medical Institute, led Lviv’s Sanitation and Bacteriological Laboratory, and conducted research at the new Mother and Child Hospital.

Weigl received and took the savvy advice that he should avoid joining the Communist Party, because inevitably, eventually, Stalin would turn against him and he would be thrown in the gulag, or worse. He also heeded the warning that he should engage in corruption only insofar as it helped him survive. Excessive corruption would get him in trouble. Different armies took over certain territories in Eastern Europe during the war years.

Beginning in summer 1941, fearing for his and his family’s life, Weigl cooperated with the Nazis rather than the SS and local German leaders in Lviv. His reasoning for insisting on keeping his private lab was that, if the Nazis killed him, he’d be viewed as a martyr. He let a German VIP help him supervise the research, though. He saved hundreds to thousands of lives of Jews of Polish origin. Their false identity papers allowed them to be hired as medical guinea pigs by having body lice feed on their blood.

Starting in the early 1940’s, the Nazis needed medical doctors who happened to be Jewish, so they spared them, but they compelled them to commit atrocities doing research. During wartime typhus epidemics, deaths of Polish and Soviet Jews were significantly higher than those of people of other ethnicities due to anti-Semitism. For, the Nazis ordered medical doctors to refrain from treating Jews in their quarantined ghettos. The SS needed the Jews’ slave labor in factories to further the war effort, so the Jews weren’t confined to the ghettos. They therefore spread typhus, anyway.

Through the years, the constantly-improved vaccines developed by Weigl were used (and spread far and wide in black markets) in Ethiopia, Manchuria, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. Britain, however, decided to take steps to kill the lice rather than muck about with a typhus vaccine.

Read the book to learn how American soldiers fared during times of typhus epidemics; plus much more about vaccines other than Weigl’s, about the Soviets on the Eastern Front, the history of Buchenwald, the adventures of Fleck and his family at Auschwitz, the fates of the people associated with different vaccines, and other ways various peoples combated typhus.

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A Refugee’s American Dream

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The Book of the Week is “A Refugee’s American Dream, From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service” by Leth Oun with Joe Samuel Starnes, published in 2023. The book appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index.

Leth was born in October 1966 in northwestern Cambodia. He lived in a Buddhist neighborhood of seven households; it was communal, and living conditions were primitive. But his parents believed in education. Leth’s school was a half-hour’s walking distance. He began attending at six years old. The most excitement the peasants had was provided by a neighbor in the wider community. That wealthy family had a home entertainment system consisting of a screen and projector that showed Charlie Chaplin films with French subtitles.

Up until spring 1975, when extreme political turmoil turned his life upside down, Leth was allowed to bring his pet dog with him to see Cambodian and Chinese movies in a theater in Battambang City, near his home village. When the war came to his area, he saw “helicopters shooting fireballs from the sky, trees burning and exploding, trying to kill the Khmer Rouge soldiers in hiding.”

The Khmer Rouge guerrillas committed unspeakable atrocities, dubbed the “Killing Fields” by Western historians, but there was much was more to it than simply torturing and killing people in fields. Westerners who call mass deaths in modern times the “Killing Fields” are just as ignorant about world history as those who call certain leaders “Hitler” when they have no clue what they’re talking about.

Most Khmer Rouge foot soldiers were teenage boys toting AK-47’s. They were bossy and sadistic, like Nazis. The difference was, though, that Cambodia’s new dictator, Pol Pot, took lessons from Stalin’s and Mao Tse Tung’s Communist playbooks through: redistributing property to the government; turning the entire common population into peasant-farmers; and punishing everyone who had previously engaged in capitalism-related activities. They imposed an anti-intellectual godless regime that demonized all things Western. Most of his life, the author’s father had been (not by choice) in the Cambodian military, so he was doomed to be taken away and killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Obviously, the author lived to tell his tale, but he barely survived. At one point, he lived in a refugee camp, which he described thusly: “More huts were built in the dirt of the sprawling community surrounded by barbed wire beneath the mountain. The lines for food and water grew longer and slower. The latrines grew more crowded and smelled terrible.”

Read the book to learn many more details of the fate of the author and his family.

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Mr. Whiny-Speech – BONUS POST

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Since U.S. retailers start the holiday season right after Labor Day, it’s high time for a Christmas song after Halloween.

MISTER WHINY-SPEECH

sung to the tune of “Little Saint Nick” with apologies to the Beach Boys.

Boo.

Forever DISHing hate speech.
Trump’s a grinch throughout the year.

Boohoo.

Well, IN all the courts
where the air gets cold,
there’s a defendant called Trump
as you can’t help but know.

He’s a real famous DUDE
all caught up in suits
and he’s spending his last-years
with GOP in cahoots.

He’s Mister Whiny-Speech.
Mister Whiny-Speech.

Just a-bunch of lawyers, HELPing
Mr. Whiny-Speech
and they can’t shut him up
no matter how they beseech.

He’s always spewing insults at
his former mob.
And trashing has become
his full-time job.

He’s Mister Whiny-Speech.
Mister Whiny-Speech.

Spread spread spread smears.
Spread spread spread smears.

Woe

Spread spread spread smears.
Spread spread spread smears.

He don’t miss NO one.

He did WRONG through the election
at a frightening speed
with half a dozen schemes
with Rudy to lead.

He’s got to wear his blinders
’cause he really lies,
and USE every trick
in-order TO survive.

He’s Mister Whiny-Speech.
Mister Whiny-Speech.

Boo

Forever DISHing hate speech.
Trump’s a grinch throughout the year.

Boo

Forever DISHing hate speech.
Trump’s a grinch throughout the year.

Boohoo

Forever DISHing hate speech.
Trump’s a grinch throughout the year…

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Character & Characters / Retail Gangster

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The first Book of the Week is “Character & Characters, the Spirit of Alaska Airlines” by Robert J. Serling, published in 2008.

Alaska Airlines (AKA) came into existence in the mid-1940’s with the buyout of Star Air Service. It faced stiff competition from Northwest Airlines, and Pan American– which was already monster-sized from: its contract with the federal government to deliver the U.S. mails, and exchanging many political favors.

Mostly, AKA transported passengers between the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. In early 1949, it completed a dangerous mission, flying about 140 Jews from Yemen to the airport in Tel Aviv, while an Arab bomb could have hit the plane anytime.

In the 1950’s, top executive Charlie Willis had such passion for and loyalty and dedication to AKA, that he borrowed $100,000 using his personal house as collateral, in order to restore the pilot-pension-fund shortfall, to keep his employer from going out of business. Beginning at the dawn of the 1960’s, he enabled his second-in-command-executive to engage in deficit spending. They broke the bank to do promotional gimmicks.

In the back of its model CONVAIR 880, AKA installed a stand-up beer bar, even though it replaced eight passenger seats. AKA generated goodwill by throwing parties it couldn’t afford for industry players, such as its own employees and trade associations. In the late 1960’s, it bought hotels and a ski resort. AKA was one of the very first airlines to provide in-flight movies and music. So it hovered near bankruptcy, repeatedly unable to meet its employee payroll. For years.

Commercial airlines, initially transporting wealthy passengers, employed stewardesses in sexy uniforms– with no or minimal training, and offered alcoholic beverages included with the airfare. With evolution came the organization of labor– of pilots, flight crews and ground crews. Alaska’s bush pilots who had gotten in on aviation’s ground floor, had become disenchanted with the changing times. Bob Ellis sold his tiny airline in Alaska because he was no longer having fun, was emotionally exhausted from the government’s imposition of regulations, and didn’t understand the need for union labor. He had treated his employees well.

The Civil Aeronautics Board, one of the government’s regulatory bodies, was soon to stop subsidizing the (small, financially struggling) regional airlines (including AKA) in Alaska. The consolidation of the industry in the 1960’s meant no more floatplanes, biplanes, and single-engine monoplanes. These were replaced with DC-3’s and other faster, technologically superior aircraft.

Competing airlines were growing in size, complexity, and needed economies-of-scale and scope. Bosses couldn’t afford to pay for their employees’ expensive personal problems as though they were in a small business anymore. There was backlash by the workers against this vanishing era. They no longer felt like a family.

In summer 1970, AKA’s Willis (rumored to be an alcoholic) was able to get a new air route: to the U.S.S.R. Ironically, AKA had to lease a Pan Am 707 in order to do it. Willis became a drinking buddy to his Aeroflot counterparts. The passengers, who flew to Siberia, consisted mostly of Native Americans from Alaska visiting family, missionaries, and businessmen. They were treated to flatware made of gold, caviar in their Caesar salads, wine, and Russian samovars. The flight attendants dressed in Cossacks’ attire, with bear fur hats. Unsurprisingly, the flights proved insufficiently profitable over the course of three years.

AKA suffered less disastrous financial losses when the oil industry in Alaska kicked into high gear, in the late 1960’s. Oil-pipeline construction around Prudhoe Bay in the North Slope area became all the rage. From the Seattle-Tacoma airport, the airline’s Hercules’ C-130 planes transferred cargo, including hazardous materials that could accidentally cause a lot of wrongful deaths and property damage: 25,000 pounds of dynamite, heating and fuel oil and big, heavy drilling rigs for ground vehicles, and heaters.

In the early 1970’s, many pipeline workers liked hunting, but they got drunk before they flew home. AKA allowed rifles on their planes, so they hired the equivalent of bouncers who served as ground-crew screeners, and had a locked-up special gun-rack section in the front of the plane.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional details on Alaska Airlines’ role in the development of aviation, people, power struggles, technologies, and the tenor of its times up until the book’s writing.

The second Book of the Week is “Retail Gangster, the Insane, Real-Life Story of CRAZY EDDIE” by Gary Weiss, published in 2020.

Currently fading from Americans’ memory, is “Crazy Eddie.” Launched in the mid-1970’s, it was a retail chain of electronics stores in the northeastern United States. The company became known for a spokesman who flooded all kinds of advertising media with emotionally-charged screaming, that Crazy Eddie’s prices were insane. The repetitive repetition of this singular message worked. Eddie projected an image of success that fed on itself.

However, from the start, the store’s top executive– Eddie Antar– committed financial crimes. He had selfish, greedy intent, unlike the aforementioned Alaska Airlines executives, who were merely big spenders out of unbridled optimism and honest ineptitude.

Starting in 1984 when the company sold shares to the public, Eddie and his key employees (mostly his relatives) engaged in securities fraud. They had ongoing, frantic bursts of activity in which they: “…stuffed cash in the ceiling, stole store sales-taxes, [plus, they falsified inventory records] and defrauded insurance companies without a second thought. They did not expect to be caught, and if the Antars had any doubt on that score, they had only to look to City Hall for inspiration.” New York City’s government had committed exactly the same kinds of accounting fraud for years and years, beginning in the 1960’s. As the behavioral-economics cliche goes, “The fish rots from the head down.”

By 1987, Crazy Eddie had 2,250 workers in 32 locations from Philadelphia to New England. Read the book to learn a slew of details on the fates of Eddie, his families, and his businesses.

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The Longest Race

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The Book of the Week is “The Longest Race, Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team” by Kara Goucher with Mary Pilon, published in 2023.

Born in 1978, the author grew up in New Jersey and the Duluth, Minnesota area. Goucher became a professional runner. Like many of her fellow athletes, the author– who experienced an early childhood trauma– found at a young age that competing in footraces is cathartic.

Goucher focused on her training and reaching the finish-line first, rather than getting all worked up about the numerous stressful situations she endured in everyday living. However, she rationalized away some of the wrongs committed against her, because speaking out against them would ruin her career, her marriage, her friendships, etc.

In the United States, the way runners go professional is to convince a corporate, non-governmental sponsor to pay them to race. Goucher and her husband both signed contracts with Nike, the monster-sized corporation best known for making athletic shoes. The company provided her and her fellow runners in her working group with the best, cutting-edge scientifically and technologically advanced resources for winning races.

However, the Gouchers’ status with Nike was as independent contractors, so they had less legal recourse than that of employees with regard to any illegal goings-on in their field of work. Their coach and immediate boss was the celebrity runner Alberto Salazar. In the single-digit 2000’s, he led the “Oregon Project” which was an attempt to help Americans win races again around the world; their victories had been woefully plummeting for years.

Salazar did boost Kara’s confidence and helped her perform better than she thought she could. But, his behavior and many of his training practices were inappropriate and illegal. He and his colleagues (an alleged psychotherapist and medical doctor) wielded a lot of power over the Gouchers, who owed their careers to their sponsor. Salazar’s underlings hewed to his training methods through fear and force. “He [Salazar] got testy when called out for having a third drink. I could only guess how he would react to being called out about sexual harassment.”

As a female, Kara had to deal with Nike’s double standard of suspending her pay when she ran an insufficient number of races in a specified time period pursuant to her contract. Male runners were punished this way when they got caught in doping scandals or had injuries. She was subject to those same conditions, but she couldn’t race because she was pregnant. In connection with exploring her career options, Kara wrote, “… I found myself again and again in rooms of male executives explaining women’s running to me. There seemed to be more interest in how I would look on a poster than in how the sport could evolve.”

Fighting “City Hall” in so many different areas of life is difficult. Anyone who attempted to do so in professional running in the single-digit 2000’s would have to deal with Nike. It held a near-monopoly with overwhelming power and influence over regulators. Whistleblowers would suffer doxing and death threats.

BUT, it is an age-old truism that when more and more courageous people come forward with firsthand information about wrongdoing by an institution or a particularly powerful individual– the less the harm that will be done in the future because the collective mood of the community will shift against the wrongdoer. Eventually.

Read the book to learn lots of additional details of the Gouchers’ experiences in their professional running careers– their trials, tribulations and triumphs.

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When the Media Love A Romance – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little ditty that explains why Taylor Swift is still a “thing.”

Sung to the tune of “When A Man Loves A Woman” with apologies to Percy Sledge.

WHEN THE MEDIA LOVE A ROMANCE

When the media love a romance
Taylor Swift must stay on viewers’ minds,
and nothing else.
The media THANK the Lord
for the easy money they’ve found.
They report on triVIA when they see it.
She can do no wrong.
Turn their backs on wars-trials-elections.
They award her a CROWN.

When the media love a romance,
she spends her last PR dime
trying to hog the attention she needs.
The media CLING to their comforts
and stay in the tabloid lane,
but that’s NOT how it ought to be.

Well, American media LOVE a romance.
And they do everything they can
trying to promote the NFL.
Lonely, sad viewers eat it up.

When the media love a romance
deep down in their soul,
they want to distract from misery.
Always playing viewers for fools,
it’s a highest-bidder show.
Hard news is impossible to see.

When the media love a romance
She can do no wrong.
Unless more money brings another queen.
Yes, when the media love a romance…

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We Were the Future

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The Book of the Week is “We Were the Future, A Memoir of the Kibbutz” by Yael Neeman, published in 2016. Readers might argue that the author and her cohorts were raised in a cult– brainwashed from birth. The kibbutz movement strove for 100% socialism– the economic system in which all the people (not the State) collectively owned everything; and collectively governed themselves.

In 1947, the total population of kibbutzim as a proportion of Israel’s (Jewish) population reached a high of 7%. It waned after Israel achieved sovereignty in 1948. The first half of the 1950’s saw global historical events (the trials of: Prague [1952], the Doctors in the U.S.S.R. and the Rosenbergs in the U.S. [both 1953]) that were jarring to Jews. The kibbutz movement split over ideological disagreements, especially after Stalin died in 1953 and his crimes were revealed in 1956. Adults around the author held zero discussions about this recent history.

Neeman was born in 1960 in Kibbutz Yehiam (founded in 1946) in Western Galilee near the border with Lebanon. Her kibbutz was a branch of Hashomer Hatzair (meaning “Young Guard”), the movement’s umbrella organization that began in 1913. Their motto was, “For Zionism, Socialism and Brotherhood Amongst Nations.” Her children’s group consisted of eight boys and eight girls, who did everything together, every day. She was raised among them by women who collectively took care of the kibbutz’s children grouped by age; she visited with her biological parents, but didn’t live with them in the same building.

The lifestyle encompassed a number of major ideas:

“Family and education in the rest of the industrial world were considered bourgeois institutions.”
“Everyone knew after all, that work [on the kibbutz] was more important than school, more important than anything.”
Egalitarianism for all the people was key– all decisions were made by committee.

Contradictorily:

There was a hierarchical division of labor– upper and lower. The former consisted of high-level positions in the fields and factories; held by the founders of the kibbutz, the (mostly Hungarian) First of May group. The latter consisted of low-skilled, dead-end jobs such as peeling potatoes.
The kibbutz undertook a number of enterprises through the years, including a banana “plantation” which was the most “profitable.” [these words with nuanced meanings were translated from Hebrew, but even so, these were capitalist endeavors.]

Kids whose behavior was troublesome were exiled from the kibbutz, and sent to a “special institution.” At twelve years old, all the conforming kids began to attend what amounted to boarding school, located off the kibbutz campus. They had previously received an eclectic education of hands-on instruction on a myriad of topics. Beginning in adolescence, they were allowed to shape their own education, or lack thereof.

Currently, analogous experiments are underway in American education in which adolescents are placed in front of computer screens with no teachers. Educrats and profiteers expect the software to teach them. At that age, most kids have neither the judgment nor the discipline to acquire the knowledge and skills required for becoming mature, responsible adults who can financially support themselves.

Kibbutzniks were afforded too much freedom and not enough guidance and supervision within their tiny, limited community in their early childhood. So they had a rude awakening when they were permitted (on rare occasions) to see how other kids in the rest of the world lived.

One other interesting factoid: Neeman wrote, “In our biological home, we [she and her three siblings] were already allowed to smoke on Purim when we were in the first grade.”

Read the book to learn about a boatload of other ways Neeman’s upbringing was extremely unconventional due to her fledgling homeland’s exceptionalism.

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Propaganda – BONUS POST

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Here’s a parody about the current worldwide situation– especially relevant in wartime.

PROPAGANDA

sung to the tune of “Pop Muzik” with apologies to M (the band) and Robin Scott.

Prop-prop-prop propaganda
Prop-prop-prop propaganda

Low down.

Prop-prop-prop propaganda
Prop-prop-prop propaganda

Radio, video
Buzz with every legal case.
Go living in a courtroom.
Outrage in the prez race.
Celebrities with heartache.
Lies, smears, photos fake.
Boss some, buy some–
attention whores can’t stay mum.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Poll-you, roll-you nonstop.
I can’t veriFY it.
Pop goes the idiot box.
It’s a Kool-Aid diet.

Poll-you, roll-you nonstop
Infiltrated.
Way overrated.

New York Times, CNN, WaPo, Fox slander.
Everybody fooled by propagander.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Prop-prop-prop propaganda
Prop-prop-prop propaganda

Reveling in the headlines.
Shuffle all the partisans.
Spin me a cover-up.
Aren’t they artisans?
Wanna be a war monger–
arguments ARE longer.
Blah blah drivel blather.
Get viewers in a lather.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Poll-you, roll-you nonstop
Lying like a rug.
Pop goes the idiot box.
Aiding the thugs.

Poll-you, roll-you nonstop
Social contagion.
Pop goes the idiot box.
Wily stagin’.

Insidious.

You buy what they’re sayin’.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Prop-prop-prop propaganda
Prop-prop-prop propaganda

Swaying the world.
Gullible you are.
At the speed of light.
Hear it in the car.
It can give you a fright.

cog cog cog cog cog cog cog cog cog
cog cog cog cog cog cog
cog cog cog cog cog cog cog cog cog
cog cog cog cog cog cog

Tabloids in the supermarket.
Read it in the magazines.
Messages in movies.
Your face in your phone again.
You get so, EFfing mad
at hypocrites WE’VE had.
Sunlight on the liars.
Deniers, war and fires.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Poll-you, roll-you nonstop
Hard to know WHAT’S fake.
Pop goes the idiot box.
When everyone’s on-the-take.
Poll-you, roll-you nonstop
Hard to know WHAT’S fake.
Pop goes the idiot box.

Insidious.

New York Times, CNN, WaPo, Fox slander.
Everybody fooled by propagander.

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda

Prop-prop-prop propaganda
Prop-prop-prop propaganda

Low down.

Don’t listen!!!

Putting out propaganda
Putting out propaganda…

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Shanghai Acrobat

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The Book of the Week is “Shanghai Acrobat, The True Story of Courage and Perseverance from Revolutionary China” by Jingjing Xue, translated by Bo Ai, published in 2021.

Born in 1947 in Zhejiang Province in China, the author was sent to live at an orphanage when he was two years old. He never did find out exactly why, as his biological parents were alive. Anyway, the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe recruited him when he was nine years old. Other members of the group were as old as fourteen. He happened to possess the right temperament to endure its rigorous training (that included corporal punishment) and get good at balancing on his hands in various precarious positions.

There were daily academic lessons, too, and a lot of political ideology thrown in. The instructors constantly emphasized the teachings of Mao Tse Tung, and bragged about what a prosperous, wonderful country they lived in. Mao took the calculated risk of allowing performers and athletes to travel outside China where they might learn about other peoples’ lifestyles and defect– so that he could show off his own people’s greatness.

By the late 1950’s, the author was traveling and performing with the Troupe. In 1960, they went to cities controlled by the Soviets, and ironically, to African countries (such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Guinea and Morocco) whose native peoples were starting to throw off their colonialist yokes.

In the early 1960s, owing a ginormous monetary debt to the Soviets and not wanting to pay it, China decided the Soviets were wrong to stomp on the memory of the great leader Stalin (who had died in 1953 and whose crimes were revealed a few years later); Mao theatrically broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviets.

In 1967, Mao capriciously imposed his new twisted logic (a different set of ideas from that of his previous campaign)– the belief that the lowest economic class (the workers, the peasant-tenants) needed to fight the higher economic classes (the bosses and landlords)– because capitalistic activities were anathema. There were a few occasions in which the author was yelled at for saying the wrong things to some non-Chinese people, even though he thought his comments would jive with Mao’s teachings.

As part of the new campaign (called the Cultural Revolution, begun in 1965) to rid China of the dissidents of the moment– performing acrobatics was out of fashion. The radicals loyal to Mao policed the Troupe, finally disbanded it, and psychologically and physically tortured the director in public self-criticism meetings. The author’s acrobatic career was (temporarily, though he didn’t know it at the time) over. He was sent to the countryside for “reeducation.”

With 20/20 hindsight, the author wrote, “To those of us who had been through the Cultural Revolution, the Watergate political scandal was nothing. We couldn’t understand how the American people could force Nixon to resign for ‘peanuts.’ ” It is unclear what kind of propaganda the author and his contemporaries were fed to come to that conclusion.

For, they might have known nothing of Nixon’s real war crimes. But even if Nixon had been innocent of war crimes, he and his underlings still committed election crimes, and worst of all, violated his numerous enemies’ civil rights– evil actions that were considered against the law in the United States. The last fifty years have seen a bit more moderation in China’s political leadership. And radicalism in the United States.

Human nature is such that there has been some convergence (!) between China’s and the United States’ ideologies in:

surveillance of citizens
incarceration of citizens
economics
education, and
other areas of life.

It’s all in the propaganda fed to the people.

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s life and times, and his fate.

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Counsel to the President

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“On the other hand, liberals felt it was intolerable to watch the First Amendment freedoms, the most precious ones bestowed upon us by the Founding Fathers, trampled by know-nothings masquerading as patriots.”

-Clark Clifford, writing of the (Joe) McCarthy Era

The Book of the Week is “Counsel to the President, A Memoir” by Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, published in 1991. This volume was ginormous because the author wrote of the minutiae of interactions of the alpha males who ran the federal government from the 1940’s through the 1980’s.

Born in December 1906 in the St. Louis area, Clifford enjoyed a career in law and politics. In his generation, boys read the “Horatio Alger” book series, the rags-to-riches fairy tales of males who came by their success through hard work and ethical behavior. A bygone era.

In September 1948, Ronald Reagan endorsed Harry Truman for president. In those days, on the Sunday before election day on Tuesday, there was no campaigning. The candidates did not work, else American voters would complain it was the Christian Sabbath. Monday night, the candidates delivered their last radio addresses. On Tuesday, the author went to the home of a friend who had a television, to watch the election returns. Commentators displayed the returns on chalkboards. Battleground states in the 1948 race included Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and California.

In 1949, Truman introduced the Fair Deal initiative, which strove to honor Americans’ human rights, expand the economy and maintain world peace. Also, a Public Affairs department junior-staffer (who risked his career by not “staying in his lane”) pushed for Point Four, despite backlash from the State Department.

Influential speechwriters of the president inserted Point Four (which sought to aid poor nations through modernization) in his inaugural speech. Even so, because it was placed under the auspices of the State Department (which thought of itself as responsible for diplomacy, not charity), the foreign policy initiative went nowhere for more than a year. The speech included three other major themes: the United States’ involvement in the beginnings of the United Nations, Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Through an engaging anecdote, Clifford described the major role that social-drinking played in American society in the 1950’s. Baptist U.S. senator Bob Kerr (D.-OK.), a teetotaler, invited a group of political workers to a dinner party at his home. He duly warned them that he would not be serving alcohol.

A fellow Democrat, Stuart Symington, called all the guests privately, and invited them for pre-dinner drinks at his home. On the appointed evening, all of the guests arrived at the Kerrs’ home, drunk. A good time was still had by all. Clifford’s account strained credibility, however, as he claimed Kerr didn’t detect that his guests had been drinking.

Anyway, the McCarthy Era ended this way:

In 1953, U.S. senator Joe McCarthy (R.-WI) and his evil sidekick Roy Cohn were called out publicly for attempting to pull strings for Cohn’s draft-dodger friend, who had been drafted.
In retaliation, McCarthy used HUAC to brand a certain obscure Army member, a Commie. In March 1954, he pressed an Army general to provide more information on the accused. The general refused.
McCarthy was so incensed, he called for public hearings, to hash out his issues with the Army. Big error.
LBJ, Senate Minority Leader said the hearings should be televised, and so they were, beginning in April 1954. As is well known, McCarthy was called out for having no decency left.

Yet, upon getting elected to public office, LBJ never did divest himself of his significant interests in radio and TV stations in Austin, TX. Unlike profiteering with its attendant political conflicts of interest, one aspect of American culture that is changing significantly, is the increasing tolerance for people of different sexual orientations.

Johnson aide Walter Jenkins, a devout Catholic, was married and had six children. In October 1964, two undercover officers arrested Jenkins, whom they caught committing a homosexual act (which was illegal!) in the old YMCA building near the White House. The incident was leaked to the press. The Republican National Committee deemed Jenkins a threat to National Security. Jenkins was “cancelled.”

Moving on. When he ran for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter made a promise he could not possibly keep: to always be honest with Americans. He also implied that his administration would be benevolent and forthright. Of course, the voting public paid attention, because they wanted so badly to believe Carter was telling the truth– after the McCarthy Era, Vietnam and Watergate. The joke,

Q: What’s the difference between an honest politician and a UFO?

A: People have seen a UFO

is funny because it rings true.

The author then described a key way presidents can be perceived as effective (whether they’re honest is another story):

“They [a president] must summon the nation to share their vision and values, and by their priorities, symbolize their definition of what they want the nation to be.”

Read the book to learn about Clifford’s career, including how and why he flip-flopped on Vietnam in the second half of the 1960’s, and much more on the major historical events with which he and his political contemporaries had to contend.

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Oh, My Homes – BONUS POST

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Here’s what Trump is singing now.

OH, MY HOMES

sung to the tune of “Kodachrome” with apologies to Paul Simon.

When I look at all the political crap and how the courts rule,
it’s a wonder they’re allowed to judge at all.

And they’re unfair and un-American, they’ve hurt me some.
They’ve totally defamed me with their gall.

Oh, my ho-o-omes, you gave me tax breaks and loans,
gave me changes in zones.
Helped me build my perfect businesses every day, oh yeah.

I got a bunch of supporters.
I say this IS a Witch Hunt.
So judge, don’t take my magnificent homes away.

You know I didn’t do ANY of the crimes
I’m accused of.
And if you really know HOW to do right,
you’d agree I’m innocent and all my protestations,
AREN’T-inciting racial tensions between black and white.

Oh, my ho-o-omes, you gave me tax breaks and loans,
gave me changes in zones.
Helped me build my perfect businesses every day, oh yeah.

I got a bunch of supporters.
I say this IS a Witch Hunt.
So judge, don’t take my magnificent homes away.

Judge, don’t take my real estate away.
Judge, don’t take my hotels away.
Judge, don’t take my businesses away.

Judge, don’t take my free speech,
Judge, don’t take my mo-ney,
Judge, don’t take my golf courses away.

Judge, don’t take my declassified documents.
Why don’t you leave me the hell alone?

Judge, don’t take my candidacy away.
Judge, don’t take my freedom away. Arrgh.
Judge, don’t take my magnificent homes away.
Hey!

Featured

Weed, Inc.

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The Book of the Week is “Weed, Inc., The Truth About THC, the Pot Lobby, and the Commercial Marijuana Industry” by Ben Cort, published in 2017.

In this short volume, the author cleared up many misconceptions about marijuana. He defined “marijuana” (aka “weed”) as the whole plant. The mind-altering substance in marijuana is abbreviated THC. The medicinal substance in marijuana is abbreviated CBD.

In November 2012, the state government of Colorado passed Amendment 64, allowing an “anything goes” mentality in connection with marijuana. In America, it was time for another round of: too many greedy, power-hungry stakeholders (Goliaths who win the battle– profiteers in the form of lobbyists, THC sellers and politicians), and too few informed, politically active people (Davids– who see through the propaganda). The author provided suggestions on how to regulate Colorado’s THC industry. But at the book’s writing in 2017, it was too late, and he was way too idealistic.

The Goliaths reassure the masses that the new laws are gonna be great (via oversimplified, evidence-free, misleading, political talking-points)– bring in lots of revenue to the state, and expand everyone’s freedoms! The author listed examples of the Goliaths’ utterances and counter-arguments, respectively (this is not a comprehensive list):

“It’s just a plant.” but poppies are just a plant– which serve as the raw material for opium and heroin.
“It’s safer than alcohol.” but “safer” is a misused, overused word in rationalizations justifying all kinds of dangerous situations: drugs, the financial markets, transportation, etc. The correct description should be “less risky.”
“Traffic fatalities in Colorado are down.” There is no bright-line blood-THC measurement-amount that is illegal for the few drivers who are tested for THC. It’s a cumbersome process to do testing in the first place. It’s a whole bureaucratic production in which a drug recognition expert must be called to the scene to rule whether to do the blood test.
“Look at all the tax dollars!” For 2015, the total taxes collected on THC activities was one half of one percent of Colorado’s total budget.

Frequently, the sound bites on medical topics in the media are gross distortions (aka propaganda) of a situation, because they omit inconvenient facts. In one situation (one data point in the statistics) in the 2010’s, a young child had significantly fewer seizures when she ingested a CBD solution in oil. A medical doctor went on a major cable network and disseminated the misleading message that “Weed cures seizures. Hurray!” No mention of side effects or possible long-term harm or costs or whether the doctor was paid to say what he was saying, or of any details.

Predictably, in Colorado, weed shops, or dispensaries (that sell extremely-concentrated THC-containing baked goods, candy and sweet beverages) sprung up in poor neighborhoods.

As is well known, matters came to a head on crack-cocaine in the 1990’s, meth in the single-digit 2000’s, and opioids in the 2010’s. Unsurprisingly– to people in-the-know: THC is the newest drug craze which– when the harm in connection therewith reaches critical mass– will result in lawsuits and bad publicity for the industry; it will end up just like the “opioid crisis.” The harm includes not only addicts galore, but also– due to the all-cash nature of the industry in Colorado specifically– robberies and other street crimes, money laundering and other financial crimes.

Read the book to learn much more hard data on THC, the author’s suggestions for sane regulation of marijuana and THC, the nature of marijuana laws that certain states have already passed, his personal experience with addiction and why it is so hard to kick an addiction (hint: “… and he was surrounded by stores, advertisements, the culture of gratification and abuse, and the sheer smell of it [weed].”).

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Newsroom Confidential / An Atheist in the FOXhole

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The First Book of the Week is “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life” by Margaret Sullivan, published in 2022.

The author survived a decades-long career as a journalist and editor. Ironically, her writing was slightly less than perfect. The word “being” was used awkwardly in the middle of sentences throughout the book. Also, she spent a bunch of pages describing the problems with “anonymous sources” but her (presumably nonfiction) book lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index (!) She did say some of her information was taken from articles she wrote for her employers. This, from a seasoned journalist.

Born in 1957, Sullivan grew up in Lackawanna, a suburb of Buffalo, in northwestern New York State. By her early thirties, she was supervising six journalists in the politics and government division of the Buffalo Evening News newspaper. In autumn 2012, as an ombudsman, she began penning articles critiquing her employer, the New York Times. Her position was that of watchdog– she helped with quality control of its product.

The author described her take on how journalism has changed over the decades with respect to truth, trust and objectivity. As is well known, technology now allows the world to communicate at the speed of light. Especially during political campaigns, many journalists have begun to behave the same way as political workers: workaholics who act like extremely self-absorbed, socially manipulative teenagers who think they’re starring in their own reality show; and they are– it’s called social media.

They feel obligated to interact with their readers by inviting their comments and responding to them; the author included. Inevitably, haters express their opinions offensively and meanly. Everyone wastes untold amounts of time dealing with them, instead of changing the world for the better.

AND, people in the media and political realms aren’t as influential as they’d like to believe they are. Ordinary Americans who don’t work in the media or politics, cannot possibly affix their eyes to all of the infinite writings, photos and videos “out there” in entertainment land 24/7. Some have to work, and others are actually engaged in other activities.

Anyway, in 2017, as a columnist for the Washington Post, the author considered herself an “independent-minded journalist” but came to the rude awakening that, when she asked people from all-walks-of-life about politics, she could no longer find common ground with them on basic issues.

Although the author discussed the legal issues of “anonymous sources” and “equal time” she didn’t cite any legal cases. She did write that in three different instances, media outlets courageously chose to give more time to the truth than to falsity in their 2020 election coverage– by not giving equal time to people who were screaming voter fraud and that Trump had won the election. She hopes there will be more media space devoted to the truth in the future. Good luck with that, all.

Read the book to learn a boatload more about the author’s career trials, tribulations and triumphs, and her recommendations for helping to reverse the current awful trends in journalism so as to save modern civilization.

The Second Book of the Week is “An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal’s Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media” by Joe Muto, published in 2013.

The author was born in early 1982 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His first job out of college was at Fox News. He detailed the working conditions there from summer 2004 into spring 2012. In October 2004, a story broke about a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill O’Reilly. The main source of evidence consisted of O’Reilly’s voice on audio recordings.

Thereafter, Fox News gave its employees sensitivity training in order to stave off more lawsuits. The two lawyers teaching the classes said that the Fox bosses could legally tell on-air talent what to wear– even mini-skirts and strappy, cleavage-revealing blouses(!)– because they had a right to creatively control their “product.”

As time went on, the author’s employer’s product became more and more inflammatory, cringeworthy, and offensive. As is well known, Fox has toned down its rhetoric due to lawsuits. The number of parties who have the clout and money to sue have finally reached critical mass on the sexual harassment and defamation fronts.

In connection therewith, in the last decade, several obnoxious public figures have disappeared from the American-influence scene. This has help foster a kinder social environment. Nevertheless, hate-spewers and laws favoring them wax and wane in history.

Too, in the last few decades, the entertainment industry has seen a trend of lazy (or untalented) creators, evinced by a boatload of unnecessarily juvenile, expletive-laden, disgusting content. Controversy over free speech has also been ignited by people on each extreme: those who feel they should have the right to say anything they want, and those who take offense at everything that is said, with accusations of discrimination or inappropriateness.

Anyway, read the book to learn about the author’s employment experiences and his fate at the time of the book’s writing.

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Trump’s Been Good – BONUS POST

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Trump’s Been Good

sung to the tune of “Life’s Been Good” with apologies to Joe Walsh. This is what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is singing, in a rare moment of honesty.

I have a speakership.
Forget my power.
Got reelected on condition I cower.
I obey my donors, probe Dems, erect walls.
I have taxpayers pay for it all.

They say I’m weak, but I’m GOP-loyal.
I’m just looking for ways to reap all the spoils.
Trump’s been good to me so far.

I get reelected every few years.
I lost my scruples. Now I have no fears.
GOPers have all got my back,
Secret Service here in case I’m attacked.

I bash the liberals, my base they agree.
It’s my last hurrah, obviously.
So I got me an office,
fancy furniture and all.
Need votes or money, I’ll certainly call.

I deserve a medal after all I’ve been through.
(Everybody say, “I’m cool,” “He’s a fool.”)
The media complains about everything I do.
Trump’s been good to me so far.

I’m a hack for my Party sometimes until four.
It’s hard to leave when you’re a political whore.
It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame.
But with Dems gaining power, the nation will change.

They say I don’t do-enough,
but it takes all my time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
My days are numbered,
and we all know why.
Trump’s been good to me so far. Yeah, yeah yeah.

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On Shaky Ground

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The Book of the Week is “On Shaky Ground, An Invitation to Disaster” by John J. Nance, published in 1988. Prediction of earthquakes is an age-old issue that can be improved, if enough money and political support is thrown at it, in connection with studying the geologic, tectonic, volcanic and geophysical problems that crop up along fault lines.

Even in 1960 when a major earthquake hit Chile, there was disagreement among scientists over the behavior of underground structures. The opposing theories consisted of “steep vertical fault” and “shallow, sub-horizontal dip-slip fault.”

To that time, ivory-tower “experts” at Caltech relied on only seismograph data for ideas. In the coming decades, graduate students looked elsewhere to disprove the old theories. One young scientist personally, physically surveyed a large swath of the topography of the Alaskan countryside. His data disproved the steep vertical fault theory. Another graduate student became a pioneer in paleoseismology, which identify the substances piled up underground in an earthquake zone, showing how they changed and moved over the course of millennia.

In the early 1960’s, the U.S. government and military were the major employers in the city of Anchorage in Alaska. They were eager to urbanize the place, and construction was booming. They ignored a pesky report issued in 1961 by the U.S. Geological Survey warning that the city’s underground foundation– Bootlegger Cove Clay– would be unstable in the event of an earthquake. Building codes were lax on structural soundness.

Alas, a major earthquake hit the area in March of 1964. The epicenter was under Unakwik inlet in North Prince William Sound, ten miles from Valdez, Anchorage and Seward, Alaska. Many structures collapsed, including but far from limited to: docks, warehouses, a newly opened J.C. Penney store and a Four Seasons apartment building.

The underground clay became liquid, causing the location of oil, army and cannery docks, and railroad yards to shift many feet. Fortunately, there had been regulation of natural gas lines. They had been programmed to shut off in an emergency, and they did, preventing explosions and fires. However, wooden buildings swayed instead of collapsing, but they burned in fires when a Texaco fuel tank exploded.

As fate would have it, the Seismological Society of America happened to be holding its annual meeting in Seattle, on the campus of the University of Washington on that very day. But news of the disaster in those days took hours to reach them. As is well known, communications technology has come a long way since 1987, when there were different radio systems for Los Angeles’ more than one hundred and forty police and fire jurisdictions.

The seismic waves generated vibrations in numerous other places around the world. The quake’s severity was “off the charts” given the existing technology for measuring such activity. Four tsunamic waves spanning twelve thousand square miles of Alaska’s sea floor was felt as far away as Hawaii, and swamped Vancouver Island. Seward’s economy was ruined, as it was based on oil, fishing, import/export, railway transportation, and boating.

Sadly, human beings have short memories; possibly because they’ve become desensitized to cautionary tales. Greed eventually results in business as usual. Political candidates in at-risk communities are loath to spend precious campaign time on safety regulations– their donors benefit financially from disasters. In recent decades, American communities have become wise to the fact that they can always apply for federal aid when they are hit by a disaster (whose loss of life and property damage could have been minimized!).

Anyway, read the book to learn about additional disasters in China, California, Mexico, South Carolina, and much more about the science of earthquakes, and the mentalities of the people in connection therewith.

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Cuba on the Verge

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The Book of the Week is “Cuba on the Verge, 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the Country” edited by Leila Guerriero, published in 2017.

After Cuban leader Fidel Castro died in November 2016, there was a slight relaxation of economic restraints on the common people. Under the one-party rule of Castro’s brother Raul, Cubans could engage in entrepreneurial pursuits– serving tourists through renting out their homes or turning their cars into taxis, supervised by the government. Americans have begun doing the same in the last two decades, but through centralized corporate entities such as Airbnb and Uber.

Ironically, under Fidel’s leadership, Cuba developed a reputation for literacy and affordable, quality healthcare; during which time, America developed a reputation for deleterious (greedy!) practices in education and healthcare.

At the book’s writing, Cuba required working mothers to take paid maternity leave halfway through their eighth month; the paid leave continued for four and a half months after the births. An additional year was optional, for which mothers received sixty percent of their wages. Further, abortions were not only legal, but used as a form of contraception, with neither shame nor emotional hysteria generated by political activists, attached. On the other hand, the Cuban government spies on its people 24/7.

Cuban children are taught sex education beginning in the fifth grade. So kids are sexually precocious, as they learn from their older siblings. They are casual about relationships, so there are no hard feelings when families become fragmented, but there are many latchkey children, and males dominate.

After the Soviet Union broke up, Moscow’s government no longer funded Cuba’s economy. Beginning in the 1990’s, this “Special Period” saw severe shortages of basic consumer goods such as health and beauty aids and clothing, not to mention food. Unsurprisingly, domestic violence spiked.

People sold their jewelry at government trading posts in order to survive. They received mostly Panamanian goods in return. They adopted casual dress all the time– flip-flops, shorts, T-shirts– even where formal clothing had been worn previously, such as the theater. Counterfeit big-name goods flooded the market, sourced mostly from Miami, Panama, Madrid and China.

Yet another cultural change included males’ taking on of domestic chores and child-rearing, as more women could earn money through prostituting themselves. Socially-skilled men collected and sold coconuts from private properties, or sought out sexual relationships with visiting of out-of-town women who paid their everyday expenses.

Read the book to learn of the numerous other ways Cuba changed in the 1990’s, and ways it hasn’t– such as in its practices of numerology and witchcraft and in its love of baseball.

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Usurpin’ USA – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little ditty that describes a recent situation of the United States government, and the next three years of political charade:

Usurpin’ USA

sung to the tune of “Surfin’ USA” with apologies to the Estate of Chuck Berry,
Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump tried to SEIZE an election, across the USA,
and his minions were usurpin’, especially Georg-I-A.
You saw ’em wearing fake badges, defaming officials, too.
Obstruction, insurrection.
Usurpin’ USA.

Watched him USURpin’ at Mount-Rushmore, (inciting outcasts USA)
on the White House lawn, (inciting outcasts USA)
Charlottesville and the Capitol, (inciting outcasts USA)
Proud Boys and QAnon. (inciting outcasts USA)
All over Arizona, (inciting outcasts USA)
Nevada and Ukraine. (inciting outcasts USA)

Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.

Lawyers are planning court-duels
we’re gonna watch real soon.
The media’s priming our behavior.
We’re all GONna drool.
Like OJ trials forever.
We’re on court-shows to stay.
Tell the world about usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.

Oath Keepers, Wisconsin, (inciting outcasts USA)
Helsinki-summit, Fox News, (inciting outcasts USA)
Michigan, Pennsylvania, (inciting outcasts USA)
the certification-ruse. (inciting outcasts USA)
All over Mar-a-Lago, (inciting outcasts USA)
and Truth Social today. (inciting outcasts USA)

Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.

Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.
Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.
Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.

Yeah, Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.
Yeah, Trump’s gang is usurpin’, usurpin’ USA.

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The Preacher and the Presidents

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The Book of the Week is “The Preacher and the Presidents, Billy Graham in the White House” by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, published in 2007.

Billy Graham was one of the most famous Christian preachers in the world from the middle of the twentieth century, into the single-digit 2000’s. He was a religious version of Rush Limbaugh. Although he was raised as a Presbyterian, in 1939 he earned his Baptist-minister certificate from the Florida Bible Institute. By 1949, he had become president of a Bible College, and he had founded a radio station. He spouted propaganda on various political issues through the years, but claimed he was nonpartisan, and claimed he wasn’t aware of the implications of his speechifying.

Graham got friendly with as many powerful, influential people as he possibly could, including American presidents from Truman through Dubya. He rubbed shoulders with publishing magnates Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst. His philosophy was, believe the Bible or leave the ministry. He was a true, literal believer. Graham told worshipers in Los Angeles that the Soviets were planning to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons because they were sinners. Yet, he preached love rather than fire and brimstone.

In January 1952, Graham held a religious rally– er, uh, revival in Washington, D.C. He invited president Truman, who didn’t like him because he was a grand-stander. About eleven thousand people attended. “To keep his finances transparent, he [Graham] insisted that crusade accounts be audited and published in the local papers when the crusade was finished.” (Apparently, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker didn’t get that memo with regard to their ministry.)

Graham continued to identify himself as a staunch desegregationist. He delivered sermons to that effect in president Eisenhower’s second term, after racial incidents. A common situation cropped up when Graham courageously took a stand on controversial issues. People on each extreme side of the political spectrum complained he was doing too much for their opponents, or not enough for them.

But Graham was still ever-popular through the 1950’s. In 1957, about two million people attended his 97-day crusade (which was publicized via prayer chains in fifty different countries, leaflets, mailings and bumper stickers) at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He strove for quality over quantity in holding only a few crusades a year, but Martin Luther King, Jr. was constantly on the move for the Civil Rights Movement, spreading himself and his resources too thinly.

Graham prayed at president-elect Nixon’s 1969 inauguration. A few days later, he spoke at the National Prayer breakfast, and presided over a church service at the White House; all these events jammed into a few days to provide efficiency for Secret-Service security. “Whatever else they were, the [religious] services were a great opportunity for arm-twisting, fund-raising, loyalty-testing. [both for Nixon and Graham].”

Also in early 1969, the government was drafting young men working full-time for (college) Campus Crusade for Christ (Graham’s organization) to fight in Vietnam. Graham pulled strings so they would be treated like ordained ministers and evade conscription. However, in late April 1970, Nixon said that it was up to the United States to save the world, be its police officer, lest free nations were threatened with dictatorship and anarchy. Never mind that America had been an aggressor for two decades in so many little global wars, replacing one dictator with another, and had been bombing Cambodia for the year prior(!)

Also in 1970, the president held a July 4th event called Honor America Day in Washington, D.C., to help ordinary Americans calm down. It featured interfaith speakers and celebrity singers, and attendees from all walks of life. Nixon himself, however, didn’t personally attend. He was at his San Clemente property. Later, the media revealed that the event had been a nepotistic donor-fest presented by J.W. Marriott and Nixon’s brother, Donald. Once again, there is nothing new under the sun.

A dress rehearsal for the Patriot Act was proposed in the summer of 1970. It was called the Huston plan. It would have legalized a bonanza of spying in America, like there is currently. Through that plan, Nixon wanted to get rid of influential antiwar troublemakers, but FBI head J. Edgar Hoover opposed it. Even so, as is well known, the Nixon administration committed countless evil acts in order to “… stop leaks, track down traitors, punish enemies, and ensure domestic tranquility.”

In mid-October, 1971, Charlotte, NC enjoyed a holiday named “Billy Graham Day” with a parade and school and government closures. Nixon and Graham rode together in the motorcade. The Secret Service barred anyone who appeared to be a demonstrator, from entering the Coliseum — the venue of a political rally– er, uh, a speaking event. In early 1972, the White House perceived that Jews dominated the American media, so they attacked certain of its members.

As is well known, in the past century, separation of Church and State has waxed and waned in this country. But the main reason for the separation is that civil law must trump religious law, as this nation’s diverse people have diverse religious beliefs. Graham always used the technique of “whataboutism” whenever people pointed out Nixon’s high crimes and misdemeanors, using the cliched excuse: He who is without sin, cast the first stone.

In the mid-1980’s, for the 1988 presidential race for George H.W. Bush, an evangelical political-consultant prepared a 57-page briefing book for wooing devout Christian voters– identifying their demographics, denominations, leadership and beliefs; providing a glossary (with such entries as, “born again”) and recounting how Reagan had wooed them.

Read the book to learn numerous other factoids on Graham’s life, career and political impact.

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The Declassification Engine

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The Book of the Week is “The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals about America’s Top Secrets” by Matthew Connelly, published in 2023.

The author recounted the American government’s history (beginning with FDR) of generating bureaucratic “classified” documents that presumably describe clandestine activities. This excessive avalanche of papers and electronic files (which are growing by the day) allegedly contain State secrets or personal information, that, if revealed, might be a risk to national security or an invasion of people’s privacy.

The United States monitors worldwide communications through its eighteen different spying agencies, staffed by James Bond wannabes. The comprehensive maintenance of this secret society the author called the “dark state” costs taxpayers an estimated trillion dollars a year. Its rate of declassifying documents is getting slower and slower, due to: a) the overwhelming amount of documents, which leads to the high expenses of having human eyes’ poring over every page, or machine-learning’s identifying patterns showing how confidential the contents are; and b) the humans’ deeming everything and anything “top secret” for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in profiteering, power acquisition and confidentiality itself (which leads to more power acquisition).

In connection therewith, the Pentagon has led a never-ending quest to increase its budget by arguing that national security is at stake. The 2017 cost-estimate of keeping the aforementioned secrets-maintaining– er, uh, declassification system going, was $18.39 billion, with which a thousand schools could have been constructed instead.

A large percentage of the costs are for public relations, and a tiny fraction is allocated to declassification– so that American citizens can find out the embarrassing actions their government took fifty or more years ago; at which time institutional memory has been lost and the alpha males with hubris syndrome in top leadership positions repeat the stupid mistakes of the past.

The American government’s oversight and regulation of itself has waxed and waned through the decades, but it has recently reached an all-time low. The author believed that unless the government begins to improve its transparency record by declassifying its activities at a faster rate, the country will head toward oblivion.

In 2015, the author (a history professor) and his scholarly and technologically experienced colleagues (who created the aforementioned software for declassifying documents) met with a few federal agencies to offer to assist in improving this out-of-control system.

The State Department suggested awarding student-interns with college credit for helping determine the secrecy-status of the documents. The National Archives said it was required to license the author’s team’s software through their own approved vendor. The CIA told the team, the software could be hosted through Amazon’s cloud computing.

The Public Interest Declassification Board referred the author to Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, whose work overlapped with the National Archives. But regardless of the methods used and compensation arrangements, the author identified why the declassifying of documents was so problematic: “We cannot assign a dollar value to democratic accountability.”

One small indication that shows government hegemony, is that three major “news” outlets, the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal have online paywalls– they charge their users money for significant access to their websites. Most other such websites don’t. Readers who are unwilling to pay for “news” these days perceive that they’re not missing much by not reading those three newspapers. They might be right. BUT the author commented that “The publications can monetize the privileged access to national security information for personal and political advantage.”

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about American presidential administrations’ policies on disclosure (and lack thereof!) of their intelligence activities.

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Both Sides Now – BONUS POST

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This is the song Rudy Giuliani is singing now.

Sung to the tune of “Both Sides Now” with profuse apologies to Judy Collins.

Jailing bad-guys and a clean Times-Square,
and law-and-order in the air,
and zero tolerance everywhere.
I looked at crime that way.
But now for me it’s no longer fun.
I’m cringeworthy to everyone.
So many things that I have done.
A god complex in my way.

I’ve looked at crime from both sides now,
at us and them,
and still somehow,
my trusted friends were my downfall.
I really don’t know crime, at all.

Ukraine, fake electors and voting machines.
Attorney-client privilege would be our means
to defend our reelection schemes.
I looked at truth that way.
But now it’s just another show.
At least we gave it a long go.
And we’re not weak, we let them know.
We didn’t give anything away.

I’ve looked at truth from both sides now,
at us and them,
and still somehow,
my trusted friends were my downfall.
I really don’t know truth, at all.

RICO and debt and feeling mad.
Political revenge is the latest fad.
Bills and sanctions, oh egad…
I looked at history that way.
But now friends are acting disloyal.
They’ve abandoned me after all this toil.
Well, all is lost, our plot’s been foiled.
I’m broke and living in a void.

I’ve looked at history from both sides now,
at us and them,
and still somehow,
my trusted friends were my downfall.
I really don’t know history, at all.

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Stella

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The Book of the Week is “Stella, One Woman’s True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler’s Germany” by Peter Wyde, published in 1992.

Stella Goldschlag was born in the early 1930’s. She grew up in the wealthy, arrogant, snobbish, German Jewish social set. That set owned the major department stores and garment makers in Berlin, published the major newspapers, and dominated the theater-critic scene. Stella’s father supervised the making of globally distributed newsreels in the Berlin office of the Paris-based Gaumont; until it didn’t, when the Nazis took it over in the second half of the 1930’s.

In autumn 1935, new restrictions on the Jews meant Stella was forced to attend a high school for Jews only. The book’s author was in her class. The school was run by a Jewish teacher whose aspiration was to prepare the students to study abroad. She taught them the English language.

A set of untoward circumstances converged in bringing about the Holocaust. The nation of Germany was experiencing economic devastation from the Great Depression and from the crushing debt load of the reparations it was supposed to pay for its activities stemming from WWI. Its traditionally jingoistic people were stung and angry from losing that war. Germany’s lack of strong leadership at the top allowed a genocidal maniac bent on world domination, to come to power.

Amid the economic, political and social chaos, the number of bitter and ostracized German males coming of age from dysfunctional households, reached critical mass. Those males were easily brainwashed into believing they could enjoy a “glorious career in the service of the master race.” Or, as the 1960’s “Chicago Seven” member Jerry Rubin commented, a Nazi was a “love-starved, father-seeking fairy who had to compensate for hurried toilet training.”

The Nazis employed social contagion techniques to scapegoat the Jews– a minority ethnic group that had a history of allowing themselves to be oppressed and victimized. Other groups who were perceived as having weak genes, were also targeted for torture and elimination. In that time and place, most Germans caved in to the societal pressure, fear and force.

As is well known, as time went on, Hitler ranted and raved on the radio, placing more and more extreme punishments on the Jews. Initially, the Jewish veterans of WWI who had risked their lives for the Kaiser’s Army were left alone, but eventually, even they were spat upon and killed.

One technique the Nazis used in pursuing their goal of eliminating the Jews, was to divide and conquer– sow hostility among them. After the Anschluss began in March 1938, Adolf Eichmann recruited Jewish medical doctor Richard Lowenherz to exhaustively plan the logistics of how the Jews were to be persecuted and deported to concentration camps. In places other than Vienna, Nazis drafted Jewish rebellious youths (who expected to escape their oppressors’ abuses) to help control their fellow religionists. Those who sold out were deported anyway, but perhaps a little later on.

In Geneva, Switzerland in mid-July 1938, a conference similar to that of Davos (the annual economic forum in Switzerland, where the super-wealthy of the world go to see and be seen) took place. But instead of discussing getting richer, the representatives from industrialized nations paid lip service to tens of Jewish organizations imploring that their hosts take in Jewish refugees from Germany.

This Evian Conference was about economics, though. Everyone was still suffering the effects of the Great Depression, so they couldn’t afford to take in refugees. In their defense, at that time, they weren’t privy to Hitler’s true plans to loot the Jews of their wealth, commit atrocities and genocide, and take over the world. Most people still naively saw him as a clown.

In the early 1940’s, Stella’s family was told by the American consulate in Germany that they might get a visa to the United States two years hence (even though they had an American relative who was selflessly spending a vast amount of time and effort to help them), as more than fifty thousand refugees were ahead of them in line. “The racket in fake promises kept growing. More and more frustrated travelers forked over more and more cash for nonexistent documents whose sellers then disappeared.”

The author (who obviously lived to tell his and Stella’s stories) wrote that he learned English by reading the New York Times, which cost three cents per day. In the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, he was assigned to a propaganda-distribution unit consisting of mostly Jewish refugees. In 1942, he and his cohorts weren’t aware of the scale of the Nazis’ war crimes. In late 1942, even when the BBC told the world about the gas chambers, they didn’t want to believe it.

Read the book to learn all the details of how Stella became a tattletale against her fellow Jews (Hint: she was a brilliant actress– a drama queen, who could turn her charm or hostility on and off at will), what became of her, and biographical info on the huge cast of characters with whom the author and she came into contact.

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Tiger In the Court

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The Book of the Week is “Tiger In the Court, Herbert J. Stern…” by Paul Hoffman, published in 1973.

Stern was born in November 1936 in “Alphabet City” very far east of Manhattan’s Union Square. He earned a law degree. He learned he’d passed the bar exam for New York State when results were revealed in the New York Times, while he was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey. After that, the U.S. Army assigned him to drive a truck.

While Stern was building his legal career, race riots erupted in Newark in July 1967. The usual response of public officials, when prompted to do something about violence in their city, is to assemble a task force or commission to study the matter and to make recommendations. New Jersey’s governor did just that. The commission concluded that Newark’s government was corrupt. Investigations of the offices of the police director and mayor ensued.

In connection therewith, Stern became a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey for three and a half years, beginning in September 1969. During his reign– his caseload included 79 (!) federal, state and local officials who were accused of crimes.

A major case concerned members of the Mafia, whose phones were illegally wiretapped by the FBI. Stern had nothing to do with that action. He felt there were wiser uses of investigators’ resources. It violated the suspects’ privacy, and should have been taken only against foreign agents, or in the case of illegal gambling, because the phone was a key tool in gambling in that era.

At any rate, from the recorded New Jersey Mob’s phone conversations (dubbed the “DeCarlo tapes”) between September 1964 and July 1965, investigators learned all about the suspects’ hierarchy. A federal jury was empaneled in January 1970 to try those accused of the now-cliched crimes of corruption.

Unsurprisingly, hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands among the Mob, the entire administration of the city of Newark, its mayor, city council, in-house attorneys, infrastructure contractors and construction suppliers– in the form of racketeering, kickbacks, bribery, extortion, etc., etc., etc. The judge put the tapes’ 1,200-page transcript into the public domain, by filing it with the court clerk. Local New Jersey newspapers and the New York Times were then able to publish excerpts.

As is well known, the Pentagon Papers were published in dribs and drabs starting in June 1971, but the top-secret information in that case ignited a firestorm because it was associated with an unspeakably ugly war and unspeakably ugly actions taken by a series of American presidents.

Anyway, the media reported that Newark’s organized crime community was on the hook for running a gambling ring, and tax evasion. Stern also prosecuted a bunch of suspects in Jersey City.

Stern believed street crime was less harmful to society than white collar crime. The former consists of robberies, burglaries or drug deals, and might traumatize a few random victims– those caught in crossfire, or a bank’s employees. White collar crime is victimless– but a public servant is stealing from everyone in the community; the resulting misallocation of public funds cheats ordinary citizens out of government services, and the victims usually pay more in taxes, for the sins of the criminals.

In October 1971, Stern read in the Newark Star Ledger that in the wintertime, nineteen communities’ water-treatment plants were pumping leftover toxic-sludge into the Atlantic Ocean less than a thousand feet from the Jersey Shore; during the summer, unknowing people swam at the beaches there. Stern, as one of them, took legal action to stop that practice. Lo and behold, on Memorial Day weekend of 1972, Stern read in the Newark Star Ledger that “… a barge loaded with more than one million tons of raw sewage was being towed north from Virginia to be dumped off the Jersey Shore.” Welcome to America.

Read the book to learn: a wealth of additional details about Stern’s cases, peripheral issues he encountered, and how successful he was at his job.

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We Get Attention – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little ditty in connection with the real motives behind the ridiculous vacillations in the politically expedient pronouncements of the likes of Anthony Fauci, Bill Barr and Alan Dershowitz in the last three years and change.

WE GET ATTENTION

sung to the tune of “I Got Rhythm” (the studio version) with apologies to The Happenings.

In this hyped and waffling world
we often can get bossed.
And we’re like the network, Fox.
We flip-flop a lot because

clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip
clip-clip-attention
clip-clip-attention
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We get attention.
We had power.
We’re in good company
when they ask for media whores.

We’ve got amnesic viewers.
And more good lines.
We’re in good company
when they ask for media whores.

We get money (We get money.).
We don’t have shame (We don’t have shame.).
You won’t find it
round our door.

No more fairness (No more fairness.).
No more balance (No more balance.).
We’re in good company
when they ask for, when they ask for,
media whores.

clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip
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We get money (We get money.).
We don’t have shame (We don’t have shame.).
You won’t find, you’re never gonna find it
round our door.

We get attention.
We had power.
We’re in good company
when they ask for media whores.

In this hyped and waffling world

clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip-clip
clip-clip-attention
clip-clip-attention
clip-clip-attention
clip-clip-attention

We get attention.
We get attention.
We get attention.
We get attention.

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Warnings

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The Book of the Week is “Warnings, Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes” by Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy, published in 2017. The authors explored the concept of “sentinel intelligence” which means that certain members of humanity have a sixth sense for future dangerous occurrences. The one who issues a warning in connection therewith, is called a “Cassandra.” The Initial Occurrence Syndrome means humans find difficulty in acknowledging that an extremely improbable event could happen, simply because it has never happened before.

The authors recounted various instances in which Cassandras spoke up prior to horrible events. A few of the events they described should not count in the annals of Cassandra-warnings; wars, for instance. There are going to be needless deaths and ruined lives in any and all wars. Predicting what is going to happen when tensions are rising in the hotspots of the world is not rocket science. Those who see them are not Cassandras. People like them are basically Nostradamus. He got famous in the 1500’s for “predicting” all kinds of catastrophes that are inevitably going to happen to human beings, such as wars, pestilence and natural disasters, over the course of centuries.

Also, the authors failed to define “catastrophes” referred to in their book’s title. They might want to refine their description of Cassandra events. The difference between Nostradamus’ and Cassandra’s premonitions is in the specificity: Cassandras identify one individual and/or entities around whom or which one specialized scandal is brewing, or describe signals around which, say, a natural disaster, financial crash or pandemic is coming, within a relatively short time frame (i.e., a Jeffrey Epstein or a Chernobyl).

One good example the authors provided, was the Bernard Madoff scandal. Madoff was a specific criminal– a power broker who harmed a significant number of people in a community. The circumstances were not a general, ongoing situation like welfare fraud or insider trading.

However, the situation still all boils down to how one defines “catastrophe.” There were various Cassandras who claimed to know the different events associated with Donald Trump that have actually come to pass. If one defines his getting elected in 2016 for instance as a catastrophe because the community harmed was the entire United States, then yes, its qualifies as a Cassandra event.

Anyway, the authors explained how a Cassandra in the securities industry helped forward the women’s movement. She issued a warning before a financial crash. She garnered kudos when she turned out to be correct. At the book’s writing, though, another female Cassandra issued a warning in the field of public health. Of course, a white male made a sexist remark about her appearance in an ad hominem attack. That’s how critics seek to discredit female Cassandras.

In another of the authors’ Cassandra cases, in July 2004, the federal U.S. agency FEMA (which provides disaster assistance) and the Army Corps of Engineers held a severe-storm-drill in the New Orleans area, but didn’t take it too seriously. Insufficient funding was provided to make specific plans regarding evacuation-transportation for people who were unable or unwilling to heed the evacuation order.

Nevertheless, the Coast Guard and (federal agency) Wildlife and Fisheries did. At the end of August 2005, they were somewhat prepared when Hurricane Katrina actually hit Louisiana. But hilarity did not ensue. Many needless deaths and ruined lives did, as the aforesaid New Orleans residents couldn’t be evacuated. Of course, the exacerbated disaster aftermath was caused by honest ineptitude, profiteering and opportunism rather than malicious intent. Beforehand, there were a few Cassandras who tried to tell others that a “Katrina” was on the way.

The reason Cassandras aren’t listened to, is that they tend to be gadflies in their organizations. There are: clashing egos, jealousy, and inter-agency rivalries. Cassandras are outspoken, and their mouths get them in trouble. They begin their careers as idealists, and usually end up disillusioned, frustrated, cynical and emotionally burned out. They embarrass powerful and/or monied groups whose support they need to keep their jobs.

Read the book to learn about many more Cassandra events, and the authors’ suggestions for encouraging Cassandras to come forward (Hint: one idea is to revive the White House group from the Reagan Era that evaluated foreign policy threats– but expand it, to take other kinds of disaster-preparedness measures).

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An Ocean to Cross

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The Book of the Week is “An Ocean to Cross, Daring the Atlantic, Claiming A New Life” by Liz Fordred with Susie Blackmun, published in 2001.

The author was born in 1953 in Southern Rhodesia. By the late 1970’s, she and her husband were both wheelchair-bound, due to a horseback-riding accident and an auto accident, respectively. Gluttons for punishment that they were, they decided to pursue the husband’s idea of building a boat with their personal hands, customized for them, and sailing it across the Atlantic Ocean. Many people who cast doubt on their dream had no clue how persistent, creative and resourceful this couple was.

The two were able to cut through some bureaucratic red tape in their home country because there were so few people of fair skin, including them and their then-leader, Ian Smith. But they encountered numerous delays for various reasons, including lack of money, lack of experience in boat-building and sailing, and government regulations. Their native Rhodesia was in the midst of political turmoil, and they needed sailing-practice in a challenging geographic location.

So they moved their craft to the South African coast, where they had to deal with South African customs, and submit a mountain of paperwork for various other reasons, including financing their boat-construction and supplies through: a bank loan, getting articles on their story published, and attracting sponsors. A series of guardian angels provided assistance through the whole laborious process.

Of course, they underestimated how much the entire project would cost and how long it would take; just one example– they allocated four days, with the help of family and friends, to drive their multiple vehicles to transport the boat (which was still a work in progress) to the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town South Africa, their launching place. Read the book to learn about: how long it really took, the details of their whole ordeal, and their learning-experiences and growth; from start to finish.

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Court Days – BONUS POST

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This is a song about the biggest financial backer (initials, DJT) of the American legal system.

COURT DAYS

sung to the tune of “School Days” with apologies to the Estate of Chuck Berry.

Off in the morning and out to court.
He’s made his law cases a national sport.
Constitutional crisis, treasonous crimes.
He makes a deal, time after time.
His legal history is a disgrace.
But his PR’s the best, he always saves face.
In front of the press, he puts on a show.
To his attorneys, he owes so much dough.
Countless hours, our courts work for him.
Some say conviction chances are slim.
He keeps campaigning, scapegoating, smearing.
He sometimes appears at a hearing.
Regardless of whether his crowd gets their way,
taxpayers pay, and taxpayers pay.
A lot of court jobs will disappear
shortly after election year.
Up to ’24 and around the bend–
on media hysteria, you can depend.
Some say it’s a conspiracy and evil plots.
But it’s very hard to connect the dots.
A lot is confidential and secrets of State.
It’s civil society versus spewing of hate.
Feeling the anger from head to toe.
Round and round and round we go.

Some say it’s a conspiracy and evil plots.
But it’s very hard to connect the dots.
A lot is confidential and secrets of State.
It’s civil society versus spewing of hate.
Feeling the anger from head to toe.
Round and round and round we go.

Hail, hail rule of law,
even though it has many a flaw.
We need court reform loud and BOLD
to deliver us from the days of old.
Rule, rule, rule of law.
We’ve got this guy stuck in our craw.

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The Nightingale’s Song

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“Some looked on his cavalier attitude toward the facts as a harmless, at times amusing sidelight to his high-octane personality. Others seemed to view it as a disability for which he bore no responsibility, like a clubfoot.”

–regarding Oliver North’s lies and credit-grabbing but incredible work ethic in doing a job, and lack of accountability in the event of failure or wrongdoing

The Book of the Week is “The Nightingale’s Song” by Robert Timberg, published in 1995. In this large paperback, the author provided biographies of a group of Naval Academy-at-Annapolis graduates of 1958, 1959 and 1968. Their backgrounds provided insights as to their behaviors, and how they fared at the end of the Reagan Era. The group included John McCain, John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane, Oliver North, and Jim Webb, Jr.

During the Cold War, there were countless ways the United States government, through propaganda, incited phobia across-the-board that the Soviet Union might attack with nuclear weapons. In July 1958, the U.S., pursuant to such phobia, loaded nuclear missiles(!) into AD Skyraiders that would presumably counterattack if the Soviets got aggressive in Berlin or North Korea. For, the U.S. was distracted helping the president of Lebanon stay in power, as there had been a coup in Iraq. McFarlane participated in the Skyraiders endeavor, despite his alarm.

In late 1967, McFarlane was sent to Dong Ha, where he saw that the American senior military leadership was conducting the war extremely stupidly. They had pipe dreams of high-tech installations– while the infantry and artillery suffered shortages of basic supplies. A killing-the-enemy quota was imposed on the front-line soldiers, but the enemy was using guerrilla warfare.

Vietnam veterans such as McCain, McFarlane, Webb, North and Poindexter did their patriotic duty, and entered public service. While they were fighting, however, antiwar protesters and draft dodgers entered the professions and the political arena. “The president and many politicians appeared to be cheering them on.”

Further, the younger generation of civilians appointed by Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense in Lyndon Johnson’s administration) behaved haughtily toward the former old-school military leaders (WWII and Korean veterans) who were then serving in the federal government. The former were comprised of a “pampered, unbloodied elite.” Congress scapegoated senior military leaders over Vietnam. The usual egregious hypocrisy abounded over Monday-morning quarterbacking. There was serious brain drain from the Navy, and budget cuts, too.

North, McFarlane and Poindexter had met at Annapolis and were reunited in the National Security Council during Reagan’s first term. In early 1982, critics claimed there was a lack of foreign policy experience. That was disputed at a meeting of Reagan’s top staffers. Meanwhile, McCain was still recovering physically and psychologically from having been a prisoner of war in the “Hanoi Hilton” for five years and change.

In mid-1981, McCain insanely decided to run for Congress from the state of Arizona, even though he was labeled a carpetbagger. Having never lived in Arizona, he joined his wife’s family there. His campaign had a very short year and a half before election day, to get his name and platform known, raise money, etc., etc., etc.

All through the Reagan years, there was a constant tug-of-war between the policy makers in the White House, and the military men in the Pentagon. As a consequence, countless dangerous situations ensued; one occurred in the early 1980’s: each gave contradictory orders to a troopship off the coast of Lebanon. The men appointed to high-level policy positions in the White House (i.e., the major perpetrators of the Iran-Contra scandal) eventually went rogue– ignored the chain of command, and thought nothing of it.

In the mid-1980’s, the men in the Reagan administration argued over what to do about the mentally unstable Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. They decided against killing him altogether. The reasoning went that he’d be viewed as a martyr, prompting Arab terror groups to counterattack with vicious vehemence. Poindexter simply wanted to humiliate Gaddafi, and maybe ordinary Libyans would be grateful, and finish getting rid of him themselves.

Of the Iran-Contra scandal, the author wrote, “If nothing else, the administration acted in a muddleheaded, thoroughly unprofessional manner… Administration spokesmen denied any American involvement [on the the CIA-Contra aspect of it] but evidence that they were lying piled up quickly.” By the mid-1980’s, Americans of “Generation X” and older, could see that the Cold War hysteria about Central America generated by the American government was overblown. The region was like Vietnam all over again, complete with guerrilla warfare.

In July 1987, North became a TV star when he testified at the Iran-Contra hearings. He launched a blistering attack on Congress. He considered himself a man of honor in actually helping the Contras because he kept his promise that he would. His other defenses were: the goal was to free six American hostages in Iran; secure supplies for American troops because their lives were at risk. On the other hand, North engaged in very illegal activities: shredded documents, committed perjury, broke federal law by skirting Congress and the president in funding operations that affected numerous people’s lives– and even put lives at risk.

Curiously, the author failed to provide significant information on a major component of the Iran-Contra story: William Casey and his CIA. Casey was conveniently dying of a brain tumor (a smart career move) when the scandal broke. This book, therefore, is missing a major ingredient. It is like baking a cake, and omitting the sugar!

Anyway, read the book to learn additional numerous factoids about the above and other major Reagan-Era characters whose common military schooling gave them a particular mentality and shaped their generation.

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Shadows and Whispers

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“When I analyzed what passed for his domestic initiatives, it became clear that all of them were rehashings of earlier schemes and none addressed the fundamental problems of the country.”

-the author’s take on Konstantin Chernenko’s rule in 1984

The Book of the Week is “Shadows and Whispers, Power Politics Inside the Kremlin From Brezhnev to Gorbachev” by Dusko Doder, published in 1986 (prior to the historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight of the collapse of Communism).

As is well known, Soviet leadership in the 1970’s consisted of sick, old men desperately clinging to power. Leonid Brezhnev turned 75 in December 1981. He ordered that school textbooks on twentieth-century Soviet history be rewritten to omit mentions of Stalin and Khrushchev. His own name was featured prominently. He passed away in November 1982. Two possible successors competed to take the vacant top spot. Konstantin Chernenko (a powerful figure in the Communist Party) and Yuri Andropov.

Prior to becoming the Soviet Union’s leader by the end of 1982, Andropov headed the KGB. The KGB’s tentacles consisted of about a half a million James-Bond wannabes– er, uh– operatives, worldwide. They purported to be journalists, diplomats or bureaucrats. Andropov was a reformer who purged the Soviet government of Brezhnev’s corrupt clique. However, he was ill too, and died in February 1984. Then Chernenko got his chance to exercise ultimate power, beating out Mikhail Gorbachev. The latter represented the younger generation, but had to bide his time, as he hadn’t paid his dues.

It wasn’t long– 1985, to be exact– before Gorbachev put his ambitious plans into effect, going further than Andropov to eliminate the “dead wood” from the ranks of Soviet leadership. The Old Guard was incensed at his radical plans.

Read the book to learn much more about the power struggles and personalities that shaped the Soviet Union from the mid-1970’s up until the book’s writing.

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People’s Republic of China – BONUS POST

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This is the song Janet Yellen is singing now.

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

sung to the tune of “Hotel California” with apologies to The Eagles.

In a busy Asian city, bright lights in my eyes,
the stink of cigarette smoke, crowds in every high rise.
Given the agenda, I tried to relax.
The talks were heavy and deal chances slim.
It’s all spies and hacks.

I was geared to debate there. I heard the opening bell.
I was thinking to myself– so much stress. I hope I stay well.
Then they fed me their specialties, and they showed me the way.
The media waited in the corridor. Thought I heard someone say,

Welcome to the People’s Republic of China.
Such a lovely place.
Such a lovely place.
But they’re in the rat race.
Plenty of excess in the People’s Republic of China.
Oppression and fear.
Oppression and fear.
Paradoxes here.

They’ve got top officials– they got fancy cars.
They got factories and technology, they might go to Ma-ars.
How they danced in our peace talks. Overtures and threats.
We jockeyed for position. A treaty is anyone’s bet.

I said to my hostess, you’ve got a great crew.
They said we haven’t had that spirit here since 1972.

And still we put up a front in all-ll we say.
We talked circles around human rights; be reasonable– okay?

Welcome to the People’s Republic of China.
Such a lovely place.
Such a lovely place.
Always saving face.
Livin’ it up in the People’s Republic of China.
Put on a good show.
Put on a good show,
till it’s time to go.

Warships and solar panels, semiconductors and rice.
We’re all just prisoners here, of our own device.
And as part of the ceremony,
we gathered for the press.
They stab it with their steely words but it’s still an economic mess.

This was a trip to remember, as I headed for the door.
Haven’t made much progress from the place I was before.
These talks scratched the surface. But I was gladly received.
We’re entrenched countries joined at the hip, we can NEVER leave.

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From Ghetto to Guerrilla

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The Book of the Week is “From Ghetto to Guerrilla, Memoir of A Jewish Resistance Fighter” by Samuel Lato, published in 2006.

The Jewish author was born in February 1925 in the town of Baranowicze in eastern Poland, near Belarus. In September 1941, the Germans encircled his community with barbed wire and formed a ghetto. About ten Jewish families were crammed together (with about a nine feet of space per person) in each house previously owned by gentiles– who had fled or were evicted.

Living conditions were unsanitary and repugnant. The Nazi-imposed curfew meant that people risked getting summarily shot if they visited the outhouse after dark. So a pail was placed in the middle of the floor of the people-stuffed house. The author wrote, “The Nazi hatred permeated the entire town in the same way that the [latrine] pail stank up our whole house.”

The victims suffered many hardships, with only rationed bread, potatoes and flour for food. The able-bodied were forced to do hard manual labor to help the German war effort. Through the war years, the Germans committed atrocities against the Jews on their major holidays– herding a few thousand Jews into the woods, forcing the victims to: strip naked and dig their own graves; after which, the soldiers would shoot them dead.

In March 1942, the author left his parents and much younger brother to join the Resistance movement. A group of “partisans” hid in the woods of Poland, planning and carrying out life-saving operations of their fellow Jews, and secret acts of sabotage against the German war machine. The author began smuggling bullets, medicine and guns to his fellow Resistance members, risking his life with the help of his mission-teammates, traveling on foot long distances.

In spring 1943, the author was chosen to fight for a KGB-sponsored special-forces militia to help defeat the Germans. The Russians hated the Germans as much as the Jews did. In the following war-years, he and his fellow fighters destroyed by fire: a post office / telegraph and telephone station, bridges, a lumberyard, a bakery and a German-war-supply warehouse. The Polish military offered to recruit the author, but he declined because he knew that Polish people in general tended to be anti-Semitic.

Toward the end of the war, the author ended up in Gutstadt in East Prussia. The Russian militia occupied a bank building where they emptied out the vaults. They used some of the then-worthless paper currency to start fires in the pot-bellied stoves to heat the building. For, the winter of 1945 was extremely cold.

The aforesaid Baranowicze had a population of approximately 13,000 when it was turned into a Jewish ghetto. Read the book to learn how many Jews were left alive after its 1944 liberation by the Russians, plus much more about the author’s near-death, and life-affirming experiences during the war.

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Voices From Tibet

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The Book of the Week is “Voices From Tibet, Selected Essays and Reportage” by Tsering Woeser and Wang Lixiong, edited and translated by Violet S. Law, published in 2014.

In 1910, Great Britain mandated that Tibet become part of China. The territory consisted of yak and sheep herders and barley farmers. Fighting in Tibet ensued until October 1950, when China got its way. Mao Tse-Tung directed his People’s Liberation Army to take it over, except for the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). That bit of land was led by a Buddhist leader called the Dalai Lama. In 1959, he was forced to assume a government-in-exile in India.

More recently, Tibet, with a population of approximately six million, is a mountainous region that is twelve thousand feet above sea level and three and a half times the size of the state of Texas. It has seen decades of violence from protesters agitating for independence. In July 1994, the Chinese government launched a smear campaign against the Dalai Lama. Dissidents who had any connections to Buddhism, even tenuous ones, were imprisoned or killed.

Two political dissidents– a married couple– whom the Chinese government has oppressed due to their stance on freedoms in Tibet include: Tsering Woeser (a Chinese army officer’s daughter, a poet, born in 1966) and Wang Lixiong (a novelist born in 1953).

In 1998, Wang’s writings didn’t advocate subversion, but rather, sought to educate people to effect political change, proposing a gradual approach toward Tibetan democracy. In 2001, he resigned his membership in the Chinese Writers’ Association because its actions offended his sensibilities. The Chinese government expelled him from Friends of Nature, an environmental organization he co-founded.

In 2003, Tsering was fired from a job with a publisher because she praised the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa (a Buddhist leader), and encouraged belief in religion. She moved from Tibet to Beijing and became an unofficial spokesperson for Tibetan dissidents in China. Beijing allowed a little more free speech than Tibet. She posted writings on a foreign website rather than through print-media so it was harder for the Chinese government to harass her.

In 2008, more kinds of people agitated against China’s control of Tibet. Nuns, monks, local vendors, students, farmers and nomads demanded that the Dalai Lama be allowed to return to Tibet. In 2011, almost two dozen of the religious ones set themselves on fire in protest. In 2012, about eighty of them did.

In 2006, China opened the Qinghai-Tibet rail line.”What is unfolding in Tibet is pseudo-modernization, essentially a kind of invasion, a sugar-coated act of violence.” That sounds like colonialism, but in 2008, in the Tibetan city of Lhasa, the political environment was like that of Nazism. Chinese law enforcement officers detained and rounded up about seven hundred monks from monasteries, and took them to the last rail-line stop in Tibet.

The train cars smacked of Holocaust cattle-cars. The monks ended up in either political re-education camps or prison. Armed Chinese soldiers in the streets harassed monks and youths.

Tibet caught capitalistic fever from China. There was a “gold rush” in minerals and caterpillar fungi. Strangely, “The Buddha teaches us that all living beings are equal.” But the Buddhist monasteries in Tibet became hypocrites– were persuaded by an enterprising Chinese tour company to provide Mandarin and English-language translators to fill an (extremely lucrative) niche in the tourism industry. The Chinese controlled the business, which involved swindling tourists in various ways.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more biographical info on the two aforementioned dissidents, and the many additional ways that Tibetans are losing their culture (hint: by the turn of the twenty-first century, Tibet was becoming a regular Dubai) at the hands of the Chinese.

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The Waiting – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little ditty about America’s current political situation.

THE WAITING

sung to the tune of “The Waiting” (Official Music Video) with apologies to the Estate of Tom Petty, and the Heartbreakers.

Seems-LIKE we’re in a holding-pattern right now.
Candidates are assembling their teams.
Yeah, 2024 is not to missed.
But, America will be kind a-gain.

Yet lots of politicians are trying to pretend.
America will survive this conTENtiousness.

Clean-house, clean-house, clean-house, clean-house.

The waiting is the hardest part.
We-are eager for trials to start.
We enjoy-a good debate.
Integrity would-be smart.
The waiting is the hardest part.

Well, most pundits chase tabloid-topics around.
All it does is bring us down.
We need leaders who’ll make us feel good.
But it takes time to reverse right now.
The presidential race will show us how,
to move the nation forward.
We need to move forward.

Clean-house, clean-house, clean-house, clean-house.

The waiting is the hardest part.
We-are eager for trials to start.
We enjoy-a good debate.
Integrity would-be smart.
The waiting is the hardest part.

No more shenanigans, elect a better prez.
No more shenanigans, elect a better prez.
You know right from wrong.
You know you’re nobody’s fool.
This has got to turn around. No more shenanigans.

Clean-house, clean-house, clean-house, clean-house.

The waiting is the hardest part.
We-are eager for trials to start.
We enjoy-a good debate.
Integrity would-be smart.
The waiting is the hardest part.

Yeah, the waiting is the hardest part.
Shape-UP-or-ship-out.
It’s the hardest part…
Shape-UP-or-ship-out.

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Life in the Trash Lane

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The Book of the Week is “Life in the Trash Lane, A Sports Agent’s True Story” by Mel Levine, published in 1993. This sloppily edited volume described a bygone era in terms of the financial aspects of “amateur” sports in America. Only “professional” athletes could receive compensation in the form of money or gifts from work-related people and entities. College players were considered amateurs.

The author began a career as a tax attorney and business investor, but also became an agent for college football players on their way to the pros. He offered his services as an agent, CPA, lawyer, and financial planner. Initially, representing big-name athletes boosted his ego. The author hired various scouts called “bird dogs” who would help him acquire clients who had barely started college but were perceived as talented players. On the surface, sports agency looked lucrative, but it was actually a cutthroat, sleazy business.

The convention in the late 1980’s was for agents to advance expenses to the professional hopefuls, and then, if the players made the pros, the agent was paid about 5% of the athlete’s earnings. The author paid for their cars, insurance, housing, gifts for their significant others, legal fees, etc. (a clear NCAA rule violation). The author continued to run afoul of the strict NCAA rules, but he rationalized that all of the other agents were doing so, too, and he needed to stay competitive. Many times, he was almost busted.

The author was suckered into paying big bucks to numerous players he represented, but they never paid him even in cases when they made the pros. The players owed him thousands and thousands of dollars, but he developed a version of Stockholm syndrome– acting as a father figure to a few of them, and remained fiercely loyal because he felt an escalation of commitment.

In May 1986, one of the author’s clients had an accident in the expensive car paid for by the author. Two major Miami newspapers’ stories on this prompted the question of how the athlete could afford such a car. The car was likely provided by his agent, or his college– the University of Miami. If so, the NCAA violation would end the player’s career before it started, and the scandal would ruin the reputations of the agent, the school, and many others.

The author cooked up a scheme to get a slew of parties out of trouble. He shredded all the paper contracts of his rule-violating clients, and claimed he was running a car-leasing operation; the athletes’ parents were leasing the cars for them [like everyone really believed that (!)].

The author told of another client who was nothing but a boondoggle, but the author stuck by him for years, anyway. By 1987, “He was damaged goods for a [National Football League] team to expend a valuable draft choice on a kid with a bad ankle, drug problems, legal problems, and a dishonorable discharge from BYU was more than any of them would bear.”

As can be imagined, the sports agency business will keep commercial litigators in business forever, as its seamy underbelly consists of an orgy of litigation. The author dismissed yet another client’s transgressions: “At worst, he blew up a Porsche (quite by accident), got arrested in New Jersey for carrying a concealed weapon and unfortunately got into a fight or two. No big deal.”

Read the book to learn about a slew of other details of the conduct of sports agents and their clients of the late 1980’s.

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As I Saw It

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“We in the government were at a disadvantage, having to keep our feet grounded in the realities of that conflict while exposed to sharp, uninformed, and often partisan attack.”

-Dean Rusk, secretary of state, regarding the Korean War

Unsurprisingly, there’s nothing new under the sun.

The Book of the Week is “As I Saw It” by Dean Rusk as told to Richard Rusk, published in 1990.

Born in February 1909 in a northern suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, Rusk had four siblings. They all pitched in on the family farm. The Farmer’s Almanac told his father when to plant crops pursuant to the phases of the moon. Every American household had the Sears Roebuck catalog, which was used for toilet paper. The school curriculum propagandized on the Confederacy, convincing young minds that there was nothing wrong with slavery.

During WWII, FDR was preoccupied with an overwhelming number of serious political issues. Rusk commented that, for whatever reason, the president failed to address the issue of pushing for the elimination of colonialism, especially in India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and Indochina. But Rusk did say the United States used the Indians for cheap labor in transportation, supplies and infrastructure in China and along the Burma road, so it was in its best strategic interest to maintain the status quo.

“Reflecting on my experiences in government, I think we tended then (late 1940’s)– and now– to exaggerate the necessity to take action. Given time, many problems work themselves out or disappear.” Yes, civilized nations of the world began to take a dim view of colonialism, but it would not have worked itself out on its own. However, as is well known, countless lives were sacrificed in colonialism’s disappearance.

Rusk favored sending American troops to Korea in summer 1950 because he claimed that it was hard to gauge the intentions of the leaders of the U.S.S.R., North Korea and China. But then, that implies that America’s spies were incompetent. Perhaps that is why America got into so many foreign policy scrapes through the decades of Rusk’s career.

On the other hand, the Soviets didn’t correctly assess America’s national-security situation and attitude immediately following WWII, either. For, “If Stalin had invested ten years in genuine peaceful coexistence, he would have faced a disarmed and isolationist America. But instead, he embarked upon adventures which forced the United States to rearm and play a greater role in world affairs.”

It’s impossible to say how much better off the U.S. would have been economically if it had engaged in long-term detente with the Soviets. But, first off– there would have been minimal military spending and few needless deaths and ruined lives from war. And some American president would eventually see the advantages of trading with the rest of the world, including the Communists.

Although Rusk was pro-war most of the time, he believed in basic freedoms, such as the right not to be spied on. Rusk was vague on the time frame of an anecdote he related, but the upshot was that he forced an investigator to resign for claiming under oath that the investigator hadn’t illegally surveilled a State Department employee by bugging his phone and going through his trash, when in fact, the investigator had.

Anyway, read the book to learn Rusk’s take on many other historical incidents in American foreign policy, and his life and times.

Speaking of lying under oath, here’s a little ditty explaining Trump’s situation.

UGLY LIES

(Dirty Dancing version) sung to the tune of “Hungry Eyes” with apologies to Eric Carmen.

Biden got him indicted.
Agencies were on, Hillary’s side.
They violated his privi-lege, he cries.
He’s innocent tonight.
Now he’s got, Biden in his sights, with these

ugly lies.
One bad arraignment and his donations rise.
He’s got ugly lies.
He’s always the victim, in his eyes.

He held the records so you heard, him out.
They were his records, is what it’s all about.
He’s innocent tonight.
Now he’s got, Biden in his sights, with these

ugly lies.
One bad arraignment and his donations rise.
He’s got ugly lies.
He’s always the victim, in his eyes. He’s got
ugly lies.
Now he’s got, Biden in his sights, with the
ugly lies.

His act is no surprise.
He needs you to see,
he’s never, ever guilty.

He’s got ugly lies.
One bad arraignment and his donations rise.
He’s got ugly lies.
He’s always the victim, in his eyes. He’s got
ugly lies.

Now he’s got, Biden in his sights, with the
ugly lies.
His act is no surprise.
With his ugly lies.
Ugly. Ugly lies.
Now he’s got, Biden in his sights, with his
ugly lies…

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The Impossible Takes Longer

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“The materialism here is dreadful, pitiless. To occupy oneself here with anything not directly connected with earning one’s bread, it is necessary to be either very rich or very talented.”

-Chaim Weizmann, commenting on England’s elitist, aristocratic bent– as opposed to France’s and Germany’s more meritocratic bent, at the dawn of the twentieth century

The Book of the Week is “The Impossible Takes Longer, The Memoirs of Vera Weizmann, As Told to David Tutaev” by Vera Weizmann, published in 1967.

This book’s subjects included both Vera and Chaim Weizmann. The latter was best known as the first president of Israel, but he was actually just a figurehead. His Zionism ought to be noted, though. His brand of Zionism harped on the fact that the “wandering Jew” was rejected most everywhere he or she sought refuge from oppression. By the twentieth century, Arabs, on the other hand, could find refuge in many countries which would gladly accept them if there was political turmoil in their homeland.

Vera, one of seven siblings, was born in November 1881 in Rostov, in the former Soviet Union. Chaim, one of ten siblings, was born in November 1874 in western Russia, in the Pale of Settlement.

In late 1932, Chaim delivered a lecture to the leaders of the Jewish community in Germany, raising the alarm on the dangers of Hitler’s rhetoric. Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, already provided a hint of his take on Jews. Chaim sat on various boards of Zionist-related entities. Controversies raged through the 1930’s, among myriad other goings-on, over violence in Germany, violence in Palestine, what to do about refugees, and whether to make Palestine a Jewish homeland.

In 1935, Chaim was pressured to become president again of the World Zionist Organization. He relented, but going in, he knew he would become a scapegoat for the wrongs committed by the British government. Great Britain was in a tough spot, as it wanted Arab oil and to keep control of Palestine, but part of fighting against fascism meant doing the right thing by helping the cause of freedom for all peoples of the world, including Jews.

In 1937, in a speech to the Peel Commission, Weizmann again urged Jews to leave Germany. He was the one who said there were approximately six million of them. At that time, pursuant to the British Mandate, a tiny percentage of them could obtain a certificate allowing them entry to Palestine. Between 1940 and 1944, only about thirty-two thousand people were allowed to move to Palestine.

Vera and Chaim’s Jewish ancestors had been oppressed in their native lands. The two moved to England at the start of the 1900’s to minimize the possibility of their own persecution. In 1900, when Chaim was in his late twenties, he helped found the Jewish National Fund, whose donors bought up land in Palestine for the Jews. Beginning in her late teens, Vera studied in Geneva, Switzerland to be a medical doctor.

Read the book to learn of what became of Vera and Chaim.

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Oh What A Fight – BONUS POST

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Oh What A Fight

sung to the tune of “December, 1963 (Oh What A Night)” with apologies to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

Oh what a fight.
Criminals STILL walk free in ’23.
What a noisy prez-race we’ll see.
Thug po-LI-tics.
What a fight.

Oh what a fight.

All the candidates, we know their names.
‘Stead of brains-and-maturity, we’ll see false claims.
Where’s the fact-checking?
What a fight.

Oh they, inCITE hostile-feelings in male viewers, of the news.
And oh, fren-em-ies’ll call in favors in-secret soo-oon.

Oh what a fight.
Frus-trating AND infuriating me.
Prah-paganda and lack of substance we’ll see.
Sour surrender, what a fight.

Some viewers, WISH they could roll with the elites,
reveling in opponents’ scandals and electoral defeats.
Oh what a fight.

Oh they, inCITE hostile-feelings in male viewers, of the news.
And oh, fren-em-ies’ll call in favors in-secret soo-oon.

Oh what a fight.

The whole campaign IS a scripted charade.
CLAshing egos, now it’s donor-made.
Hypocrisy-and-attorneys.
What a fight.

Some viewers, WISH they could roll with the elites,
reveling in opponents’ scandals and electoral defeats.
Oh what a fight.

Dough-dough-dough-dough-dough, dough-dough-dough.
Oh what a fight.
Dough-dough-dough-dough-dough, dough-dough-dough.
Oh what a fight…

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John Reed: Witness to Revolution

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The Book of the Week is “John Reed: Witness to Revolution, A Biography” by Tamara Hovey, published in 1975.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, and Bibliography), Reed was born in October 1887 in Portland, Oregon. The beneficiary of white male privilege, he graduated from Harvard, then bummed around Europe, and wrote stories and articles that were published in the magazines of the day; among them: American, Saturday Evening Post, Century, Smart Set, Colliers, and Trend. But he rebelled against the bourgeois values of his social class. The Masses did not pay its contributing writers, but featured short stories that realistically portrayed the struggling masses in America of the 1910’s. Many publications generously compensated their contributing writers, so Reed was able to scratch out a living.

Reed was given a press pass through the years by different publications to cover a few major historical events. In 1913, he wrote human-interest stories through immigrant workers’ eyes after witnessing violent labor trouble at the silk factory in Paterson, New Jersey.

Reed rubbed shoulders with the famous social activists of his generation. Showing their white-savior-complex– in June 1913, he, along with the independently wealthy Mabel Dodge (who owned a stately home on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan) and Robert Edmond Jones, staged a pageant whose performers consisted of downtrodden laborers at the old Madison Square Garden. The three served as planner and director, funder and arranger, and set designer, respectively. Their goal was to improve working conditions for the poor. After the pageant, Reed, Dodge and Jones sailed to Europe.

Reed spent four days in New Jersey’s Passaic County jail (whose conditions were very disgusting) in order to write articles that publicized the plight of striking workers who were denied due process. He was unlike journalists at most newspapers, who were puppets of: management (rather than labor), government officials, and law enforcement. Reed physically climbed into the trenches with German soldiers during WWI to get their stories. He then turned into a pacifist.

Read the book to learn what transpired when Reed developed a reputation as a radical (hint: he acquired a press credential from the American Socialist press in August 1917 in order to cover the Russian Revolution).

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Congo Sole – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Congo Sole, How a Once Barefoot Refugee Delivered HOPE, FAITH, and 20,000 PAIRS OF SHOES” by Emmanuel Ntibonera with Drew W. Menard, published in 2021. This slim paperback volume included no index, and its writing contained occasional grammatical errors throughout. But it was suspenseful.

The oldest of nine surviving children, the author was born in April 1989. He grew up in the city of Bukavu near the Rwandan border, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (hereinafter referred to as “Congo”). Living conditions were primitive. Life-threatening conditions abounded, including malaria, poisonous snakes, bacteria-laden waterways (used for drinking), and jiggers (which burrow under the skin and reproduce; if not removed, they eventually prompt amputation of digits and limbs, but are easily prevented from doing any harm if people wear shoes!).

When the first Congo civil war started in 1996, the family fled on foot many miles to the author’s grandfather’s village in the mountains of Eastern Congo. They did hard manual labor– growing cassava, tending to pigs, and herding cows and goats. If they shot a rabbit with a bow and arrow, they ate it. When the author was about eight years old, he, his father (who was a preacher and small-businessman) and two younger brothers walked back to Bukavu. His father’s dry-goods store had been looted and trashed.

It had been only a few years after the genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Child-soldiers and refugees were still pouring into the Congo, and clashing with rival tribes. In 1997, the regime change in the Congo led to yet more atrocities, including raping of females of all ages. The author and his younger brother had somehow been warned not to be lured into joining the ranks of the child-soldiers. They ran away when recruiters came to call and offered sweets.

While nearly starving to death and suffering many hardships, the author’s family truly believed that petitionary prayer worked for them. At least, people’s outlook improves with petitionary prayer, as it has a placebo effect. People who have a bible that’s falling apart, usually aren’t.

However, one burning question that can’t be answered is: What is the percentage of people for whom petitionary prayer failed (who are unable to triumphantly say that it worked for them) because they died?

Read the book to learn: how the family survived, and about many more details on how the author came to start a foundation (hint: “…for the Congolese children, a pair of shoes was a treasure, not a fleeting status symbol to be discarded for the next trend. It wasn’t about a brand, logo, or label there; it was about protection, vitality. About hope.”)

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one THOUSAND wells (sic)

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The Book of the Week is “one THOUSAND wells (sic), How an Audacious Goal Taught Me to Love the World Instead of Save It” by Jena Lee Nardella, published in 2015.

Born in the early 1980’s, the American author– raised in a strict Christian household– became an idealist, passionate about helping the downtrodden. By her teens, she was volunteering at a Colorado Springs homeless shelter. She worked at an orphanage in Tijuana. In college, she got to meet and work with the Christian music-band, Jars of Clay.

Together with other groups over the course of a decade, the do-gooders who formed a humanitarian organization in 2005 called Blood: Water Mission, would bring uncontaminated blood (for medical purposes) and water (for basic drinking and cleaning) to various underprivileged communities in Kenya, Rwanda, Central African Republic, Uganda, and other African countries. They would help them with the three major components of improving Africans’ health: clean water, hygiene and sanitation.

One of the first of many, many things the author learned in her quest to save lives, was that most Americans’ first impulse is to throw money at a complex problem to solve it. They mean well, but their white-savior-complex is a wrong-headed approach. As she gained experience in providing international aid to poverty-stricken, poorly-educated rural communities, the author saw how villagers were initially skeptical about aid workers’ promises; in the past, so many aid workers had failed to follow up or do anything.

The author’s group eventually elicited a grateful, cooperative response because an educator involved the villagers in raising their own standards of living. A few different aid groups who handled various aspects of a water project, did what they said they would do.

If their projects succeeded, women and children (before school– if they were lucky enough to attend) wouldn’t have to spend hours every day trekking on foot to a water-well or river (which might be used by hundreds of households, and was usually polluted with germs and who knows what else) located many kilometers from their living areas. Blood: Water completed one specific project in Rwanda that allowed eighteen hundred villagers to partake of clean water. Such a basic victory produced a great ripple effect in the community. School attendance soared because:

kids were neither fatigued by water-fetching nor plagued by water-borne illnesses (and all the people by other illnesses, for that matter) anymore;
villagers were neither sickened by, nor dying from the water they used; and
villagers had more time on their hands.

However, the author had rude awakenings on various fronts– a water project that failed, fund-raising struggles, and an episode of corruption by a local male aid-coordinator. She was also forced to do some soul-searching on her religious beliefs. She finally had to accept that it is better to have unanswered questions than unquestioned answers.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional details about all of the above.

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Danger Rant – BONUS POST

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In light of what current supporters, imitators and phony-enemies (the likes of Jim Jordan, Greg Gianforte and Ron DeSantis) of Trump are doing now, this is the current song of Ranting Republicans (a potentially great name for a rock band!).

DANGER RANT

sung to the tune of “Safety Dance” (the studio version) with apologies to Men Without Hats.

D-D-D-D-A-A-A-A-N-N-N-N-G-G-G-G-E-E-E-E-R-R-R-R-DANGER-DANGER-DANGER-DANGER-RANT-RANT-RANT-RANT

We can rant if we want to.
We can waste the House’s time.
Because if we don’t rant about con-spir-acy,
Trump won’t get a second try.

Say, we can go where we want to,
draft LAWS that are unkind,
and we can act like dictators
from the Third World
and leave your freedoms far behind.

And we can rant.

We can rant if we want to.
We can waste the House’s time.
Because if we don’t rant about con-spir-acy,
Trump won’t get a second try.

Say, we can go where we want to,
draft LAWS that are unkind,
and we can act like dictators
from the Third World
and leave your freedoms far behind.

And we can rant, and zing!

We can spite when we want to.
We hurt Americans all around.
We can act against China and the Dems
by passing bills that shut them down.

Say, we can hate if we want to.
We can and must DO Trump’s will.
As long as anger smolders,
we’ll get MORE-extreme and bolder.
It’s how we get our thrills.

Say, we can rant, we can rant.

We think we’re in control.
We can rant, we can rant.
We’re doing it from poll to poll.

We can rant, we can rant.
We can take liTIGious stands.
We can rant, we can rant.
We lose nothing by taking a chance.

Danger rant, oh well, the danger rant,
ah yes, the danger rant.

D-D-D-D-A-A-A-A-N-N-N-N-G-G-G-G-E-E-E-E-R-R-R-R-DANGER-DANGER-DANGER-DANGER-RANT-RANT-RANT-RANT

We can ban what we want to.
We’ve got Trump’s low base in mind.
As long as we please them,
to hell with reason,
everything’ll work out right.

Ah, say, we can rant if we want to.
We can waste the House’s time.
Because if we don’t rant about con-spir-acy,
Trump won’t get a second try.

And say, we can rant, we can rant.
We think we’re in control.
We can rant, we can rant.
We’re doing it from poll to poll.

We can rant, we can rant.
We can take liTIGious stands.
We can rant, we can rant.
We lose nothing by taking a chance.

Danger rant, oh well, the danger rant,
ah yes, the danger rant.
Danger rant, oh well, the danger rant,
ah yes, the danger rant.
Danger rant, oh well, the danger rant,
ah yes, the danger rant…

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Haven

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The Book of the Week is “Haven, The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America” by Ruth Gruber, originally published in 1983.

As is well known, 1944 was a presidential election (or reelection) year. In June 1944, politician that he was– FDR announced that the United States would allow about a thousand (out of millions and millions of) European refugees from eighteen different nations to cross the Atlantic via ship (funded by relief agencies) and temporarily settle in a camp in Oswego in northern New York State, near the Canadian border. They had all happened to have fled to Italy. They weren’t counted in America’s then-quotas on immigrants coming from specific countries.

Gruber, who had friends in high places in the American government, got the coveted assignment to assist them. But first, she was vetted by the War Relocation Authority, the State Department, and the Public Health Service. Upon traveling to the transport ship in Naples, she received the U.S. Army title “general” so that she would be treated like a prisoner of war (pursuant to the Geneva Convention) if she was captured by the Axis Powers.

The refugees had suffered terrible hardships and traumas prior to their arrival in Oswego. However, they continued to live their lives as best they could while confined to the camp. The Jewish ones held a bar mitzvah, a wedding and a bris for the baby born there. The able-bodied were made to do various local jobs such as farm work or shoveling coal, for which they were paid eighty cents a day; insultingly enough– paid approximately the same as the Nazi POWs with whom they worked side by side.

When the end of the war was declared in spring 1945, the immigration status of the Oswego camp’s residents became a political football. In August 1945, about a twentieth of the refugees opted to return to their home countries. Thereafter, different stakeholders– government officials and political activists argued over whether to let the refugees stay in America, or go where they wanted, such as to Palestine.

Read the book to learn many additional details about the people involved, and their fates.

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Settle For More

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The Book of the Week is “Settle For More” by Megyn Kelly, published in 2016.

Born in November 1970, Kelly was raised Catholic in the suburbs of Syracuse and Albany in New York State. She conveyed a few simple principles on life. One is, “The only place ‘success’ comes before ‘work’ is in the dictionary.”

The late, great college basketball coach John Wooden said one should be worried about one’s character, not one’s reputation. The true test of one’s character is: how you treat people who can do nothing for you. Like so many others, Kelly got caught up in worrying about her reputation when Trump and his followers smeared and lied about her.

Anyway, Kelly wrote that there occurred an egregious breach of journalistic ethics during 2016, leading up to election day. It was this: some idiot-box interviewers of Donald Trump told him prior to airtime, the critical things they would be saying about him, so they would appear to be “fair and balanced” in their reporting. Trump knew to behave himself and didn’t react with hostility to those questions or comments. Scripting and rehearsals are the new unethical normal in “journalism” nowadays.

Unsurprisingly, Kelly was the victim of a misogynistic Tweet by Trump. He knew this Tweet would become the subject of a 2015 post-debate news story, rather than her debate questions and his non-answers. He is, after all, the master manipulator of distracting messaging. His distractions are analogous to the scene shown during the closing credits of the movie Animal House: While a parade is passing through the college town, a frat boy says to a guy, “Look at my thumb.” The guy does and the frat boy sucker-punches him and says, “Gee, you’re dumb!” the same way Trump makes outrageously offensive comments for shock value, and then watches the fireworks.

In 2016, Kelly was forced to confront an ethical dilemma in connection with sexual harassment in her workplace– Fox News. Having succeeded in two male-dominated fields, she advised her female readers to get some advice on how they sound, and the clothing and makeup they wear so that they will be taken seriously by their male coworkers and bosses.

That said, it is unclear whether Kelly had the authority to choose the photo (in which she is wearing skimpy clothing) appearing on the front cover of the hardcover version of her book. The question is, would a male TV-news-show host wear a sexy shirt in the cover-photo of his book? Resounding no.

Kelly’s choice in that photo could have been an act of rebellion, or an act of naivete and poor self-awareness, on her part. With it, she hurt her cause of telling female readers to behave in ways that even the playing field with their male counterparts. If Kelly couldn’t control the photo on the cover, one might suspect her publisher was engaging in political retaliation.

Nevertheless, read the book to learn about how Kelly became super-successful as an attorney and as a TV “news” anchor, and how she was also able to have a family life in her time and place in the United States, despite the fact that her society gives males advantages over females.

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Disney, Disney – BONUS POST

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This is the song Ron DeSantis (governor of Florida) is singing now.

Disney, Disney

sung to the tune of “Monday, Monday” with apologies to the Mama’s and the Papa’s.

Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes
Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes
Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes

Disney, Disney, [Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes]
so expedient for me.

[Call-ing ALL ho-MO-phobes, call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes]

Disney’s learning all about how anti-woke I can be.

Oh, Disney’s torment, Disney’s torment is guaranteed.

[Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes]

Anti-Disney donors, I do what they say,
’cause I need the MONEY.

Disney, Disney, I love power today.
Disney, Disney,
in my state
you’re not allowed to be gay.

Oh, Disney’s torment,
my Florida laws meant
you must go through me.

Oh, Disney, Disney, you can’t proceed
with your upgrading spree.

Every single day, every single day,
every single day of the week you’re mine, yeah.

And you’re under China’s thumb [and you’re under]
And you’re under China’s thumb.

You’re an easy target all of the time.

Disney, Disney, [Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes]
so expedient for me.

[Call-ing, ALL ho-MO-phobes]

Disney’s learning all about how anti-woke I can be.

Oh, Disney’s torment, Disney’s torment is guaranteed.

Anti-Disney donors, I do what they say,
’cause I need the MONEY.

Every single day, every single day,
every single day of the week you’re mine, yeah.

And you’re under China’s thumb [and you’re under]
And you’re under China’s thumb.

You’re an easy target all of the time.

Disney, Disney, I love power today.
Disney, Disney,
in my state
you’re not allowed to be gay.

Disney, Disney, it’s time to pay.

Oh Disney, Disney…

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We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders

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The Book of the Week is “We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, A Memoir of Love and Resistance” by Linda Sarsour, published in 2020.

First off, the author explained that jihad means “to strive.” When using this word, the vast majority of people who practice the religion of Islam are not extremists and therefore do not take it to mean “religious war.”

Of course, propagandists (haters, predatory stalkers, bullies, doxers and their ilk) twist a word such as “jihad” so that all Muslims are branded as extremists and the one-word description most often used in the United States– “terrorists.” The propagandists know how to whip up a frenzy of fear, and get satisfaction from: seeing their victims sustain psychological damage, as much as egging on their followers who do physical damage.

Anyway, the author, the oldest of seven siblings of Palestinian extraction, was born in May 1980 in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York State. She grew up in the nearby Sunset Park section– the multi-ethnic, immigrant community in which “…neighbors looked out for each other and disciplined one another’s children…”

At the author’s high school, John Jay, there were only three guidance counselors for more than three thousand students, but every day, tens of police officers arrested students whose punishments were outsized, for the minor offenses committed. After 9/11, across the country, numerous culturally and linguistically disadvantaged young rule-breakers (who were targeted because they were Muslim) were detained and deported without due process. Other Muslims left of their own accord, as they saw that the United States was becoming a hostile residential environment for them.

The author helped found an organization that assisted Islamic women and children in New York City. She and her colleagues practiced local political activism and community organizing. They realized they needed to ally with other minority groups to acquire sufficient power to change education policies for their own group. They also knew they needed to become partisan, so they formed the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, before the 2013 mayoral election.

In December 2014, the author and her fellow activists protested the handling of two different incidents the previous summer; the deaths of two (non-Caucasian) men resulting from law enforcement’s extremely inappropriate conduct in Staten Island in New York State, and in Ferguson, Missouri. The protestors got together with pop cultural influencers and social justice advocates including Jay-Z and Lebron James to stage a “die-in” at a New York Nets basketball game in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This, on a night when there was high attendance because the royal couple William and Kate were there.

Read the book to learn many other details about the author’s: family, and her trials and tribulations as a Muslim and an activist.

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The Price of Empire

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The Book of the Week is “The Price of Empire” by J. William Fulbright, with Seth P. Tillman, published in 1989. In this volume, given his time and place as a Democratic senator (and boastful alpha male, at that) from Arkansas from 1945 to 1974, Fulbright expressed his views on the Cold War in terms of major historical events and hot wars.

Fulbright’s narratives deserve special scrutiny because they were written before the fall of the Berlin Wall– before historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight. He also expounded some, on the main reason he appeared to be racist: In the Postwar Era, government leaders from Southern States wouldn’t have a long political career if they favored civil rights for African-Americans (case in point– Carl Elliott, Representative from Alabama).

The author presciently asserted that in waging its anti-Communist campaigns, the United States had as its goal, because it knew it had superior technology: to bankrupt the Soviets via attrition in an arms race. But in so doing, the U.S. has damn near bankrupted itself!

Fulbright wrote, “The winners, present and prospective are the bystanders, in Europe and Asia, whose resources are committed to making their societies work.” He contended that the detente school of thought (in which the U.S. and Russia agreed to coexisting peacefully rather than fomenting hatred against the other; crowded out by greedy politicians) turned out to be superior economically, not to mention societally.

The United States is now paying the price for that. As is well known, politics cannot be divorced from economics. That is why top government leaders desirous of getting reelected have always harped on job growth— bragging about their own, and smearing their opponents’ lack thereof.

In 20/20 hindsight, workers who were making expensive war toys (many of which were wasted one way or another) for the military-industrial complex in the Postwar Era, could have been engaging in more constructive, productive, progressive endeavors in the areas of education and environmentally-friendly vehicles and infrastructure. Oh, well.

Be that as it may, (according to the book, which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References and Bibliography), in 1946, in connection with trying to counter the adverse effects of the nation’s war-making, Fulbright made lemons from lemonade. He established a scholarship program for Americans to study abroad in barter transactions. War-impoverished countries would supply education because they could not pay (in the form of currency, due to crushing war debt) for the American military supplies such as blankets, food, drugs and trucks they used on their respective battlefields during WWII.

Read the book to learn a boatload of additional history which the author made, witnessed, and by which he was shaped.

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Stand Down, You’re Distorting the Vote – BONUS POST

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Obviously, given America’s current political situation, certain people will be receiving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” award. Here’s a little ditty that describes the situation.

STAND DOWN, YOU’RE DISTORTING THE VOTE

Sung to the tune of “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from the 1955 movie-musical Guys and Dolls, with apologies to the estate of Frank Loesser.

ReadING teleprompters on Trump’s road to reelection,
by Trump’s hand
Fox NEWS played along,
and whenever they could,
they hollered Dominion’s shady!!!
But luckily patriots knew right from wrong.

For the lawsuits said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote,
the lawsuits said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
And Fox News made us wonder, how they were ever compelled to help Trump GLOAT.

Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

We saw the lies on Trump’s road to reelection.
We found by Trump’s hand, fake electors in our midst.
And there Fox stood, handing out the hypocrisy,
but the patriots were bound to resist.

For the patriots said stand down, you’re on a power trip,
the patriots said stand down, you sore loser, get a grip.

And Fox News made us wonder if there’s truth to anything they ever wrote.
Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

And as Trump STAFFED those fronting his reelection,
a wave of subpoenas came,
saying Trump come to COURT.
And as he shrank, he hollered, someone MAKE me!
Secret papers were found at his resort.

Patriots said stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
Said to him stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

And Fox’s slander made us WONder how they’re ever going to stay afloat.
Stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

Stand down, you’re distorting, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting,
stand down, you’re distorting, stand down, stand down, stand down, you’re distorting the vote.
Stand down, you’re distorting the vote.

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My American Journey

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“I would never, for example say anything for domestic consumption and ignore its impact on Iraq, or vice versa. I knew we had won the battle for public opinion… I criticized the pseudo policy of establishing a U.S. ‘presence’ without a defined mission in trouble spots.”

-Colin Powell, writing about his military leadership in connection with the First Gulf War; after which he was criticized for not removing Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s leader. The reasons he cited were:

Iraq was a stabilizing force in the Middle East against Iran.
Prolonging the war was not worth the additional American casualties that would result.
The U.S. was leading an international coalition through the UN.
Prolonging the war would result in another Vietnam; and
America had already achieved its mission of forcing Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait.

The Book of the Week is “My American Journey” by Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persico, published in 1995. This large volume was released at a time when Powell was still a highly regarded war hero of the First Gulf War, prior to historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight on America’s post-9/11 policy on Iraq.

Born in April 1937 in West Harlem in New York City, the dark-skinned Powell, whose ancestors were multi-ethnic (Jamaican, English, Scottish, African, and probably Arawak Indian), grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood. His parents worked in the garment industry.

Powell began his military career in the late 1950’s. He was stationed in Germany, where there was no segregation between dark-skinned and light-skinned people, as Western Europeans were thankful that the Americans were defending them from the Soviets.

In 1962, the U.S. government’s propaganda led ordinary Americans (including Powell) to believe that the United States had to stop Communism– which was evil– from spreading to all the freedom-loving, good countries of the world. Powell eventually did two tours of Vietnam as a military adviser and officer; he learned that the presence of both “enforcers” and “chaplains” was necessary in order to achieve the best outcome. The enforcers disciplined the troops so that they stayed focused on the vision of their mission, while the chaplains attended to the troops’ psychological needs. In all the military actions the U.S. was considered to have bungled– through the decades after WWII– the enforcers were lacking.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, and Bibliography), Caspar Weinberger, a secretary of defense who served during the Reagan Era, theorized that there were certain conditions to be met if America expected to have successful military involvement in conflicts. If the country (this includes the American people and Congress) feels a cause is vital to its welfare, it should (but only as a last resort!) dedicate troops and resources sufficient to achieve clear political and military objectives— which need to be flexible with changing situations.

In 1981, Powell learned from an experiment, that better leadership of commanding officers (rather than whether troops practiced with real or simulated ammunition) led to military victory more often. As is well known, ordinary Americans and foreign countries viewed the American military (and the U.S. government) as imperialist after the Vietnam Era.

After the Iran-Contra scandal, the American government (which many still viewed as imperialist) reorganized its national-security hierarchy through a bill passed by Congress called Goldwater-Nichols. Powell was named National Security Advisor in 1988. But he was an active-duty officer, so there was kind of a conflict with his new job. His bosses at the Pentagon controlled his promotions, but the president was a civilian whose interests might clash with theirs. Powell would be advising them both. In autumn 1989, Powell was named chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that job, the new law meant that the advice Powell gave to the president and Secretary of Defense, received top priority over all others in national-security related jobs.

Theoretically, the American president, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, has ultimate authority to decide on military deployment. However, if the president has sole control over the military and it obeys only him, is loyal only to him, including in connection with all top-secret foreign policy matters– THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR THE PRESIDENT TO BECOME A DICTATOR.

However, Powell contended that Reagan’s pro-military attitude restored the proud reputation of America’s armed services. He quoted Michael Korda on how the president became so popular: “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand…” Be that as it may, times have changed, and the Internet has shown the dangers of such activity from everyone who wants to be a great leader: oversimplification and the absence of sound argument, debate and doubt. There might exist solutions (to the country’s complex problems) everybody can understand, but they’re never simple.

And yet, Powell naively wrote, “The SDI [Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative; aka Star Wars] ‘umbrella’ was intended to make nuclear weapons obsolete.” The surrounding text indicated that he truly believed the arms race would magically cease when the U.S. was done constructing this fantastical war toy. It was in the military’s best budgetary interest to convince the (by then-senile president) that the U.S.S.R.’s nuclear weapons would be useless because SDI would protect the earth from detonation of the weapons altogether (similar to the myth that 1950’s schoolchildren who hid under their desks with their hands over their heads would survive a nuclear attack).

Anyway, in early 1988, Powell met with Anatoly Dobrynin, who was heartened that because Mikhail Gorbachev had a law degree, he was able to introduce rule of law to his country. The Soviet leader wanted to end the arms race and stop the international adventures of his military.

Powell gave a detailed history of the shenanigans (misnamed “Operation Just Cause”) through which the U.S. ousted Panama strongman Manuel Noriega: “Twenty-four Americans gave their lives in Panama to achieve this victory for democracy.”

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional information on Powell’s involvement in the above, and his many other adventures.

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Peace

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The Book of the Week is “Peace, the biography of a symbol (sic)” by ken kolsbun with michael s. sweeney (sic) published in 2008. This colorful volume described how a symbol has gone viral worldwide. That symbol is an instantaneous message that its bearer is anti-nuclear, anti-war and / or anti-discrimination.

English artist Gerald Holtom invented and mass-produced the “peace sign” (hereinafter abbreviated ps; consisting of a circle bisected by a vertical line, and on the bottom half, an upside-down “v”), to be attached to picket signs for a 1958 anti-nuclear-weapons march in Britain. Thereafter, the ps was used on what became all sorts of memorabilia, repeatedly, internationally in different kinds of protests.

After WWII, the governments of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. brainwashed many of their citizens into thinking that the other nation (the enemy (!)) would use nuclear weapons to make war. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and index), beginning in December 1960, Bradford Lyttle led ps-displaying members of the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA)– (pacifists urging American and Soviet nuclear disarmament) in a march from San Francisco to New York City, through Western Europe, that ended in Moscow in October 1961.

In November 1961, the group Women Strike for Peace (WSP; a spinoff of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) was afraid that usage of nuclear weapons at the newly constructed Berlin Wall would trigger more widespread hostilities and globally cause slow, painful deaths due to cancer. So they led about 50,000 ps-bearing females (many of whom had children) to go on strike; alpha males with hubris syndrome were the perpetrators of massively destructive war tools, after all.

In autumn 1963, freedom walkers teamed up with peace walkers to express their displeasure with violations of their civil rights, and nuclear weapons, through marching from Quebec to Cuba. Everyone wore the ps. Folk singer Pete Seeger joined in the activism. He said, “Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells.”

Read the photo-filled book to learn about numerous other people whose messaging helped spur the peace sign’s popularity through countless protests.

Featured

I Get Around – BONUS POST

This is the song Clarence Thomas is singing now.

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I GET AROUND

sung to the tune of “I Get Around” with apologies to the Beach Boys.

Resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind, get around, yacht-bound, I’m makin’ real good friends.

I’m getting bugged and probed by some pesky foes.
I gotta find new gifts I don’t have to disclose.

My cronies and me are gettin’ TOO well known.
Yeah, the previous admins used to leave us alone.

I get around, resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind,

conFLICTS up and down, I get around, I-didn’t write it down, resort-bound, yacht-bound, bound, bound.

We always loved Crow’s trips ’cause they’re for us elites
and we made sure our connections were ALWAYS discreet.

It’s our turn to be targeted, ’cause we’re on the far Right.
We’ve got the best PR and we’re ready to fight.

I get around, resort-bound, get around, I get around,
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind,

conFLICTS up and down, I get around, I-didn’t write it down, resort-bound, yacht-bound, bound, bound.

Resort-bound, get around, I get around,
yeah, get around, woo-woo, I get around
I get around, get around, yacht-bound, I-didn’t write it down,
I got wined and dined, get around, resort-bound, I get around,
I’m the VIP kind, get around, yacht-bound, I’m makin’ real good friends…

Featured

the signal and the noise (sic)

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The Book of the Week is “the signal and the noise (sic)” by nate silver (sic), published in 2012. In this volume, the author described in redundant and wordy terms, why human beings are so fallible in their predictions and forecasts (and explained the difference between the two). Basically, humans get distracted by noise, so they don’t zero in on the right signals in order to tell the future correctly.

Ironically, the author used less-than-ideal language in describing the epic failings of ratings-agencies in the 2008 financial crash. He should have pointed out that they could have mitigated, just a little, their false advertising by using better risk-assessment wording.

Silver wrote, “… trillions of dollars in investments that were rated as being almost completely safe instead turned out to be almost completely unsafe.” (Never mind the awkwardness of the word “being” in the middle of the sentence, or “it” in the middle of a sentence– so many recently published books have that kind of bad writing.) The ratings agencies should describe investments as “low-risk” or “high-risk” and use the adverbs “extremely” or “very” or “somewhat” or “slightly” as applicable, but never use the word safe.

Anyway, another irony was that the author appeared to be distracted by vast generalizations that were just noise– as cherry-picked data tend to be. He provided all sorts of line graphs and scads of data on housing bubbles. He cited a study on market prices of the “American home” completed by Robert Schiller and Karl Case that created an index based on a century’s worth of data– the years between 1896 and 1996, inclusive.

The research indicated that an inflation-adjusted home bought for $10,000 in 1896 would be worth $10,600 in 1996. Is that noise or what? Silver didn’t specify what “American home” meant. Anyhow, who would buy a home in 1896, and sell it in 1996?

Silver did admit that predictions and forecasts were less inaccurate when qualitative data supplemented statistical models. Worded facts are considerations that add real-world conditions because numbers never tell the full story in complex situations, which are dynamic.

Incidentally, at the book’s writing, he had had success in making predictions in professional baseball because: 1) an excessive amount of data on it had been collected, and 2) he claimed its rules didn’t change. The latter is not true anymore. And besides, performance-enhancing drugs, not to mention new stadiums– among other factors– have put new noise and signals in baseball statistics.

The author pointed out that more data actually made for worse accuracy in predictions in many areas of life. Technology in the form of software that can process scads and scads of data in record time has improved humans’ ability to specifically forecast severe weather, but not earthquakes. As an aside– in any area that involves linguistics, technology is overrated. A chatbot cannot comprehend complex concepts and nuanced language (like sarcasm, irony and idioms). American English is especially fraught with words that have multiple meanings, so it is highly contextual.

There are still financial crashes, gamblers who lose big-time, and “experts” who can’t modify conditions to improve the economy with certainty. Incidentally, as is well known, more and more, daily life in America has been infiltrated by politics.

Read the book to learn about futuristic pronouncements of: television pundits, professional-sports commentators and gamblers, seismologists, chess software, national-security advisers, poker players, and many others.

Featured

Gynecologist Reflections

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The Book of the Week is “Gynecologist Reflections” by Robert A. Siegel, published in 2017. As is well known, until about the 1970’s, an American medical doctor was a trusted family friend, a generalist. The author started medical school at the dawn of that decade, and ultimately chose obstetrics and gynecology as his specialty. In this poorly edited volume, the author detailed his memorable patient-cases inside America’s changing medical industry amid changing cultural and economic times.

During his training, the author was required to perform abortions; if he didn’t, he’d be fired. Another medical institution wouldn’t accept him and he wouldn’t become a physician. He acknowledged the very emotionally charged, controversial nature of the procedure, and controversial nature of not only when life begins, but when it ends.

The author’s generation of medical interns was still male-dominated. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index), most of the interns were brainwashed into thinking that working around the clock, saving lives on eight hours of sleep a week, was a macho thing to do. Of course, in the next few decades, American medicine became an increasingly litigious line of work and its trainees rebelled against the abusive hierarchy.

After about a decade, the author was able to make a living as a solo practitioner treating private patients. But his dedication to his work (which often involved emergencies) still left him severely sleep-deprived and very stressed. He admitted to coming quite close to making a medical mistake that would have resulted in a patient’s kidney failure. Fortunately, his assistant asked him a simple question about the task at hand.

In another instance, the doctor bragged about saving the lives of a woman and her later prematurely-delivered baby who were in a serious car accident. He got all the kudos, but explained that the surgical team, the technology and the hospital were just as responsible for the positive outcome.

The doctor also recounted a legal case of an acquaintance of his (who was also a doctor). The acquaintance gave verbal instructions, which the mother of the patient (a young child who apparently died through no fault of the doctor’s) failed to follow. He wrote, “You should have seen this lady. She was reeking of alcohol but we weren’t allowed to say that in court…” The initial jury-award unexpectedly, outrageously exceeded his malpractice insurance coverage.

Read the book to learn about: hemorrhages, caesarean sections, hysterectomies, OB-GYN screening tools, etc., plus the sociological aspects of the doctor’s practice, and biographical info on him– including how he almost died at a young age (hint: he led an unhealthy lifestyle to say the least– “Two days before my double by-pass was scheduled, I signed myself out [of the hospital] against medical advice.” Exhibiting arrogance and a feeling of invincibility, no doubt.).

Featured

Intimate Memoirs – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Intimate Memoirs” by Georges Simenon, published in 1981. This tome’s intended readers were his four adult children. The author detailed: his and his family members’ lives through all their changing of residences, vacations, the dysfunctionalities in his relationships with others (wives, mistresses, governesses, household help, publishing and movie personnel, etc.), and his daughter’s writings.

Born in 1903, Simenon grew up in Belgium, and served in the military in both WWI and WWII. As a teenager, he began writing. He got rich in a short time, penning via typewriter each year, about six dime novels (eventually numbering dozens in his lifetime, some of which were made into movies) about a police detective named Maigret– whose character was partly based on his father.

By summer 1940, he had a wife and son, at which time they rented a chateau surrounded by a vegetable garden and poultry farm in a coastal sub-prefecture town in France. He was supposed to sign in every day at the police station. A couple of benign German officers were posted on the outskirts of the town.

For the rest of the war, the family stayed in French coastal towns, renting homes with farms for a year or two, then moving on. Basically, they were on vacation, except for one incident that reminded them that a war involving religious persecution was taking place elsewhere.

One day, a Vichy commissioner buttonholed the author and aggressively called him a Jew, demanding that the author prove otherwise, by showing the birth certificates of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. By war’s end, many non-Jewish wealthy people had become wealthier through profiteering, while the peasants suffered the hardships of rationed goods.

The author wrote of powerful, money-grubbing people, “Sometimes there are indeed fatalities. And aren’t the worst brutes the ones that get the most applause? I no longer look on all this as an outsider. When I first got to Lakeville [Connecticut in the USA] I was told ‘Here you have to belong…'”

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know, both happy and sad, about what the author wanted his children to know.

ENDNOTE: Speaking of the worst brutes, here’s a little ditty in connection therewith (This is the song Donald Trump is singing now):

THE ULTIMATE BULLY

sung to the tune of “The Boxer” with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

I am a super-rich man
all-powerful and bold.
I’ve-always-had HIGH resistance
to acknowledging my failures and broken promises.
At-bullying, I’m the best.
My base hears what it wants to hear
and cheers on the unrest.
mm hm, hm hm hm hm hm hm, hm
When I left my home and my family
I was not in THE least coy,
I had to teach my attorneys
dangers of beCOMing a-PR-sensation. I-wasn’t scared.
Making deals, seeking out
the easy suckers and easy girls
looking FOR the
ways I could use them in my World.

lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie-lie, lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie
lie-le-lie-lie-lie-le-lie-le-le-le-lie

Paying minimal workers’ wages
I start handing out the jobs
and pad my coffers.
One-after-another bankRUPtcy
to disappear through.
As a first resort,
I’ve made smearing, scapegoating and suing,
a na-tion-al sport.

la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie-lie, lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie
lie-le-lie-lie-lie-le-lie-le-le-le-lie

Now I’m huddling with my attorneys
and wishing I was golfing at Mar-a-Lago.

But the New York City renters are in need of me,
you can’t indICT me. You’re all DOPES.

I hire the best doxers
and go to legal extremes,
so you CARry a reminder
that anytime I-can lay you down
or cut you while I lash out
in my anger with no shame.
You’ll be bleeding,
you’ll be bleeding,
and the-spiter-in-me remains.

mm-hmm

lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie-lie, lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie
lie-le-lie-lie-lie-le-lie-le-le-le-lie
lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie-lie, lie-le-lie, lie-le-lie
lie-le-lie-lie-lie-le-lie-le-le-le-lie…

Featured

The New Cool

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The Book of the Week is “The New Cool, A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts” by Neal Bascomb, published in 2011.

In the single-digit 2000’s, Amir Abo-Shaeer taught robotics in a “STEM” (four subjects that would help the United States remain economically dominant in the world: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) program at Dos Pueblos high school in Goleta, California (a western suburb of Santa Barbara). If he was able to raise $3 million, he would receive matching funds from the state of California to start to build STEM academies all over the state. Dean Kamen’s goal was to have a robotics team in every school in the country.

Kamen was gravely concerned that the United States education system was falling woefully behind that of other countries. He might best be remembered as the inventor of the Segway, but at the dawn of the 1990’s, he also began to change the world in a much more impactful way.

Kamen and Woodie Flowers’ goal was to spark students’ interest in STEM. They wanted to give young people hands-on, real-world skills, not just convey knowledge. In 1992, they co-founded an annual program of STEM competitions for American students called FIRST. About a decade into the program, there were hundreds of thousands of students of different age groups competing in different events.

Elementary schoolers built structures out of LEGO. Each high school team was required to build a robot, and then in the competition, form alliances with other teams in playing a complicated physical game that differed every year, against another alliance.

In January 2009, the aforementioned Shaeer and his robotics team (consisting of high school seniors he taught) attended the briefing that Kamen, Flowers and NASA simulcast– of the terms and conditions of the robotics competitions to take place in the next three months. If their team emerged ultimate winners, they could win scholarships and might be more motivated to pursue a STEM career.

Read the book to learn of Shaeer’s students’ extremely hard work in preparing their contest entry (the robot), and the suspenseful story of how the team performed with its alliances in its very emotionally charged matches against other alliances, and whether Shaeer got the funding for his schools.

Featured

Yellen

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The Book of the Week is “Yellen, The Trailblazing Economist Who Navigated an Era of Upheaval” by Jon Hilsenrath, published in 2022. This book’s name is deceptive. For, this volume contained as much information on certain aspects of major economic events in American history (but was far from comprehensive in doing so), as it did biographical information on Janet Yellen.

Born in 1946 in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, Yellen married an economist, and her son became an economist, too. She and her husband both had careers teaching, theorizing, publishing and politicking. The author presented a bare-bones, oversimplified theory developed in the 1980’s by Yellen and her husband regarding unemployment. It was unclear whether this was for the benefit of the reader. As should be well known, the economy of the United States is hugely complex, what with unions, illegal immigrants, globalization, automation, and many other confounding variables, not to mention political meddling in connection therewith.

The author did mention two majorly interesting factoids, though:

“Trump said he would shrink the budget deficit and eliminate debt, but instead the deficit expanded from $585 billion before he took office to $984 billion in 2019, and the debt soared by $3 trillion along the way.”

Thus far in American history, no economist except Yellen has served in the following high-level political positions: Fed chair, Treasury secretary and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Read the book to learn much more about how, through the decades, the changing times have forced economists to search for new theories (as the old ones have been discredited) to explain, with their seemingly authoritative (but actually uncertain) pronouncements– why they are taking specific actions.

Featured

Around the World in Fifty Years – BONUS POST

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“What kind of people would so violate the customary rules of survival as to pillage a disabled vehicle and steal the equipment we need to repair it?”

No, the above does not refer metaphorically to a political system on its way to dictatorship, but rather, lawless tribesmen who stole the author’s traveling group’s gas cans, bootjacks and some tools from their Land Rover and trailer in 1966 in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Around the World in Fifty Years, My Adventure to Every Country on Earth” by Albert Podell, published in 2015.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index), the author risked his life countless times in all kinds of circumstances. In March 1965 in Algeria, he was lucky not to have been blown up by land mines.

The author had to take flights and other means of transportation back and forth thousands of miles out of the way of his destinations due to diplomatic difficulties between or among territories. He had to postpone visiting a bunch of countries because at the time he applied for a visa, the United States wasn’t on the best of terms with them (such as Chad and Angola). Luckily, he had contacts who helped him get onto their soil via extralegal means. It seemed he had a death wish. Why would a sane person want to visit ultra-dangerous countries that have extremely low living standards, for fun?

Well, in countries such as Chad, Angola and North Korea, up until the late 1990’s, the people who dominated release of information about themselves to the rest of the world, were those in the government or journalists with a martyr complex.

Nowadays, it’s those who have World Wide Web access. So the only way to obtain accurate information about the common people in those countries (most of them did not have Twitter) was to visit them personally. So that is what Podell did.

Of course, the author’s stay was supervised and severely restricted as to what he was allowed to see, but he got clues just by making observations about his surroundings.

Read the book to learn the details of the travels of this James-Bond wannabe.

ENDNOTE: Those who are spreading hate-speech on Twitter are shaming themselves and their own countries– projecting a childish image for people such as Albert Podell, who want to learn about other cultures. As has been recently revealed by a probe led by Jim Jordan (Republican Congressman from Ohio), more of his own supporters launched mean-of-spirit Twitter attacks against the Democrats rather than vice versa. Here’s a little ditty that describes the situation.

OOH, TWITTER

sung to the tune of “Moon River” with apologies to Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer and any other rights-holders this may concern.

Ooh, Twitter
both sides of the aisle, are sick of Jim Jordan today.

You deal-maker,
you reputation-breaker.

Name-callers need the trolling,
so they’re not GO-ing away.

Smearers and fibbers, angry at the world.
Their political aims are easy, to see.

It’s the same old pol-it-i-cal show, and,
what a huge waste of time,
on the taxpayers’ dime.

Ooh, Twitter, spare me.

Ooh, Twitter
both sides of the aisle, are sick of Jim Jordan today.

You deal-maker,
you reputation-breaker.

Name-callers need the trolling,
so they’re not GO-ing away.

Smearers and fibbers, angry at the world.
Their political aims are easy, to see.

It’s the same old pol-it-i-cal show, and,
what a huge waste of time,
on the taxpayers’ dime.

Ooh, Twitter, spare me.

Featured

No Such Thing As A Bad Day

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The Book of the Week is “No Such Thing As A Bad Day, A Memoir” by Hamilton Jordan (NOT to be confused with Jim Jordan or Vernon Jordan), published in 2000. This volume was a mishmash of a few topics, including his bouts with cancers, a bit about his political career, and his uncle’s civil rights activism. He claimed not to be an attention whore, but the book’s front cover featured a photo of his face, and the back cover, a photo of him with his family.

During the Vietnam Era, the author’s friends at the University of Georgia were either members of ROTC or the National Guard. In 1967, at 23 years old, he joined International Voluntary Services (an organization sort of like the Peace Corps) to help the Vietnamese people grow rice.

The author was a tad insecure, apparently feeling the need to engage in name-dropping of celebrities, even though he must have met a huge number of them in his lifetime; he worked for Jimmy Carter, before and during the time Carter was president. He wrote, “Roy Cohn practiced law in New York City… representing some celebrity (like Donald Trump) in some highly public divorce settlement or scandal.” In August 1979, the FBI showed up at the author’s home, in connection with cocaine and Studio 54 in New York City.

The author then described his uncle Clarence’s civil-rights activities, that in the mid to late 1950’s, consisted of organizing a biracial Baptist commune with tens of residents, called Koinonia in rural Georgia (the state of the United States). Clarence was just trying to practice what Christians preached, but (excuse the cliche) no good deed ever goes unpunished. As can be imagined, Clarence was doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One last interesting factoid: According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index) when Bill Clinton was a newly elected president, the author advised aide George Stephanopoulos to recommend that Clinton get rid of the Independent Counsel law. That law had been a thorn in the sides of presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and others, and continues to be. Enough said.

Read the book to learn various other details about the above, and about the author’s bouts with cancers.

Featured

S.O.S.

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The Book of the Week is “S.O.S., Spirit of Survival, One Family’s Chilling Account of the Costa Concordia Disaster” by Dean, Georgia, Valerie, Debbie, and Cindy Ananias, published in 2013. This informative, suspenseful horror story is a must-read for all travelers who go on cruises.

“People were freaking out in various languages and everything was mass confusion.” Such was the situation on the Mediterranean cruise, Costa Concordia in mid-January 2012. The trip turned out to be not just a ruined vacation for the Ananias family– the parents and two of three grown daughters– but a series of life-threatening traumas and insult-to-injury indignities.

About four thousand people found themselves on a sinking cruise late at night. There were indications from the start of the trip, that the captain and crew of the ship were disorganized, negligent and sorely lacking in customer service training and emergency preparedness.

One circumstance (just one of many) that exacerbated the disaster, was that the ship was listing so precariously, lifeboats on one side of it were prevented from reaching the water by the laws of physics. After much exhausting effort, an attempt to lower the lifeboats failed, and hundreds of passengers already in them had to be lifted out of them only to fret about what to do next, how to get off the sinking ship.

In disasters such as this, life-threatening elements (such as which side of a listing ship will have operable lifeboats) are difficult to predict, but passengers can use ounces of prevention, and should, for the entire duration of the cruise.

The following are just some of the actions that can save lives in worst-case scenarios (if the parties involved are not too vain and don’t care how they look):

wearing one’s life jacket all the time (there weren’t enough life jackets for all the people on the Costa Concordia);
keeping tightly snug in one’s pockets– a packet in a waterproof holder containing: one’s travel documents, wallet-contents, contact info of one’s homeland’s embassy in all countries where the cruise might get shipwrecked, emergency-contact info of one’s family and friends, and (if one is American) contact info of major media outlets so that one can publicize one’s horror story while it is happening in order get maximum compensation from the cruise-line’s lawyers who are experts at defending against any and all legal challenges from anyone harmed by the cruise line’s activities;
keeping a flashlight tightly snug in one’s pocket all the time;
wearing sturdy, but lightweight and comfortably but snugly fitting shoes (not high heels) all the time;
carrying a sweatshirt tied around one’s neck or waist all the time– in case an evacuation takes hours in freezing weather; and
knowing how to swim before cruising.

Another step passengers can take to avoid losing valuable items, includes not bringing fancy jewelry or fancy clothing in the first place!

Read the book to learn: everything you ever wanted to know about what the authors went through during the cruise’s sinking, and their tips on how to avoid what they went through.

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Dobryd

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The Book of the Week is “Dobryd” by Ann Charney, published in 1996. Prior to WWII, the author’s Jewish family owned a house in Dobryd in the country of Poland. This suspenseful personal account described how the author and her immediate family survived and recovered from the traumas and deprivations of the war. Hint: they were not sent to a concentration camp. The book appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index.

In the late summer of 1945, when they were informed the war was over, the author, her family, and fellow survivors were still starving to death. They savored the luxury of finding firewood in order to make a sauna of sorts, and “Occasionally someone would bring a few sugar cubes and then the evening would become a true party.” They entertained themselves by playing a harmonica and telling each other stories.

The author wrote about the ravages of the war: “I scarcely noticed the landscape of ruins we passed. It was simply the place where I lived, to be taken for granted.”

The author recounted an anecdote in which the Jewish survivors who moved into abandoned houses in Bylau (which has since been renamed; also in Poland) were distressed by a cultural misunderstanding. The Jewish relief agency had marked their houses with a red cross with the good intention of indicating they should receive food parcels. The emotionally-spent survivors assumed (wrongly this time) that yet again, “… the Poles were about to practice their traditional rite, the terrorizing and murder of Jews.”

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s experiences during and after the war, and how her family decided to start a new life in a place other than their homeland. For decades, occupying imperialist powers (Soviets and Germans especially) had repeatedly made them feel numbness, self-pity, rage and hatred. They knew that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Speaking of numbness, self-pity, rage and hatred, here is a song about the current emotional climate in the United States in connection with the spying going on. Hint: It is worse than ever.

Under presidents LBJ and Nixon, American males of military age were under constant threat their lives would be disrupted or prematurely ended due to a war.

Currently, the U.S. government is data-mining in a way that tracks where all Americans (innocent as well as guilty) are, what they are doing, and a lot of what they are saying– which makes every man, woman and child vulnerable to: defamation from the lies and smears of political vengeance, cancel culture, victimization with regard to financial and other crimes; not to mention, makes them subjected to feelings of violation– when the vast majority are truly innocent (never mind the small percentage of cases in which truly guilty sociopaths have hubris syndrome.)

I THINK I’LL PROBE YOU

sung to the tune of “I Think I Love You” with apologies to the Partridge Family, and to whoever owns the song’s intellectual property rights.

I’m reading, that public figures, have-no-privacy.

Like all at once, we’re naked,

from their desire to get even, make us pay.

Big Brother’s here to stay.

The Fourth Amendment is in shreds,

and HAS me seeing red.

The Patriot-ACT provisions said:

I think I’ll probe you! (I think I’ll probe you)

Our nosy, government gathers-our-data.

There’s too much to deal with.

They say we have an enemy within.

Without spies, the criminals win.

But political DONors profit more.

Against their-foes, leaders-SETtle scores.

Hey, there’s a Chinese balloon…

I think I’ll probe you! (I think I’ll probe you)

I think I’ll probe you!

So what are they so afraid of?
Their what-about-ism is tiresome.
Politics, there is no cure for.
I’ll acCUSE you, before you accuse me.
It’s a new McCarthy-Era today.
We’re all guinea pigs this way.

We can’t fight what we’re up against.

But we do know what it’s all about.

We’ve got so much to worry about.

Hey! I think I’ll probe you!

Really, there IS cause for worry.

Current alpha-MALES will never be happy.

And if you say “Hey, go away,” they won’t.

Reform this nation, they don’t.

We’d better elect NEW blood and MOVE on.

They’ve worn OUT their case.

They will probe you to your face.

And you don’t deserve that.

I think I’ll probe you! (I think I’ll probe you)

I think I’ll probe you! (I think I’ll probe you)…

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Portrait of the Scientist

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The Book of the Week is “Portrait of the Scientist As A Young Woman” by Lindy Elkins-Tanton, published in 2022. This memoir described the arduous but ultimately successful career journey of a scientist who is female; arduous because as is well known, science is still a male-dominated field in which there is discrimination against females. But despite all the indignities she suffered, she reached the pinnacle of academic leadership in subjects related to her field.

Elkins-Tanton studied geology in college in the mid-1980’s. Over a number of years, in 2008 and later, with other scientists (which included a geochronologist, a geophysicist, and igneous petrologists), she made several trips to Siberia to collect and test volcanic rocks to determine whether they “sent climate-changing gases high enough into the atmosphere to affect the whole globe.”

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, Bibliography and an index), that event happened at the end of the Permian Period of the Paleozoic Era, about 300 million years ago. Around that time, there were mass extinctions. Such research was relevant to the argument that humans’ release of similar, toxic substances accounts for climate change.

The author related various anecdotes of childish behavior in her academic working-life in science. It is common sense that more and better scientific knowledge can be acquired through cooperation and information-sharing, but unfortunately, in the United States: vicious political goings-on in schools and the government, and competition for funding of projects and research, hinder progress.

In recent decades, space exploration around Mars has become the new “Space Race” for hegemonic nations with egotistical leaders (i.e., China, Russia and the United States). That last nation approved funding for its space-exploration agency, NASA, during president Trump’s tenure. Trump was anti-science all the way– except for rocket science– because it is about national pride, and of course, it’s a distraction from domestic troubles.

Over years of blood, sweat and tears, in a competition against other groups, the author led a team of multi-disciplinary experts in producing a proposal for a spacecraft that would travel around Mars and Jupiter and provide data about the Big Bang. In another leadership role, the author helped plan an unconventional curriculum for a college class.

Read the book to learn whose proposal won the competition, and much more about how the author dealt with professional and personal challenges.

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After A Stroke

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The Book of the Week is “After A Stroke, 300 Tips for Making Life Easier” by Cleo Hutton, published in 2005. The author of this short paperback had a stroke in 1992, but gives many tips that are still relevant to recovery from an event that adversely affects the brain, and therefore, specific body functions– that commonly impair one side of the body.

In recent decades, a huge amount of attention has been paid, and money spent on research for: raising awareness of stroke prevention and symptoms, treatment, and the introduction of products to make activities of daily living easier for stroke patients.

The author briefly discussed the neurological effects of a stroke, which are on a continuum; every patient is different. She explained that “constraint-induced therapy” helps a patient’s brain transmit messages through alternate neurological routes through the unaffected side of the body.

The author listed the common frustrations and situations recoverers might encounter:

feeling overwhelmed by everyday decisions, such as product-selections while shopping (in the United States, especially!);
loquaciousness upon regaining the ability to speak;
linguistic impairments such as usage of expletives in speech due to groping for the correct word– even for patients who wouldn’t normally utter them, or inability to understand idioms;
personality change;
seeing specific items in certain situations that prompts crying or laughing at inappropriate times due to damage to the visual association cortex.

The author recommended keeping aspirin in the freezer to help keep it fresh, if one is taking it.

Read the book to learn a slew of other useful tips for facilitating dealing with: the emotional problems arising from bodily impairments, getting around, communicating, cooking, eating, taking care of the home and one’s body, etc., etc, etc.

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American Mirror – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell” by Deborah Solomon, published in 2013.

Born in February 1894 in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, Rockwell was an illustrator known for his engaging scenes of ordinary Americans in a kind, lighthearted, innocent time.

The attitude of the United States was forced to change with WWII. FDR speechified about Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear. In 1943, Rockwell was tasked with creating images on posters (to promote the sale of War Bonds) that portrayed the freedoms; during which, he helped shape the image of “Rosie the Riveter.” In this way, Rockwell developed a reputation as a patriotic artist who reinforced America’s values, that contrasted with the values of America’s enemies.

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Rockwell’s life and career.

ENDNOTE: The 2024 presidential candidates should be asked to explain what they will do to preserve the above Four Freedoms in these modern times. Ironically, freedom of speech is what allows propagandists to whip the public into a frenzy of fear (!)

The freedom from fear directly stems from the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights that, arguably, the U.S. government violates daily, in this electronic age. President George W. Bush pushed for decriminalizing spying on American citizens via Congressional approval of the Patriot Act– a set of federal statutes separate from those contained in the U.S. Constitution. In the past forty years, the following presidents have been accused of a significant number of crimes in the following major categories:

war-related crimes: Reagan, H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush;
treason-related crimes: Reagan, G.W. Bush, Trump, Biden;
financial-related crimes: H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush, Trump, Biden;
sex-related crimes: Clinton, Trump, Biden

It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama’s name is absent from the above. He needed to avoid egregiously unethical behavior because, given his skin color, not only his political enemies, but also hatemongers— witch-hunted his and his family’s history and every move 24/7.

The question for the 2024 election is:

Is the country ready for another variation on the Caucasian Christian/Catholic male presidents– in terms of ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation?

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Nice Guys Finish Last

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The Book of the Week is “Nice Guys Finish Last” by Leo Durocher with Ed Linn, published in 1975.

Durocher was born in 1906 in West Springfield, Massachusetts. He began his baseball career playing utility infielder for the New York Yankees in 1925. He developed a reputation as a contentious alpha male. Branch Rickey, one of his bosses through the decades, said he was a “… man with infinite capacity for immediately making a bad situation worse.”

Durocher squandered his initial $5,000 annual salary on clothing, food and nightclubs in New York City. Always in debt, he was a pool-hall hustler, too. But everyone wanted to be seen with him, as his social set consisted of celebrities who lived life in the fast lane.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, and Bibliography) professional baseball culture for most of the twentieth century was mean-of-spirit, with alcohol-fueled violence. Team personnel such as Durocher were always thinking of new dirty tricks to win games.

Durocher admitted to trash-talking to batters to psych them out so his team’s pitcher would strike them out. Players suffered injuries galore due to lack of protective gear that would minimize or prevent injuries; batters especially suffered, as team-managers told their pitchers to deliberately hit batters with their pitching.

If hit, the batter was awarded the equivalent of a single as compensation. Durocher wrote, “I once saw Diz [pitcher Dizzy Dean] hit seven straight Giants [the baseball team players] in Miami early in the exhibition season, because the Giants had the nerve to score seven runs off him in one inning.” Finally, in 1940 (!), team-executive Larry MacPhail of the Brooklyn Dodgers ordered his players to wear plastic batting-helmets. This, after batter Joe Medwick was knocked out by a pitch by Bob Bowman of the Saint Louis Cardinals.

Durocher claimed that during the time he managed the Dodgers, MacPhail “fired” him zillions of times in the mid-1930’s, but most of the time, didn’t really mean it, until a tipping point was reached. As is well known, from the 1970’s into the 1980’s, the “You’re fired” situation became a running joke between Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and team manager Billy Martin, in order to entertain baseball fans.

Read the book to learn of other similar episodes, and trials and tribulations Durocher faced in his career (hint– major issues included his own newspaper column; the ongoing hostilities between the Yankees and the Dodgers; the media’s anti-Durocher lies and smears in its baseball reporting; punishments imposed by a few baseball commissioners over the years for alleged libel committed by, and gambling among, members of the ball clubs managed by Durocher; and a few of the colorful characters whom Durocher recruited and managed) and more. Curiously, Durocher failed to mention performance-enhancing drugs.

Anyway, speaking of contentious alpha males, here’s some advice for voters in this ditty concerning the 2024 candidates.

SHOW, NOT TELL

sung to the tune of “Express Yourself” (Official Video) with apologies to Madonna.

[spoken] C’mon America, do you want to see substance and quality in 2024? Of course you have something to SAY about it. That is how we roll.

Ignore the candidates’ bragfest, people.
Feel FREE to put them to the test.
You know, you know you’ve got to make them disPENSE with their spiel.
We want to KNOW their positions for REAL.

Politicians PULL the strings and THEY reap all the gold.

Their eight-year plan is way too vast.

You know, that never lasts, no, no.

What we need is a maTURE public-servant whose policies are smart and sound.
What we usually GET is a king on a throne, who’s abOVE the law and brings us down.

Ignore the candidates’ bragfest, people.
Feel FREE to put them to the test.
You know, you know you’ve got to make them disPENSE with their spiel.
We want to KNOW their positions for REAL.

Deep tax cuts are the way to your heart, but they treat you like an airHEAD. No, budget plans are NOT romantic. We’re hypoCRITically in the red.

Well, there’s no FREE lunch in life, it is TIME for the nation to move ON. Govern-ment should give you chances, but you’ve got to CRE-ate wealth on-your-OWN.

Ignore the candidates’ bragfest, people.
Feel FREE to put them to the test.
You know, you know you’ve got to make them disPENSE with their spiel.
We want to KNOW their positions for REAL.

De-STRESS yourselves. You’ve got to make them SHOW, not tell. Hey, hey, hey, hey.
To distinguish the greats, make them have the debates.
Show what they’ve GOT. We’ll see the best of the lot.

After all, you won’t reGRET it. Think about how much support they deserve.
If they don’t deserve it, they shouldn’t get it.
It’s YOU they should serve. So please

Show themselves. Show themselves. Hey, hey.

What we need is a maTURE public servant whose policies are smart and sound.
What we usually GET is a king on a throne, who’s above the law and brings us down.

After all, you won’t reGRET it. Think about how much support they deserve.
If they don’t deserve it, they shouldn’t get it.
It’s YOU they should serve. So please

Ignore the candidates’ bragfest, people.
Feel FREE to put them to the test.
You know, you know you’ve got to make them disPENSE with their spiel.
We want to KNOW their positions for REAL.

De-STRESS yourselves. You’ve got to make them SHOW, not tell. Hey, hey, hey, hey.
To distinguish the greats, make them have the debates.
Show what they’ve GOT. We’ll see the best of the lot.

SHOW themselves. SHOW themselves. Hey, hey.

To distinguish the greats, make them have the debates.
Show what they’ve GOT. We’ll see the best of the lot.

De-STRESS yourselves. ReSPECT yourselves…

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Just About Everybody vs. Howard Hughes

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The Book of the Week is “Just About Everybody vs. Howard Hughes, The Inside Story of The TWA-Howard Hughes Trial” by David B. Tinnin, published in 1973.

In the 1930’s, Howard Hughes inherited his father’s oil-industry-equipment company, Toolco, which sold a unique, patented, lucrative drill. By the early 1950’s, Hughes had become a pilot passionate about acquiring jets (whose engines had technology that was obsolescing pistons) for his airline, TWA. He was an alpha male whose desire for control of his company led to decades of complex litigation involving age-old economic and political issues.

As American society became ever more capitalistic in the Postwar Era, businessmen hired more and more attorneys to wield more and more power and influence. They sought to change the tax laws to make more and more money.

Hughes was a victim of his own success in that he was using highly leveraged, deficit financing to purchase the new jets through his Toolco. Into the 1950’s, individuals (rather than their companies or employers) were the ones responsible for debts if they needed to borrow money for their businesses. This economic condition has come full circle with tech startups.

Hughes borrowed from banks and insurance companies, but by the late 1950’s, his debt was so high, they refused to give him special treatment. He used dirty tricks (which arguably weren’t illegal but were unethical, at best) to order jets from a few different suppliers.

Hughes’ incestuous business transactions generated an escalation of commitment among various parties, who were averse to losing even more money if they withdrew from their ongoing deals with him. Need it be said, there is nothing new under the son (or sun– either one). In the early 1960’s, his creditors terminated his borrowing privileges and created a voting trust that took control of TWA. Neither side wanted to see TWA go bankrupt. There were, of course, other wrenches in the works, which are too numerous to mention here.

The orgy of litigation resulting from Hughes’ business activities triggered a very controversial legal and economic issue. Hughes owned 78.23% of the voting stock of TWA, which was financially affiliated with his Toolco. At that time, TWA shares were not owned by the general public. His side argued that he should be allowed to control his companies as he saw fit, because he had a controlling interest in them. On the other hand, he really didn’t own them– his creditors did!

Besides that, if TWA went belly-up, there would be far-reaching economic consequences for many stakeholders. All employees of TWA would lose their jobs, competing airlines would benefit financially, contractors supplying jets and their parts to TWA would lose a customer, Hughes’ lenders would lose megabucks, etc., etc., etc.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, and Bibliography), in June 1961, the big lawsuit initially launched in federal court in the Southern District of New York against Hughes was named TWA v. Howard Hughes. TWA charged Hughes with making special deals with third parties that led to financial harm for TWA. He tried to keep competing airlines from buying jets he wanted for TWA, through monopolistic practices.

BUT, due to disastrous losses (from a downturn in air travel that prompted proposals of various airline mergers, and his tax-evasion tricks), Hughes chose to cancel a portion of jet orders for TWA. Under his crushing debt load, he couldn’t afford to pay for all of his purchases. So the airline couldn’t stay competitive in the commercial airline industry. Other airlines were purchasing jets sooner at lower cost. Hughes’ series of attorneys through the years, of course used all manner of shenanigans (through: filing a blizzard of documents with creative legal arguments, counter-suing and appealing rulings) to delay the case.

One last-minute development that aided Hughes’ attorney before Hughes would be charged with contempt of court yet again, was a curious January 1963 Supreme Court ruling regarding jurisdiction in connection with a monopolistic entity. There was a little federal agency called the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), that had been regulating the airlines. The attorney repeatedly tried to get the case against Hughes dismissed– by arguing that CAB, rather than a federal court, should have been trying Hughes’ case.

Read the book to learn every last detail of this suspenseful story that spawned reams of tabloid fodder, but also greatly impacted the legal, economic and tax cultures of corporate America.

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Trail Fever – BONUS POST

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“He’s only secondarily interested in having his views written into the Republican Party platform: the moment that happens he’ll have lost his purpose in life. That purpose is to remain an outsider, an agitator, a sore loser.”

At the time this book was going to print, the author wrote the above about Patrick Buchanan. However, about three years later, Buchanan turned against Donald Trump (!) Buchanan was simply ahead of his time.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Trail Fever” by Michael Lewis, published in 1997. This paperback described the personalities, styles and activities of the 1996 Republican presidential candidates during primary season beginning in New Hampshire and Iowa.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked an extensive list of detailed sources, and an index), Morry Taylor, a businessman, was a candidate other than the aforementioned Buchanan. He had two great ideas to help improve the United States: 1. Close the law schools for a decade. 2. Elect only females for a decade.

Read the book to learn of the many other idiosyncratic, entertaining pieces of information gleaned by the author as he interviewed the candidates, attended their events, and personally traveled in their campaign vehicles.

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Behind the Candelabra

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The Book of the Week is “Behind the Candelabra, My Life With Liberace” by Scott Thorson with Alex Thorleifson, published in 1988.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in May 1919, the pianist who became known as Liberace (he used his family’s last name as his stage name) had three younger siblings. The father abandoned the family when he was an adolescent. However, Liberace was his mother’s favorite. Upon seeing that he had piano-playing talent, she had him practicing all the time, instead of socializing with his peers. She also practiced spousification. He began to get paid for his musicianship at fourteen, playing with a band in saloons.

Piano concerts were only the setting for Liberace’s performances. His witty verbal jousts, audience participation, makeup, ten or more changes of glittery costumes, jewelry galore, and flamboyant props and sets– were par for the course.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked an extensive list of detailed sources, and an index), Liberace was very emotionally needy. Once he became rich and developed Peter Pan syndrome, he felt the need to flaunt his high-on-the-hog lifestyle. As an adult, he became a father figure to a series of young males one at a time (but also had an army of servants), sharing his wealth and material possessions with them. However, he was the controller of the relationships, and would break up with them when they expressed too much desire for independence.

At the dawn of his twenties, Scott Thorson met Liberace and became his personal assistant in the summer of 1977. Thorson had suffered through a difficult childhood in a series of foster homes. He soon became Liberace’s surrogate son, and learned of the pianist’s excesses. He enjoyed his new role at first, as his interests meshed with his boss’s. They cared for pet dogs and horses, shopped for and wore elaborate clothing, ate sumptuous meals, met other celebrities, and traveled in style to go on tour.

Their first Christmas together, Thorson was tasked with purchasing holiday merchandise. He wrote, “That year, we had eighteen huge Christmas trees [in Liberace’s mansions in Las Vegas and Palm Springs CA, at a cost of $25,000], more than 350 red and white poinsettias, table decorations, greenery, wreaths– enough candles, lights, and tinsel to stock a department store.”

Read the book to learn of Thorson’s fate: when Liberace asked him to make a serious physical sacrifice; and how Thorson handled the responsibilities and stresses of living with a celebrity such as Liberace– with its many kinds of orgies, including those of litigation in the end.

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Our House – BONUS POST

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Here’s a little ditty that summarizes events of the past week or so in the United States House of Representatives.

OUR HOUSE

sung to the tune of “Our House” with apologies to “Madness” (the band).

McCarthy sold-his-SOUL, feeling pressed.

Reps are tired, they need a rest.

The committees are plotting beHIND closed doors.

The Caucus’s power took a LEAP. [ah-ah-ah]

Biden holds an olive branch, his legacy is now.

Our House, in the middle of the heat.

Our House, in the middle of the–

The Caucus was uncowed.

Males are always power-struggling and they’re usually quite proud.

The Speaker went-fifTEEN-rounds.

Only concessions slowed him down but defeat was not allowed.

Our House, in the middle of the heat.
Our House, in the middle of the–

Our House, in the middle of the heat.

Our House [Tabloids tell us that the radicals took hold of it.]

in the middle of the–

McCarthy rejected-the-Jan.-6 panel’s work.

His base didn’t know, whom to desert.

Then he wanted to probe the probers.

See him long-to-stay where Trump’s YOKE is. [ah ah ah]

Pelosi’s the one they’re going to miss in lots of ways.

Our House, in the middle of the heat.
Our House, in the middle of the–

[I remember way back when, men had honor

and the world didn’t have so very MANY spies.

No more PRIvate lives.

Such a FREE time.

And I remember how we’d live, simply face to face,

used our brains.

Software wouldn’t come between us.

No Tweeters.]

McCarthy sold-his-SOUL, feeling pressed.
Reps are tired, they need a rest.
The committees are plotting beHIND closed doors.
The Caucus’s power took a LEAP. [ah-ah-ah]
Biden holds an olive branch, his legacy is now.

Our House, in the middle of the heat.

Our House, in the middle of the–

Our House, we need IT for demo-cracy.

Our House, in the middle of the heat.

Our House, that is where some people sleep.

Our House…

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Gratitude In Low Voices

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The Book of the Week is “Gratitude In Low Voices, A Memoir” by Dawit Gebremichael Habte, published in 2017. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked an extensive list of detailed sources, and an index), through the decades of the twentieth century, Eritrea suffered the usual traumas of a former colony (of Italy from 1890 to 1941) that was fighting for independence:

exploitation of its assets and resources (including dry docks, factories, railway cars by the British, and oil by the British and the Americans in the 1940’s);
oppression of its people (by Ethiopia in the 1950’s and 1960’s, via a UN resolution that was violated after a decade);
a military draft (by the Ethiopian government in 1983);
famine (in 1984);
ideology and language of the oppressors forced on students in the schools (by Ethiopians, funded by the Soviets in the mid-1980’s); and
arrests of and atrocities committed against, Eritrean people who uttered one word in any form, critical of Ethiopia (beginning in the mid-1980’s).

In 1973 or 1974, the author was born into a typical lifestyle for his time and place. He herded sheep and goats at an early age. By then, the Eritrean independence movement was gaining ground in the form of two armed groups resisting Ethiopian oppression: Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). His father joined the former group, and desirous to have his son educated, in the early 1980’s, sent him to school in Asmara.

Through his formative years, the author received an eclectic education. At about nine years old, he became apprenticed to a carpenter. Afraid the generous pay would corrupt him, his mother sent him to study the Bible at Saint George Orthodox Church. There, he learned Tigrinya, the language of his native people. His father went to Saudi Arabia to work, and sent money home. Eventually, his family became refugees from the violence and left Asmara but stayed in Eritrea.

Read the book to learn what transpired when the author wished to gain access to the resources in a library in his neighborhood and later, when he paid a people-smuggler to help him flee for Kenya; and his and Eritrea’s fate.

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Black Box Thinking

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The Book of the Week is “Black Box Thinking, Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes– But Some Do” by Matthew Syed, published in 2015. This volume attempted to answer the question: “How does failure-denial become so deeply entrenched in human minds and systems?”

The author described two ways of thinking:

1. Some people believe their abilities are fixed, so they won’t improve with practice. They have fear of failure, and make excuses and / or blame others for their failures.

2. Other people believe they can get better with practice, and they are honest about admitting they have made errors. They learn from them. Success is achieved only through trial and error, hard work and persistence.

Number 1 above is also described in the following quote from Bertrand Russell: “There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” Yet another way of putting it is “hubris syndrome.”

Two of America’s recent presidents– George W. Bush and Donald Trump– were this kind of thinker. According to the author’s thesis, they succeeded against the odds (if success is defined as getting elected president), considering that they were blind to their own character flaws.

BUT– their common beginnings saw them through: They both began with the special advantages of inheriting money, mentors, lawyers, and valuable career and political contacts. They proceeded to fail upwards until they reached their peak “Peter principle” level, kind of like the joke: How do you make a small fortune in Israel? Answer: Come with a large one.

The author drew parallels between the topic-areas of aviation and healthcare delivery. These involve life-and-death scenarios when things go extremely wrong. However, that is where the similarities stop. People who have shaped the evolution of aviation have built up a knowledge-base that has served to produce lower and lower death tolls when catastrophes have occurred; powerful, influential people working in healthcare have been stubbornly resistant to adopting measures that would result in a drastic reduction in unnecessary deaths.

The author cited real-life examples from Great Britain and the United States. But there are other major reasons why his comparison is mostly invalid. These involve lawsuits, unions, government regulations and the political climate at the time of the disasters, and the following:

Obviously, workers in aviation have more of an incentive to improve safety, because in a disaster, many more people might die all at once in a plane crash, compared to the one patient on an operating table or examination table. Even if members of the flight crew survive a disaster, their careers are likely over. Even when doctors are at fault, they usually continue their careers.

The author discussed the pros and cons of just-culture versus blame-culture. He described the latter thusly: “It may be intellectually satisfying to have a culprit, someone to hang their disaster on. And it certainly makes life simple.”

The author recounted how a public-relations campaign can fool even intelligent people into believing a particular method of crime-prevention among young people, works wonders. The only way to debunk such a myth is through numerous Randomized Control Trials.

Read the book to learn about additional concepts surrounding psychological self-deceptions that humans employ in order to avoid admitting failures: cognitive dissonance, narrative fallacy, top-down versus bottom-up product development, various biases, and others.

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Sunflower in the Snow

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The Book of the Week is “Sunflower in the Snow, Tales From A Wartime Childhood” by Rachel Patron, published in 2020.

The author was born in January 1936 in Bialystock (in Poland). Her family’s textile-dyeing factory was requisitioned by the Soviets when they occupied their portion of Poland in autumn 1939. The family moved in with extended relatives elsewhere in Poland. In spring 1940, they moved back to Bialystock to their prewar house. But the NKVD requisitioned that, too.

Good news: The family wasn’t sent to a concentration camp. Bad news: The family was sent to Siberia in summer 1941, where they almost froze and starved to death, anyway. Their way of life was turned upside-down, due to all kinds of political, economic, religious and linguistic changes wrought by the War; to name just a few:

After the Germans broke up with the Soviets, the former sought to arrest all Communists and Socialists. The author’s father and much older brother were taken away by the Commissar’s thugs to serve as slave labor, and in the Red Army, respectively.
There was bartering in black markets.
The atheist Soviets canceled Christmas.
The author’s family spoke Yiddish among themselves because the Soviets did not speak it, but they spoke Russian to local officials.

When she was an adolescent, after various long interruptions of her formal education due to the government’s closing of schools for ideological reasons, the author was told she was a Socialist Zionist. This entailed:

atheism, which meant the author didn’t have to observe a kosher diet; and
the Law of Return– automatic citizenship for all Jews around the world after Israel declared its independence in May 1948.

Read the book to learn: more details of the author’s experiences, traumas specific to her family, and what became of them.

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The Courage to Survive – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Courage to Survive” by Dennis J. Kucinich, published in 2007. This raw, emotional, personal story was similar to those of: journalist Joe Queenan (Closing Time), and teacher Tara Westover (Educated).

Born in October 1946 in Cleveland, the author had a difficult childhood in an ever-growing, poverty-stricken family. His mother was of Irish ancestry; his father, Croatian. The latter was a mean, physically abusive drunk. In his daily life, the author was fortunate to receive guidance and life-lessons from community role models such as his parents, teachers, coaches, his many relatives, (Catholic) priests, godparents, etc.

Nevertheless, the author’s take on life by the time he reached his teens was as follows: “The violence I witnessed at home percolated … I was ready to unleash it, but not in the street… What do you do when you are a kid and you feel violent? Do you look in your neighborhood for people to beat up? Do you vandalize? Do you just plain raise hell?”

More and more in America, such young males who feel like powder kegs pick up firearms and shoot innocent strangers or rival gang members, or engage in cyber attacks and fraud. Instead, if they are lucky– their anger is channeled into competitive sports, the military, performing arts, or politics.

Read the book to learn about the forces that shaped the author’s start in politics.

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A Primate’s Memoir

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“Hearty, strong, large people who ate like hogs and worked like mad and filled their few leisure hours with hexes and witchcraft and clan feuds and revenge curses.”

No, not American political workers.

The above described the tribes such as Masai and Kisii– born in British East Africa. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked an extensive list of detailed sources, and an index), the warrior-tribes fought against each other, and on behalf of Britain during the world wars and against other tribes in Tanzania, Somalia and Uganda, near the Kenya borders, into the late twentieth century.

The Book of the Week is “A Primate’s Memoir, A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons” by Robert M. Sapolsky, published in 2001.

Starting in 1979, on and off, over the course of fifteen years, the author began observing a 63-member troop of baboons in Kenya. He learned about every aspect of their lifestyles. He made many errors in attempting to acquire experience anesthetizing them in order to test their bodily fluids and excretions. He finally learned how to shoot a tranquilizer dart from a blowgun, but even that had its complications.

The author also gathered a vast quantity of knowledge about the Masai tribe in the village. The women there were voicing their opinion that their children should receive a formal education. However, at that time, there were no supplies, no teachers, and most school buildings could be tens of miles away from villages. Even when progress was made on that front, the Masai men used their children’s school fees to buy alcohol.

The men felt entitled to be leaders in their communities, where they did almost no work. Herding cows and goats and deriving food from the animals was the mainstay of the Masai economy. The women did the housework and childcare; the boys did the herding until they became men, and in their late twenties, they were considered village-elders deserving of respect.

The Masai associated the author– a white male in his twenties– with someone who was knowledgeable about providing medical treatment to their people. He looked all official, with a box of bandages and a stethoscope. So he was pressured into dispensing the few drugs he had for a few different maladies, such as chloroquine for malaria and antibiotics for eye infections.

After a couple of years of graduate-school fieldwork, the author noted that there was no clear-cut “second banana” to the alpha male of the baboon troop. In fighting, the males bit each other using their sharp canine teeth in addition to pummeling each other with their fists.

As the years went by, two lower-level males– afraid of the top leader– formed alliances, but the leader was still sufficiently physically powerful to dominate them. The two allied with a third male, but all three were still too weak to stand up to the top baboon. They partnered with an old-timer male. It took a little longer for the boss to put them down. Finally, six males banded together and defeated the alpha male.

Read the book to learn much, much more about the lifestyles of the baboons, the Masai, and about how powerful-people were never caught and punished for knowingly spreading a plague among some baboons (Hint: “The meat was dutifully sold [by the Masai to the butcher], everyone became sick. The police came to investigate…”)

As can be seen from the aforementioned, the baboons have a social system largely similar to humans’. Here’s a little ditty one alpha male (Donald Trump) is singing now.

NO ONE WILL EVER

sung to the tune of “Nobody Told Me” with apologies to the Estate of John Lennon.

My foes are always talking. What they say is absurd.

America, I love. About you I really care.

There’s Socialists in the White House. Now we have Wall Street bears.

The IRS is out to get me. But my campaign is going on.

I always have something cooking. I foil all their evil plots.

They sent us disease from China. I started the Wall we’ve got.

No one will ever bring me to my knees.

Kudos to me. Kudos to me.

In ’24 I’m runnin’. No one else has made a move.

I’LL be the winner. I’ve still got lots to prove.

I’m a big super hero to all who are good and true.

Everybody’s on a witch hunt, and hauling me into court.

I’m a privileged leader. That’s my retort.

I belong in a million movies. But too bad. Life is short.

No one will ever bring me to my knees.

Kudos to me. Most excellent, MAGA.

The economy’s doing poorly. Prices are getting HIGH.

The liberals are crying. They’re eating humble pie.

All of them are liars, and I ain’t too surprised.

No one will ever bring me to my knees.

Kudos to me. Most excellent, MAGA. Whoa.

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His Eminence and Hizzoner

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The Book of the Week is “His Eminence and Hizzoner” by John Cardinal O’Connor and mayor Edward I. Koch, published in 1989. As might be recalled, at the book’s writing, O’Connor had recently been named a Cardinal in the Catholic Church. Koch was New York City’s mayor, starting in 1978. Each man took turns expressing his views on various hot-button political issues such as abortion, the separation of Church and State, discrimination, education, healthcare, etc.

In the 1980’s, when Americans began to receive tens of cable TV channels, the outrageously concentrated power and influence of the Catholic Church and media outlets such as the New York Times began to wane.

Indications of this include:

Prior to then, every year on Christmas day and Easter Sunday, the Pope delivered a speech televised on the three major TV networks, ABC, NBC and CBS. He was on all the channels. Present-day Americans have infinite educational and entertainment choices on these Christian holidays, around which crass commercialism, endless religious discussions, and stressful family gatherings revolve.
The New York Times‘ reviews- (of performing-arts productions, architecture, and other cultural goings-on in New York City among intellectuals) had extremely wide readership among influencers who would help attract or repel early attendees through word-of-mouth. This fed on itself to, say, close a show, or spur its longevity. The reviews were that influential. Fortunately, times have changed.

In another example, in the book from former American president Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal, Koch wrote about how Trump bragged about meeting with the Times‘ lead reviewer of architecture, Ada Louise Huxtable. That meeting led her to write a glowing article that put undue influence on the City Planning Commission. In this way, in building Trump Tower, Trump received especially advantageous structural and financial terms and conditions from the city government, that other developers didn’t get. And future developers wouldn’t get them either, due to zoning changes.

With respect to financial help from the government, Koch believed poverty programs for instance, should have lent money to small businesses, regardless of the ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. of the parties involved, to provide equal opportunity for everyone who was economically disadvantaged. He thought of “affirmative action” as helping people who had suffered or were suffering discrimination, by making them aware of jobs and education programs, but not giving them favorable treatment through setting quotas for their acceptance or hiring.

Read the book to learn much more about the views of the cardinal and the mayor, in their time and place– the 1980’s.

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Sandworm

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The Book of the Week is “Sandworm, A New Era of Cyberwar and the hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers” by Andy Greenberg, published in 2019. In this eye-opening volume, the author provided the backstory (out of chronological order, in a confusing, cherry-picked way) on how and why Russia has become the world’s biggest disrupter of society yet again through a new method. “Sandworm” refers to the Russian hackers who perpetrated cyberattacks. The author implied that knocking out power grids was one new way to destabilize target nations. But this is NOT a new idea.

Anyway, as is well known, in recent decades, for various reasons, Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, ordered his military to attack Estonia (in 1999 and later), Georgia in 2008 (yes, Soviet Georgia– not the American state), and Ukraine. These offensives were accomplished not just on the ground, but also through technology. Ukraine’s election process and electric power were both seriously damaged through the Internet.

In the United States, various federal agencies fight for the power to set policy on the country’s cybersecurity: FBI, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security; plus the U.S. military, North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and SANS Institute.

During the George W. Bush administration, America and Israel started a secret project to develop virulent malware that could wreak cyberwar on their enemies, but whose main purpose was to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons.

During the Obama administration, a young, bright Air Force officer was hired to build a cyber-security department from the ground up, within the NSA. However, he got disgusted with the abusive hierarchy of the American military, as new recruits’ talent was wasted because the status quo dictated that they pay their dues.

Meanwhile, after years of work, investigators found evidence that the Russians were to blame for penetrating America’s technology infrastructure in 2016. Even conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh jumped on the bandwagon, saying, “It was an acrylic [sic] keyboard!” [He meant Cyrillic].

In 2017, Britain’s National Health Service was disabled via malicious software code that demanded a small amount of bitcoins as ransom. Other entities hit included a German railway, a Russian bank , colleges in China, police departments in India, and malware called “NotPetya” that did a number on Ukrainian civilians who were really inconvenienced in living their everyday lives.

In sum, it’s deju vu all over again in terms of a Cold War arms race involving Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and the U.S. This time, though, the weapon is technology and the threats are made by numerous worldwide terrorist cells who can hack a target’s infrastructure and its political system (like with online voting in Arizona and Illinois) whenever their territory’s leader commands them to do so. Another difference is that the kinds of cyberattacks seen thus far are akin to one aspect of Nazism: sowing social unrest (rather than killing people; not that the Nazis didn’t also do that) to bring a nation down. Damage done by psychological harassment from foul play via the Internet is economically incalculable and extremely difficult to regulate because it is international.

As is well known, through the twentieth century into the new millennium, information sources evolved from newspapers, magazines, books, and radio, to television, cable television, and then the Internet. Currently, Google and social media can serve as news aggregators, but more often, they are for-profit propaganda tools, just like all the aforementioned media. Most Americans think of movies as entertainment rather than as a source of news or education, but in the Postwar Era, they have also become for-profit propaganda tools.

But take heart, America! There is at least one area of optimism that will help this country’s democracy continue:

Compared to now, there was as much as or even more social unrest in this country in 1968. Before and after, the nation suffered through two dictatorial presidents in a row— LBJ and Nixon– who were recruiting all men of military age; many against their will, to fight in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in a war that was extremely expensive in so many ways. They sowed social unrest among their own people. America has not had two such presidents in a row since.

Even so, LBJ was kind of schizophrenic because he helped pass major civil-rights legislation. However, his ego wouldn’t let him order a stop to the war. Nixon went all-out on lies and deception, wreaking vicious political vengeance on his perceived enemies because he didn’t think he’d ever get punished. As journalist P.J. O’Rourke commented, beginning in the mid-1960’s, the Baby Boomers threw “a decade-long temper tantrum.” But now, their generation is wise to political shenanigans of decades past.

In 1972, voter apathy was so severe that Nixon was reelected in a landslide. Nowadays, voter turnout is at an all-time high. This is cause for celebration. Americans are starting to understand why voting is so important: it shows they believe in the democratic process (regardless of for whom they vote). A significant number of voters are required in order for democracy to work. When a dictatorial leader senses the people aren’t paying attention to what he’s doing, he will take advantage of that to acquire more power. He’s more likely to do the people’s will when he sees their anger is close to reaching critical mass.

On that note, read the book to learn much more about the author’s alarmist take on the global cybersecurity situation.

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The Good American

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The Book of the Week is “The Good American, The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government’s Greatest Humanitarian” by Robert D. Kaplan, published in 2021.

Despite the sensationalist title, this large volume recounted the adventures of an international aid consultant. The author described how Gersony actually did the difficult, dangerous, rigorous work involved in assessing conditions “on the ground” during times of strife– all the gory details– in the world’s still-developing countries, during several American presidential administrations. In the Reagan Era, most of the tens of territories Gersony visited were in Latin America. He truly strove to get at the truth, regardless of his political bosses’ strategic interests.

Gersony often freelanced for USAID, interviewing refugees or peoples suffering from very common life-threatening situations of Third-World places: dictatorial oppression, ethnic or religious violence, atrocities, genocide; then generating a report that recommended how to allocate funds in assisting those peoples. Suggestions might include educational programs or building infrastructure involving transportation, medicine, water, etc., that improved the recipients’ quality of life.

In 1988, in a rare instance, Gersony’s influence actually reversed America’s plan to aid a political militia supported by Angola’s leader, Jonas Savimbi. That militia, RENAMO, was committing atrocities against people in Mozambique. It was fighting a rival group, FRELIMO.

But various officials, including president Reagan, senators Jesse Helms and Bob Dole, aide Pat Buchanan, UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and CIA director William Casey supported Savimbi anyway because he was anti-Communist. As is well known, the Reagan administration tended to turn a blind eye to extreme human rights abuses if there was a chance Soviet influence could be contained in the region.

For example, the United States funded violent groups in (to name just a few troublesome places where Communism might have taken root were it not for heroic “freedom fighters”): Afghanistan (for decades!), Nicaragua and Angola; never mind the resulting countless, needless deaths and ruined lives. To be fair, other American presidents (after the Communist threat was greatly reduced) have also used (misallocated?) billions of taxpayer dollars in top-secret projects for the purposes of allegedly reducing threats to democracy from conflicts over fossil fuels, nuclear weapons and in cyberspace.

At any rate, in refugee camps, Gersony interviewed 196 Mozambicans who had fled the violence. He was able to convince key people in the Reagan administration to put the kibosh on funding RENAMO. For a change, concern for peoples’ well-being trumped attempts to contain Soviet influence through strong-arm tactics. Unsurprisingly, the aforesaid Jesse Helms and the Washington Times were less than thrilled.

Read the book to learn of many episodes in which Gersony’s attempts to sway American foreign aid decisions toward a humane approach– through providing recent, accurate forest-and-trees analyses– were frustrated. Nonetheless, every situation was super-complicated by geopolitics, though the media often oversimplified stories with sensationalist propaganda meant to (excuse the cliche) sell papers. Along these lines, here’s a little ditty that liberal news-junkies sing:

WHENEVER PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

sung to the tune of “The Things We Do For Love” with apologies to 10cc.

Too many OPpressed people have-been sold, down the river.
Too many power-hungry men, too much greed.
When leaders lay their bets, we-all PAY the price.

WhenEVer push-comes to shove.
WhenEVer push-comes to shove.

Arming fighters is NOT always the answer.
They whip up panic that we’re in the danger zone.
Violence has turned, and the media’s GONE to town.

WhenEVer push-comes to shove.
WhenEVer push-comes to shove.

Like wading in their predecessor’s muck
and they’re out of luck,
and they can’t change horses in mid-stream.
They’re lookin’ for reelection in a short time.
They think they’ll compromise, but they fool enough people with lies.

Ooh, you make me cynical. Ooh, stop your POWer play.
Ooh, I’ll vote against you. Human-rights today!

Ooh, you make me cynical. Ooh, stop your POWer play.
Ooh, I’ll vote against you. Human rights today!

Transparency MIGHT help the situation.
You can’t fool all the people, all of the time.

Make America KIND again.

WhenEVer push-comes to shove.
WhenEVer push-comes to shove.

WhenEVer push-comes to shove.
WhenEVer push-comes to shove…

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The Emergency

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The Book of the Week is “The Emergency, A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in A Chicago ER” by Thomas Fisher, published in 2022.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, friendly bedside manner disappeared in the Emergency Room of the author’s employer, a medical center affiliated with the University of Chicago, on Chicago’s South Side. The author, a medical doctor, was tasked with judging whether to put newly arrived patients on ventilators.

Already a stressful place, the Emergency Department was put under excessive tension when an edict was issued that everyone entering the building was required to cover his or her mouth and nose (with any old piece of germy fabric or a plastic shield; most wore the fabric). The authorities perpetuated the scientifically questionable assertion that covering one’s face (with anything) would stem the spread of disease.

BUT, requiring the country’s entire population to wear medical masks would be impractical and unenforceable. There wouldn’t be enough medical masks for everyone; meaning, masks that would filter one’s toxic exhalations, allow one to breathe relatively easily, while presumably, disallowing most germs from entering and exiting one’s mouth and nose. So, instead, across the country, there was rampant abuse of power by numerous officials in controlling the population with petty, dishonest mask-orders.

Anyway, a nearby Chicago hospital had no more ventilators, and another had only three on hand. A patient might not have COVID, but still might be struggling to breathe because she had heart failure from postpartum cardiomyopathy. The author decided to treat a young patient such as this one with magnesium, additional Lasix and nitroglycerin instead of a ventilator, because she would be more likely to survive than an older patient in poor health who had severe COVID.

“Still, too many physicians and scientists accept that the inequities around us emerge from inside the body we treat, rather than in relation to prevailing societal structures or systems… But it is society that shapes the population-wide patterns we see.”

This volume presented, in a series of anecdotes on the patients admitted and treated by the author, reasons why this country desperately needs NATIONAL HEALTHCARE. It is the right thing to do at this time in history. Other reasons can be found in this blog’s posts:

Morphine, Ice Cream, and Tears. (sic); Chasing My Cure; Clinging to the Wreckage; and I Shall Not Hate.

Read the book to learn of the physical and psychological traumas suffered by not just patients, but also caregivers, that could be prevented or minimized by improving policies in national healthcare in the United States.

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Dr. Folkman’s War

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The Book of the Week is “Dr. Folkman’s War, Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer” by Robert Cooke, published in 2001.

In the 1970’s, Judah Folkman was a competent surgeon and a very popular professor at Harvard Medical School, but his first love was medical research. He hypothesized about why and how a tumor grows. He inferred that blood vessels grow toward a tumor, but was unable to provide proof for a very long time. He was ostracized for having this radical idea, so he had difficulty attracting enthusiastic graduate students to assist him, and with getting funding for his research.

Traditionally, university medical studies in laboratories had been funded by government grants. Profiteering from patents and medical products resulting from research was considered sleazy in scientific circles. In 1974, Harvard broke the taboo and partnered with the large, profit-making organization called Monsanto.

Even after receiving generous funding, Dr. Folkman worked around the clock simply because making new medical discoveries requires months or years of blood, sweat and tears. The materials required to do experiments can be expensive, messy, odorous and pose unanticipated problems. For a while, Folkman’s lab was working with vast quantities of cow and shark meat (and other obscure, problematic materials) because the animals’ cartilage contains no blood vessels.

Even after the doctor’s studies yielded exciting breakthroughs, media articles influenced the medical community and the public in ways that were harmful to Folkman’s research operations. There were even accusations of fraud against him. It turned out that in his team’s haste to treat cancer patients, many errors were made. Time was of the essence, and procedures for organized data collection were lacking. Folkman wasn’t deliberately trying to deceive anyone.

Folkman was a rare bird in that he was quite altruistic with his time and talents. His patience and persistence allowed him to ignore his detractors and the naysayers (most of whom were jealous). He eventually acquired an area of expertise that not only spawned a new way of thinking about cancer treatment, but also led to treatments for other medical conditions, and whole new industries, including biotech. He also helped shatter a myth in cancer treatment. But this additional idea of Folkman’s still might not be fully accepted in oncology circles (due to GREED), even two decades after the writing of this book.

This is what he learned: The approach to cancer-drug delivery to a tumor of:

“low [dosage] and slow [buildup over the long-term]” was shown to be superior to

“might makes right” and come in with guns blazing; in the past, it was hoped that immediate, large doses would eliminate the tumor before metastasis, and before the patient died from the deaths of too many healthy cells that were also killed in the process.

In other words: The patient’s treatment should begin with a low drug dosage, and if that proves ineffective, increase the dosage gradually until it is effective. Folkman’s experiences with patients showed that that was the successful way to go, and he even saw a few miraculous cures.

Read the book to learn many more details on Folkman’s trials and tribulations and the reasons for them, and what transpired when he finally found vindication.

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Did Elon Musk Lose Your Favor – BONUS POST

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As is well known, the messaging-clutter in the United States has reached a screaming crescendo. Here’s a question in connection with the tenor of the times.

DID ELON MUSK LOSE YOUR FAVOR

sung to the tune of “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor” [1961 Hits Archive] with apologies to the estate of Lonnie Donegan.

Oh [bleep], oh [bleep], oh you.
Whatever shall we do?
And YET one more bleep.
The question is so deep.
At stake is big-time dough.
Politicos want to know,
the pollsters’ Twitter question:
Is it yes or is it no?

Did E-LON Musk lose your favor by poor judgement overnight?
If the critics say just quit it,
do you keep your account in spite?
Do you seek out all the radicals?
Do you follow the Left or Right?
Did E-LON Musk lose your favor by poor judgement overnight?

Here he COMES with excessive pride.
His atTORNeys by his side.
THOSE lies and smears
everywhere are stoking fears
that our country could be wrecked.
But free speech is guaranteed,
and as Musk has trouble with control, he wants to take the LEAD.

Now the nation’s split in two.
Democracy will come through,
at every level, yeah, every single level.
Each side keeps the other in check.
We do it with Big Tech.
The most influential voices keep the candidates neck and neck.

If a price tag’s made of a price,
what’s a hashtag made of? [Boom, boom]

By poor judgement overnight?

You’re the best, and Twitter loves you, and it wants to make things right.
It’s going to be the most trendy, uncensored social media site.

By poor judgement overnight?

A spade is a spade and
a fact is a fact.
He’d sing another chorus but
he’s afraid of getting hacked.

By poor judgement overnight? Yeah!

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The Vortex

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The Book of the Week is “The Vortex, A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation” by Scott Carney and Jason Miklian, published in 2022. This multi-faceted story involved a massive number of deaths due to (cue the dramatic music): the Great Bhola cyclone (what would be called a hurricane in the Western Hemisphere), a cholera epidemic, dictatorial political shenanigans, atrocities and genocide; plus heroic international aid workers who were horribly hindered in their disaster-relief efforts. Sorry, no romantic subplot– this wasn’t a movie; all of this actually happened within the space of about three years. But at the end, there was the founding of a new nation, called Bangladesh.

Even decades after geographic separation of various religious and ethnic groups into: A) India, and B) a sovereignty of two discrete land masses (East and West) that comprised newly formed Pakistan in 1947– hostility still reigned. In Pakistan, anger and resentment simmered between the Muslim Punjabis in West Pakistan who spoke Urdu, and the Hindu Bengalis in East Pakistan (which became Bangladesh), who spoke their own language.

In the mid-1960’s, general Ayub (“Yahya”) Khan, who became Pakistan’s leader in 1969 [For more information, see this blog’s post, “The Rape of Bangla Desh”], ordered Pakistan’s military to attack India. The United States imposed economic sanctions on both Pakistan and India for childishly fighting. Pakistan allied with China. India allied with the then-USSR.

In August 1969, American president Richard Nixon tapped Yahya to be the contact to introduce him to China’s leader Mao Tse Tung. In exchange, Yahya wanted to purchase arms for Pakistan. Nixon violated the then-arms embargo against Pakistan to sell it armored personnel carriers and B-57 bombers.

In 1970, there occurred a quantum leap in hurricane-forecasting technology what with a new satellite called ITOS 1 that gathered real-time data on the Northern Hemisphere for the National Hurricane Center. Nevertheless, because they had no clue a storm was coming (the new forecasting technology had yet to reach Central Asia), almost all local residents drowned when the Great Bhola cyclone hit the delta near Manpura island in November 1970. A month later, fifty million Pakistanis were voting for the first time in their lives.

A few months later, American weapons were killing the Bengali people. Nixon was supporting Yahya. The latter’s military leader whipped up a Nazi-level frenzy of hatred against the Hindus, massacring them with .50 caliber machine guns and destroying– via American M-24 Chaffee tanks, jeeps and F-86 jets– key communication, political, educational and law enforcement structures in the city of Dacca in East Pakistan.

Unsurprisingly, all of the above was accompanied by a boatload of radio propaganda put out by Yahya’s side. But later, radio broadcasts helped the Bengalis. Anyway, Nixon aided and abetted Yahya in various additional ways to achieve his own political aims. Refugees fled to India, and where, counterintuitively, military camps trained Bengalis (technically Pakistanis) to resist the Pakistan Army. Indians had always been sworn enemies of Pakistanis. Still, it was in India’s best interest to see the Bengalis win the war and break up Pakistan.

There have occurred countless historical tapestries such as the aforementioned in which a complex bunch of circumstances resulted in millions of deaths; one thing led to another. The authors argued that the especially severe cyclone played a major role in giving scheming politicians an excuse to abuse their power even more. They asserted that more severe storms are occurring due to the earth’s changing atmosphere, and such natural disasters in turn trigger a series of events that increase global conflicts.

BUT, arguably, global conflicts have waxed and waned throughout history, regardless of natural disasters. There are four major causes of global conflicts (that are present in different combinations):

fighting over limited (and /or exploited) resources;
tribal hatreds;
religious hatreds; and
territorial disputes.

Present-day events (!) have shown that humanity is making slow, slow, slow progress towards a total net amount of good versus evil on earth– even with all the advances in early-warning systems for disasters and the striving for more widespread humanitarian activities. Cases in point: once-Communist countries have changed for the better in certain ways in the last thirty years, and there is less colonialism in the world than there used to be.

Unfortunately, advances in technology and charitable aid still trigger profiteering and political exploitation with their attendant propaganda. Alpha males with hubris syndrome with their greed and power-hunger still rule most of the world. Bottom line: human nature doesn’t change, but globally, human beings overall, are evolving.

Anyway, read the book to learn many more story-details, involving: how Nixon (and his evil sidekick Kissinger) came extremely close to instigating a nuclear war against the USSR in the Bay of Bengal; the fates of various political and military leaders; and the hapless common people of Pakistan, and the aid workers who passionately tried to help them.

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Holding the Line

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The Book of the Week is “Holding the Line, Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and Its Battle With the Trump Justice Department” by Geoffrey Berman, published in 2022.

In January 2018, the author was appointed chief prosecutor at the (federal) Attorney General’s office in the Southern District of the city of New York (SDNY). He wrote about the various legal cases on which his office worked, that were subjected to unprecedented, inappropriate and outrageous meddling from president Donald Trump’s sycophants at the U.S. Department of Justice.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography), an entity named “Main Justice” was the intermediary gatekeeper that determined how much power over cases SDNY had when there was a dispute between SDNY and the Department of Justice.

In February 2019, Bill Barr became the ultimate authority on how federal law enforcement officers prosecuted certain kinds of crimes: he became U.S. Attorney General (which also made him head of the U.S. Department of Justice). He pulled the strings of Main Justice. There was ample evidence he was acting in such an extremely unjust manner because he was playing partisan politics. The American court system is supposed to be nonpartisan– favoring neither Republicans nor Democrats.

Barr broke a taboo against using his power for the purpose of political retaliation on behalf of his boss, the president of the United States. Countless taxpayer dollars were wasted on Barr’s shenanigans in trying to pressure the author and his fellow prosecutors to sign their names on legal documents that prevented president Trump from being investigated for anything and everything criminal.

Anyway, in one case, Main Justice failed to inform SDNY in a timely manner that it couldn’t submit “smoking gun” emails as evidence relating to a proposed question about citizenship on the 2020 U.S. Census. SDNY had never encountered such unfair treatment before.

In another case, Barr, the bully, through Main Justice, tried to reverse additional charges of campaign finance violations against Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, who had already been convicted of crimes. However, as the author related, sometimes, dishonor among thieves prompts curious things to happen, as in the Halkbank case.

The author also pointed out how ridiculous Barr appeared when he pressured the author to become head of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, but then asked him whether he had any experience in civil litigation.

Read the book to learn about various other cases– on most of which hours and hours of work done by the author and his fellow prosecutors turned out to be wasted, due to Barr’s unethical demands– including those involving: Jeffrey Epstein, John Kerry, NYCHA, New York City gang leaders, a drug company CEO, art theft, and many more; plus the author’s recommendations on how to make the Attorney General’s office work better in the name of justice.

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Due Process – BONUS POST

As can be seen lately, due process for removing politicians from office in Britain, starkly contrasts with that in the United States.

Liz Truss herself wasn’t accused of committing any crimes. Her wrongdoing consisted of spouting empty rhetoric, and drafting unpopular budget plans. She wasn’t a shameless megalomaniac hiding behind an army of attorneys, so she was pressured into resigning (!)

Here’s a little ditty that explains why former president Donald Trump stayed a full four years, while Truss lasted only weeks.

DUE PROCESS IN THE FREE WORLD

sung to the tune of “Rockin’ in the Free World” with apologies to Neil Young.

There’s fighting in the States, between red and blue.
There’s chaos in Great Britain, and a leadership coup.
America learned a lesson on the road behind.
OUR former leader was accused of crimes.
Some SAW Trump as Satan but his PR was so good.
He acted like a god any way he could.

Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.

I saw accuSA-tions everywhere: tax evasion, accounting fraud.
Hush money, quid-pro-quo, in-trigue a-broad.
Trump’s lawyers delayed, but he could still take a hit.
Look at his life– and the PATterns in it.

There’s one more leader who’s played many for fools,
who harnessed discontent, who broke all the rules.

Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.

We got a thousand-lawyer fight, for every powerful man.
For the rich, an easier litigation hand.
We got courts galore and Presidential Papers.
Got the Supreme Court for the elite players.
Elected an alpha male to lead a nation in decline.
He had legal fees to burn.
He refused to resign.

Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.
Evolving due process in the free world.

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The Education of A Speculator

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The Book of the Week is “The Education of A Speculator” by Victor Niederhoffer, published in 1997.

Born in 1943 in Brooklyn in New York City, the author sorted “market advisers and investment newsletter writers” into eight different categories, providing a brief description of their behaviors or personality traits. He classified himself as “The Other World Person” because he ignored the overpaid noisemakers and distractions of conventional media outlets that purported to convey information on which securities to buy, sell, or avoid.

The author’s two data sources for his commodities, currency trading and investing ideas consisted of the National Enquirer and his research results from testing all kinds of variables in statistics-calculations of past securities-market data using software. No other sources.

The mid-1990’s saw great advances in statistics software modeling that could process scads and scads of data; hence, market players could erroneously use past performance of investment vehicles faster than ever before for predictive purposes to help themselves and others lose their money faster than ever before. And those advances might have played a part in the scandals and financial crashes that have occurred with alarmingly increasing frequency in the last thirty years. Big Tech’s and Big Media’s incestuous oligopolies (fraught with political donations) just keep getting more hegemonic, so that power and money keep feeding on themselves ad infinitum. Globalization is yet another wrench in the works.

At the book’s writing, global trade had been maturing for decades, but capitalism was still in its infancy in many territories of the world; particularly in ones that were becoming politically democratic again, or for the first time in their histories. Many European countries were in the process of adopting cooperation rather than competition in their financial and economic dealings. A large proportion of them even voted to use one currency among them. The United States kept to itself, but more and more people around the world were starting to trade or invest in foreign securities, currencies and governmental financial entities, so chain reactions occurred more and more.

The Federal Reserve (aka Fed) has always been a major influence on America’s financial markets. The author contended that the Fed was just as clueless as the rest of the country about what effects its making of rate-adjustments would have on the nation’s economy. It is currently just as clueless. But its announcements are made with such confidence and arrogance, that a large number of their listeners are brainwashed into believing they are receiving valuable information.

The incumbents– known names pre-Internet–became the most influential voices in the financial sphere. The wiliest ones use propaganda techniques to paper over their wrong predictions. They never apologize for the losses stemming from their pronouncements. The walls of the author’s business office were lined with portraits of ones who had disastrous losses.

To be fair, the author himself told various anecdotes of his own failures. In 1992, he bought IBM stock for his own kids. That was an embarrassing mistake. He learned to cut his losses at a certain level of the total money he reinvested. And, he didn’t let his greed get out of control when he was winning.

The author was a champion squash player. One similarity between squash and speculating is externalities–opponents’ actions determine players’ actions in the game. So, for instance, in ten-pin bowling, there are no externalities. In squash, there are. In one college finals-match, the author moved his body in a way that tricked his opponent into thinking the ball was going to go in a certain direction, but it went the opposite way. Traders and investors play similar tricks in their communications in the financial markets. Conditions change rapidly so even the market propagandists’ winning streaks don’t last long.

The reason is:

First, independent thinkers make observations or find obscure data that works in making them money. Then software detects their trading tricks. So word gets around, and everyone else jumps on the bandwagon so that the advantage is lost.

Human beings want so badly— to believe they can predict the future, and love to fantasize about getting rich quick– that they tend to look for patterns and order where none exist. The author did provide one vast generalization that might be valuable, though. His statistical analysis between the years 1870 and 1995 inclusive showed that years ending in the digit 5 were good years, and those ending in 7 were bad, for the American stock markets. He didn’t speculate as to why.

However, politics is one major mover of markets, and the collective mood of the United States specifically, might be a bit more upbeat in years when political uncertainty is at a minimum. Presidents and other politicians begin or continue their terms during years ending in 5. The public might be unclear about their future policy directions, or weary of them by the years that end in 7.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about the author’s philosophy, his trials, tribulations and triumphs in the markets, his research results and comparisons between financial markets and: ecology, games and sports.

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Burn Rate

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The Book of the Week is “Burn Rate, Launching A Startup and Losing My Mind” by Andy Dunn, published in 2022. Born in February 1979 in the United States, the author won the lottery in that he had family and friends who knew him well enough to recognize that, given his personality, his behavior was anomalous. He was doubly lucky that not only did he get mental-health treatment before he ended up in jail (well, at least on one occasion) or in the cemetery, but also, he could (with assistance from others) afford it.

“… for many, even a ‘chill’ drug like marijuana can stimulate a manic episode.” The author got to college still unaware that bipolar disorder (aka manic-depressive illness) ran in his family; his grandmother had had it. People who actually have the condition suffer under a Damocles sword their whole lives, as their mental state goes through unpredictable cycles, even with medication. Of course, stress exacerbates the highs and lows. The medication has side effects that are meant to dull the emotions, so bipolar patients don’t experience and enjoy life as much as people whose brain chemicals are more stable than theirs.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), while in college, the author was ingesting alcohol and controlled substances such as ecstasy, magic mushrooms and marijuana on a daily basis, and taking the (radical) acne medication Accutane. Somehow, he graduated anyway, and got his MBA at Stanford. He explained that the professors there educated students in entrepreneurship, if they wanted to go that route. The author did.

After years of interesting ups and downs, in 2016, the author– a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs (who had last been World Series winners in 1908)– was afforded the opportunity to see game 7 of the World Series in Cleveland. But first, he had to rush to JFK airport from the streets in the East 50’s in Manhattan, beginning an hour before his plane took off, to get there. His cab driver did 90 MPH. Sympathetic people at the airport made way for him when they heard about his situation.

Read the book to learn of the author’s other trials and tribulations, triumphs and defeats. Speaking of defeats…

This is the song Hillary Clinton is singing now.

IN POST-CLINTON TIME

sung to the tune of “Sunny Afternoon” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

My opponents BEAT me the last two times.
Deplorables and BERnie were unkind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.
And though I CAN-not be in charge,
I’m not locked up, I’m still at-large.
All I WANT’S in-the Situation Room.

Save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Donald Trump’s ruined my rep.
He’s in his safehouse doing ’24 prep,
spewing the usUAL blather and cruelty.
Now I’m here online,
doing the grass-roots, make-work grind.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room.

Help me, help me, help me
revive my ca-reer.
Well, give my Party money
to get me out of here.

‘Cause I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I sorely miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

Ah, save me, save me, save me
from bad publicity.
I’ve got lots of enemies.
It’s a VAST right-wing conspiracy.

And I love to hobnob with elites,
brag about my political feats.
I SOREly miss the Situation Room,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time,
in post-Clinton time.

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Heart of Fire – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Heart of Fire, An Immigrant Daughter’s Story” by Mazie K. Hirono, published in 2021.

Hirono’s mother was born in Hawaii but moved back to live in a snowy, mountainous region of Japan, and suffered with an abusive husband who was also a drinker and gambler. It took months for her to make numerous visits to the United States embassy in Tokyo on an overnight train to do the necessary paperwork to move herself and two of her three surviving children, the oldest of whom was Hirono, to Hawaii.

Hirono was born in November 1947 in rural Japan. She spent four years of her early childhood living with her grandparents, who were landowners of rice paddies, vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, and a farm that had chickens and goats.

In the 1900’s, people from various Asian countries populated Hawaii: Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and native Hawaiians. But many of them worked for Caucasian sugar-plantation owners, and could not become naturalized American citizens under Hawaiian law until Hawaii became a state in August 1959.

In the summer of 1968, Hirono and nine other volunteers counseled at-risk youths in a special program in a homestead (high-crime, downtrodden neighborhood). They were out of their depth in attempting to stem the gang violence, crime, drug addiction and sexual assault.

Hirono did not have sufficient life experience and confidence in her abilities until much later, when she was elected to political office and became vocal in taking an active role in changing the world. Prior to that, she explained, “…I was still under the sway of a cultural triple whammy– I was a woman; I was of Japanese descent; and I had been raised in the nonconfrontational atmosphere of the Island I called home [Hawaii].”

Read the book to learn much more about Hirono’s life experiences.

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Son of Hamas

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The Book of the Week is “Son of Hamas, A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” by Mosab Hassan Yousef, with Ron Brackin, published in 2010. In this alpha-male bragfest, Yousef’s unique position as the son of a top Hamas leader afforded him special treatment at the hands of the Israelis.

Born in the West Bank (in the Middle East) in 1978, Yousef was his family’s oldest son. His father and six other men formed Hamas in 1986 in order to assert their perceived rights to the territories occupied by Israelis (Jewish people). At the end of 1987, the group encouraged discontented, impressionable youths to throw stones and burn tires in protest.

Thus began the First Intifada, which was comprised of a boatload of violence in Gaza and the West Bank (the “Occupied Territories”). In the ensuing decades, the violence waxed and waned, pursuant to shifting hatreds and alliances between and among various groups. It was actually in the best interests of most parties (whose motives differed) to keep the fighting going.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a group on the side of Palestinians– had an ideological rather than religious (Muslim) bent. Hamas had the latter; its source book, the Quran, was considered the ultimate authority governing their lives. Its leaders staged school closings and work stoppages so that they wouldn’t have to pay as much in taxes than otherwise to the Israeli government. In the early 1990’s, Hamas and the PLO took turns inciting the strikes in the West Bank.

By spring 1991, without their leaders’ permission, impatient to reclaim Palestine for themselves, some younger Hamas members armed themselves with guns (rather than stones, spray cans for graffiti and Molotov cocktails) and committed serious violence against Israelis. Hamas’ leaders didn’t want to acquire a reputation for attacking their enemies with savagery, so they created a spinoff group (called Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades) for public relations purposes, that could take responsibility for particularly ugly attacks.

The bloodshed escalated through 1992. In December, the Israeli military arrested hundreds of leading Palestinian activists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood. Those detained were bused to southern Lebanon and jailed. During their confinement, Hamas members allied with Hezbollah, a terrorist group based in Lebanon. Various other historical events all but guaranteed that the vendetta would plague the region for a long while.

One major sticking point in the negotiations among the warring parties was recognition of the sovereignty of Israel. In the early 1990’s, PLO leader Yasser Arafat conceded such recognition in treaty discussions. He and Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a 1993 document (containing terms and conditions of a truce which didn’t last long) with the help of mediator, American president Bill Clinton.

On that territorial point, Hamas vehemently disagreed because, “… the land belonged to Allah. Period. End of discussion. Thus for Hamas, the ultimate problem was not Israel’s policies. It was the nation-state Israel’s very existence.” Hamas and Israel insisted they had to have the geographic entity they were claiming– they wouldn’t agree to settle on land elsewhere of equivalent size or value.

In 1996, at age eighteen, Yousef was an angry young man who wanted to wreak revenge by killing people such as members of the Palestinian Authority (formerly the PLO) and /or Israelis. He therefore tried to get hold of weapons through his cousin’s contacts in Nablus. He got caught. For, the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet was tapping his phone.

Read the book to learn of how the course of events in Yousef’s life prompted a maturation process that led him to:

quell his anger at his perceived enemies;
play adolescent-boy spy games;
learn Israel’s techniques for dividing and conquering their Palestinian rivals;
learn why the United States was caught with its pants down in connection with national security that allowed 9/11 to happen;
study the Christian bible;
understand where his father was coming from (hint: Yousef’s father helped plot terror attacks carried out on the ground by restless young males temperamentally similar to his son, so he was able to rationalize away his sociopathic behavior); and do much more.

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The Six Days of Yad-Mordechai – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Six Days of Yad-Mordechai” by M. Larkin, originally published in 1965.

Passionate, mostly Polish Holocaust survivors who were able to make their way to the Gaza Strip in Palestine in late 1943 worked tirelessly to establish a new kibbutz called Yad-Mordechai. The socialistic ideal of their farm collective was this: “Since economic dependence upon the father was what gave him power, such dependence was abolished in their society.”

Still, the community fell short of total gender equality, as the males did the hard manual labor on the infrastructure; an all-male militia except for one female fought against attacking Egyptians, and females did all the food preparation and childcare.

In November 1947, a majority of United Nations (UN) members voted in favor of partitioning Palestine between an Arab state and a Jewish state. The situation was to become official in mid-May 1948, when the British were to withdraw its officials from Palestine. Arab countries broadcast propaganda that gave their fellow tribesmen the impression they were only temporarily evacuating their homes by that same deadline, and would eventually conquer the Jews and return to take over the entire strip of land that was slightly larger than the state of New Jersey.

The Yad Mordechai kibbutz just happened to be located in the Arab state. The Arabs refused to recognize the UN vote, and decided to fight the Jews for the entire territory. The villains of WWII– ex-Nazis and Italian Fascists, plus Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians and Trans-Jordanians fought on behalf of the Arabs. The Jews had poorly equipped militias and intelligence cells called the Hagana, Palmach, Irgun and the Stern group.

Nevertheless, as of this writing, Wikipedia says this kibbutz still exists today, and its population is 737. It might be recalled that pure socialism thrived for a short time when the State of Israel was born. That was an extremely special exception, for the following major reasons; the kibbutzniks:

were forced to work together in order to survive in the desert, geographically surrounded by enemies;

were like-minded– oppressed for their religion– seeking a safe place in the world;

had a common goal bigger than themselves– building a country for themselves from the ground up– creating the political, social and cultural systems and infrastructure when everything was simple and their population was low;

had in common the shared, traumatic experience of WWII and/or the Holocaust; and

had substantial financial and military help from the United States.

Lo and behold, Yad Mordechai has since turned to capitalism to survive, selling certain brands of foods. However, the dangers of capitalism become apparent when financial scandals and crashes plague the nation due to EXCESSIVE DEREGULATION.

As is well known, there was consolidation through the 1980’s and 1990’s of the corporate auditing industry, and “Big Six” became the “Big Four” eventually, prompting businesses across the country to become even more incestuous (corrupt) in their relationships with their auditors.

In 1994, the big-name auditor Ernst & Young fired their in-house legal department and hired outside legal counsel. They must have been hiring employees from the competition, who brought a certain corporate culture to their legal department. In 2002, the Enron / Arthur Andersen scandal broke.

Certain wise folks can see a scandal coming. Like Ernst & Young. They don’t know exactly when it will hit the fan, but they know they don’t want to be there when it happens. James Baker of the Reagan administration was one of those sharp individuals. He switched positions with Donald Regan so that he would be far away when the Iran-Contra scandal became publicized.

In 2019, BB&T, a government bond broker, merged with Sun Trust Banks. Excessive deregulation can do wonders for the bottom lines (when they go hog-wild) of any profit-making organizations in the short term. BUT– it seems as though as the decades pass, financial-industry-players gain more and more experience in preventing lawsuits brought against them from their customers and clients by:

having the latter sign legal documents they never had to sign before, and placing disclaimers galore on all of their communications. The latest disturbing trend is for (previously low-risk) government-bond(!) brokers to do this.

Anyway, read the book to learn of the spirited beginnings, independence-warfare death toll and traumas suffered by the Yad Mordechai kibbutzniks, and their eventual fate. [And stay tuned for more traumas in the government bond market.]

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Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew

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“We must therefore supply them with plausible news and only from time to time plant unverifiable items of propaganda and denounce personalities in the Fascist regime.”

–the philosophy of the author’s boss in the British Intelligence Service’s Psychological Warfare Department, in the early 1940’s

The Book of the Week is “Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew, An Italian Story” by Dan Vittorio Segre, published in 1985.

In December 1922, the author was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Piedmont, Italy. When his father had a reversal of fortune at the start of the Great Depression, his family moved to Udine in northern Italy to live with his mother’s rich relatives. In July 1938, he was expelled from public school for being Jewish. Since Italy hated Germany, Italy turned anti-Semitic only after Mussolini had decided to throw in with Hitler. In order to kiss up to Hitler, in 1938, Mussolini made Italy comply with the Nuremberg Laws.

However, that same year, the author’s father, who had previously become– under duress– a Fascist Party member, refused to comply with the Laws. He helped the author flee to Palestine by financing a visa for him. The author joined other brash, opinionated young refugees who became kibbutzniks. He didn’t believe in socialism, but he did want to fight for a cause bigger than himself– the Jews.

Human nature governed the conflict-fraught motley bunch of parties fighting and / or allying with each other in Palestine during WWII. In general, it was (in no particular order) Palestinians, Arabs, Jews and British subjects. The first three aforesaid groups acquired a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, imitating their British masters.

Read the book to learn the fates and ideological bents of the author, his family members, and others in his life and times.

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Extreme – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Extreme, My Autobiography” by Sharon Osbourne with Penelope Dening, published in 2005.

Born in October 1952 in the United Kingdom, Osbourne grew up in a dysfunctional family. In this volume, she revealed how her father– Don Arden– a music-industry executive got away with committing an excessive number of financial crimes. Basically, he never signed legally-binding contracts, but had his daughter and other members of his entourage sign them, so when it hit the fan, they were on the hook, not him. His contacts in high places did his bidding until his bullying and contentiousness wore thin and they abandoned him.

Arden bribed a U.S. senator to help Osbourne acquire a green card. She thus became a permanent resident of America and got a Social Security number so that he could commit tax evasion. Of course, he also hid his assets in offshore bank accounts, which the United States cannot outlaw. Her formal education ended when she quit high school in her sophomore year. So her limitations led her to join the family business. In her early twenties, she was so flattered that her father trusted her with important documents that she happily signed everything put in front of her.

Osbourne met her future husband Ozzy in the late 1970’s. He was the lead singer of the rock band, Black Sabbath. “The music business in those days was a boys’ club, fueled by cocaine and sexual favors. These were the days of payola and Mafia involvement…” But Osbourne would sooner get violent with the boys than give in to their advances or threats.

Read the book to learn many more details about the lives of Osbourne and her family, trials, tribulations and triumphs.

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Disoriented

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The Book of the Week is “Disoriented, Two Strange Years in China as Unexpected Expats” by Howard Goodman and Ellen Goodman, published in 2014.

In the autumn of 2009, Howard, a journalist, moved to Shanghai to work for the newspaper, Shanghai Daily. His wife Ellen went with him. They weren’t allowed access to social media, but as foreigners, they were able to get satellite TV channels HBO, CNN and BBC Worldwide Service. Ordinary Chinese people weren’t allowed access to any idiot-box information unsupervised by their government.

Anyway, unpredictably, channels were occasionally blacked-out due to censorship. Further, Howard was continually frustrated by government censorship of his employer’s product. Nevertheless, they were floored by Shanghai’s super-fast completion of construction on buildings and infrastructure that began in the late 1990’s.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), in a few short years, an efficient, shiny high-speed rail line graced the skyline.

BUT, “It didn’t take long for one of the two new bullet trains to crash in Zhejiang Province, killing forty people and injuring nearly two hundred. In the aftermath, the Railway Ministry was revealed to be a pit of kickbacks, corruption, construction shortcuts, and debt, skimming profits and shortchanging safety.” Americans like to think the United States, unlike China, is NOT as greedy, power-hungry and lawless as all that.

Americans also like to think that their own country WOULDN’T ban all of its media from revealing ugly truths about itself in the interest of image-management (also called “optics”) the way China’s government did. In 2010, China didn’t televise the Nobel Peace Prize awards-ceremony because a then-imprisoned Chinese dissident was the winner. Howard’s newspaper did a workaround– reporting that the Foreign Ministry: was livid about awarding a prize to a dissident, and blasted Norway as the venue of the ceremony.

The United States government is currently grappling with Big Tech’s ability to control free speech. There is great difficulty in deciding where to draw the line when a man as provocative as a “Father Coughlin” type comes along and his power surpasses that of just national radio commentator. Obviously, there are worldwide repercussions if he is a world leader.

Along these lines, here’s a song most ordinary Americans are singing right now:

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE
sung to the tune of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” with apologies to the Beach Boys.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our-courts-were nonpartisan,
then respect for justice would be strong.

And why don’t we apPLY the law-for-all,
then we’d have a better world ‘ere long.

Resolving conflicts makes us that much better.
We can’t possibly let violence stay, unfettered.

Wouldn’t it be nice if officials could take up,
all the issues IMportant to you,
and we’d get to have a say together, in our town halls,
we CAN see matters through.

But in recent decades we’ve seen hating.
We should ditch the rallies, and demand, real-debating.

Oh wouldn’t it be nice?

Maybe if, we lose the patronage and corruption,
we wouldn’t have to SUE.

Maybe then, we’d be rid of dangerous loudmouths, whose time should be through.

Please ignore THEIR rants. Please ignore THEIR rants.
Reform campaign FI-nance! Reform campaign FI-nance!

Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?

You know it seems the more we read world history,
the less the current situA-tion’s a mystery. So let’s READ world history.

Wouldn’t it be nice?
Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop,
bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop…

***

Anyway, read the book to learn a wealth of information on what daily life was like for American expats in Shanghai and Hong Kong at the start of the 2010’s, and about the authors’ employment adventures, too.

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The Nation City – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Nation City, Why Mayors Are Now Running the World” by Rahm Emanuel, published in 2020.

As is fairly well-known, Rahm Emanuel served as mayor of Chicago, IL from 2011 through 2019. He bragged about the various education programs he set in motion in his city, and described a bunch of other programs and ideas put forth by other mayors across the country.

Mayor James Brainard of Carmel, Indiana signed onto one particularly environmentally-friendly, accident-reducing transportation project that could be implemented nationwide: that of installing traffic circles (also called roundabouts). The circles eliminate the need for traffic lights (which saves electricity), reduce emissions of motor vehicles– they less often need to make a full stop for a minute or more at a time, and eliminate games of “chicken” that young drivers might play on previously straight, long streets!

One of many points the author made about American mayors was that they, irrespective of their political parties, have been cooperating and sharing ideas at conferences in recent decades.

Read the book to learn much more about additional ways mayors have made their cities more livable for their residents, pursuant to the fact that, “A city that improves its infrastructure, its education, its research facilities, and its protections (of things like the environment) will attract businesses and employees without having to dole out corporate welfare.”

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Yuri Andropov

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The Book of the Week is “Yuri Andropov, A Secret Passage Into the Kremlin” by Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova, published in 1983.

“But the same man who, with the aid of his all-powerful organization, had put them in the saddle was now, while continuing to use them, discrediting them in every way he could, perceiving them no longer as reliable allies but as dangerous rivals in the struggle for power.”

No, not everyone’s favorite former American president. Yuri Andropov.

Born in July 1914 just north of the Caucasus, as a Soviet politician, Andropov manipulated the situation in Hungary in 1956, and helped plan the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. He benefited from the power vacuum resulting from executions ordered by Josef Stalin. Khrushchev (Soviet supreme leader until his ousting in 1964, to be replaced by Brezhnev) inspired pride in Russian-ness, replacing the Communist Party with the Russian Party. But one-party rule still prevailed in the empire.

In May 1967 Andropov was named head of the then-KGB and was elected to be a member of the Politburo. His ultimate goal was to hold onto all of the territories over which Moscow ruled. The following year, he was involved in political machinations in Czechoslovakia.

Brezhnev– a sick, old man desperately clinging to power, acquired a reputation for having a passive leadership style. He was under the delusion that all was well, but behind the scenes, Andropov as head of the KGB was quite manipulative. The latter employed the usual thought-control techniques of dictators. One was divide and conquer. At the tail-end of the 1970’s, he began an insidious KGB propaganda campaign through mailed letters and pamphlets, insinuating that three Politburo members and Brezhnev’s wife were Jewish, and that Brezhnev himself was a Zionist. If the smears were true, the victims would be socially stigmatized– given the then-anti-Semitic bent of the USSR. This got the government’s factions fighting among themselves.

In April 1982, Andropov had the KGB secretly invite (rebellious) young-adult children of Politburo members to a (then-politically incorrect) Nazi rally at Pushkin Square in Moscow to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Parents and teachers of the youths wouldn’t have wanted them to attend the event. In this way, the Politburo members’ reputations were damaged.

Andropov launched other initiatives such as the anti-corruption ones in Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia that turned the former into a police state. Azerbaijan would have become a military dictatorship, but for the fact that it, along with all the other Soviet satellites, had to report to the central government in Moscow, with its layers and layers of bureaucracy. In Georgia, starting in 1978 or so, all manner of government functionaries accused of financial crimes were arrested, jailed, tortured, killed– for five years running.

Andropov used Stalin’s trick of exploiting free labor to give an economic boost to his empire. By criminalizing all manner of minor transgressions (petty hooliganism, drunkenness, lateness for work, theft of any kind– because the Communist government owns ALL), scores of otherwise law-abiding citizens were thrown into the Gulag, where they were put to work.

Read the book to learn how Andropov played his cards correctly in many other ways in order to become the head honcho of the Soviet Union (hint: linguistically and agriculturally in Georgia, militarily in Poland, politically in the 1980 U.S. presidential election; in terms of the Pope’s nationality; etc.).

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Shell Games / The Snoring Bird – BONUS POST

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“But he remained unwilling to engage in self reflection, apparently reserving the worst deceptions for himself. Perhaps his half-truths had just become part of him.”

So, so many lawbreakers fit the description above, but this happened to be written about Doug Tobin, master geoduck (pronounced “gooey-duck”) poacher.

The first Bonus Book of the Week is “Shell Games, A True Story of Cops, Con Men, and the Smuggling of America’s Strangest Wildlife” by Craig Welch, published in 2010.

A major reason seafood-eaters the world over should be concerned that illegally harvested sea creatures are bought by restaurants and then served to them is: health documents can be forged by poachers who pretend to comply with local laws that would otherwise ban sales of catches from polluted waters. Neurotoxins in shellfish can kill humans, or at best, make them very sick.

Up to the book’s writing, however, the greed and lawlessness had been excessive in the region around Puget Sound off the northern coast of the state of Washington. Its fishing industry was worth about a billion U.S. dollars. Additionally, “Resulting illnesses would be untraceable, and much of the catch ended up on the far side of the world [Asia].”

Read the book to learn of the stories of the Puget Sound area’s federal, state and local and law enforcement agencies’ mostly inadequate attempts to stem the wrongdoers who sold their catches for food (rather than as pets, trophies or medicine.) and a few peripheral topics, that show how criminals endanger people and the environment, largely in the name of money and power.

The second Bonus Book of the Week is “The Snoring Bird, My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology” by Bernd Heinrich, published in 2007.

The author lamented that, as is well known, human beings are destroying themselves and the earth:

“We now know that letting nature take its course is cheaper, safer, more effective, and also more dependable than dropping pesticides from the sky… Like bombing, which chalks up a huge body count, spraying indiscriminately kills the good guys, too, and it keeps the infestation going much longer.”

And yet, local politicians are still endangering people and the environment, largely in the name of money and power, such as those in New York City, for instance, who spray for West Nile virus.

Anyway, the author’s father was steeped in the German mentality, having been convinced that serving his country in WWI was what everyone did. There were extremely few independent thinkers in his place and generation (West Prussia in the early 1900’s). To him, in America (to which the family eventually moved in the 1940’s) democracy was an “experiment” that owed its existence to abundant resources. The Germans suffered deprivations that forced them, for survival’s sake, to blindly obey a take-charge leader who (falsely) promised to solve all of their problems. In Germany, freedom (and scarce resources) would lead to chaos– the people needed to be controlled.

In the 1960’s, the goal of studying biology in graduate school was to make new discoveries. But all five of the author’s projects at UCLA went awry. One of them involved experimenting with honeybees, which escaped from the box the author made himself from some scrap wood. He wasn’t upset, but other students were, as the bees flew around the hallways of the laboratory building. At that time, the only discoveries recognized by the science community were those appearing in peer-reviewed articles in scientific publications.

Read the book to learn: about the academic history and fate of the author, about his and his father’s childhoods and both of their careers, including the extreme hardships they faced during WWII, and about the author’s adventures in Maine and Vermont.

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Sandstorm

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The Book of the Week is “Sandstorm, Libya in the Time of Revolution” by Lindsey Hilsum, published in 2012.

Just prior to WWI, Libya was colonized by Italy in three sections, when the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes. Pursuant to where they live in Libya, various rivalrous tribes exhibit traits of the Middle East and Europe, or Africa. The country is located on the continent of Africa, but has major trade routes that go to the Middle East. Its population is about six million, and oil and gas supports its economy. Many of its people go overseas to attend university.

Beginning in 1959, big-name Italian, British and American companies negotiated agreements that allowed them access to newly discovered fossil fuels, and military training and weapons-testing grounds in the desert in Libya. In September 1969, Muammar Gaddafi became the new leader. He continued to impose one political-party rule (in place since 1952) and instituted one religion (Muslim). He punished political dissidents more harshly than Libya’s previous autocrat, King Idriss. But he made Libyans proud to be Arab. He took a swipe at the British by banning the English language in his country.

By the early 1970’s, Gaddafi’s actions were prompting brain drain and capital flight. His nation did need water, but he could have acquired it much less expensively and with a lot less trouble than he did. “It was one of man’s extravagant dreams, come true because no one dared counter him and too many were profiting from his grandiose visions.” In 1982, Gaddafi formed a political group that was allegedly going to fight against Imperialism, Zionism, Racism, Reactionism and Fascism.

As is par for the course for men such as Gaddafi, his enemies (such as the CIA and the king of Morocco) plotted assassination attempts against him. Smuggling guns and grenades into Tripoli and Benghazi were for nought, as the 1984 plotters were discovered and were killed. Through the last few decades of the twentieth century, the United States vacillated between allying with Qaddafi, and railing against him.

The Reagan administration railed against him. Qaddafi was strongly suspected to be the mastermind of the December 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103. That turned out to be a major historical incident that had worldwide repercussions. However, the tide turned through the 1990’s. George W. Bush wooed Qaddafi.

By the single-digit 2000’s in Libya, nepotism and tribalism had become crucial to survival. Families are comprised of multi-generational networks with tens of people on every level of the family tree. Disaffected, jobless young males became jihadists in Iraq, killing Americans in suicide bombings, as the terrorists had been brainwashed into expressing extreme hatred for the West.

Nevertheless, after 9/11, various nations such as Russia, Turkey and China were drooling over the money to be made in Libya in banking, accounting, construction, hotels, shipping, and of course, oil. But the U.S. held back (Bush was very conflicted) due to its complicated relationship with Israel.

As is well known, in February 2011, ordinary Libyans jumped on the “Arab Spring” bandwagon after Tunisia and Egypt. They used the worldwide forum of social media to publicly express their displeasure with their leader. Also, protesters personally gathered in Benghazi and Tobruk, and then farther east.

Gaddafi, distrustful of his own military, hired mercenaries from Algeria, Niger, Mali, Morocco and Burkina Faso to violently disperse crowds of youths standing around shouting slogans, as Internet access became unreliable. Gaddafi’s own military, angry at his disloyalty, turned against him. In Tripoli, attorneys formed a group to publicize human rights abuses, represent political prisoners, and start an underground resistance movement. Through the four decades Gaddafi stayed in power, he knew how to exploit discontent: bribing Muslims to build mosques and go on pilgrimages to Mecca.

Read the book to learn many more details about Gaddafi’s reign, including those relating to: shenanigans of his son Seif, and Bahrain, Qatar and Iran (hint: Everyone knew the UN arms embargo that applied to fighters on both sides was a joke.); his Green Book, Stalin-style purges, oil-industry machinations, propaganda campaigns and governmental policies; his contradictory stance on his nation’s female citizens; his providing of military training and arming of certain groups; and the reaction of certain countries of the world at his downfall.

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Yellow Bird – BONUS POST

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“There was widespread ‘fear of retaliation if one speaks up to address injustice, fraud or corruption,’ according to the report… fear… for one’s entire family.”

The above was the reason for lack of accountability and lack of punishment for criminals (and in the case of politicians’ failure to speak up– fear of NOT getting reelected!). The aforesaid referred to a 2010 report written by a council on a Native American reservation in North Dakota.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Yellow Bird, Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country” by Sierra Crane Murdoch, published in 2020.

This disorganized and redundant story centered on Lissa, whose family was originally from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in western North Dakota. Patterns of dysfunction plagued Lissa’s life as it did those of her older relatives: poverty, absent father, teen pregnancy, drugs, domestic violence, etc.

Most of the reservation’s population of approximately sixteen thousand, did not reside on the land. In 2007, the oil company called Dakota-3 approached the Native American landowners to lease their mineral rights. There followed the formation of a ginormously complicated web of incestuous (highly-lucrative) relationships of oil companies, tribal leaders (and their families) and politicians. Not only were people raped, but land, too. The crime rate soared. White and tribal law-enforcement engaged in inter-agency rivalry.

In 2012, an oilfield-services worker, Kristopher Clarke, went missing and many people strongly suspected he was murdered. Lissa became obsessed with investigating his case.

Read the book to learn the rest of the story– about Lissa’s family, activities, and about the reservation’s trials and tribulations when its existence was turned upside-down by oil.

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Eastward to Tartary

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The Book of the Week is “Eastward to Tartary, Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus” by Robert D. Kaplan, published in 2000. JUST A FEW YEARS PRIOR TO 9/11, the author experienced life in unstable regions of the world. This was an important volume because all the propaganda– er, uh– literature that was penned thereafter, reflects a post-major-historical-event bias of 20/20 hindsight, revisionism, and conspiracy theories (which include all manner of repulsive, libelous fabrications). Not that Kaplan could predict specific historical trajectories for his destinations. For, he noted that individuals (and of course, unexpected natural disasters) can be a disruptive force, and that is why history is not entirely predictable.

The author started his journey in early 1998, and finished in 1999. As is well known, there were lots of ethnic hatreds to go around in the subjects of his itinerary– hatreds that were perpetuated by propaganda. Still are.

Syria had always been a politically unstable territory. It experienced coups in 1949, 1954, 1961, 1966 and 1970. It felt threatened when Israel allied with Turkey in the early 1990’s. After Lebanon’s civil war ended in 1990, Syria controlled Lebanon militarily and financially: to protect itself from Israel, and reap $6 billion annually from Lebanon’s economy. In a small country of three million people, with limited employment opportunities, the Lebanese poor have to look for work outside their country.

After peace was more or less restored, the Lebanese moneyed class and foreign investors gentrified Beirut through construction bonds and bank secrecy. Syrians held the low-paying construction jobs in Beirut. At the end of the 1990’s, Lebanon thus had a $16 billion debt and a bad credit rating.

Another sign that regression was a possibility for Lebanon in the years after the book’s writing, is that it was erecting no war memorials at all. Russia has an excessive number of them and dwells on them too much. As can currently be seen, factors other than remembering-the-past in-order-not-to-repeat-it, must be at work in Russia. “Rather than reform or soul-searching, Lebanon had sunk into collective amnesia and rampant consumerism.” Poor, decadent Lebanon. Although Lebanon suffered from too much ideology, the country of Jordan (which also doesn’t have oil) didn’t fall victim to it because its royal family depended on Bedouins and traders. The latter’s location is a key income-producer from transportation of goods, tourism and pilgrimages.

During and after the USSR breakup, organized crime flourished in Romania and Bulgaria. The latter applied for NATO membership in March 1997. But Russia, which held the purse-strings on Bulgaria’s natural gas pipeline, threatened to terminate its energy supply unless it allowed Russia to take over its organized crime networks.

The author bribed a police officer to board a cargo ship with primitive accommodations, to travel from Baku to Turkmenistan. It took sixteen hours. The common people residing in the latter had a low standard of living and led simple, unhappy lives due to Soviet domination since the Russian Revolution around 1918. In the same region, despite the discovery of oil, the people of Azerbaijan actually saw their standard of living fall, because their Soviet overlords no longer guaranteed them a decent pension. The author’s interviewees favored the NATO bombing of Serbia and social safety nets, as their idea of politics consisted of “might makes right” and feed everyone.

A history professor told the author that the only way Syria and Iraq could develop in a civil manner was if a capitalistic, middle-class military regime was to restore order. Good luck with that.

Read the book to learn much more about various countries’ combinations of political, economic, religious and geographic traits that have largely influenced their progress or regression in history. Along these lines, an American pop song that was released in late 1998 contained timely commentary on the United States. Little has changed since then, but here’s a bit of an update on that song.

IT IS WHAT IT IS
sung to the tune of “You Get What You Give” (the Official Music Video) with apologies to the New Radicals.

One, two, one, two, three, ow!

Gauge the winds.
We got the Dreamers’ crises.
Age of green, back and forth of hist’ry.
So low down, some are still spewing sleaze.

Secrecy, which of course never ends.
Every time, whistleblow’rs buck-the-trend.
The accused-balk, then-they-deny-till-they-die.

But when the axe is falling,
THEY test all their friends, friends.
The means are justified, by the ends.

We’ve got some debts coming due.
There’s no doubt, we’ve got some debts coming due.
Right or Left, this nation’s gonna pull through.
Politics, is a DAMN dirty biz.
Can’t forget, that it is what it is.

ChickENS comin’ home, oh yeah.
Never stops, we’re IN for it now.

2023, we’ll begin our prez-race.
They’re so mean, but we’ll watch a court case.
The-usual-sus-PECTS, will attempt to save face.

But when the axe is falling,
we enGAGE in hostile debate, debate.
We feel our democracy’s dying. Just wait.

America, won’t fall apart.
We’ve got free-dom, and we’ve got art.
We’ll find our way. We always do. Enjoy the view.

There’s no doubt, we’ve got some debts coming due. Aah-aah. Aah-aah.
The truth, will out.
Well, it is what it is.

Health insurance IS improving.
Actions AGainst Trump are moving.
Acts-of-obstruction are easy-proving.
Big LAWS are passed with GOP GROO-ving.

Profiteers pu-shing injections.
More celebs running-in elections. Cringeworthy. You’ll see voter-de-FECtions.
STAY around. There’ll be more insPECtions.

Don’t be alarmed, Right or Left…

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The Silent War

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The Book of the Week is “The Silent War, Inside the Global Business Battles Shaping America’s Future” by Ira Magaziner and Mark Patinkin, published in 1989. When Magaziner worked for Boston Consulting Group, he would conduct extensive research on industries, markets, businesses and people in order to generate reports that would presumably help his clients (consisting of big-name companies). He argued that America was economically falling behind the rest of the world because it was resisting global trade and because its federal government wasn’t financially assisting business and industry.

One time, in the mid-1970’s, Magaziner’s report’s conclusions contradicted those of his client, a big steel mill company. He asked where the executives got their information. Each one’s source material, “… was all the same– all based on one original study done a few years earlier by some professors.” The executives’ groupthink and herd mentality in relying on old, faulty data led to financial trouble for their industry.

In another case, in the late 1970’s, when General Electric partnered with Samsung to make microwave ovens, they struggled to arrive at the most profitable arrangement for both of them. One major cultural difference was that the South Koreans (unlike the Americans) worked sixty to eighty hour weeks because they believed in making sacrifices for future generations. Incidentally, they sent their children to universities in the United States to be educated, and taught them the value of hard work.

Obviously, Americans too, wanted better for their children, but their labor unions and a different mentality prevailed in their workforce. South Korea eventually became an economic powerhouse, not just with the help of American financial aid, but also through maximizing its exporting of goods.

In the 1960’s and thereafter, Singapore’s leader, Lee Kuan Yew, tried a few different territory-wide economic initiatives that failed. One included legislating a 10% wage increase for all workers. Foreign companies, with all the then-availability of sweatshop labor, simply moved their factories to Thailand and Malaysia, where workers were paid less so that goods could be produced more cheaply.

One successful economic program Yew executed was to train his citizens’ factory workers in connection with an Apple-Computer partnership in the 1980’s. The workers made the sacrifices to attend night-school (tuition-free) after a long day’s work two to three times a week, for two to three years. The benefit for the partnership was that the workers’ experience allowed them to submit innovative ideas to improve manufacturing efficiency. Again, in the United States at that time, labor unions discouraged new ideas lest workers automate themselves out of jobs. Which happened to them, anyway. But the non-unionized Singaporean workplace was such that workers weren’t laid off– they were retrained for higher-level positions.

Yet another reason the United States began to economically trail the rest of the world in the latter half of the twentieth century, was that its securities markets accelerated impatience in America’s corporate psyche. American industry became unwilling to finance and do the hard work of, continuing research and development and take a loss in bad times to keep pace technologically with Asian competitors. It wanted to prop up stock prices instead and make its executives rich quick. Still does.

One company that bucked the trend was Corning. In late 1983, (finally, after sixteen years of losses!) it had the cutting-edge technology in fiber-optics for telecommunications, ready to deliver finished products to its first big customer, MCI, to turn a profit. Corning did it on its own– receiving scant financial help from the United States government.

Times have changed little since the 1980’s, when photovoltaic scientist Paul Maycock remarked, “I hated the whole concept of buying oil from the Persian Gulf and spending $50 billion a year defending that part of the world.” He wasted a lot of time and effort on environmentally-friendly business initiatives. Sadly, those were incompatible with the United States’ strategic interests. The start of the Reagan Era saw the Department of Energy nix further funding for solar-technology research. The solar panels (installed during the Carter administration) on the White House roof were removed.

Further, since in the 1990’s (after the book’s writing) there has arisen an orgy of patent litigation in software and computer hardware. Technologically inexperienced patent clerks and court personnel have made legal decisions that have been economically damaging to the country. Additionally, the American government has a history of eagerly funding innovations that have military applications while denying funding for innovations that have commercial applications.

And yet, astute perpetrators of American foreign policy have damaged other nations’ economies not only by waging war, but also through dispensing bad advice on “shock capitalism” and other subtle (“classified”) methods of indirectly causing mass destruction. So the United States remains the economically dominant nation in the world, despite suffering its share of financial crashes and certain sectors’ damaging policies that weaken it economically as a whole; sectors such as healthcare and education.

Anyway, read the book to learn: of additional business cases that related to the aforesaid themes, and the four major reasons the Japanese technology sector achieved great success in the past.

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Little Soldiers / Born to Rise

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The first Book of the Week is “Little Soldiers, An American Boy, A Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve” by Lenora Chu, published in 2017. The second Book of the Week is “Born to Rise, A Story of Children and Teachers* Reaching Their Highest Potential” by Deborah Kenny, published in 2012.

*A grammar-perfectionist would correct the word Teachers in the title: use the possessive, Teachers’ prior to the gerund Reaching, or would place a comma after Teachers.

Chu wrote, “As we all wrestle with change, the world’s education systems are gravitating toward convergence in what a ‘twenty-first-century’ student should look like.“

What’s interesting is that in United States education, beginning in the 1990’s– a propaganda war, profiteering and politics have all played a role in disruptive developments– yet abysmal conditions still prevail in the inner cities, just as they did decades ago. What’s new, though, is that: Pervasive dishonesty in education practices and statistics is now plaguing the system as a whole. When human nature is involved, inevitably, money corrupts everything sooner or later. The privatization of education and the trendy imposition of federal education initiatives have taken their toll.

Nevertheless, the COVID-19 epidemic’s subsequent chaos in education is a blessing in disguise that will accelerate creative destruction. This country has been forced to reevaluate its education system. Litigation, financial struggles and the resulting social ills will cause much suffering in the short term. But new ideas, models and systems (or rather, old ones that worked in the past, with new names slapped on them by credit-grabbers) will emerge from the wreckage.

Chu remarked that there exists what Americans would consider widespread corruption in education in China. Bribery is rampant. Teachers in China are treated like supreme beings. However, due to low salaries, they seek to supplement their income by taking bribes from parents, either money or expensive gifts. The teachers then favor those parents’ children in various ways.

In 2010, Chu, her husband, and baby son moved from Los Angeles to Shanghai. There in the latter city in 2012, her son, then age three, began attending what would be considered equivalent to an elitist preschool in the United States. He learned: fluency in the Mandarin language, hard work, patience and lifelong habits in connection with discipline, getting organized, and responsibility.

Political indoctrination is another aspect of education in China. Chu’s son and his classmates– subjected to “good-cop, bad-cop” team-teaching with a class size of about thirty (preschool!) kids cheek-by-jowl– parroted back slogans:

“Labor is the most glorious thing.”

“Sacrifice unselfishly for others.”

“Serve your country, serve society.”

According to Kenny’s bragfest of a book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), thirteen values that conveyed similar ideas (along with “Teachers are revered!”) were espoused by her charter school chain (which she claimed to have founded). Kenny– workaholic, perfectionist– with her overzealous “white-savior complex” appeared to be phobic that China’s children’s academic achievements were surpassing those of their low-income U.S. counterparts. It seemed that she thought there was reason to panic.

Chu described an international standardized test in various academic subjects, whose results in recent years (in an apples-and oranges comparison) had students in Shanghai scoring significantly higher than students in the United States. The irony is that an education expert also mentioned by Chu found an academic achievement gap wider than ever(!) between students in rural areas in China, and those in major cities in China.

And China’s population grows by a few million every year. So even with China’s very rapid urbanization, which is one key to closing the above gap, educating the country’s young people is a constant challenge. The vast majority of students stay truly illiterate (in rural areas especially) because their test scores don’t measure up. Since they know they are destined to mimic their parents in low-level jobs which are disappearing, such indifferent students drop out of high school, if not sooner. Their parents can’t afford to game the system through bribery.

The few who outlast the drudgery of an intense regimen of hours of daily study for months and months, possibly aided by special resources (such as money and a supportive, mentoring family), to score high enough– make their family proud and their futures significantly brighter.

Kenny had big dreams for opening a chain of charter schools starting in New York City’s West Harlem, at the turn of the twenty-first century. She had her work cut out for her– what with raising funds, finding a school site, getting the charter approved, hiring teachers, etc., etc., etc. She wrote, “Finding such great teachers for every classroom in the country did not seem scalable. If the key to fixing public education was to find millions of rock stars we were all doomed.”

Kenny’s charter-school chain is still in existence– a major feat; it has beaten the odds. Even so, it had serious growing-pains and a long learning-curve at its inception, and has been subjected to a boatload of bad publicity and lawsuits against it. Apparently, its personnel have utilized their skills, talents and experience well enough to ensure its survival thus far.

On the other hand, the initial school which opened in autumn of 2003 had no gym, no sports program and no cafeteria. To her credit, the author admitted to making many serious errors from the get-go, and described a few of them. She admitted both teacher and student turnover were quite high in the early years.

Notwithstanding, the reader wonders about the infinite number of inconvenient facts omitted from Kenny’s narrative. She failed to define “middle school” and wrote at one point, that the first school started with a fifth grade (a grade usually offered by elementary schools in the United States).

Along these lines, it is unclear how many special-needs students (who won a literal lottery to gain acceptance) were strongly discouraged from attending, or strongly encouraged to drop out of, Kenny’s charter schools. Charter schools can boast even more about their various measures of success such as test scores and graduation rates when they minimize their number of special-needs students.

One indication of the changing times in American education is that, for the first half of the twentieth century, learning disabilities went undiagnosed. Kids who had them were likely destined for a much more difficult life than kids who were able to learn more easily. Around the last forty years, profiteers and exploiters have jumped on the attention deficit / autism spectrum / learning disability bandwagon so American education has gone overboard on treating those problems. Kenny wrote of parents who refused to have their child tested for a learning disability, lest the child be stigmatized.

Another issue about which Kenny wrote was her belief that every child was destined to love reading, if only they were inspired to do so. This is an unrealistic wish. Studies have shown that genetics plays a larger role in a student’s ability to learn than policymakers want to acknowledge. This includes learning to read, and love of reading.

In sum, an avalanche of education data from research has been collected for centuries now. It is time for schools to stop experimenting and begin implementing more of a combination of programs in order of what works best regardless of costs, limited by whatever the budget will reasonably bear; instead of going the easy, greedy, or power-hungry, politically expedient (and fraught privatization) route.

A grass-roots movement would have to hold officials’ feet to the fire on that– perhaps appealing to their egos by giving them a legacy via a footnote in the history books crediting them for getting it done. This, while keeping political patronage to a minimum (It used to be called “honest graft” but has reached excessive levels in certain regions; time will tell whether upcoming elections oust the “Tammany Hall/Boss Tweed” contingents.).

Anyway read Chu’s book to learn of her and her child’s experiences with a real Shanghai public preschool (he, attending, and she, interacting with his teachers), her and her husband’s take on the whole shebang, and the knowledge she acquired from interviewing a few students who grew up attending schools in China; read Kenny’s book to learn about her experiences in opening a charter-school chain– the overall details, her frustrations and triumphs, and about several of the talented, skilled people who helped her succeed, plus some biographical information about her and her family.

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To Change the World

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The Book of the Week is “To Change the World, My Years in Cuba” by Margaret Randall, published in 2009. This volume recounted the author’s brief descriptions of different episodes of her life, and some of the reasons she decided to move to Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua and the United States.

In the 1960’s, the American author wanted to live in a nation that espoused the ideology of Communism, and she thought Cuba might fit the bill. In 1968, as a political activist and journalist, she attended the Cultural Congress of Havana. Beginning that year in Cuba, even in the hotels, there were severe shortages of consumer goods (that Americans took for granted), such as toilet paper.

In January 1969, the author visited again. Billboards sported public service announcements and slogans– similar to those one sees in Asia. The propaganda in the country “…never missed an opportunity to portray the U.S. as a cesspool of drugs and crime.” Cuba’s newspaper “Granma” (not to be confused with “Granta”) printed speeches of party hacks.

However, there was a government-sponsored education initiative to send all kids to school and make the whole populace literate. All the Cuban publishing houses in the 1960’s and 1970’s were Communist-Party-funded and run. But Cubans loved reading and books were affordable. The kinds of books available included Don Quixote, the autobiography of Malcolm X, and Che Guevara’s Bolivian Diary. For some years in the 1960’s, magazines were generally permitted to publish dissenting opinions. But in 1971, one University of Havana journal was shut down (and other publishers were harassed) by the Communist Party for criticizing Cuba’s government.

In late December 1969, the author and her family made the move to Cuba. Christmas gifts were given to her four children via a neighborhood lottery. For, the stores lacked sufficient toys or books for everyone. In the early 1990’s, the Cuban Christmas holiday became a religious celebration only, and children got gifts on International Children’s Day in June instead. The author omitted information on how Cuban Jews were treated at holiday time.

Upon arriving, the author’s family was assigned to live in an apartment, through which they received a booklet entitling them to rationed goods when shopping. After a couple of months, because they were foreigners, they were allowed to move into a spacious but fully-furnished, dilapidated apartment (of a wealthy, pre-Revolutionary former Havana resident). Home-improvement items were difficult to acquire. They had termites and roaches that were difficult to eradicate. And worst of all, women were still expected to do most of the shopping, house-cleaning and childcare.

Whenever word got around among personal social contacts of the family, that certain goods such as lettuce or onions would be sold at the local market, there appeared long queues during business hours. Those waiting in line were older relatives who didn’t work. Each person was allowed a quota of eggs and meat on a regular schedule every one to two weeks. The family also received two packages of cigarettes, which they bartered for goods they wanted.

A lot of domestic violence in Havana was prompted by stresses caused by cramped housing– to which native Cubans were assigned. Even divorced couples were forced to continue to cohabitate due to a housing shortage.

Read the book to learn: why the author eventually moved where she did, more about her work, her family and her beliefs. For her, the ideal of Communism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She soon realized that Cuba had a drama queen (in the form of Fidel Castro) for a leader.

Speaking of drama queens, here’s a little song Donald Trump ought to sing at his rallies.

I RANT AND I GET WHAT I WANT

sung to the tune of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” with apologies to the Rolling Stones.

back-up singers:

[My foes-of-the-day give me conniptions.
I trash them all in my notes.
With my Party I make a connection.
At my feet are, a thousand scapegoats.

Yes, I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
And if you try-me for crimes,
I’ll waste your time.
You-won’t get what-you need.]

My foes-of-the-day give me conniptions.
I trash them all in my notes.
With my Party I make a connection.
At my feet are, a thousand scapegoats.

Yes, I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
And if you try-me for crimes,
I’ll waste your time.
You-won’t get what-you need.

I had to greet my fans at my rally,
and give my fair share of abuse
to Big Tech, the media and Joe Biden.
I delight in my propaganda ruse.

I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
And if you try-me for crimes,
I’ll waste your time.
You-won’t get-what you need.

I had to help my, lawyers at the hearing,
just to say your conflict, won’t-fly with me.
I was exercising my Constitutional rights,
and heroically trying to keep this country free.

You’re out to GET me! How dare you? I’m seeing red.
I sung my song to my loyal base.
Yeah, and they said I won the race-for-prez.

I’m so powerful.

I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
And if you try-me for crimes,
I’ll waste your time.
You-won’t get-what you need.

You-won’t get-what you need.

My foes-of-the-day give me conniptions.
In my arsenal is my Party’s war chest.
My rivals use the art of deception.
My victims know I won’t give it a rest.

I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
I rant and I get what I want.
And if you try-me for crimes,
I’ll waste your time,
I’ll waste your time,
you-won’t get-what you need.

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Pity the Billionaire

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“It is as though the frightening news of recent years has driven them into a defensiveness so extreme that they feel they must either deify the system that failed or lose it altogether.”

No, not the Republican Party in connection with Donald Trump.

The Republican Party in connection with Republican voters’ gullibility in believing the Right’s propaganda machine that rationalized away Wall Street’s unmitigated hubris and unconscionable greed amid the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. As is well known, the rich were made richer and poor, poorer in the second half of the single-digit 2000’s. The GOP’s clever aftermath-messaging led to big wins for them in the 2010 midterm elections.

The Book of the Week is “Pity the Billionaire, The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right” by Thomas Frank, published in 2012. This short volume described how the political group called the Tea Party (“TP”), a subset of the GOP, whipped an alarmingly high number of Republican voters into a hysterical rage against the Obama administration’s handling of bailouts of financial institutions and foreclosed-upon ex-homeowners.

It appeared to be counterintuitive, that the TP raged against bailouts for bankers, brokers and lenders. After all, taxpayers were forced to reward these greedy perpetrators of the economic disaster. Through flawed reasoning, though, the TP propagandized that capitalism should be free of any and all economic intervention from the government, whether in the form of regulation or assistance. They pretended to be an enemy of big business, screaming “Socialism!!!” at the government’s every move. They did this because the resulting continued excessive deregulation would make Republicans wealthier and more powerful, and each trait would feed on the other ad infinitum. As ought to be well known– politics cannot be divorced from economics.

The TP was really pushing for 100% pure, capitalistic Libertarianism. Under the “you have two cows” scenario (look this up on the Web): you can do with the cows whatever you wish, whenever, wherever. Also, remove: ALL regulation from all aspects of American life, taxation and social safety nets. And to make the situation truly American, throw firearms into the mix and see what happens. Absent rule-of-law, sanity and civility, the resulting ruthlessness would evolve into (judging from the federal-level administrations’ gyrations of the most recent thirty years) a dictatorial kleptocracy (sort of like Zaire (aka Congo) in the 1980’s), and then anarchy, not unlike… Somalia (?)

Fortunately, a sufficient number of Americans– despite most politicians’ cronyism with big-money donors– clung to the country’s democratic underpinnings (reasonable regulation, taxation with representation, and social safety nets) to weather the storm. The author harshly criticized Obama and his Democratic party for not punishing the morally bankrupt financiers and enforcing the law in helping the bankrupted borrowers. It is possible the president felt it was worth selling his soul to those big-money donors; he wouldn’t have been reelected otherwise and wouldn’t have been able to accomplish more of his agenda. His Democratic party, too, was too nice to get down in the gutter and use the GOP’s sleazy propaganda techniques.

Anyway, read the book to learn of how the pronouncements of the TP and Glen Beck and the contents of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged influenced numerous voters in 2010, and other reasons the nation’s political history unfolded the way it did in the early 2000’s.

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Open Skies – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Open Skies, My Life as Afghanistan’s First Female Pilot” by Niloofar Rahmani with Adam Sikes, published in 2021.

Born in December 1991 in Afghanistan, the author deserves major bragging rights. For, she possessed the courage to serve as a liberated female role model (given her culture) by risking her own life and her family members’ lives in serving her beloved homeland. She joined the air force in December 2010. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index) this was at a time when the Americans and NATO were running the show.

The Taliban and other devout Muslims were less than thrilled that she was the first Afghan female ever to learn to fly a fixed-wing aircraft. Pursuant to the Koran, a female’s priorities were: submissive girlhood, wifehood, motherhood, and womanhood (and usually, the first three were forced on females simultaneously), and taking care of a household; only then, might she work outside the home if her oldest living male relative allowed her to.

The author spent her early childhood in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Anomalously, but fortunately for her, both of her parents believed in educating her and her siblings (mostly sisters), and encouraging them to pursue the career of their choice. The family eventually moved to Kabul. Unsurprisingly, the author’s career choice provoked angry reactions from the male-dominated air force and males in her country. The most fanatical ones began to smear, spy on, and threaten her and her family.

Nevertheless, the author’s parents martyred themselves in so many ways for their children’s futures. Her father continued to encourage the author to keep flying, even when her family was under siege and suffering many hardships due to her focusing on her dream job.

A barbaric incident that occurred in March 2015 was just one indicator that in Afghanistan, the tide was turning toward the dark side yet again: a huge flash-mob of outraged, radical Muslim men tortured and killed a devout Muslim woman wrongly accused of burning the Koran.

The victim was set upon because a mullah (a credible, influential religious leader) was her accuser. Just a few of the vicious untruths spread about her were that she was a prostitute, a blasphemer of Islam, and was an agitator sent by the Americans (perceived as the evil occupiers). The author herself was subjected to roughly equivalent, ugly utterances.

Read the book to learn how the author cheated death in this wordy, redundant yet suspenseful volume.

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By Way of Deception

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The Book of the Week is “By Way of Deception, The Making and Unmaking of A Mossad Officer” by Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, published in 1990. The former’s slightly sloppily edited, detailed account asserted that the Mossad (a spying agency in Israel that acted like a self-regulatory organization– that conducted operations with neither the government’s permission nor knowledge, so that leaders would have plausible deniability) had become too big for its britches. By the mid-1980’s, the Mossad had about twelve hundred true insiders and an unknown number of agents or contacts worldwide.

The author was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada in November 1949. He grew up in Canada and Israel, and began his Mossad training in the early 1970’s. At that time, the Mossad pretended to recruit women, but never actually hired any to be insiders; for, women were harder to protect, and even though women were used as enchantresses and seductresses (and were killed when necessary) no Arab men (Mossad’s main target) would accept them as their bosses.

For starters, the author passed months and months of numerous, rigorous hiring tests that required him to be dishonest yet naturally creative and charismatic– getting strangers to do his bidding. During his two years’ training to be a spy, the author was brainwashed into living a lie without a second thought. In his business, one also needed to be paranoid.

There were no second chances for the inexperienced. In June 1973, a PLO terrorist thought he was careful in checking his car for explosives (under the hood, underneath, in the trunk, and in the exhaust pipe) on every occasion prior to driving. However, he was killed by a pressure mine under his car seat.

In the 1970’s, France possessed the Exocet, a missile with cutting-edge technology– it could walk on water, undetected by radar. Israel wanted this weaponry, but its reputation in the world was tarnished, so France and the countries that bought it wouldn’t sell to Israel. In 1976, the Mossad stepped in and brokered a secret deal among Chile’s number two man under Pinochet, and Panama’s number two man under Noriega. The agency successfully paid a million American dollars for the head of the missile, which was all Israel needed to reverse-engineer it and manufacture it.

In the eventful year of 1981, the Mossad didn’t want to see peace in the Middle East. It launched a complicated operation involving missiles, raisins and hash that put millions and millions of dollars in its coffers (the revenue was a happy side effect) “… with the ever-treacherous PLO… the key was to ensure that everything was synchronized in Vienna, Hamburg and Frankfurt…” It wrapped up in July, when the said cities’ local police arrested tens of spies, and at least one person was killed.

Read the book to learn of additional ways the Mossad’s sociopathic operatives disregarded rule-of-law in order to achieve their missions in mostly playing adolescent-boy spy games, but occasionally orchestrating international incidents in which the course of history was significantly changed, and in which innocent people died.

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Getting Stoned With Savages

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The Book of the Week is “Getting Stoned With Savages, A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu” by J. Maarten Troost, published in 2006.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked an extensive list of detailed sources, and an index), Vanuatu is a nation in the South Pacific that includes about eighty islands. It has nine active volcanoes, and mild earthquakes every day. Between November and April, it gets two to three cyclones (called hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean), annually. Malaria is everywhere on its outer islands. Sharks around its coastal waters are yet another danger about which it can boast.

Vanuatu is a haven for tax cheats and money-launderers, and unsurprisingly has a very, very corrupt government. Its colonial past included the usual exploitation of cheap labor in the sugar and mining industries. In modern times, officials might purchase black-market weaponry from China, and might suffer consequences for trying to assemble their own private militia. They might take bribes in exchange for issuing Vanuatu passports, or lend money to unsavory characters like themselves. If Scotland Yard doesn’t put the kibosh on such activities, Vanuatu’s economy might crash.

Anyway, one can therefore guess correctly that its residents consist of: dark-skinned natives who work in the hospitality / tourism industry, members of the diplomatic-community from its former colonial masters (the British and French), Chinese merchants, Vietnamese laborers, missionaries, Western businessmen, and expatriate consultants in international development.

Vanuatu males spend a large proportion of their leisure time partaking of the mild narcotic called kava. Most westerners would recoil at the repugnant, unsanitary way kava is prepared for consumption. But the author took a liking to it. He and his wife lived on the island of Efate. Radio Vanuatu advised them to prepare for a coming cyclone by acquiring extra water and food. “We’d followed this advice closely and bought a bag of cookies.” The author set out to learn the true nature of Vanuatu’s people by traveling around and talking to them. He wanted to know why they practiced cannibalism.

When the couple moved to Fiji (which had a large population of Indians from India) after waiting for violence to die down after a regime-change— the author subscribed to the deluxe cable TV package. Those three channels featured Bollywood, and sports played mostly in Asia, plus cricket and rugby. “Perhaps I had become corrupted by the ceaseless action of rugby sevens, but [American] football now struck me as an artless spectacle performed by obese men in tights.”

Read the book to learn additional historical and cultural information about Vanuatu and Fiji, what transpired when a centipede stung the author’s feet, and learn the reasons why the couple decided to move yet again.

Speaking of regime change, here’s a little ditty about the current U.S. situation.

SAY GOODBYE TO WASHINGTON

sung to the tune of “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” with apologies to Billy Joel.

Biden’s COVID is much better tonight. He’s all right.
He had a trendy, new var-i-ant.
He’s testing out his-’24, propaganda machine.
It’s a scene of negative sentiment.

Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.
Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.

He’s been enduring ugly smears for a while
and the Right blames him for IN-flation.
They think he’s senile and in den-i-al and they DON’T, want him to LEAD our na-tion.

Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.
Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.

Moving ON, is a way, of-life for those political folks, in D.C. whoa, whoa
There’s never e-NOUGH sup-port, to get the things, you want done,
when times-aren’t ea-sy, aren’t ea-ea-sy.

So many leaders come and go in our times,
some we like, some we don’t want back again.
We always ask, what have you done for us LATE-ly?
We’re afraid, the answer’s in-sufficient.

Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.
Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.

Moving ON, is a way, of-life for those political folks, in D.C. whoa, whoa
There’s never e-NOUGH sup-port, to get the things, you want done,
when times-aren’t ea-sy, aren’t ea-ea-sy.

So many leaders come and go in our times,
some we like, some we don’t want back again.
We always ask, what have you done for us LATE-ly?
We’re afraid, the answer’s in-sufficient.

Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.
Say goodbye to Washington.
Say goodbye, Joe Biden.

(Bye!)

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Car Wars – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Car Wars, The Rise, the Fall, and the Resurgence of the Electric Car” by John J. Fialka, published in 2015. This volume provided a brief history of how manufacturing and sales of renewable-energy vehicles has been evolving in the last few decades. Clearly, the author wrote about relevant subjects from documents, and people to which he had easy access.

The (lazy?) author dismissed the electric cars of the late 1800’s in two sentences, saying they were obsolesced by 1920 via an innovation by engineer Charles Kettering; an electric ignition system replaced a burdensome hand crank in gas-powered cars, especially in the Cadillac of 1912, and then just like that, everyone started buying gas-powered cars. A propaganda war, profiteering and politics likely played a role in that major development in standard-setting in transportation, but the reader wouldn’t learn that from this book.

Anyway, in the 1980’s, previously competing automakers were initially compelled to form alliances to comply with car-emissions limits and meet deadlines set by U.S. laws, especially in the state of California. They shared info on electric vehicle (EV) technology. Over the years, when the deadlines were relaxed by pro-business politicians, the automakers parted ways, and independently pursued only the specific projects they felt would be profitable. Environment be damned.

In 1990, near the campus of the California Institute of Technology, when drivers tested the plug-in recharging feature of the General Motors Impact in their personal garages, their neighbors’ garage doors and TV sets went crazy, because the recharger was actually a huge radio transmitter.

In October 1995, Japan’s Toyota beat American carmakers to the punch when it showed off its hybrid Prius, that got 70 miles per gallon of gas. Of course Japan, of all the industrialized countries in the world, is significantly more motivated to seek efficient, renewable energy sources for its transportation modes– for the sake of its economic survival.

In the late 1990’s in a few select places in California and Arizona, super-rich males leased the first few models of EVs, because the cars had the attractive features of fast acceleration and high velocity; high gas mileage was a secondary benefit.

Meanwhile, in the single-digit 2000’s, a group named the California Fuel Cell Partnership was formed. It consisted of Geoffrey Ballard, Daimler, and Ford, who were working on a competing vehicle that uses fuel cells– whose mechanical components chemically alter water molecules. The selling points for those cars, once the technology’s commercial application is perfected, include: zero-emissions and the ability to fill up the car at existing gas stations. However, oil companies would supply hydrogen tanks.

Read the book to learn some of the politics, economics, entrepreneurs and technologies involved in developing cars that ran on renewable-energy sources, up until the book’s writing.

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The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree / The Last Nomad

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The first Book of the Week is “The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree, How I Fought to Save Myself, My Sister, and Thousands of Girls Worldwide” by Nice Leng’ete, published in 2021.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the following is still an all-too-common scenario in a poor village in Kenya: “… it is unlikely she will finish her education [meaning– graduating what would be equivalent to grammar school in the United States]. Her father married her [off when she was] young to get a dowry. Her husband wants her home to work and raise the children.” She is fifteen years old and already has two babies.

The author’s passion is to replace the tradition of female genital mutilation (FGM) practiced by certain Kenyan tribes, with Alternative Rites of Passage. For, the culturally entrenched FGM is one major reason females in her society have been so sheltered, limited and resigned to their fate for so long.

The author grew up in a Maasai village in Kenya, near the Tanzanian border. When she was about five years old, her mother took her to witness a FGM ceremony in her community. Maasai culture dictated that when girls showed signs of puberty, they underwent the ceremony. “The cut” (of the clitoris) was extremely painful, and the presence of complications such as infection or hemorrhage could lead to chronic medical problems or even death. There were no drugs administered.

But the cut, even in the absence of physical complications, signaled the next steps of arranged marriage, childbearing and servitude for the rest of a girl’s life, usually beginning in her early teen years. Even when a girl’s mother wanted to honor her daughter’s wish to finish school and have a different lifestyle, she had no power to persuade her husband or any other male relatives to allow that to happen. The males ruled the roost.

Read the book to learn how the author escaped her almost certain dismal fate, and how she is helping other females to do the same, without their having to endure all the traumas she did.

The second Book of the Week is “The Last Nomad, Coming of Age in the Somali Desert, by Shugri Said Salh, published in 2021.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the author’s Muslim family was somewhat anomalous, in that her father was a multi-lingual scholar who believed in education for both genders, and her grandmother was an authoritative figure. The author was born around 1974. Her culture also still practiced female genital mutilation.

The sprawling family’s tribe was nomadic– they herded camels and goats, and seasonally migrated around the desert in Somalia, looking for water. Their religion allowed polygamy among the men. The author’s father’s biological children numbered 23 among 7 wives, 5 of whom he divorced; the author’s mother gave birth to 10 children before she passed away of malaria when the the author was six years old.

In 1988, Somalia’s government and tribes devolved into civil war. “Killing, looting, destruction, and chaos was now our norm.” The people had a complicated system of relationships in which they took care of their own family and tribe, and if their brains were poisoned by war, they became hostile to all others.

The author’s sister possessed a key survival skill– thorough knowledge of her family’s lineage so that, when questioned, she knew which tribal name to utter to quell sociopathic, armed-and-dangerous child-soldiers in the streets. When the family finally fled Mogadishu in 1991, their black-market connections allowed them to obtain provisions that kept them alive– fuel for a truck, food and ammunition. However, they braved many other life-threatening dangers, including atrocities (committed by people), harm from lions, poisonous snakes and baboons, disease and dehydration; not to mention lice and scabies.

The author and several relatives were able to cross the border and stay in Kenya temporarily. Even so, law enforcement officers in Nairobi were corrupt– arresting refugees and hitting them up for bribes just before they knew the refugees were due to legally leave the country.

Read the book to learn much, much more about the author’s checkered story.

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Flipped

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The Book of the Week is “Flipped, How Georgia Turned Purple and Broke the Monopoly on Republican Power” by Greg Bluestein, published in 2022.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography), in the 2010’s, a Republican candidate in Georgia would better their chances of getting elected when they were on Fox News all the time and became a darling of hard-right conservatives.

Former president Barack Obama said manufacturing and mining jobs weren’t coming back. Former president Donald Trump contradicted him, saying the coal industry would be returning (but he was wrong). Similarly, in 2017, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams told her opponent Stacey Evans, that a certain scholarship program wasn’t coming back. Significant funding that would assist financially challenged students was part of a bygone era in Georgia. Sadly, she was right. Nevertheless, a new Democrat political coalition in the state was on the rise.

For decades and decades well into the twentieth century, the Democrats, via gerrymandering, maintained a stranglehold on Georgia politics. The GOP implemented voter-suppression tricks in order to turn the tide, beginning in the 1990’s. In 2018, state election officials sent a postcard to voters telling them they were required to re-register to vote even if they changed residences within the same county in Georgia, or else they’d be ineligible to vote come election time. The ACLU put the kibosh on that with a lawsuit.

As is well known, the most recent decade saw especially vicious feuding between Democrats and Republicans in Georgia. A bunch of cliches apply to the campaigning environment:

Turnabout is fair play, but–two wrongs don’t make a right. And a pox on everyone’s house– because an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Two other cliches apply in politics, too: A man is known by the company he keeps, and when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.

When former vice-president Al Gore was campaigning for president in 2000, he cringed when former president Bill Clinton insisted on helping him campaign by making appearances and endorsing him. Gore’s association with Clinton was not a good look anymore. Similarly, messaging of former president Trump was unwelcome during the Georgia runoff campaigns between Democrat and Republican senate candidates at the end of 2020. The Democrats enjoyed the delicious irony that their side was helped when voters (who would have voted for the GOP candidates) were told by Trump to stay home and not vote in revenge for the “rigged” presidential election.

One theme the author also could not help but mention that involved the state of Georgia, was the recently concluded but contested, presidential election. Lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan appeared on CNN and Fox News shortly after election day in November 2020 to “… invite Georgians who had evidence of legitimate voter fraud to come forward. None could do so.” Governor Brian Kemp also stood pat and did the right thing, because the fact was, “State lawmakers can’t retroactively change election law after a vote to help a candidate [such as Trump].”

Read the book to learn of: the candidates’ campaigns, conflicts and confrontations, and their many attendant issues, such as GOP senate candidate Kelly Loeffler’s part ownership of a WNBA team and the suspicious timing of her stock transactions; the ambivalence of most GOP candidates in uttering anything negative about Trump lest they lose votes; and much more.

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Fighting Back – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Fighting Back, a Memoir of Jewish Resistance in WWII” by Harold Werner, published in 1992. This slim volume contained a detailed, suspenseful account of one man’s survival story.

Born the oldest of six siblings in 1918 in eastern Poland, the author was a Jew typical for his generation. He spoke Yiddish and Polish. He spent his childhood in Gorzkow, a small farming village where his fellow religionists at an early age took up a trade such as tailoring, blacksmithing, shoemaking, or carpentering. They bartered with the non-Jews, who were farmers. The villagers spent their leisure time playing soccer or ping-pong, attending movies, or opera, or boating.

Poland declared independence in 1918, after the Americans and French helped them defeat the Bolsheviks. As is well known, after the death of the dictator Joseph Pildsudski in May 1935, the reigning right-wing National Democratic party, also known as Endecia or Endek, especially scapegoated and violently oppressed Poland’s Jews.

When the Germans attacked Poland in September 1939, they indiscriminately bombed residential buildings in Warsaw; in one of which was the author’s knitting machines– with which he had previously more or less, made a living, making winter sweaters. The following month, he, some of his family, and other people he knew, fled Warsaw on foot eastward to then-Russian-occupied territory.

The author thus began a years-long ordeal, suffering extreme physical hardship– alternately hiding from and, with his fellow Resistance fighters– sabotaging the war efforts of the Nazis in Poland and eastern Ukraine. He joined a group of partisans called Army Ludowa.

Even when the Polish Jews who had survived the war by evacuating or hiding thought their lives were no longer threatened, they still had nothing to live for. The author lamented, “…Jews had no homes to return to and no families to go back to … our mission was to fight, take revenge, destroy the enemy.” The ones who had stayed at the war’s beginning were killed in bombings or shootings in their expropriated homes, or in deportations to the death camp called Sobibor or killed in the Wlodawa ghetto.

All through history, Poles had always had a reputation for anti-Semitism. But the war had stirred up a frenzy of hatred that the Jews of the Polish Resistance felt against the sociopathic, sadistic Nazis and their collaborators– which included German and Polish security and law officers and tattling villagers.

Read the book to learn of how the author lived before his life was turned upside-down, the acts of kindness certain people displayed, the hatreds of others, and the numerous times he cheated death during his wartime experiences.

Speaking of a frenzy of hatred, here’s a question for the 2024 presidential candidates. As is well known, the campaign forecast is: extremely cloudy with 100% chance of shock and outrage.

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO RULE THE WORLD?

sung to the tune of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (the studio version) with apologies to Tears For Fears.

Welcome to some strife.
Your party’s got your back.
Even while you Tweet, morons and nut-cases track your every action, you won’t get no satisfaction.
Do you really want to rule the world?

It’s your time to shine,
but you must STAY the course,
feeding the grapeVINE.

If you CAN, preserve our freedoms and our pleasures,
without bullying or extreme measures,
we will LET you rule the world.

There’s no place where the SMEARS
won’t find you.
Dodging scandals while the media comes sniffing around.
When they do, your lawyers will be right behind you.

So sad that money rules you.
Social-media approval fools you.
Do you really want to rule the world?

We can’t stand this national division.
Charisma will gain you White House admission.
Do you really want to rule the world?

ACTUALLY dispense with the lies and the greed, please.
We’re fed up with the hypocrisy and sleaze.
Do you really want to rule the world?

We need freedoms and our pleasures,
without bullying or extreme measures.
Do you really want to rule the world?

Featured

Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds

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The Book of the Week is “Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds, A Refugee’s Search for Home” by Mondiant Dogon with Jenna Krajeski, published in 2021.

Born in February 1992, the author began his childhood on a cattle ranch in Bikenke, a village in Rwanda. His family was of the Bagogwe tribe, a subcategory of Tutsi. His ancestors had migrated between Rwanda and Zaire (aka Congo; the author was unclear as to which current country– “Democratic Republic of Congo” or “Republic of the Congo”– he and his family lived in and when; so the area will hereinafter be referred to as Congo.).

In the mid-1990’s, the genocide in Rwanda forced the family to flee their Congo home mostly on foot with little more than the clothes on their backs. They had previously lived harmoniously side-by-side with their Hutu neighbors in the Congo. But contagious hatred reared its ugly head. The family hid in a cave, at a school, in the woods and other places prior to trying to stay alive at less dangerous places (i.e., refugee camps).

By spring 1996, the family had finally made its way to a refugee camp in Rwanda, where the Red Cross provided humanitarian assistance. The author and others lived in a tent city on grounds formed by the eruption of the volcano, Nyiragongo. A refugee was shot by a sniper, so the UN moved them to another camp, guarded by the Rwandan Patriotic Army. That did not end well either, as child-soldiers in the terrorist group called Interahamwe killed hundreds of Tutsis with machetes.

In the next several years, the refugees were moved from one camp to another, as life-threatening dangers (mostly from human violence) presented themselves around every corner. They nearly starved to death many, many times, and suffered from malnutrition all the time.

Nevertheless, the author, at eight years old, was finally able to start first grade at school. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), there were no: chalkboard, desks, pens and books. He passionately took to learning, anyway. At recess time, he and his friends also played soccer with a makeshift ball– made with whatever material was at hand. The refugees continued to eat only tiny portions of beans and corn every two or three days.

In 2001, Kabila, the new dictator of the Democratic Republic of Congo, wanted to give the (false) impression that peace had been restored in his country, so he had officials from Kivu go to the region’s refugee camps, including those in Rwanda, and propagandize that refugees could come home and live as they had prior to the unrest.

However, unaware of the full extent of Congo’s then-civil war, the author, his brother and father endured a stressful, multi-day journey via on foot and bus to see whether conditions were sufficiently safe for their family to return to their pre-war property. They were unable to reach their home, but in a village many miles away, the father found work from a Hutu employer who showed no tribal hatreds. For a change. The author resumed attending school and achieved fluency in Swahili, giving him a survival skill when he was confronted by haters. Bullets flew around outside the school from all different rebel groups in Kivu.

Read the book to learn: of the numerous times the author cheated death; the many hardships he suffered; and how he parlayed his passion for school into various positive developments, including receiving recognition from a philanthropist who helped him rise above discrimination against his refugee status.

Featured

Secrets of the Sprakkar – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Secrets of the Sprakkar, Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They are Changing the World” by Eliza Reid, published in 2022.

The author, born in the mid-1970’s, grew up in the Ottawa Valley in Canada. She met and married an Icelander, who was later elected president of Iceland. She wrote that numerous studies have shown: gender equality in a society increases happiness, economic prosperity and lifespans in that society. Another interesting factoid: Iceland has no military (translation: NO organized group of mostly males who would be trained to fight and kill Iceland’s enemies– a masculine mentality).

Taxpayers of Iceland fund, among other health and human services: maternity leave for both parents– even for part-timers, and childcare. Even so, in 2016, a female attorney who happened to be a member of Parliament, brought her baby to work with her after taking her six-week paid maternity leave. She happened to be televised breast-feeding her baby while she delivered a speech behind a podium (It was NOT a publicity stunt as it would be in the U.S.!). She also chaired committee meetings while her baby slept in a stroller nearby. No one batted an eye. So far, Iceland is one of the very few countries of the world in which that might happen.

The author interviewed a young mother who listed numerous occasions in the wee hours she was woken up repeatedly by her babies and children, whom she of course, fed or soothed and put back to bed. It appeared that this parent missed reading Julie Andrews’ memoir. For, the book provided a priceless tip on how new parents can minimize their own sleep-deprivation: the mother (or father!) should make the baby conform to their own schedule, with feedings at regular intervals (three or four hours), and if the baby happens to be sleeping when a feeding or diaper-changing is due, wake him or her up.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about how Iceland’s gender-equality, which is still not yet 100%, is still superior to other countries’ in terms of parenting, family relationships, work, schooling and politics. By the way, the author also did admit to the specific cultural problems Iceland has. So the United States shouldn’t mimic all aspects of Iceland’s culture– but only the ones that result in a better society– for which there is ample scientific evidence (such as gender-equality, and widespread book-reading instead of TV-watching!).

Featured

Inside the Kingdom

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The Book of the Week is “Inside the Kingdom, My Life in Saudi Arabia” by Carmen Bin Ladin, published in 2004.

Born in the early 1950’s, the author grew up in Switzerland. Her mother was Persian. When she married into the Bin Laden family (of Osama fame; a sprawling, super-wealthy and powerful family), her husband had tens of siblings. She, her husband and baby daughter moved to Saudi Arabia in 1975. According to the author’s account (which appeared credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), four years later, Iran’s religious craziness spread to Saudi Arabia, so that fanatical Muslim males began to abusively rule every detail of females’ lives.

The author described many other aspects of Saudi Arabian culture (whose religious extremism has increased in recent decades), and how it compared to the values and beliefs of Western culture. She learned Muslim culture from her mother, but was partial to the freedoms and opportunities females enjoyed in Europe and the United States. She wanted to expose her daughters to her husband’s Saudi lifestyle (which was mildly religious compared to many of his siblings’ and contacts’), but also have the same chances to succeed that she did.

The author observed that, in the late twentieth century, Western mentality encouraged entrepreneurship; on the other hand, traditionally, Saudi Arabia’s sons had hierarchically inherited their wealth pursuant to birth order, and were expected to stay in their lane– work in their existing family businesses, and not start their own. The author’s husband bucked the trend and despite his success, his older brothers professionally and socially ostracized him for it.

In the early 1980’s, the author’s oldest daughter started school (at the time, a rare opportunity for females). The education system was all rote learning– of Arabic, arithmetic, history, and most importantly, the Koran. Her daughter wrote in her exercise book, “I hate Jews. I love Palestine.” The author was powerless to change the school’s curriculum, but at home, tried to foster critical thinking in her daughters. Even so, “… her teacher would always give a Bin Laden the best marks, whether she deserved it or not.” One other interesting factoid: the female teacher was allowed to slap a student’s face for the purpose of discipline.

Read the book to learn a lot more about how the author, her family and her (super-rich) in-laws lived in Saudi Arabia, and about her and her daughters’ fate at the book’s writing.

ENDNOTE: As is well known, the Muslim religion fosters gender inequality. And even in the United States, certain cultures of peoples have more gender inequality than others. The overturning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Roe V. Wade is not just about female reproductive rights or religion or rich or poor. The demographic groups who think of females as property are most affected by the changing of the law. They need to change their own cultures themselves before they trot out excuses as to why they are oppressed by society at large. They need to stop oppressing themselves!

Featured

Americanized / The Dilbert Future – BONUS POST

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The first Bonus Book of the Week is “Americanized, Rebel Without A Green Card” by Sara Saedi, originally published in 2018.

According to this slim volume (which appeared credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the author’s family had a difficult time getting permission to live permanently in the United States, after fleeing the Iranian Revolution in the early 1980’s.

The author, born in 1980, provided a host of details on her family’s immigration ordeal, and her own life’s trials and tribulations (mostly First-World problems). Incidentally, she unwittingly wrote a line that would have subjected her to cancel-culture [In 1992]:

“…I’d personally reached peak frustration levels at our country’s complex and seemingly arbitrary immigration laws. I wanted to get on the first flight to Washington, DC, and storm the Capitol, but I didn’t, because any form of criminal activity would get me deported.”

Read the book to learn more.

The second Bonus Book of the Week is “The Dilbert Future, Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century” by Scott Adams, published in 1997.

The author discussed his predictions, obviously at the book’s writing. One of them was particularly accurate:

“As dense as they [the children] might be, they will eventually notice that adults have spent all the money, spread disease, and turned the planet into a smoky, filthy ball of death. We’re raising an entire generation of dumb, pissed-off kids who know where the handguns are kept.”

(!!!)

Read the book to learn more of the author’s insights.

Featured

100,000 First Bosses

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The Book of the Week is “100,000 First Bosses, My Unlikely Path as a 22-Year-Old Lawmaker” by Will Haskell, published in 2022.

This slim volume contained a personal account of an idealistic, fresh college graduate who made a difference in politics, by getting himself elected to the state senate of Connecticut. According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the author learned that only about $6 million would be the total annual costs to Connecticut taxpayers for providing a tuition-free, two-year degree to all community college students who wanted to earn one.

Read the book to learn of additional informational political gems, such as how, in connection with creative legislative bills: oil lobbyists came to cooperate with leading environmentalists; and both Republicans and Democrats voted yes together– as they liked to see taxes cut for businesses while college tuition was reduced for students, respectively; and learn about the proposal that triggered a “… ridiculous round of questioning [that] was a performance for the Second Amendment fan club in the back row of the hearing room” and much more about how young adults can make a difference through getting elected to political office, and what they have to do to get started.

ENDNOTE: It bears repeating that the reason voting is so important– even though most Americans feel as though their vote doesn’t count, or that it might be miscounted due to error or foul play– is that:

Democracy requires that a significant number of people show through voting that they believe in the democratic process. Otherwise, a very harmful leader (like Nixon) could be elected or reelected in a landslide (like in 1972) due to low voter turnout!

Anyway, along these lines, here’s a little ditty about what Donald Trump was thinking or saying to his allies on January 6, 2021.

GIMME SOME BLUFFING

sung to the tune of “Gimme Some Lovin” (the studio version, in stereo) with apologies to Steve Winwood and the Spencer Davis Group.

Hey!
Well, my vote count’s rising,
got my crew on the floor.
Four years I’ve been rockin’
and I’m getting four more.
Stop the steal, people, and don’t you dare leak.
Find me more votes, my VP is weak.

And I’m, so mad they rigged this.
So mad they rigged this.

Why won’t you gimme some bluffing,
gimme some bluffing,
gimme some bluffing,
what do you say?

Hey!
Well, I need to cause chaos,
everyone’s getting slammed.
I’ll take charge Tweeting,
dem-AH-racy be damned.

Been a hard year.
My machine is well-oiled.
I can’t relax.
My plot’s getting foiled.

And I’m, so mad they rigged this.
So mad they rigged this.

Why won’t you gimme some bluffing,
gimme some bluffing,
gimme some bluffing,
what do you say?

Hey!
Well, I feel so good,
the vote count’s gettin’ higher.
I won’t take it easy,
’cause the situation’s dire.
Better bluff and blame Cheney
’cause we’ve got so much to do.
We’ll make the states crazy
and then I’ll pardon you.

And I’m, so mad they rigged this.
So mad they rigged this.

Why won’t you gimme some bluffing,
what do you say?
Gimme some bluffing,
I’ll get my way.
woo woo
Gimme some bluffing,
gimme some bluffing,
what do you say?

Hey, hey,
woo woo
gimme some bluffing…

Featured

Sand and Blood

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The Book of the Week is “Sand and Blood, America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border” by John Carlos Frey, published in 2019. This investigative journalist did his homework. He actually practiced what was known in the 1970’s as New Journalism, experiencing for himself what migrants go through. He hired a people-smuggler, and his account was factual and professional. He did NOT throw a pity-party, did NOT spout the kind of daily, tiresome, self-absorbed minutiae of American reality-shows on the idiot box.

The author pointed out that the major focus of U.S. military action is currently at the Mexico border (rather than in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Central America, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Syria, etc., etc., etc.). The twentieth century saw a large increase in demand for farm workers in the southwestern states to provide food for the nation. Between 1942 and 1964, a federal law called the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement allowed Mexican migrants to enter the U.S. to work. They were provided with housing but were ill-treated and exploited. For the next couple of decades, the country was distracted by various military actions around the world.

Finally, in 1986, president Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which conditionally (regardless of smears and lies in sound-bites on the idiot box; as an aside– undocumented immigrants have never been allowed to get welfare services, Social Security or Medicare without identity papers) let illegals earn permanent U.S. residency and eventually, citizenship.

In 1991, president George H.W. Bush signed a bill with a new immigration goal: to use the American military to target drug-smugglers, so Border Patrol could focus on catching illegal-border-crossers.

In December 1993, president Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, which caused more poverty in Mexico. It is not rocket science to infer that more poverty will lead to stronger motivation in more migrants to seek a better life in a land that is conveniently nearby. In 1996, Clinton helped enact a law that denied any and all immigrants due process if they were convicted of an aggravated felony (i.e., entering the U.S. illegally).

In 1994, California governor Pete Wilson was reelected on the scapegoating-illegals-ticket via the passage of Proposition 187. Up until that year, the childhood residence of the author of the book, in the Tijuana River Valley, just north of the Mexico border– was a demilitarized zone in which Mexicans and Americans could freely (at no-cost and with no harassment) enjoy beautiful nature on either side of the border. By the mid-1990’s, the border was a war zone. For, a U.S. Marines and Green-Berets task force was on the job.

After 9/11, the War on Terror was in full swing, yet the initiative caught zero terrorists who had illegally crossed the border. Bloated bureaucracy soon followed, with the burgeoning of the multiple new sheriffs in town: Homeland Security– the boss of INS, Border Patrol, ICE and Customs and Border Protection. By 2005, the border-protection budget had soared to $40.2 billion. That could have paid for a lot of social and education programs instead. Unsurprisingly, the whole border security apparatus became a Self-Regulatory-Organization (translation: fox guarding the hen house).

An infrastructure, security, aircraft, data-processing and spying extravaganza ensued, what with military contractors jumping on the gravy train in winning business from the U.S. government, as the contractors made the following political donations in 2012 (which included but were not limited to):

Barack Obama: $127,000 from Lockheed Martin and about $191,000 from Boeing;

Senator Charles Schumer: $49,500 from Lockheed Martin; and

Senator Lindsey Graham: $16,500 from Boeing.

That said, every politician begins his or her career with such high hopes and idealistic goals. As one of the most powerful men in the world, the American president begins his first term planning to do a big project or perhaps a bunch of them on the same issue– that brings health, education or social benefits to the American people– for which he will be remembered, he hopes, forever.

However, in recent decades especially, with so many factors out of his control, such as

term-limits;
the lack of time to review proposed and existing policies, legislation and issues– which increases the power of special-interest groups’ financial influence on all elected officials at all levels of government. And those officials’ behavior and votes can affect his popularity;
vicious political enemies; and
previous failed attempts at the same programs that just happened to lose their propaganda wars, etc.,

he ends up playing cheerleader for his agenda in between countering smears and lies against him for every little thing.

Here is a brief rundown of the “legacy lottery” of sorts of the last sixtyish years– accomplishments the president and his supporters argued were beneficial to society– for which each president became best known; the programs that were started or were amended on his watch that endure to this day (a few failures bear mentioning), though they have waxed and waned reputation-wise and funding-wise, through the decades.

PLEASE NOTE: viewing or reading one source of historical info is never sufficient for providing an accurate picture of anyone or any event (not even one book.) This blogger suggests reading at least tens of books (if possible) on one era or events detailed in personal accounts or about one person with historical backdrop, that are clearly labeled non-fiction. Even then, there is propagandizing. The following should be supplemented with further readings.

JFK-Peace Corps (ironic, because young Americans are serving other countries), EEOC. A lot happened in less than three years; though he did inherit oodles of family-power and money.
Lyndon B. Johnson– Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Project Head Start; five years crowded with incident.
Richard Nixon-First Term: EPA, Clean Air Act of 1970. Was always angry, resentful and vengeful for NOT inheriting immense family-power and money. Second Term: Insisted he was not a crook!
Gerald Ford-??? Too short a tenure to do much on short notice, and didn’t inherit huge family-power and money.
Jimmy Carter-Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Superfund program)– almost completely gutted in recent years; his administration was taken hostage in various ways.
Ronald Reagan-First Term: Renewed Voting Rights Act and made MLK Day a federal holiday, but only under grass-roots political pressure from civil rights groups. Second Term: Enriched profiteers in the criminal justice industry by signing a drug-enforcement bill, but did raise awareness of the high costs of drug and alcohol-related problems.
George H.W. Bush-Passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, and an amendment to the Clean Air Act and yet, oil-profiteered for himself; this was one cause of his propaganda-war loss on his reelection bid.
Bill Clinton-First Term: Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993; tried to implement a national-healthcare plan, which turned out to be a dress rehearsal; grade “A” for effort. Second Term: Signed some laws that helped children and families with healthcare, foster care and adoption, but he lost the propaganda war historically.
George W. Bush-First Term: Unfortunately succeeded in passing the No Child Left Behind Act– but did raise awareness of the high costs of running education like a business. Enriched medical-industry profiteers by partially privatizing Medicare in a massive overhaul. Second Term: proposed privatizing Social Security, and proposed immigration reform while advocating for more funding for beefing up military presence at the Mexican border (igniting all sorts of controversies), but it was his entire disaster, military-conflict, and oil profiteering-oriented tenure that caused him to lose his propaganda war historically, big-time.
Barack Obama–First Term: While putting out fires of his immediate predecessor, signed an amendment to an anti-hate-crime law and repealed DADT. Signed the Affordable Care Act, whose way was paved for him in the mid-1990’s; tenuous win thus far and needs lots of modifications– but a major feat. And need it be said? Didn’t inherit family hegemony and ginormous wealth. Second Term: Signed an amendment to the Affordable Care Act.
Donald Trump-Proposed building a Mexican-border wall! No one knows its current status. Did wonders for profiteers (his family and cronies) in health, labor and the environment by signing numerous Executive Orders. Inherited massive family-power and money.
Joseph Biden-Spent his first year putting out fires of his immediate predecessor. He’s a transition president like Ford, and also didn’t inherit superlative family-power and money.

All of the above presidents have had to make serious ethical compromises in order to try to secure their legacies; pursuant to the amount of power wielded over them by the opposition-party during their time in office. Those who won the “profiteering lottery” favored money over people without a second thought. And, ALL of them felt they needed to do politically expedient military spending, or else their impact on history might suffer.

Incidentally, one turning point in the history of the McCarthy Era occurred when the Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin, criticized the military. After that, it was downhill for him. One turning point in the history of the Trump administration occurred when the Republican U.S. president from New York State, criticized the military. After that, it was a faster downfall for him.

Anyway, notwithstanding the humungous amount of taxpayer money diverted to militarization of the border, “A weakening [U.S.] economy helped slow migration more than fences did.”

Read the book to learn: about Boeing’s epic fail; why certain areas have no deterrents to migrants; why the government can’t even say how ineffective its militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border has been; how migrants risk their lives; about the smuggling cartels; about a Native American reservation and a church near the border; about how frustrating the U.S. border’s complaint-processing system is; and much more about recent conditions / deaths at the border.

Featured

Ghosts from the Nursery

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The Book of the Week is “Ghosts from the Nursery, Tracing the Roots of Violence” by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley, published in 1997. The authors cited scientific studies to support their assertions about the links between the increasingly younger ages at which Americans are committing increasingly more frequent horrific crimes, and the social and cultural trends that are driving this alarming revelation.

At the book’s writing, in the United States, criminal justice system spending was three times (!) the entire healthcare budget. The authors argued that the seeds of criminality in humans are planted in the womb rather than in early childhood, as previously thought.

Environmental factors, such as a future mother’s or father’s consumption or inhalation of toxic substances, alters the reproductive mechanisms in a fetus’ brain cells. If the fetus’ environment is neglectful, chaotic or hostile– people are raucous, or physically abusing the mother-to-be– it stands to reason that the child might have behavioral problems later on. These problems could range from hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention deficits and learning disabilities to criminality.

The range and extent of damage done varies with the time frame in which the abuses occur. It has been found that any amount of alcohol drunk by a potential father or mother can adversely affect: spermatozoa and ova weeks before conception, the zygote, embryo, fetus and then the child’s health thereafter. Maximum visual damage is done to the brain of a fetus, when the abuses occur during the limited time, for instance, in which the neural connection from the retina to the visual cortex is made. Language skills develop or fail to develop, similarly.

The opposite is true, too: a nurturing environment will maximize benefits for the child (even in the womb!) when parents’ soothing or happy voices are heard by the fetus during his or her audiological development. After emergence from the womb, the baby can recognize his or her mother’s, father’s or others’ voices. Preverbal memory (an emotional vibe emitted by parents and others– a mood felt by the fetus and then infant and then child) stays with everyone through their entire lives. Parents have been shown to display the same behaviors their parents did with their own babies and children.

The authors mentioned several European studies that showed the incidences of juvenile criminality and suicide increased with an increase in unwanted pregnancies. That’s obviously a can of worms. But, since reams and reams of data have been collected from decades and decades of sociological, psychological, medical and legal studies worldwide, perhaps a multi-pronged approach applied locally would help– instead of commissioning more, additional expensive studies for the purposes of procrastination and patronage.

HOWEVER, one particularly rich vein of data on how to invite failure of the multi-pronged approach at the federal level of poverty-fighting (and on a related topic, crime-prevention), can be found in the administration archives of the late president Lyndon B. Johnson. A 20/20 hindsight look at the enduring actions he did take, are unfairly omitted from the history books that show an anti-liberal bias. His administration saw the start of Medicare and Medicaid and the passing of landmark civil rights legislation. BUT, these great accomplishments were overshadowed by conspiracy theories that he plotted the assassination of JFK and of course, his role in a needless war.

Johnson had grand plans to eliminate poverty at home, but shortly after he came to power, he decided to send Americans abroad to fight a war that led to countless deaths and ruined lives. And continued to rationalize why it needed to continue. Johnson’s anti-poverty programs weren’t given sufficient time to succeed because they became starved for funds.

That is why this country has regressed on the social-programs front: Every American president has sold his soul to the MILITARY [Currently, that military is fighting a war at the Mexican border instead of overseas; a future post of this blog will elaborate on this].

The only president fully justified in diverting significant taxpayer monies from improving conditions at home, toward fighting a war, was FDR. Since WWII, alpha males with hubris syndrome have been funding military actions whose long-term costs outweigh the benefits.

As a final insult that indicated that Johnson had major control issues, was the fact that he cruelly teased his own Democratic party by withdrawing from a 1968 reelection bid at the last minute, leaving the field to a few other candidates, and uncertainty in his wake. He also gave his political opponents a golden invitation to smear him in so many ways.

Granted, there are countless other vicissitudes of history that come into play with any president’s actions, but as is well known, campaign-finance regulation in America has become horribly eviscerated in recent decades, so the increase in financial influence of special-interest groups other than the military, has also played a role in this nation’s shifting priorities.

Be that as it may, the United States’ practices fly in the face of reason by bringing in a “pound of cure” (after the fact!) via a complicated, expensive bunch of bloated, bureaucratic government services (special-education, welfare, foster care, criminal justice, etc.). Instead of an “ounce of prevention.” One specific program has been found to be the most effective solution thus far in preventing crime in the long run: infant home-visitation programs, because the problems are dealt with early! This was the conclusion of a criminology team who submitted a report to the U.S. Congress in April 1997.

Clearly, different levels of government can implement more of a combination of social programs and legislation in order of what works best pursuant to all those scientific studies (preferably longitudinal ones), regardless of costs, limited by whatever the budget will reasonably bear; instead of going the easy, greedy, or power-hungry, politically expedient (and fraught military) route.

So, for instance, a hypothetical mandate for a large, diversely-populated city might consist of:

First, an infant home-visitation program;

Second, no-charge universal pre-kindergarten program;

Third, stricter background checks and bans on specific firearms and loophole-closing;

Fourth, a community-policing program (that does not involve military hardware) like those mentioned in this blog’s posts, “L.A. Justice” and “Riverkeepers”; and

Fifth, imposing and enforcing a legal maximum to class sizes in early-childhood education.

If additional funding is found (for whatever reasons), there could be other kinds of education programs that deal with issues such as: teen pregnancy, sex education, contraception, substance abuse prevention (all possibly as a part of the high school health-class curriculum), parenting classes, family planning, welfare-to-work, at-risk youth centers, and job training– again, prioritized from the most to the least effective outcomes.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about research results on this topic, and the authors’ suggestions on crime prevention via focusing on ways to improve outcomes in connection with pregnancy and child care.

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The Life and Times of the Shah

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The Book of the Week is “The Life and Times of the Shah” by Gholam Reza Afkhami, published in 2009. This tome (whose roughly chronological contents were organized by political issues, which made it redundant in spots) provided a history of two leaders known as “shah” or king, of Iran, and global context, beginning with the father, Reza Khan, born in a village near the Caspian sea in 1877. Iran’s first Constitution was written in 1907.

A 1919 agreement signed between Persia (which became known as Iran in 1935) and Great Britain basically stated that the former was to become a colony of the latter. Reza Khan and his fellow Iranian government officials chafed under the agreement and refused to sign it. Iran’s soldiers were resentful that Britain’s military arrogantly came to train them. Nevertheless, the Iranians did approve of Britain’s taking control of northern Iran, a region of Cossacks (anti-Bolshevik Russians).

In October 1919, Mohammad Reza (the shah-to-be) was born. February 1921 saw his father survive a failed coup, declare martial law and arrest tens of members of the old-line Iranian aristocracy. In the 1920’s, there was a shuffling around of governmental cabinet members, and no real improvement in the country’s affairs. Diverse tribes with their various rivalries populated Iran’s different regions. But Reza Khan was a social democrat and a nationalist– the people should take pride in being Iranian, irrespective of tribe or religion. He believed in: the English system of law, compulsory education, land reform and separation of church and state.

In December 1925, the leadership committee in Iran, called the Majlis, named Reza Khan king of Iran, or shah. His son was named crown prince, and at twelve years of age, was sent to boarding school in Switzerland. By 1933, the shah was fed up with foreign powers’ exploitation of Iran’s oil. He signed an agreement giving Iran more control, although Iran lacked the expertise and resources for maximizing profits from all things oil-related. Even so, the years 1938 to 1941 saw Iran profit handsomely due to Britain’s straitened circumstances in its dire need for fuel. However, Reza Khan had to tread lightly with all parties (the Allies and Axis nations) because any party could take over Iran.

In September 1941, after a series of untoward events, under British pressure, shah Reza Khan went into exile in Mauritius and eventually South Africa, transferring power to his son. In 1942, in exchange for declaring war on Germany, Iran became a candidate for membership in the then-proposed United Nations. Meanwhile, there was domestic unrest in connection with a newly formed Iranian political party called the Tudeh, which was neither Communist nor revolutionary, at least initially.

By the end of WWII, the Soviets were entrenched in the Tudeh party, and occupied the northern region of Iran, eager to acquire the oil in Azerbaijan. The Iranians had regained control by summer 1947, but martial law had to be declared. Again. For, against the wishes of ordinary Iranians, their government had signed an oil agreement with the Soviets.

After a few more years of international shenanigans and posturing, and violent domestic gyrations, in March 1951, Iran nationalized its oil industry. The British believed this action was going to hinder the modernization of Iran. Nevertheless, by summer, Iran had formed its own oil company, snubbing Britain’s oil company– which was co-owned with Iran and had been in Iran’s industry-oligopoly for decades. In October 1952, Iran broke off diplomatic relations with the British.

American president Dwight Eisenhower was concerned that Iran would cave in to Soviet influence. Also in 1952, Iranian citizens were expressing their displeasure with their government’s actions, through street protests and rioting. Political opponents of Iran’s prime minister were arrested. The shah didn’t want to be deposed, so he dismissed the prime minister, and held a people’s referendum on whether to dissolve the Majlis. Although voters were physically harassed, dissolution won out, thanks to a secret CIA operation dubbed TPAJAX. Alpha males (the kind who later fancied themselves as James Bond) in the American and British intelligence services claimed credit for the regime alterations. The shah and his queen flew to Baghdad (a place friendly to Iranians at the time) for a tabloid distraction– er, uh, diplomatic visit– until things calmed down. Unresolved oil issues prompted Iran to resume diplomatic relations with Britain in December 1953. In August 1954, an oil consortium was formed.

In the mid-1950’s, Iran’s economy began to improve due to various factors, including U.S. aid, oil profits, and anti-Communist regional alliances of Iran’s neighbors. As a world leader, the shah considered his job to be head of human resources of his government’s top leaders, pursuant to Iran’s Constitution. He looked at the two-party system of the United States, and liked what he saw. However, in summer 1958, in the shah’s view, “We did not have the security guarantees that NATO enjoyed” so Iran signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets. But in March 1959, it signed a bilateral defense treaty with the United States.

After clearing various hurdles, Iranian women got the right to vote in January 1963. However, the shah failed to see a future power struggle he would have with the ayatollah Khomeini, whom he had arrested and exiled (to the unwise location of Paris) in June 1963. As is well known, Khomeini wanted to make Iran a theocracy. In autumn 1964, Iran signed a controversial piece of paper with the United States in connection with court jurisdiction and adjudication of crime-cases of U.S. military personnel and U.S. embassy workers in Tehran.

Khomeini and his followers were livid at America’s double standards and the fact that the shah was an American puppet. Too, in the next several years, for various reasons, Iran’s energy needs couldn’t be entirely satisfied by oil and gas, so it was looking into nuclear power plants. By the mid-1970’s, Iran had become a storage dump for nuclear waste.

By summer 1975, the shah was starting to get too big for his britches, even though he had brought certain aspects of democracy to Iran. His government was on its way to one-party rule. His new political movement would be governed by three major sources which contradicted each other: Iran’s Constitution, the Shah-People Revolution, and the imperial order. That last one conflicted with whether the shah was the ultimate authority over the governing of his country (in later years, there was a conflict also with the authority of Iran’s top military leader), but he was a king, indefinitely.

The United Kingdom is also a Constitutional monarchy, BUT the head of the royal family is merely a figurehead, while the prime minister and government bodies have all the power to, and do, all the work of governing the country. Those bodies can be forced to resign pursuant to a vote of no-confidence– between formally scheduled election days, which increases uncertainty in the system and for the people governed.

In the United States, the First Family is not supposed to be a royal family. Its system does have problems, but uncertainty due to resignations en masse is not one of them. The two major parties keep each other’s power in check. The president is always a member of one or the other.

Anyway, by spring 1977, the international community was pressuring Iran to curb its human rights abuses. Oops. It was already too late. The shah was unable to see the writing on the wall: that Khomeini was a threat to his power (even from Paris!); and that he was giving mixed signals by declaring martial law but at the same time, failing to train Iran’s law enforcement officers to control crowds and instructing them to refrain from firing on street protesters to quell violence in Iran’s major cities. So there appeared to be chaos and anarchy. Not to mention revolution.

Khomeini’s propaganda had been inflaming the masses for years. One tabloid item in spring 1979 from the government of the Bahamas revealed that the shah kept a large quantity of money in Swiss bank accounts. Unsurprisingly, the shah and his queen went into exile. In the next year or so, protesters angrily surrounded every residence in the world where they were temporarily tolerated.

In the shah’s absence, Iran’s military was rudderless because its members had always practiced blind obedience to the shah. Besides, Iran’s law enforcement and security personnel had always thought of themselves as ordinary Iranians, so they didn’t want to harm people like themselves.

Read the book to learn about: how, in the regime’s last several years, the U.S. mishandled Iranian foreign policy and misjudged Khomeini; plus much, much more. Here’s a little ditty that explains how Americans can keep our country from becoming a Constitutional monarchy (or theocracy), like that of Iran’s:

VOTE

sung to the tune of “Vogue” with apologies to Madonna.

SHOP around.
Election time is in the offing.
Find out where YOU need to go.
(shop around)

You elect the people who’ll help you improve,
the LIFE that-you-know.
(life-that-you-know)

You can get ACtive in politics,
or just research candidATES today.

I know a time when you can make the change.
It’s called election day
and you can make-the-losers pay.

So c’mon, vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it)

All you need is your own registration.
So use it. You count, rich or poor.
(both rich and poor)
It’s democracy. Show-you-believe-in-the-process.
More VO-ters open the door.
(open up the door)

It makes no difference if you’re Left or Right,
if you’re pro-this or pro-that.
Free and fair elections ensure sta-bi-li-ty.
You’re a civics star,
yes that’s what you are.
(you know it)

C’mon, vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it)

Leaders need to govern well,
not just deny and cover up.
Soul is in society.
That’s where we feel so LIStened to.
Learn from mistakes, keep us safe.
Get things DONE-on-the Congress floors.

Vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it, do it, do it)

(vote vote)
(Leaders need to govern)
(as Amer-i-cans)
(vote)
(Leaders need to govern)
(not all nations)

Adolf Hitler, Juan Peron, Milosevic and Marcos
Kim Il-sung, Saddam Hussein
got 99-percent-of-votes-in-their-name.
“The people love me” they did gloat.

Others seized power, you should note:
Joseph Stalin, Pinochet,
Khomeini, Papa-Duvalier.
They had weapons, they used force.
Mao-Tse-Tung had no remorse.

Gaddafi, Franco, Castro too.
Kim Jong-un, is anything new?

Leaders with an attitude,
some of whom the U.S. wooed.
Don’t put up with bad government.
Take a position.
You can make a dent.

(vote vote vote vote)
(vote vote)
(oooh, you’ve got to)
Feel your power-as-an-American.
(oooh, you’ve got to do it)
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(oooh, you’ve got to)
Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

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Maverick

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The Book of the Week is “Maverick, The Personal War of A Vietnam Cobra Pilot” by Dennis J. Marvicsin and Jerold A. Greenfield, published in 1990. Marvicsin nicknamed himself “Maverick.”

Born in 1940 in Mansfield in Ohio, Maverick had a burning desire to become a helicopter pilot. He joined the Navy right out of high school, but after a year and a half, switched to the Army in order to fulfill his dream. In September 1964, he began boot camp in Fort Wolters in Texas, and finished advanced training in Fort Rucker in Alabama.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), in 1965, Maverick began his first Vietnam-War tour in Vinh Long. The American military base there had comfortable living conditions, and creature comforts such as alcohol and cigarettes. At his periodic reassignments to other locations, he encountered primitive accommodations. He began by flying re-supply missions to ARVN troops and American advisers in the Cam Ranh Bay area before a full military installation was built there.

The American military killed not only the enemy, but also dangerous animals such as tigers, and elephants because they were useful beasts of burden to the enemy. In autumn 1965, when he began flying a Huey helicopter that had the ability to return fire– for the purpose of rescuing the war-wounded– he took to the work like a fish to water. When they answered a typical call for help, he and the three other adrenaline-junkies in his crew rushed to “… the middle of the jungle, miles from the base, but someone had set off a red smoke grenade which meant enemy fire.” A crashed or shot-down chopper might be stuck in the trees with fire all around, and the pilot pinned in the wreckage’s cockpit.

On more than one mission, Maverick got to host a highly-decorated military bigwig. This, in an allegedly aerodynamically improved aircraft (but it had yet to be perfected and was shot down), such as the “…brand new Charlie-Model Huey with the fancy 540 rotor system, and now it’s fancy garbage and it’s on fire…”

Maverick began his second tour in Vietnam in Tay Ninh, a mountainous region where the Viet Cong had made tunnels underground. The Huey helicopter had been replaced by the Cobra, which was easier to maneuver but had its own flaws. Regardless, the traumas of war had caused Maverick to become twice shy about getting emotionally close to his fellow soldiers. He said, “First tour, you make friends and they get blown up or shot down or simply never come back. Second tour, you make no friends.” One of numerous other emotionally troubling aspects of Maverick’s participation in the war was not knowing how long it would be, if ever, before he was released when he was taken as a Prisoner of War.

Read the book to learn of many more episodes of Maverick’s personal experiences in combat, in captivity, and in collecting medals and glory.

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BONUS POST

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“Inflation, profiteering, and corruption are rife, and the food situation and (closely connected therewith) the transportation situation are most serious, as is also the housing problem… The present regime does not at present command a sufficient majority, or perhaps sufficient constructive talent to initiate the drastic measures which alone could save the situation.”

The above happens to have been written in January 1946, by the British embassy in Rio de Janeiro, about Brazil.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Brazil, The Fortunes of War, World War II and the Making of Modern Brazil” by Neill Lochery. This wordy and redundant volume described how a South American leader, Getulio Vargas– through cleverly navigating: relationships with war alliances and foes, and tricky political issues– was able to modernize his country by the Postwar Era, compliments of American taxpayers.

In late 1937, Brazil got a new Constitution. Vargas, duly elected leader since 1930, had gotten friendly with the United States in exchange for agreeing to fight Italy and Germany when war came. However, by May 1938, there occurred a failed coup against him; perhaps partly because he had banned all political parties except his own. His enemies included the Communists and the Fascist Green Shirts (Integralistas), and he wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy with two of Brazil’s top military leaders.

One conflict Vargas faced in September 1939, was that he couldn’t afford to make trouble because: Brazil’s military was weak, Brazil traded with both Germany and the United States, and it had immigrant communities from Germany, Italy and Japan. Vargas’ speech at the May Day parade in 1940 didn’t go over too well with the United States, as his language was that of a Fascist; he sounded like he was siding with Hitler and Mussolini. This was deliberately calculated to tease FDR, in order to secure financing for a steel mill in Brazil.

By the time of the infamous December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Brazil had still yet to receive the bulk of the weapons it was due from Germany and the United States. Brazil had a fuel shortage, and the U.S. supplied Brazil with most of its fuel. Other wartime hardships and plot twists abounded; 1942 was a year crowded with incidents, too numerous to mention here.

Suffice to say, in autumn 1945, when dissatisfaction with Vargas reached critical mass among military leaders and many ordinary Brazilians, there was distrust that he would actually hold free and fair elections. They were scheduled to be held in December 1945.

Read the book to learn what happened in August 1954, and about the cast of characters and propaganda that shaped the history of Brazil just before, during and after WWII (hint: public relations schemes included wartime visits to Brazil by Walt Disney and Orson Welles, thanks to Nelson Rockefeller.).

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Ask A North Korean

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The Book of the Week is “Ask A North Korean, Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World’s Most Secretive Nation” by Daniel Tudor, published in 2017.

As is well known, North Korea is an insular dictatorship, one of just a few left in the world. From birth, its people are brainwashed into worshiping their supreme leader, the dictator. His leadership style resembles that of Stalin’s: threatening the oppressive social order will cause one to be arrested in the middle of the night and thrown into a political prison camp.

There is one-party rule (the Workers’ Party). The people are allowed: no free speech, no freedom of assembly, no due process, no freedom of religion (Christianity or any other), and anyone who does not work for, or is not a sycophant of the government is probably poverty-stricken.

Jail time or public execution awaits those who are caught in possession of videos or music from the West (likely the United States, China, Hong Kong or South Korea). A tiny percentage of North Koreans get a view of other cultures, but only when they are permitted to travel to China on business, or when they risk their lives to listen to radio broadcasts from South Korea.

The government owns ALL property of all of the people. It even used to provide limited amounts of food and goods to the people. But in the 1990’s, the country suffered from a famine that forced people to become creatively capitalistic in order not to starve to death. North Koreans living near the borders of China and Japan traded black-market consumer goods with them. They hunted, fished, bred domestic animals and literally prostituted themselves. Illegally, they sold alcohol.

In North Korea, the most economically powerful entities are those that obtain foreign currencies because they are affiliated with the government, which is an unavoidable behemoth of cash-only bribery and corruption. The people do not have credit cards or even bank accounts.

Cars, which are very few in number, are a status symbol in the country’s capital city, Pyongyang. Those who own them are likely government workers, who have drivers. The highly coveted job of driver requires obtaining a license that takes a minimum of three years to obtain. One needs to get training for the job, but first must achieve hard- won acceptance to one of only two driving schools in North Korea. Unsurprisingly, there is a black market in fake driver’s licenses.

A high percentage of North Korea’s population is in the military at any given time. For, males must serve a minimum of ten years; females serve seven. Exceptions include college graduates, who serve five years, and science or engineering majors serve only three. Ironically, malnutrition is widespread in the military, as North Korea does not provide its ranks with enough to eat (!)
Read the book to learn a wealth of additional details about North Korea.

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City on Fire

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“The continuing protests drew upon deep-seated malaise, with a population who felt they were stuck with a leader they hadn’t chosen, running a government that didn’t listen to them, in a city whose housing they could not afford, and with wages and an economy that were going nowhere.”

The above happens to be about Hong Kong in 2019, according to the author.

The Book of the Week is “City on Fire, The Fight for Hong Kong” by Antony Dapiran, published in 2020.

The author described: the myriad complications (historical, political, cultural and social) of Hong Kong’s existence that led to its unrest and the unrest itself, in 2019.

In September 2018, a high-speed railway station opened in West Kowloon in Hong Kong, across the border from mainland China. The new hub made travel faster and easier. But around the same time, China’s government agency controlling immigration and customs and border-control, proposed a new law that offended the democratic-minded Hong Kongers who knew it would impinge on their civil rights. One aspect of the proposed law also dealt with extradition, which had become a hot-button topic after a murder was committed and the victim’s family had become politically active.

Legally, Hong Kong was supposed to be self-governing. Nevertheless, China’s human-rights abuses have been on the increase. Among other actions that have made Hong Kong less of a democracy– beginning in June 2015, Beijing (the seat of China’s government) sentenced a few hundred civil-rights attorneys to jail, so thereafter, dissidents have been less well defended.

The author related that a lot of violence all at once has erupted in Hong Kong in recent decades, such as in 2003 and 2014, for many reasons. The general cause is that Beijing was grabbing more power over Hong Kong. The latter year saw election-law changed so that only Beijing-endorsed candidates were allowed to try to get elected to Hong Kong’s government.

In 2014, memorable historical incidents received names such as Occupy Central protests, Umbrella and Sunflower movements. Hong Kong residents who resented Beijing’s political interference adopted a yellow ribbon as their symbol, while the opposition adopted a blue ribbon.

As 2019 progressed and Hong Kongers once again took to the streets in protest, they got better and better at resisting law enforcement’s weaponry: police batons, pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets. The protesters began wearing face masks or gas masks, goggles and hard hats. They communicated via social media. The protesters agreed to disagree, even though they fell into two factions: violent and non-violent, and were free to take part in whichever activities they wanted to.

A major aspect of firing of tear gas, is that it disperses crowds by: producing physical symptoms that cause in its victims an overwhelming urge to flee in a stampede– giving the illusion of a riot, of sudden movement that looks violent, angry and hostile, when moments prior, the large gathering might have been peaceful and even cheerful.

The media that served as the mouthpiece for Beijing, described protesters as “rioting.” When protesters’ actions were labeled as such, a court controlled by China was permitted to sentence protesters to up to ten years in prison.

Read the book to learn of: new methods adopted by law enforcement that generated more anger, resentment and violence among protesters; the unfortunate remarks that triggered international incidents; the 2019 turning point that sapped the morale of protesters; a November 2019 law that was passed by the U.S. Congress concerning Hong Kong; and why China doesn’t simply march into Hong Kong and entirely take it over.

By the way, here is a little ditty about why the U.S.A. continues to have democracy.

DEMOCRACY IN THE U.S.A.

sung to the tune of “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” with apologies to John Mellencamp.

We’re FROM different countries
but NEEDS-are-met even in the smaller towns.
Patriots in wars, D.A.R.’s, July 4th
going crack, boom, bam!

DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
yeah, yeah
Rule-of-law in the U.S.A.

We-can-speak FREEly with our families.
We-can-joke with our friends.
With chances to work and succeed,
the future’s in our hands.

Some are Left and some are Right.
Plenty of entertainment to watch to-night.
With freedom of religion,
you know that we just might,
be-enjoying-life in the U.S.A. Hey

We have choices everywhere.
The-roots-of-our founding, we can’t igNORE.
When we HAVE a lapse in governance,
brave speakers help our system enDURE.

There was Abe Lincoln
Margaret Chase Smith
Shirley Chisholm

(They were heroes!)

Daniel Ellsberg
Karen Silkwood
Dan Choi

(They were heroes!)

Spotlight on Ed Snowden
and-Roosevelt, you know, EleaNOR.

Grokking in the U.S.A. Hey

TABloid-drama-queens in the U.S.A.
KEEPing-up-with-the Joneses in the U.S.A.
First-World-problems in the U.S.A. yeah, yeah

Evolving in the U.S.A.!

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The Professor and the President – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Professor and the President, Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House” by Stephen Hess, published in 2015.

“We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another– until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”

The above was uttered by president Richard Nixon in a speech. Although he was best known for committing political crimes and war crimes and then attempting to hush them up– socially good pieces of legislation signed by him (pro-environmental and against sex discrimination), were actually passed during his presidency (!) This slim volume discussed how Moynihan’s unlikely relationship with Nixon played a role in eventually establishing Supplemental Security Income. Read the book to learn the details.

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My Father and I

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The Book of the Week is “My Father and I” by Camelia Sadat, published in 1985.

Born in July 1949, the author grew up in a distant suburb of Cairo, but possessed nostalgia for her father’s home village– Mit Abul-Kum, in the Nile delta. Her father was Anwar Sadat, whose mother was half Egyptian and half Sudanese, and whose father had eight wives; only the last two wives bore thirteen children between them. Anwar was the second oldest child of his father’s seventh wife.

Born in late 1918, Anwar’s young adulthood was typical of Muslim men of his generation who were headed for a political career. He chose his alliances and enemies pursuant to his future leadership role in mind. During WWII, he allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group desirous of replacing Egypt’s monarchy of King Farouk, with an independent Muslim theocracy. The British supported the king. During and after the war, Anwar did stints in jail for his pro-Axis, pro-Egyptian-independence activities. Further, he was discharged dishonorably from the Egyptian army.

By the late 1940’s, Anwar had two wives and two babies. The younger of the latter was Camelia. However, Anwar’s first marriage ended in divorce shortly thereafter. At thirty, he began his second marriage with his nineteen year-old bride. In 1950, he resumed his military career. He was appointed by Gamal Nasser to lead the group fighting for sovereignty for Egypt– the Free Officers’ Organization.

Anwar moved quickly up the political ranks. In July 1952, he and his cronies ousted King Farouk. In December 1953, he helped found a revolutionary newspaper, working in the communications (translation: propaganda) department of Egypt’s government. The very next year, he was named Minister of State. In 1956, Egypt saw the end of British occupation.

Camelia was a headstrong, independent child. When she was twelve, a marriage was arranged for her. The groom was 29. Unfortunately for them, a quiet, serious wedding reception (which was uncustomary) was the order of the day because Egypt was breaking its diplomatic ties with Syria.

Initially, Camelia accepted her fate as an obedient housewife (which was required by the Quran, and was the culture in Egypt). But after a couple of years, she became emotionally exhausted by the bossiness and physical abuse of her especially insecure husband. Camelia told her uncle about her marital problems, and reprimanded the husband. However, Anwar found out and told Camelia that a wife should obey her husband.

In the 1960’s, unrest in Yemen led to difficult geopolitical jockeying among Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and of course, the United States. In December 1970, Anwar was elected president of Egypt, at which time, it was on the outs with America. In 1971, he foiled a coup attempt against him. Egypt wasn’t diplomatically benefiting from Soviet financial aid, either, as the Soviets’ reputation for aggression made the U.S.S.R. an isolated state in the industrialized world.

Anwar was best known for his willingness to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel’s leader Menachem Begin, through an intermediary, America’s president Jimmy Carter. Read the book to learn many more details of his and his daughter’s life and career, and a bit of Egyptian history.

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Unforgetting – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Unforgetting, A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas” by Robert Lovato, published in 2020. El Salvadorans are more populous in Los Angeles than any other major American city. The author wrote about his own family’s involvement in the politics, economics and violence that have given rise to the stereotypes surrounding El Salvador in recent decades.

It took the author decades to get his father (Ramon, born in 1922) to describe the traumas he experienced throughout his life, and especially as a nine-year old at the start of a revolution of Salvadorans of indigenous descent. Ramon’s parents weren’t married; plus he was of indigenous descent, so he was cursed by society at birth. Ramon’s father too, was illegitimate, but inherited a coffee-bean plantation, which made him a wealthy man, until the market crashed in summer 1931. However, Ramon was denied his family’s riches. He lived in a shack with his mother. A few valuable family connections did allow him to move to the United States for a better life.

Born in 1963, the author grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. As a teenager, he rebelled against his father’s lies, beatings and organized-crime dealings. He began hanging out with a drinking, drugging, petty-crime-committing crowd. But learning more about his family’s and homeland’s histories helped him to better understand his own and his father’s actions and failings. In his early twenties, the author found religion.

El Salvador was just one of many countries whose tribal, religious and political conflicts became American-taxpayer-funded military quagmires that started in the second half of the twentieth century; schemes gone awry initially backed by one or another U.S. president have persisted ever since. Pursuant to declassified documents and insiders– the CIA, other intelligence services and special-forces have engaged in top-secret international adventures in Korea, Guatemala, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc., etc., etc.

The Reagan Era ushered in secret CIA-training of “counter-insurgency” techniques (translation: the atrocities of a dirty little war on par with Argentina’s) among young males fighting in El Salvador, with the ostensible goal of making the world safe for American-style democracy. Hilarity did not ensue. The usual hypocrisy, cover-ups, historical revisionism, and far-reaching devastation of war later on, did.

There occurred not just destruction, deaths, the trauma of fighting, family decimation, but also unspeakable war crimes such as massacres (via firing squads, even in a church(!)) of indigenous Salvadorans and rapes of females of all ages, in large numbers. “Despite the horrific civil war ravaging El Salvador [that began in 1980] the Reagan administration denied 97 percent of all Salvadoran asylum claims.”

The author listed just a few of the times and locations of mass killings, including:

December 1981, El Junquillo

August 1982, El Calabazo

February 1983, Las Hojas

Read the book to learn about war’s estimated 1980’s death toll, the fate of its perpetrators, how families tried to get more details on the fate of their disappeared loved ones, what happened in November 1989 (hint: there was a backlash in which the author played a role), and much more about why the author thought it was so important to investigate El Salvador’s past, rather than forget all that trauma.

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Here, Right Matters

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The Book of the Week is “Here, Right Matters, An American Story” by Alexander S. Vindman, published in 2021. Some construe the word “right” in the book’s title as the political Right, which implies political power. In that regard, perhaps the author made a Freudian slip, or he got bad advice on the book’s title. By “right” he obviously meant moral. The author had particular expertise on the Soviet mentality, as his family was originally from the Ukraine. He was born there, was fluent in its language, but admitted he was never trained as an interpreter.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacks Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), in July 2019, the author heard unethical and possibly treasonous utterances issue from the mouth of a representative of then-president Donald Trump in two separate conference calls among American and Ukrainian government officials. Pursuant to the chain of command, he informed his identical twin brother, who happened to be chief ethics counsel for the National Security Council.

The nefarious portion of the “Ukraine call” (the second conference call) whose unredacted transcript that was analyzed to death by the media circus, the American government, and every “news” junkie on the planet– consisted of the president’s asking a top leader of the Ukraine to gather any data that would smear Joseph Biden– the likely 2020 American presidential candidate, and to gather any data that would make Trump and his party look bad.

Administration officials who aided the president in this endeavor included (but were probably not limited to): the attorney general, his personal attorney, the White House chief of staff and the American ambassador to the European Union. In addition, the president withheld $400 million of American aid to Ukraine as a bargaining chip in doing his bidding.

The way the Trump administration handled foreign policy with regard to the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine obviously has raucously controversial international ramifications.

Profiteers, exploiters and human right activists would argue that military, financial and humanitarian assistance should be sent to the Ukraine. Profiteers and exploiters would trot out the age-old argument that Russia could ally with China in ways that would crush the United States. But that hasn’t happened. Activists would argue that Russian leader Putin and his military have been committing atrocities and war crimes, and theoretically they could eventually occupy Eastern Europe as the Soviets did in the 1950’s.

According to the author, in the early 2000’s, in Iraq, the Stryker brigade was used to move powerful, high-tech military equipment and supplies over long distances in record time. There is a risk that Putin could show his military might partly by using a version of the “Stryker brigade” in certain countries. But the takeover would probably occur only in those places where the older generation is resistant to change, or cannot afford to, or lacks the connections to leave their homeland to seek freedom and better living standards elsewhere. And most people who realized they had been oppressed, had a chance to leave in the last twenty-five years– if they had really wanted to.

In the 1990’s, different countries threw off their communist yoke at different speeds. People in the former Soviet Union had lived under communism for decades longer than their Eastern bloc counterparts. The older ones residing in the latter had known a better quality of life prior to Soviet takeover. Jeri Laber wrote, “They looked around them and saw corrupt, repressive governments, failing economies, contaminated water, polluted air, alcoholism, and apathy.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When Siberians discovered freedom and consumer goods, they became like Americans. They started riding in cars instead of walking. They ate fatty foods for lunch and the men stopped exercising. The women started going to aerobics classes at the gym.

From a purely economic standpoint (a neoconservative viewpoint)– selfish, heartless and sociopathic– the United States would benefit the most by not risking the lives of its own people to fight for the freedom and security of the peoples of whichever territories Russia decides to occupy, even if oil prices rise.

By its inaction, the United States would maintain its economic dominance in the world. It is becoming wise to Russia’s “…hybrid warfare… fake news, insincere diplomacy, intervention in elections…” drones, cyberattacks and jamming of Ukraine’s communications.

Read the book to learn more information about the author’s life, career and morals.

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The Riverkeepers

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a sponsored post.

The Book of the Week is “The Riverkeepers, Two Activists Fight to Reclaim Our Environment as a Basic Human Right” by John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., published in 1997.

Riverkeeper is an environmental organization that, over the course of decades, has brought legal actions to minimize pollution of a few major rivers across the United States. Unsurprisingly, litigation and political shenanigans perpetrated by polluters, go together.

It is always local residents who are hurt the most from egregious acts of pollution (usually spread by big corporations) because: they can’t afford expensive legal costs, and are usually dying of cancer or are suffering serious health problems (never mind what the pollution does to plants and animals) by the time they are compensated (if they ever are) for damages inflicted by the defendants.

The authors began with a story of how wealthy political donors took an unlikely side against a utility project (because it happened to be proposed for their neighborhood). Beginning in early 1962, Riverkeeper attempted to stop Con Edison from building an electricity-generating reservoir (the Storm King project) that would make waterfront properties an eyesore in Westchester and Putnam counties, and kill many striped bass.

In the second half of the 1960’s, propaganda wars raged on both sides, but public opinion was against Con Edison. Stakeholders included: the federal government, five utilities, two state agencies, Scenic Hudson (an environmental group), the Fishermen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and local residents.

And the insults and injuries just kept coming, even after the first Earth Day in 1970– with offenders like Exxon and local governments responsible for pollution levels in Quassaic Creek, Croton Landfill, and three cities in Connecticut.

Even worse, there was lack of regulatory action from politically entrenched government agencies such as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both feared retaliation from the NRA, whose gun clubs were polluting waterways with lead and other toxins. The NRA simply closed the gun clubs rather than clean up, and remained a political powerhouse.

In another story, in 1976, the Hudson river’s commercial fisheries were closed by local politicians after General Electric dumped an excessive amount of PCB’s in the river. Not only were local residents poorer in various ways for the outrageous crime, but so were hundreds of people trying to make a living through fishing.

In the early 1990’s, environmentalists saw “joy in Mudville” as New York City Democratic mayor David Dinkins express interest in actually helping enact legislation that would protect the city’s drinking water (as testing had shown that it contained as much as 2% sewage in it– after going through a treatment plant), whose source was upstate entities that controlled the watershed.

The attendant political hostility was such that a reviewer said of Pat Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, “These ravings would hardly be worth mentioning had they not played such an important role in fueling the ideological underpinnings of the antienvironmental movement and the zealotry of its followers.”

The environmentalists’ dreams were dashed by 1995, when Republican Rudy Giuliani engaged in excessive deregulation. Daily, too many sociopathic political hacks around this country are slowly, indirectly, poisoning America via the discharge of: millions of gallons of raw sewage into waterways, pesticides onto golf courses, dirty water from storms, and innumerable toxins contained in everyday products into the air, water and earth.

Nevertheless, through the years, there have been a few isolated incidents of pollution reduction of environmentally conscious philanthropists, and a few legal triumphs when defendants were actually compelled to comply with hopeful-sounding federal laws: the Coastal Zone Management Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, to name just a few.

Grassroots groups need the higher authority of FEDERAL LAW to minimize pollution resulting from extremely consequential egregious acts because: 1) The polluters are politically entrenched at all government levels; 2) The polluters argue vehemently that pollution should be regulated locally. BUT, the enforcement of state laws has been lax because monster corporations divide and conquer, pitting state governments against each other when, for instance– deciding where to locate a plant or keep one open– by waving an economic carrot or stick.

Those big donors claim they will create jobs and grow the tax base of the area. Or, they’ll threaten to relocate, if their wrongdoing isn’t condoned by local politicians, who are also usually greedy and power-hungry.

However, along the lines of local enforcement, the authors recounted how a law officer showed that community policing concepts can minimize pollution, and keep local areas clean, on a small scale. He arrested small business owners for illegal disposal of garbage, debris, toxins and wastewater, etc.

If law-abiding citizens look around– and entities more powerful than themselves are allowed to get away with that kind of polluting– they feel they have license to do the same. The excuse “Everybody does it” allows everyone to contribute to the lawlessness, and there goes the neighborhood.

Read the book to learn of the other main influences and people (hint: one was Rachel Carson and her scary book) that and who have shaped the regulatory environment of the environment in the United States through the decades.

In honor of Earth Day (April 22), here is a little ditty:

THINGS CAN ONLY GET WETTER

sung to the tune of “Things Can Only Get Better” with apologies to Howard Jones.

We’re on a path to LOSE it all.
Acts of pollution affect us all.
It’s compromise we have to realize.
Greedy, selfish polluters shouldn’t keep us from natURE and health, unless we tolerate their smears and lies.

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

Reg-u-la-tors on political STRINGS run the show,
propagandize with no regrets.
Litigation takes forever, is a minefield. Taxpayers lose every time.
Where are the ethical philanthropists?

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe…

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Free – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Free: A Child and A Country at the End of History” by Lea Ypi, published in 2021.

According to the book (which appears to be credible although it lacks Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), Albania’s monarchist government and business leaders threw in with their Italian invaders in 1939. In 1944, the Italians retreated and Albania’s occupation by the Soviets resulted in one-Party rule. The practice of organized, monotheistic religions was banned, but Albanians worshiped a real person– a founding-father and WWII military hero named “Uncle Enver.” He severed Albania’s diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia after the war.

The Albanian author, born in September 1979, was indoctrinated to believe that her country was one of the freest on earth. Never mind that the common people had to stand in line for hours and hours daily or sometimes longer (they were allowed placeholders) to obtain such basic necessities as milk, cheese, kerosene, etc. through a voucher system. In addition, her childhood was fraught with lies about her great-grandfather and others in her family’s social circles.

Ironically, just as pedigree among the wealthy in the United States denotes social status, so the “biography” among ordinary Albanians determined whether one would be allowed to join the socialist (political) Party, and determined one’s reputation, and thus one’s work and social activities in daily life. It was guilt by association; one was guilty just by having politically unpopular ancestors, as had the author. Albanians were required, however, to attend meetings at their local civic associations.

In December 1990, there occurred a major political turning point in Albania’s history: free and fair multi-party elections; a turning point in its economics too, as its government heeded bad financial advice it received from Western powers, that invited corruption similar to that of Bolivia’s (See this blog’s post, “Jeffrey Sachs”). In the early 1990’s, for the first time (!), the author found out about or experienced: air conditioning, bananas, traffic lights, jeans, chewing gum, Mickey Mouse, AIDS, anorexia and plenty of other cultural givens the democratic peoples of the world took for granted.

Read the book to learn of the trials and tribulations specific to Albania’s people when they saw how the other half lived (hint: World Bank meddling, a civil war, education shenanigans and more).

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Gunfight

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The Book of the Week is “Gunfight, My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America” by Ryan Busse, published in 2021.

The author’s grandfather’s generation of gun enthusiasts embraced Depression-Era values: “Principles. Safety. Camaraderie. Pride.” He believed in the New Deal, and the then-culture of the National Rifle Association: admiring the craftsmanship and power of firearms, using them safely for hunting, and the challenge of shooting targets consisting of inanimate objects; not the current goal of amassing money and power for the firearms industry and its trade organizations, human lives be damned.

Additionally, every incident is milked for funding demands from law enforcement agencies across the country. And most politicians insincerely grandstand “enough is enough!” but do nothing until dissatisfaction with the status quo reaches critical mass– until there’s a real threat to their reelection. Then, in their campaign, they promise to make relevant legislation a priority.

Anyway, in 1995, the author, born in 1970 and raised out West, began working for the tiny Portland, Oregon rifle company, Kimber. It made and sold high-quality guns to be used for collecting and hunting. Kimber had a checkered past because the big boss was a psycho but nevertheless he truly believed in the product.

The author quickly learned that gun sales have assumed a certain pattern in the United States of the last few decades. Whenever the political climate changes from conservative to liberal or when another unbalanced individual kills people in a highly publicized incident, the firearms industry propaganda machine generates phobia and fury among gun enthusiasts in convincing them that the government is going to take away their instruments of power and masculinity. These impressionable, mostly young males, have the mentality of cultists. They rush out and add to their collections, just in case the vicious rumors are true. The buying frenzy lasts a year or two.

The first major piece of legislation that touched off this angry cycle was the Brady Bill, signed by president Bill Clinton (who was scapegoated by Second Amendment promoters) in November 1993. Then, in September 1994, it was the assault weapons ban, sponsored by then-senator Joe Biden.

However, the bill became Swiss cheese with loopholes because the NRA exerted overwhelming political pressure on power- and donation-hungry Congress members to exempt or grandfather-in more than 650 kinds of firearms. Even so, the little regulation there was, arguably, prevented ten more shootings like “Columbine.” Unfortunately, it is impossible to prove what would have happened otherwise, but judging from what has been happening more and more and more, with almost total absence of preventive measures, some more measures might be helpful.

After 1994, the excitement died down, and gun sales plummeted for the rest of the 1990’s. Struggling financially, Kimber was forced to merge with a firearms distributor which sold cheap plastic handguns– made in South Korea, or with the name Daewoo– that were used in street crime.

The company survived. However, the author reflected on how his industry was desecrating his philosophy (which he shared with his grandfather) when, in the single-digit 2000’s, he brought an industry contact of his to a national park to share in the breathtaking beauty of Montana. The contact was apparently sociopathic because he was able to rationalize away the environmental destruction that would ensue if the land was opened up to oil drilling. The NRA, via political front groups, was aiding and abetting backroom deals as they spoke (!)

In addition, a controversy also raged over whether owners should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, instead of having the world openly see them in a holster. As is well known, in twentieth century history, the kinds of people who armed themselves openly out in public included Nazis, the Red Guard, teenage thugs in Third World countries, and in Soviet satellites after the Berlin Wall fell– during times of strife, civil wars, and genocide.

Americans have never experienced that kind of scene (except in Western or Southern states until they became urbanized and did away with “frontier justice” or Napoleonic justice), and would not expect to, either (except in isolated incidents immediately after 9/11).

The NRA’s argument for allowing people to carry concealed firearms is that they should be allowed to defend themselves, if they are attacked. But, the only reason one would need to defend against attacks, is if one has angry, violent enemies. What is the character of these people who garner such enemies?? Or, if people are targeted in a random shooting, the argument goes that if the targets are armed, they can immediately shoot the shooter to prevent more carnage. Sounds as though NRA members think life is a violent video game, if they expect bullets to fly when they go out in public.

In addition, the NRA’s fear-mongering never ends, as it scares single females into thinking they’re vulnerable to street crime from strangers, if they must pass through high-crime neighborhoods, for whatever reason. And apparently, many people are led to believe that strangers perpetrate home-invasions left and right!

Further, the NRA has whipped up a frenzy of hatred and violence. Once a taboo is broken, it’s easier to break more and more taboos. Excuse the cliche, the fish rots from the head down: when the nation’s leaders behave badly, their underlings copy them in a free-for-all.

Professional baseball discovered that players’ alcohol consumption before and during competitions was bad for revenues in the long run. And not only because it compromises judgment and coordination, but also because fans imitated the players’ behavior, and lawlessness resulted. Eventually, such a revelation will turn the firearms industry around, because profits are one of its major goals. It will be curbed of its own excesses, by allowing regulation, slowly but slowly.

Anyway, in 2008, just to make sure its smear campaign against presidential candidate Barack Obama stuck, the NRA created war-glorifying videos aimed at couch commandos. It became a “… bought-and paid-for wing of the Republican Party…” and in 2016, “The Trump and NRA operations ran identically.” There was no more reason and accountability among supporters of those two. After years of seething silently at what was happening, the author acquired sufficient courage to express his displeasure with it, and advocate against it, even though he knew full well he and his family would be subject to endless harassment for being a traitor.

Read the book to learn more about: the author’s activities; a case of industry-ostracism of a perceived traitor-company; a victim of cancel culture (hint: besides the author: an old-school gun-industry writer who dared opine in 2007, that using assault weapons for hunting, was overkill); and more on the NRA’s extremely radical behavior, that was ongoing at the book’s writing.

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I’ll Take Your Questions Now – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “I’ll Take Your Questions Now, What I Saw at the Trump White House” by Stephanie Grisham, published in 2021.

This is yet one more volume penned by a Trump-administration insider. As is well known, president Trump’s White House embodied all of the contemporary Washington, D.C. cliches— excuse the cliche– on steroids.

It takes a certain kind of person to want to work for someone like Donald Trump. He or she is a star-struck social climber. The female especially, must have low self-esteem, and if she works closely enough with the president and endures his abuse and does not resign immediately or start looking for work elsewhere– she has a version of battered woman syndrome. The author was one such individual.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the hostile work environment became even moreso when chief of staff Mark Meadows came to power.

Pursuant to the way they are raised (translation: family dynamics), people gravitate toward relationships, situations and environments with which they feel comfortable. Employees in Trump’s orbit formed a dysfunctional family comfortable for them. Yet it was a place with sky-high turnover because it was full of workaholics who behaved like extremely self-absorbed, socially manipulative teenagers who thought they were starring in their own reality show; and they were– it’s called social media.

Just two of numerous episodes included:

In 2018, a top adviser to national security adviser John Bolton launched a witch hunt. It was alleged that twelve American political workers (including the author, a communications director) engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior at a social gathering abroad. After the author put out a statement saying the adviser needed to be fired because nothing happened at that gathering, “Three minutes passed, and it was all over Twitter and within ten it was on TV.”

In 2020, the president’s then-wife Melania Trump was infuriated by former communications adviser Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff, who published a tell-all book on her employment experiences, and was selling audiotapes of their conversations.

Read the book to learn how the author experienced the way the president, his daughter and son-in-law were actually running the country; and what the president’s then-wife was doing in the meantime.

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Moving Water

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The Book of the Week is “Moving Water, The Everglades and Big Sugar” by Amy Green, published in 2021.

This volume discussed the people and forces that changed the Everglades (a landscape of waterways running through the central part of Florida all the way down), its vegetation, species and pollution from the 1960’s to date. The main agents of change have been (in no particular order): sugar growers, politicians of all levels of government, regulators, George and Mary Barley, Paul Tudor Jones II and grassroots groups.

After 1960, the United States began large-volume sugar-growing and processing, as it was no longer getting its sugar from Cuba. Soon, annually, 223,000 acres of land were growing 572,000 tons of sugar– half the nation’s crop– which was processed in eleven mills. This activity occupies slightly more than one quarter of the Everglades, and with a few other crops, comprises the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA).

Beginning in 1988, the federal government sued the Florida state government for damages due to the said pollution (caused mostly by the sugar growers). Everglades regulators are diverse: EPA, NOAA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Health, local governments situated along the affected coasts of the lake and two rivers in the EAA, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. An entity that controls water levels around the whole region– pursuant to weather, environmental changes and political idiosyncrasies– is the South Florida Water Management District.

However, in previous decades, the politicians and some of the regulators (under pressure from the politicians) were besties with the sugar growers. That situation has changed with the worsening of pollution and other unexpected factors that have prompted actual action.

There is ample evidence that a large part of the pollution is caused by the operations of the sugar industry in the Lake Okeechobee area in the central part of the state. The industry uses fertilizer containing phosphorous, which gets into the vegetation; two major consequences include the poisoning of drinking water in South Florida, and river-course-changing excessive sawgrass, cattail and algae growth- at the expense of other plants, and at the expense of animals that eat those other plants.

Pollution has caused: the deaths of sponges, shrimp, seagrass and fish; turbid waters, hypersalinity and elevated temperatures. Some fish eat the aforementioned algae, which contain toxins such as cyanobacteria and red tide. Some humans used to eat such fish, but shouldn’t anymore, or they will likely get sick, at best.

Many people thought that the polluters should pay for the damage they were doing. At the book’s writing, nevertheless,TAXPAYERS, not the major polluters, were paying for cleanup. As can be seen, there are infinite complications, given the number of parties involved in the nature of the beast.

In the first half of 2016, disruption of the ecosystem by excessive algae growth, caused beach closings and a pervasive foul odor over a large territory. As recently as 2018, the aforementioned contaminants were sickening or killing beachgoers, manatees, sea turtles and tarpon.

Read the book to learn all about it.

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Misfire

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The Book of the Week is “Misfire, Inside the Downfall of the NRA” by Tim Mak, published in 2021. This volume told the all-too-frequent story of alpha-male executives with hubris syndrome, who use their employer as their personal piggy bank, and bankrupt them. That of the National Rifle Association (NRA) was just the latest in a series of such scandals in recent decades.

As it began to go belly up, the NRA had 76 people on its board of directors, a few of whom were celebrities. They received no salary, but took ridiculous advantage of their expense accounts, and at the same time, and, in an obvious conflict, some were tasked with overseeing the NRA’s finances.

A power vacuum that started in the late 1980’s allowed Wayne LaPierre to assume the most powerful executive position in the organization by 1991. His colleagues– the NRA’s officers, and executives of its outside communications agency — manipulated him in order to form a cult of personality around him. This way, they, too, could partake of all the first-class travel, shopping and host of other aspects of a luxury lifestyle through their outsized salaries and expense accounts.

After the Sandy Hook elementary-school shooting in December 2012, the NRA became even more sociopathic, throwing up distractions in its messaging. It was already aggressively– as it had been since 1977– defeating every bit of firearms-restriction-legislation it possibly could using not only its money, but also its ability to influence politicians and voters through its network of priceless, powerful contacts; even to its own financial and reputational detriment. It argued that politicians should seek to improve America’s mental health system, and that everyone in the country had a right to own a firearm for the purpose of self-defense!

Countless, cowardly politicians have caved under pressure to the NRA’s demands; they voted against even weak proposed laws that would restrict gun acquisitions and gun usage, that would hardly have made a dent in sales of firearms, because they wanted to get reelected. As is well known, the NRA was a monster-sized lobbyist and political donor. It had a mean-spirited cancel-culture: publicly shaming its ex-employees on social media if they criticized it, even years after their employ.

Beginning in April 2019, a decades-long power struggle resulted in an orgy of litigation between and among the NRA, its communications agency, and its law firm, whose main go-to executive had become besties with LaPierre. That executive, too, was availing himself of the benefits derived from financial crimes of excess typical of these kinds of organizations.

Read the book to learn all about it. Wayne LaPierre has been just one (of those countless who are actually caught!) of a few poster boys whose financial crimes borne of excessive greed have been exposed, but sooo few organization leaders such as he, are punished for their misdeeds. Here are a few others, who were actually punished (and the year in which they went to jail):

2005, Dennis Kozlowski

2005, Bernie Ebbers

2006, Jack Abramoff

2007, Richard Scrushy

2012, Bernie Madoff

And here is the song they sing when caught:

I TOOK IT EASY

sung to the tune of “Take It Easy” with apologies to the Eagles.

Well, I got out on BAIL.
You can’t put me in JAIL.
I got SEVen sins on my mind.
Whistleblowers betrayed me.
Prosecutors flayed me.
My lawyers are close friends of mine.

I took it easy.
I took it easy.

Don’t believe the evil liars who say I’m guil-ty.

I live it up while I still can.
I hid my assets. Then it hit the fan.
I found a place to make my millions.
I took it easy.

Well I’m STILL your leading male.
I’m just too great to fail.
My claques, flacks and sycophants all aGREE.
I DID nothing wrong.
I’ll delay this CASE so long you’ll give up on punishing me.

Come on, payyy me,
my bonus and sa-alary.
I have no doubt that friends in high places are gonna SAVE me.

TaxPAYERS lose. I win.
You’ll never catch ME again.
So eat your heart out. Look at ME grin.
I took it easy.

Well, I got out on BAIL.
You can’t put me in JAIL.
I got NO remorse on my mind.
No matter how much you hover,
you’ll NEVER recover, all the money you say is not mine.

I took it easy.
I took it easy.
Don’t believe the evil liars who say I’m guil-ty.
Come on, payyy me,
my bonus and sa-alary.
I have no doubt that friends in high places are gonna SAVE me.

Oh, I got it easy.
YOU’RE the one who’s slea-eazy…

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Suez

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The Book of the Week is “Suez, 10 years after Suez, questions are still being asked…” by Hugh Thomas, originally published in 1966. This volume was penned by and through the eyes of a British journalist.

In 1875, on behalf of the British government, Benjamin Disraeli purchased a controlling interest (45%) of shares in the Suez Canal Company. By 1956, a little less than 25% of the imports, and about 33% of the ships passing through the canal, were British.

There was arrogance all around, among the top leaders of countries involved in the Suez Canal Crisis: Egypt’s Nasser, Great Britain’s Eden, France’s Mollet and Israel’s Ben Gurion.

Other leaders, such as America’s president Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles refrained from a hawkish stance for their own country, letting the British and French make fools of themselves in sending troops. The author described the whole episode thusly: “… the spectacle of over one hundred thousand men setting off for a war which lasted barely a day and then returning has few parallels in the long gallery of military imbecility.”

Eden was ready to fight the Egyptians when Nasser declared he was nationalizing the canal’s holding company, which was based in Paris. The declaration meant that Nasser would charge dues on ships passing through.

The international contract governing the canal stipulated that Egypt would own the canal itself in 1968. The Treaty of Constantinople, signed in 1888 deemed the canal an international waterway. Nasser could be removed as a custodian of sorts only “for cause” but arguably one cause could be the fact that, beginning in 1951, he banned Israeli ships from the canal.

One other piece of documentation associated with the canal included the United Nations Charter’s Article 51. It was kind of a worthless passage, as its provisions were unenforceable unless nations agreed on how to interpret it and chose to abide by it. That passage said military action was justified if any entity took over the canal.

Eden came of age in the generation who fought in WWI and was of the mind that appeasement didn’t work on Hitler. Wiser world leaders whose experiences and intelligence differed, knew that Nasser was no Hitler. Eden’s cabinet ministers were men of different ages, some of whom disagreed with him.

Britain’s options included resolving the complicated dispute with the assistance of the United Nations (UN), or the International Court. Britain’s troops stationed geographically nearby (in Malta, Port Said, Libya, Jordan and Cyprus) were unprepared to fight a war in or near Egypt, and it would take a few months to move supplies, equipment, etc. to where they needed to be. The Soviets were supplying weapons to the Egyptians, and those weapons would be superior in the event of an air war.

The European government officials who were dovish, argued that it was wrong to use force just to safeguard oil supplies, and that the conflict should be settled through the UN. The situation became more complex (as though the propaganda war, Hungarian suffering and upcoming elections in Jordan and the United States, Britain’s lingering pro-Arab stance and France’s sending arms to Israel weren’t enough) when, in the second week of October 1956, there occurred a border skirmish between Israel and Jordan. About a week later, Israel attacked Egypt.

Yet another set of conditions on paper by which specific nations agreed to abide, came into play: the 1940 Tripartite Pact stated that when lands around Israel (pursuant to the geography of 1950) were crossed by people with war in mind, both Britain and France together were obligated to take some kind of action.

Read the book to learn more details of the diplomatic and political events leading up to and during the conflict (or war, as interpreted by some), its exciting conclusion, and the death tolls of the parties involved.

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Here We Are

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The Book of the Week is “Here We Are, American Dreams, American Nightmares” by Aarti Shahani, published in 2019.

In the mid-1990’s, according to New York State, the Manhattan electronics store co-owned by Shahani’s father, was a front for Colombia’s Cali drug cartel. The indictment had thirteen counts.

After 9/11, the U.S. federal government agency Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established for the purpose of finding and deporting immigrants, both illegal and those in special circumstances, with no statute of limitations.

Shahani’s uncle Ratan (in the latter category– he had a green card) “… missed his [ICE deportation] flight and spent more nights in detention, on the taxpayer dime…” The financial institution with which he had an account– Broadway National Bank– had laundered $123 million through various accounts. It “…paid a fine of $4 million, and no bank executive served a single day in jail.”

One question Americans might want to ask, however, is how much IS the “taxpayer dime” when it comes to funding illegal immigrants? Is the actual dollar value a nickel a month per American?? Or a thousand dollars a day per American??

Of course, it is impossible to fully account for the qualitative impacts, good and bad, that illegals have on society as a whole. More specifically, they might make undocumented (excuse the pun) positive economic, cultural, social or athletic contributions, but partake of limited resources such as healthcare and education that diminish quality thereof for citizens. (For more info, see this blog’s posts: The Opposite of Woe, Call Me American, full circle (sic), Patriot Number One, The Snakehead, Where the Wind Leads, The Fox Hunt, and Scorpions For Breakfast.)

Anyway, this suspenseful story recounted a series of traumatic events of an immigrant family from India, interspersed with vignettes of the family’s hardships (due to the author’s father’s naivete; plus swindlers, errors and bad luck) that led the author to become an activist. She ended up delivering lectures to audiences consisting of “lawyers, journalists, social workers, congressional staffers, city council members and families in crisis.”

Read the book to learn all about it.

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Oil and War

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a sponsored post.

Below is the song Putin is singing now.

OIL AND WAR

sung to the tune of “Elenore” with apologies to The Turtles.

You give me so much power
but my leadership’s starting to sour.
I really love this.
Oil and war suit me.

Economic ruin aWAITS me.
Besides that, THE world hates me.
I never tire of oil and war, really.

Oil and-war, GEE I think you’re swell.
I don’t care that war is hell.
It’s my pride and joy, etc.

Oil and-war, I will TAKE this time
to say-you CAN-not speak your mind.
In my empire, I’m banning Meta.

Trump really thinks I’m groovy.
This is my James Bond movie.
Don’t you agree,
Oil and war suit me?

If you don’t like when we go low,
maybe you shouldn’t watch the show.
It takes one to know one.
Oil and war suit me.

Oil and-war, GEE I think you’re swell.
I don’t care that war is hell.
It’s my pride and joy, etc.

Oil and-war, I will TAKE this time
to say-you CAN-not speak your mind.
In my empire, I’m banning Meta.

Oil and-war, GEE I think you’re swell, ah hah.
Oil and-war, GEE I think you’re swell, ah hah, aah.

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A Woman Among Warlords

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“We are right now under the ‘protection’ of armed forces from 43 countries, yet we are still living with war, brutality, poverty and crime.”

The above happens to describe Afghanistan.

The Book of the Week is “A Woman Among Warlords, The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice” by Malalai Joya with Derrick O’Keefe, published in 2009.

The second oldest of ten children, born in April 1978 in western Afghanistan, the author– a political activist– deserves major bragging rights. For, she risked her life in remaining in her beloved homeland where she spoke the truth about the war, the corruption, the leaders and all the other ugly aspects of her country’s impossible situation to raise awareness of what the world could do to make things better in the future.

Joya (a pseudonym, as she was in a witness protection program of sorts at the book’s writing) spent her childhood in various refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. Her family lived in Iran because her father received medical treatment there after having his leg blown off by a land mine. He was a member of the mujahideen and political dissident. Her family moved to Pakistan because her father wanted to provide her with a decent education.

A few years after the 1989 withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan was a chaotic, poverty-stricken, war-torn wreck, and stayed that way for the next four decades– due to very common, oft-repeated historical forces; human nature, especially. Armed Muslim fanatics roamed the streets to violently enforce the dress and behavior codes for females, five-times-a-day prayers, and to suppress free speech and ban any and all pleasurable activities in the name of their religion the way they themselves perceived it should be. Nevertheless, in the 1990’s, ordinary Afghans watched the bootlegged American movie Titanic in secret.

Shortly after 9/11, the Taliban disappeared because they knew the jig was up. They reinvented themselves as students at Ivy League universities, parliament members in Afghanistan, and propagandists. Incidentally, ex-Nazis after WWII reinvented themselves in a similar manner; those with transferable skills became Soviet officers. This kind of scenario has been repeated throughout history amid regime changes, among men with superior survival skills.

Anyway, in 2002, the United States destroyed communications infrastructure via modern weaponry in Afghanistan. After about three years, though, the U.S. and NATO failed to deliver on promises and installed a corrupt puppet regime that actually hurt ordinary Afghans. Unsurprisingly, “International Security Assistance Force” became a misnomer– just another foreign occupier. The usual CIA bribes, human rights abuses (especially against females!), growing of opium that would be processed into black-market heroin to be distributed worldwide, and other nefarious activities continued to proliferate behind the scenes.

Beginning when she was in high school, Joya taught literacy to adult women who, if they were allowed by their husbands to attend classes, were expected by their husbands to do all the housework and childcare. There was fear not only of physical abuse from husbands, but also public-square lashings, beheadings or hangings if the Taliban discovered the hidden classes held in basements.

In 2004, Joya attended a conference and delivered political speeches that provoked angry reactions from Afghanistan’s evil leaders– mostly alpha males with hubris syndrome in the dictatorship that the country had become, backed by the U.S. and NATO. Her fellow political workers called her a Communist, infidel, and worse, incessantly smearing her.

The United Nations provided some security for Joya, but she became especially vulnerable to assassination attempts when she began traveling between Kabul and her hometown of Farah City, to run for a seat in the Parliament of Afghanistan.

Joya named just a few of the ginormous number of parties whose advice and actions worsened Afghanistan’s plight in recent decades (despite all of the parties’ bragging about how they helped bring democracy to Afghanistan; in no particular order): Reagan, George W. and Laura Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Brzezinski, Obama, the CIA and NATO.

The U.S. learned nothing from the French in Vietnam, and nothing from the Soviets’ nine-year quagmire in Afghanistan, that turned into forty years of devastation. (The U.S. did, however, groom Boris Yeltsin in its own image to lead Russia in the 1990’s. Unfortunately, his reign didn’t last long due to ill health. Maybe next time it’ll choose someone with better staying-power.)

Read the book to learn of: numerous other abominations Joya harped on and lamented over as a political activist (hint: Afghan children faced “…smuggling, abduction, child labor [due to severe poverty] and lack of education”) and her recommendations for how the country could turn itself around, and her reasons for hope for her country’s future.

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The King of Fifth Avenue

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The Book of the Week is “The King of Fifth Avenue, The Fortunes of August Belmont” by David Black, published in 1981.

Belmont was born in December 1813 in Alzey, the Jewish agricultural ghetto in Germany. Belmont got a member of the Rothschild family to convince his father to let him study the English language. Thanks to his grandmother’s contact with the Rothschilds’ family business (the most famous financial-services business in Europe), Belmont got a job. By 1830, he was making good money in high finance.

The summer of 1837 saw financial ruin in New York City, but Belmont was a take-charge kind of guy. Upon discovering that the American agents of the Rothschilds had gone out of business, he declared himself the new agent, hanging up a shingle bearing his name in a storefront on Wall Street. He used the Rothschild name to grow his company making investments and lending money. In 1844, he became an American citizen.

Descendants of the Knickerbockers (old, wealthy Dutch and English aristocrats in New York City) and other American-born people were anti-immigrant. They were also anti-Semitic, smearing the (Jewish) Rothschilds’ agent Belmont, especially when he jumped into politics, supporting the Democrat James Buchanan for president in 1852. But after Franklin Pierce won the nomination, Belmont backed Pierce instead.

Both the Democrats and the Whigs expressed anti-corporate feelings. But the former opposed Wall Street while the latter opposed foreign capitalists. The Whigs were mostly Wall-Streeters.

When Pierce won the election, James Buchanan turned out to have less political power than Belmont would have liked. Belmont desired to have the U.S. buy the territory of Cuba from Spain, and if Buchanan had been named secretary of state, he could have appointed Belmont a U.S. diplomat who could go to Naples to negotiate a deal. In August 1853, Belmont himself was appointed secretary of state but other events led him to go on a business tour of Europe with his family instead. He became head of the Democrat party in June 1861.

The summer of 1863 saw draft riots in New York City. The rebellion was led by conscripted men who couldn’t afford to pay $300 for someone else to soldier for them in the American civil war. Blacks suffered the most deaths during the violence, scapegoated as the cause of the war.

In the late 1860’s, Belmont became interested in horse-racing, buying land on which to build a racetrack. He became president of Leonard Jerome’s racetrack in the Fordham section of the Bronx.

Read the book to learn of a boatload more history and Belmont’s family history in 1800’s America, in politics and war, especially.

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The 188th Crybaby Brigade

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The Book of the Week is “The 188th Crybaby Brigade, A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah” by Joel Chasnoff, published in 2010.

The author related his experiences as an American who joined Israel’s military (Israel Defense Forces; IDF) of the late 1990’s, and had various rude awakenings. He observed a major lack of skills-training and deterioration of leadership. Plus, he wrote, “What disturbs me about our endless fun isn’t just that it’s so often misogynistic, racist, and in the case of Ziv the redhead, outright insensitive, but how easily I go along with it.”

At 24, he was the oldest member of the testosterone-fueled group of mostly immature 18-year old boys who had too much time on their hands. The book’s major themes reflected those in Catch-22 (the same kinds of craziness) and “Portnoy’s Complaint” (only insofar as their gender led them to behave the way they did).

In February 1997, a helicopter accident that killed 73 Israeli soldiers, led the IDF to change its training and treatment of its ranks. It was a time similar to that just after the Yom Kippur war, when the Israeli military realized that it was unprepared to defend the country.

However, unlike in the second half of the 1970’s– in the late 1990’s, the IDF gave certain soldiers a pass, via an honor system. Ultra-Orthodox scholars could avoid military service altogether– a very emotionally charged controversy in Israel. Moreover, due to civilian complaints from families of soldiers, the military became less of an abusive hierarchy, and more socialistic, allowing soldiers to falsely claim they were injured or ill, to shirk the rigorous aspects of military life. The soldiers who weren’t crybabies, were subjected to harsh weather and severe sleep deprivation at the hands of an “arrogant, impudent, and thoroughly incompetent” captain. The other leaders were sociopathic sadists with weaponry.

The author was assigned to the tank division. A class lecturer told soldiers-in-training that Israel’s presence in Lebanon was necessary due to terror groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and their various factions. Monetary help from Iran, Syria and the former U.S.S.R., funneled to Hezbollah, supposedly made the terror groups’ resources actually superior to the IDF’s. That’s why the death toll of soldiers in Israeli tanks in Lebanon was so high, and why soldiers were killed so much sooner than troops in other divisions, even sooner than those in the infantry.

Each Merkava tank was equipped with: “…one ton of explosives in the form of depleted uranium 120-millimeter missiles, hand grenades, two MAG machine guns, a crate of .5-caliber shells and five hundred 35-millimeter bullets.”

The younger generation did not understand the mentality of their grandparents because they hadn’t personally experienced the Holocaust. They had, however, heard about or seen needless deaths and ruined lives resulting from America’s meddling in Vietnam (plus Laos and Cambodia), and Israel’s own constant fighting against its Arab neighbors and Palestinians, and its aggression in Lebanon (1982)– and they wanted no part of that.

Every major Israeli leader whose name is known worldwide (especially by American Jews fifty and older), was an old-school war-hero who also worked in Israeli intelligence (except for Golda Meir) and saw major combat, right up through Netanyahu. Since the 1990’s, leaders of the U.S. have been draft-dodgers rather than war heroes. Apparently, times are changing in geopolitics, war-mongering and energy (oil) needs and usage.

Read the book to learn how the IDF fanned the flames of racial tensions (hint: it was not because the light-skinned Ashkenazi soldiers had their private jokes), how the author struggled with his own religious identity, and many more details on the late-1990’s culture of the IDF.

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If I Plead the Fifth, Man

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This is the song Donald Trump is singing now.

IF I PLEAD THE FIFTH, MAN

sung to the tune of “If I Were A Rich Man” from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, with apologies to the estates of Zero Mostel and Jerry Bock.

If I plead the Fifth, man,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

All day long I’d keep things mum,
because I’m a victimized man.

I wouldn’t have to-rehearse hard,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

if I pled a biddy biddy Fifth,
because I’m a victimized man.

I’ve built a biz with prah-per-ties by the dozen.
I’ve done great things for this town!

My fine accountant had IN-teg-ri-ty, I know.

There was one set of books just going up,
and one with numbers going down,
and one more with values, I won’t show.

I’ve filled my companies with greens and towers and clubs
and a school to play and learn,
recording just as profitably as I can,

and each great ca-ching bling bling ca-ching
would be written down just-for-me,
as if to say here is a wonderful man. Oh!

If I plead the Fifth, man,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

All day long I’d keep things mum,
because I’m a victimized man.

I wouldn’t have to-rehearse hard,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

if I pled a biddy biddy Fifth,
because I’m a victimized man.

I saw my REAL estate ful-filling my birthright
with lots of proper bonds and loans,
supervising deals to my heart’s delight.

YOU’RE accusing me and
you’re acting like a witch hunter.
Oh, what an unfair thing you’re doing,
harassing my family day and night.

All the great people came to work with me.
They asked to help ME with building.
They knew I was the expert.
They loved the Trump name.
Oh PLEASE help us.
YOU’RE posing accusations that are wrong in my eyes.

lah eeh eeh a rah rah

And here we have a big, big difference, because I know you’re WRONG.

When you’re me, they’re jealous of all you do.

If I plead the Fifth, I’d assert my RIGHTS,
and run for president again,
and maybe be-able-to build my WALL.

But I won’t discuss my books with prah-se-cu-tors seven hours every-day.
They’re doing the most unjust thing of all. Oh!

If I plead the Fifth, man,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

All day long I’d keep things mum,
because I’m a victimized man.

I wouldn’t have to-rehearse hard,
yah dee yah dee yah dee yah
dee yah dee yah dee yah dum

So who made this evil, evil scheme?
You decree I can’t have the American Dream.
Would you leave my family and me alone?
You’re taking an outrageous tone!

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Breaking the Ice

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The Book of the Week is “Breaking the Ice, The Black Experience in Professional Hockey” by Cecil Harris, published in 2003. This wordy, redundant volume described the experiences of African Americans who have played ice hockey in North America beginning in the twentieth century. As is well known, Canada’s national sport is ice hockey.

The first African American player in the National Hockey League (NHL) was Willie O’Ree. Originally from New Brunswick, Canada, at twenty-two years old, he played one game in January 1958, was demoted to the “minors” but then returned to play in the 1960-61 season. Professional hockey saw no African American players again until the 1974-75 season, when Mike Marson made the big leagues.

In 1978, the World Hockey Association was competing with the NHL for talent. Tony McKegney, an African-American Canadian, signed a contract with the former, to play with a team in Birmingham, Alabama. When racist white fans found out, they said they would cancel their season tickets if McKegney played. The team owner felt pressured into breaching the contract with him. The player’s agent was a crook, too. That’s another story.

Some newspaper writer in Toronto reported that McKegney was okay with his canceled contract. But the lying writer had never even spoken with him. Anyway, fortunately, McKegney was later drafted by the NHL to play with the Buffalo Sabres.

One major measure of talent is total goals scored in a season. In the winter 1973 season, McKegney scored thirty-six goals and was still a young twenty-five. Yet he was traded a bunch of times, anyway– playing on six different teams (one of them twice) by the time he turned thirty-three. It is certainly debatable whether race was a factor in those circumstances. For the 1991-1992 season, he played hockey in Italy.

Grant Fuhr helped the Edmonton Oilers win the Stanley Cup four times in the second half of the 1980’s and in 1990. He wore a plastic face covering for protective equipment– not because he was afraid of harm from opposing teams and racist fans, although that’s a justified fear. He was a goalie, so no one could see his skin color.

In March 2003, a racial slur led the coach and general manager of the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds (Ontario League) to resign in disgrace. One black player said in essence, that hatred is taught in families where insecurity abounds, and is a sign of weakness all around.

In the 2003-04 NHL season, there were roughly six hundred players, only seventeen of whom were African American. Canadian hockey players (of any ethnicity) who are professional-hopefuls, can be chosen to live with a host family near a hockey venue to do an internship of sorts, that pays their expenses.

In the early 1990’s, one of the first black NHL players who trained in this manner, at sixteen years old, was Jarome Iginla. He also got to go to New York City to play with NHL greats in a special program, and played in a major international competition in Salt Lake City in 2002.

Read the book to learn much more about racial issues in ice hockey, the crackdown on hate speech uttered by hockey insiders, the childishness of fans (such as the throwing of chicken bones and bananas at black players), and the bygone era of hockey-fighting as sideshow entertainment.

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A Storm Too Soon – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “A Storm Too Soon, A True Story of Disaster, Survival, and an Incredible Rescue” by Michael J. Touglas, published in 2013.

This suspenseful story recounted the abbreviated May 2007 voyage of three Darwin-Award candidates who began to sail from the northern coast of Florida across the Atlantic Ocean to Gibraltar. Hazards included, among others– sudden, unexpected storms, spilled contents of container ships and inaccurate maps (due to recently washed-away sandbars).

“Every screw, rivet, line, seam, porthole, and the rest of what makes up a sailboat has to hold under the assault of the seas.” Unfortunately, the entire contents of the captain and crew’s 55-foot sailboat had a difficult time staying afloat, when an unseasonable squall broke a window that immediately let in 80-foot-high waves and 80-knot wind gusts. Miraculously, the life raft stayed intact. However, the various tools they had for sending distress signals to the Coast Guard were less than ideal, for different reasons.

Predictably, the three men were at high risk for drowning, harm from sharks, dehydration and hypothermia. In a case like this, rescuers who approach them via C-130 plane and helicopter, risk their lives in numerous ways. First, the plane searches an area equivalent to the needle-in-a-haystack cliche.

Read the book to learn many more details, and the fate of the participants in the above story.

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The Way It Was With Me

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The Book of the Week is “The Way It Was With Me, A personal and political memoir, told with relish and laced with dire truth” (sic) by Senator Glen H. Taylor, published in 1979.

Born in 1904 in rural Idaho, Taylor quit high school to financially support his family. In the backs of bars, he was a singer of “illustrated songs” (good old American classics, accompanied by a slide show, a piano and a three-piece orchestra). He appeared onstage as the last act after showgirls and burlesque in Western states. Later, thanks to his older brother, he traveled with an acting troupe, competing with movies that featured sound.

Taylor first ran for office in 1938, on a shoestring budget as an Idaho Democrat for the U.S. Congress. He wasn’t the first choice of the local political machine. He lost. American politics has hardly changed in centuries (never mind eighty years ago), in terms of dirty tricks and backroom deals.

Because he was a showman, when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1942, Taylor adopted the shtick of riding a horse to campaign stops; a total distance of five hundred miles. He was doing his rationing bit for the war effort. He handed out postcard-sized campaign cards with his picture and name. The newspapers knew that human-interest articles (translation: tabloid stories) sold more papers than discussion of the issues by the candidates, and they all behaved accordingly. Taylor lost again.

When Taylor finally won an election, he was shown around Congress by a megalomaniacal alpha male who abused his power. Taylor, on the other hand, committed political suicide for his principles, defending Henry Wallace (about whom president Truman made an unfortunate remark that gave rise to vicious red-baiters such as Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon to do their things). In campaigning for Wallace, Taylor refused to bow to the rules of segregation at a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1946. Bull Connor had thugs haul Taylor off to jail for being a “radical integrationist Commie.”

Read the book to learn many additional details about Taylor’s life– how it contained the kinds of characters who: would appear in a Mae West movie, populated Vaudeville and politics; how he made a small contribution to electoral politics in Idaho (hint: he went door-to-door to verify a vote count because Idaho election law was silent on voting-recounts), and how he satisfied his entrepreneurial bent, finally striking it rich.

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Code Name Ginger

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“Now he was inventing a new story, in which I never told him that I was writing a book and in which he controlled anything I wrote.” Sounds familiar. “I” was Steve Kemper, the author of this book, and “he” was Dean Kamen, who became an amnesiac whenever it was convenient.

The Book of the Week is “Code Name Ginger, The Story Behind SEGWAY and Dean Kamen’s Quest to Invent a New World” by Steve Kemper, published in 2003.

Born in 1951 in Rockville Centre on Long Island, Dean Kamen is a spell-binding genius entrepreneur with some social blind spots. Nevertheless, he had a well-founded fear that “…scientific illiteracy would wreck the country’s economy, lifestyle and future.”

Anyway, by the time he graduated high school, he had become wealthy building cool audio-visual lighting systems that synchronized multiple slide projectors for rock bands and friends and family. By age 31, he was a multi-millionaire, after producing patented breakthrough medical products, horrifying other alpha males– ones who held graduate business degrees– with his drastic plans.

In the early 1990’s, some of Kamen’s company-employees began working on his vision for a new product– a wheelchair that adjusted the way a human being would, to different situations such as curbs and stairs. He was extremely possessive of his product, which was his heart and soul. He wouldn’t grant investors more than ten percent financial interest in the product. Ever.

In 1999, the creators planned to launch the new product, code-named “Ginger” early in the second quarter of 2001, and projected the construction of cookie-cutter factories on different continents that would build two million machines in ten years. However, Dean’s fellow employees felt he didn’t understand that high-volume manufacturing for a product like Ginger required hundreds of employees, a dozen loading docks, fleets of tractor-trailers, etc.

Kamen also reeked of overconfidence, even when presented with ample evidence that disproved his claims. In the late 1990’s, there was already so much competition from other products in the forms of various scooters and folding bikes. At a December 2000 meeting of investors, Steve Jobs told him that U.S. automakers would lobby against Ginger and the automakers would win.

Kamen’s ace in the hole was that he had friendly contact with nearly all of George W. Bush’s cabinet in early 2001. They had the power to grease the wheels of commerce in his favor.

Read the book to learn how the product turned into a toy for the rich but made mobility fun, and the personalities that shaped its evolution.

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Read About the Years – BONUS POST

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ALSO, PLEASE NOTE: Kent State should be compared to the Jan. 6 riot ONLY insofar as it really shocked the nation.

READ ABOUT THE YEARS

sung to the tune of “Reeling in the Years” with apologies to Steely Dan.

Your democratic freedoms, you can see them fading fast.
So you express your moral outrage with a social media blast.
Well, you’ve forgotten your history
of recent decades in this land.
Your panic and stress show that you don’t understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

You keep forgetting there’s nothing new under the sun.
In your youth you were blissfully ignorant
and always having fun.
But the real world and politics
have made you cynical and mad.
The fears your elders grew by, you don’t understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

Healthcare costs a lot of money
but democracy takes a lot of time.
GOP versus Hollywood is seared upon your mind.
The nation will survive this.
To lead, they’ll find another man.
History shows things aren’t hopeless.
Read– you’ll understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

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Out of the Gobi

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The Book of the Week is “Out of the Gobi, My Story of China and America” by Weijian Shan, published in 2019. This volume richly detailed the hardships faced by ordinary Chinese people from the 1950’s onward.

Born in 1953, the author spent most of his childhood in Beijing. As is well known, the Communist dictator Mao Tse-tung finally achieved nationwide dominance over the Nationalist (allegedly democratic, but still horribly corrupt) Chiang Kai-shek at the dawn of the 1950’s. (For additional info on how Communism is different from Socialism and Capitalism, see the bottom portion of this blog’s post, “The Last Idealist”). Mao proceeded to do grave damage to his country, causing the deaths of millions from starvation and financial disaster (among other causes).

Beginning in 1965, Mao declared there would be a new world order in his country, in the form of a Cultural Revolution. One of many goings-on during this period was burning, destruction or confiscation of all books except for those by the authors Marx (Karl, not Groucho), Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

The evil West’s bourgeois lifestyle was violently stamped out by Mao’s private police force, the Red Guard (which consisted of mostly young, armed and dangerous radical hooligans– sociopathic sadists), which brainwashed schoolkids of all ages, up to university level, to make Revolution. They destroyed the statue of the Venus de Milo, and denounced the Russian classical novels. A couple of years later, chaos reigned, but Mao was still in control.

In autumn 1966, at thirteen years old, the author was brainwashed by the youth movement to go on a fact-finding mission in the countryside. The government did away with entrance examinations, and in fact, all formal schooling. For about three weeks, the author and his peers traveled around by trains, buses and on foot to personally witness the Revolution. At one point, they went on a hike in the mountains, retracing the steps of the Red Army. Their travel expenses were paid for, but the conditions were quite primitive.

Into 1967, upon orders handed down by Mao, the youths protested against Capitalism in a way roughly equivalent to “Occupy Wall Street” but they got bored. They were neither studying nor working. For, a few years prior, the dictator had successfully thrown the country into disarray, forcing the closure of not only all schools, but bookstores, libraries, parks, movie theaters and houses of worship.

Thousands of people disappeared, were abducted from their homes– to be jailed, tortured, killed, for so much as speaking, writing or acting in the least way, critical of the government. In the environment of fear and force, they were under pressure to tattle on others before they themselves were punished.

Schools in the author’s area finally did reopen in autumn 1968, but education was still lacking. The author’s “Worker-Peasant-Soldier Middle School” (grades nine and ten– after what would be American grammar school) had no textbooks but students were drilled only on Mao’s propaganda.

In the summer of 1969, Mao realized it was time to change tack by sending young people to the countryside, as they had been making trouble in the cities long enough. He kept them busy by inspiring them to do hard manual labor, and study revolutionary thought. The kids truly tried their hardest– they were blindly obedient to the cause of defending their motherland against Soviet aggression. In autumn 1969, the whole nation went crazy constructing air-raid shelters and tunnels.

The author was sent to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia. Again, conditions were extremely primitive. He and his fellows got military training. However, due to a weapons shortage, another platoon was chosen to receive (outdated, Soviet-made) submachine guns. None of the company leaders had any experience in battle, but they inspired passion in their subordinates, anyway. Under the blazing summer sun, there were vicious mosquitoes. It was freezing in winter.

The author described his physical and psychological suffering of the next several years, as his group strove to complete a series of months or years-long agricultural and infrastructure projects that actually produced a net negative effect on food production and quality of life.

In 1979, the United States resumed formal diplomatic relations with China. People in China queued up for hours and hours for all kinds of consumer goods. The author, by then a recent university graduate, reveled in his new lap of luxury– he had time to read for hours and hours, had enough to eat, and got a hot shower once a week.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional information on: the author’s experiences in China from the 1950’s into the 1980’s (which involved a slew of health hazards) including but was far from limited to:

all his hard manual labor and psychological trauma;

his short stint as a medical “doctor” in 1971;

how he enjoyed the benefits of a student exchange program in the 1980’s; and

his troubles with the INS (hint– “… a mistake in the new letter: the date by which we had to leave the country was left blank… the INS had somehow lost our file…”).

This substantial volume reveals why, politically, economically, culturally and socially, and in quality of life– overall, China is still many decades behind America (never mind the propagandists who claim that China is allegedly becoming an economic powerhouse and will someday overtake the U.S.).

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IS THAT A SHAME?

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IS THAT A SHAME?

sung to the tune of “Ain’t That A Shame” with apologies to: the estate of Fats Domino; and Joe Biden– shame on those who are blaming him for everything.

InFRA-structure, was passed, in a blur.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Did COVID, re-LIEF, cause you, any grief?

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Oh well, jobs grew. And wa-ges, too.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

InFRA-structure, was passed, in a blur.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Oh well, jobs grew. And wa-ges, too.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

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Irena’s Children

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The Book of the Week is “Irena’s Children, The Extraordinary Woman Who Saved Thousands of Children From the Warsaw Ghetto” by Tilar J. Mazzeo, adapted by Mary Cronk Farrell, published in 2016.

At the start of WWII, Irena worked as a senior administrator in a Warsaw social welfare office that oversaw soup kitchens. A socialist, she was politically active. Less than two weeks after invading Poland in the first week of September of 1939, the Germans surrounded Warsaw. Nazis imposed martial law and abducted professionals they feared might influence Poles to fight back– teachers, priests, landowners, politicians, etc.

Irena became a member of the Polish Resistance, a secret social network who helped save the lives of Jews. She and her staff fabricated statistics, interviews and compiled lists of (fictional) non-Jewish names of social-program recipients in order to funnel necessities to the Jews.

In autumn 1940, Hitler assembled a committee of Jews to impose anti-Semitic laws to strip Jews of their assets and dignity. Eventually, the victims were banned from, or had draconian restrictions placed on them at work, school, in the streets and practically everywhere else, and the German authorities brainwashed all non-Jews into socially ostracizing Jews.

In October 1940, Nazis herded Jews into a ghetto– forced Jews to move into and live in a small geographic sector of Warsaw. The sector was sealed off via a wall. Germans claimed they were segregating the Jews to stem the spread of typhus. Profiteers had a field day, via the usual price-gouging, bribery, protection-money, etc. Profiteers included but were hardly limited to landlords, government officials, sellers of work-permits, and food smugglers. The ghettoizing didn’t make sense, of course, because the crowded conditions increased the spread of disease! In November 1940, a smear campaign sealed the deal that the Jews spread diseases.

These days, propaganda campaigns reach the masses at the speed of light, and whoever can spread their messages more convincingly and prolifically, wins the game. More specifically in the United States, politicians do this through their own communications, and through the media, driven by money. They give stuff away for free (via their donors) only insofar as they think doing so will benefit them in the long-term. For the last few decades, the American government has brainwashed the people into socially ostracizing each other for their political views. It is better for the majority of the population to be divided (as long as violence does not reach the point of civil war), than for it to devolve into the chaos of a cult of personality under a Hitler or Stalin.

Anyway, Irena, a Catholic, risked her life (!) to save the lives of as many Jewish children as she could. She sewed vials of typhus vaccine, toys and money into her clothing to hide them from the Nazis when she entered the ghetto with fake papers saying she was a disease-control worker.

Garbage, vermin and sewage began to accumulate in the yards of the ghetto, as the neighborhoods lacked indoor plumbing and modern sanitation services. “Each morning, the dead lined the streets, piled naked and covered with old newsprint and stones.” People stole the clothing of, and rats gnawed at, the corpses. Luckily, the Nazis were germophobes, so they usually allowed Irena to pass through their checkpoints with minimal harassment.

All identity papers stated one’s religion, and food-ration cards allotted the Jews 184 calories a day. Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were forced to wear a blue star (rather than a yellow one) on their clothing. Winter 1941 was especially freezing. To add injury to injury, bombs rained down on Warsaw, bringing more deaths and destruction.

In January 1942, after a few Gestapo officers died of disease, a senior official ordered the roundup of street urchins who were, or were perceived to be Jewish (those not checked for circumcision were judged only on facial features– like the victims of genocide in Rwanda). Many urchins were orphans. Irena and others smuggled necessities to them, and helped them sneak out of or into the ghetto (whatever the circumstances dictated), when they couldn’t be placed in orphanages via fake papers.

Read the book to learn of the ways the Polish Resistance creatively outsmarted the Nazis’ control and dominance over the Polish people, and a wealth of details about Irena’s selfless, clever activities to save lives (hint: one of her friends remarked, “The Germans… were such an orderly, rule-following people, that they couldn’t imagine anyone would do something so outrageously brazen as have fifty Jewish people coming and going in front of them.”), and learn the population estimates of Jews and non-Jews before and after the war.

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North By Northwest / My Old Man and the Sea

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The first Book of the Week is “North By Northwest, A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaska Waters” by Captain Sig Hansen and Mark Sundeen, published in 2010.

Born in the Seattle area in 1966, Hansen was of Norwegian ancestry. He was mentored in fishing for a living by his grandfather, father, and the Norwegian fishing community. His older male relatives had been sourcing seafood for decades. The community had been growing in the upper Midwest in the United States since the early 1800’s. It was a lucrative, male-dominated career– a subculture bearing a resemblance to military life in certain ways:

Teamwork was required of five or six men who lived in close quarters, doing rigorous physical work under life-threatening conditions at all times at sea;

There were numerous ways to: become seriously injured, and / or suffer serious financial losses rather than reap huge financial gains from selling expensive seafood;

The crew consisted of a hierarchy whose entry involved initiation rites in the form of practical jokes that were not always harmless; and

Even during the off-season, the men’s drinking fostered male bonding that allowed them to mitigate the emotional stress of their work, and maintain their relationships in the old-boy network.

After high school, Hansen apprenticed as a deckhand on his father’s boat. The men were away at sea from nine to eleven months of the year, using “pots” (large, unwieldy cages that trap the seafood) to catch: red crab in the Bering Sea and near Nome in Alaska and near Adak, blue crab at St. Matthew, and opilio crab at Dutch Harbor.

In the 1980’s, the fishermen were allowed to carry boxes of live crabs in the plane cabin on Reeve Aleutian Airways. When starting their winter fishing season, if they were extremely lucky, they could complete their flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor in Alaska on an icy twin-prop plane. They booked it months in advance, arrived at the airport in the wee hours of the morning, and prayed that the weather would cooperate.

Read the book to learn a little history about seafaring in general, including the context of the following quote:

“That winter he was killed by Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay, his body torn apart and burned.”

and much more about Hansen’s life and times in his community. By the way, he appeared on the reality TV show, “Deadliest Catch.”

The second Book of the Week is “My Old Man and the Sea, A Father and Son Sail Around Cape Horn” by David Hays and Daniel Hays, published in 1995. Father and son alternately described, beginning in the new year of 1985, their adventures at sea– sailing (with no motor) on a tiny yacht for fun from New London, Connecticut southward thousands of miles, and eventually, around the tip of South America from west to east (the less dangerous route). They began testing their boat in fall 1984, sailing through the Panama Canal, and the Caribbean Sea.

As they well knew, all kinds of discomforts and life-threatening dangers awaited them. That was the challenge of it. Even with all of their experience in purchasing the boat, making it seaworthy (over the course of two years), maintaining their (then-primitive) communications and navigation equipment (which required them to pack thousands of items for every possible scenario they might encounter), they still suffered injuries, seasickness, hangovers, etc. When sailing along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, the chart warned them to watch out for “… unexploded mines, rocket casings and torpedoes, and chemical warfare dumpings.”

On their voyages, they met with visiting family or friends to celebrate Jewish holidays such as Yom Kippur. They attended a service at a synagogue on the island of Jamaica. The ark and dais were at opposite ends of the sanctuary, on a floor comprised of sand (representative of a desert).

Much later, when they arrived at a port in the Galapagos Islands, local law allowed them to pollute the water there for only three days; then they had to ship out. The authors described the area thusly: “In the name of white rice and virginity, Western man spent a good two hundred years raping, robbing, and leaving neat diseases here.” It was rumored to be a gateway to Atlantis, and the approximate population was three thousand.

The onshore entertainment consisted of the American movie “Blade Runner” whose soundtrack was poor quality, and whose reels were screened out of order, but the native people in the theater were undemanding.

The authors related that it is easily conceivable that about a hundred men could have made the sculptures on Easter Island over the course of a few decades, thus blowing speculations of alien-artists out of the water.

Read the book to: learn additional info about the authors’ adventures at sea (including their crazy pets), about previous trips made by them and others, see sample pages of their log, a diagram of their boat, and much more.

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An Ambassador in Paris

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The Book of the Week is “An Ambassador in Paris, The Reagan Years” by Evan Galbraith, published in 1987. The author was unrelated to John Kenneth Galbraith. This personal account described the job of an ambassador who represented the United States, stationed in a UN-member, industrialized country– France. He revealed the ignorance, misconceptions and prejudices even political insiders can have– his own (probably without meaning to.)

The author began his four-year stint in November 1987. He had been a lawyer and banker for 25 years prior. He possessed extensive international business experience and had lived in Paris and London for years and years. But– communication skills, tact, foreign-language fluency and knowledge of other cultures turned out to be almost useless anyway, because the ambassador had so little power. The job requires a social-butterfly personality– attending official lunches, dinners, receptions and cocktail parties several times a week, and then generating reports on gossip and interesting factoids. He wrote that knowledge of economics was helpful for the job, yet his writing reflected embarrassing lack of it.

At that time, the author spent hours and hours reading an overwhelming number of daily cables sent to him, consisting of reports generated by embassy personnel, of communications between foreign countries and the U.S. government (which the French were allowed to see), and the CIA’s (alleged “top secret”) interactions.

In spring 1986, the author lunched with French leader Jacques Chirac. They both truly believed that president Ronald Reagan’s pet project “Star Wars” (involving extremely expensive but state-of-the-art weapons launched from outer space) was actually going to be completed and implemented (!) If the Soviets attacked with their missiles, it would be in the best interests of the U.S. to defend Europe with its high-tech weaponry.

Anyway, also in the 1980’s, about two thirds of France’s energy needs were met by nuclear power plants. It was predicted that by the 1990’s, that proportion would be nine tenths. The French believed that a nuclear arms race served as a deterrent to Soviet aggression. It might be recalled the French often conducted nuclear tests, to the consternation of many.

France’s government was a patchwork of political parties. In the early 1980’s, the Socialist party held the majority of power but there were too few voters who would elect the Socialists unless they allied with Communist representatives. So they did.

The author thought that multi-country summits were a waste of time. He suggested that two world leaders meet without a formal agenda, for one day. He rocked the boat when he complained that American officials were visiting the French embassy too often just for fun (or– for those who planning on running for higher office– to be able to say they acquired foreign policy experience). Because they were wined, dined and perhaps received luxury accommodations, they were wasting American taxpayer dollars.

Read the book to learn a lot more about the author’s cluelessness on the fact that the Soviet Union was on the way out, about France’s foreign and security policies, French history, and U.S. foreign policy.

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The Nation Got Run Over – BONUS POST

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THE NATION GOT RUN OVER BY A PLAGUE HERE

sung to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” with apologies to Randy Brooks, Elmo (and Patsy) Trigg, and whichever other rights holders this may concern.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

Some are drinking too much Kool-Aid
and others abuse their power so.
Still others scream for medication.
The hostility of some has reached a new low.

When they confined us in 2020,
they began a dangerous age.
We resented the intrusion,
and our State is such
we have yet to turn the page.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

It’s less than A year until midterms.
Our leaders’ messaging’s a joke.
See no masks on players of football
while tests and shots are FORCED on powerless folk.

It’s not nice to fool the people.
All the nation’s mad as hell,
and we just can’t help but wonder,
how much more must we endure before we’re well?

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

Soon the voters get to DEcide
whose heads are going to roll.
All those blue and red state mandates
are going to change pursuant to every political poll.

I urge all my fellow Americans:
you need to follow politics and vote.
The government has taken license
to curb our freedoms
and make their enemies the scapegoat.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

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Every Town is a Sports Town

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“Its demise was caused by low attendance, conflicting agendas among the owners, and a number of very poor business decisions.”

MLB? Possibly, but definitely the USFL by 1985.

Regardless, the Book of the Week is “Every Town is a Sports Town; Business Leadership at ESPN, from the Mailroom to the Boardroom” by George Bodenheimer with Donald T. Phillips, published in 2015.

In September 1979, the Bristol, Connecticut-based cable-TV channel ESPN began televising sports-related shows, by means of deals with: RCA (regarding a space-satellite), the NCAA (regarding covering basketball games), and Anheuser-Busch (regarding sponsoring the programs). The initial concept of the then-shoestring operation was to dispense information on sports 24/7, to serve fans. ESPN won contracts to show March Madness games and the NFL draft to start.

The workplace was team-oriented with a family-feel, so everyone was a jack-of-all-trades. In 1981, the author, a recent college graduate, worked as a mailroom guy and chauffeur of sorts, for executives of ESPN. He was later promoted to videotape librarian. He was willing to relocate when the company opened new branch offices, including Denver.

Anyway, ESPN could not survive financially on ad revenue alone, as the company was paying cable operators to carry its channel. It saw a loss of $25 million annually until it negotiated in 1982 to have cable operators pay the company a certain number of cents for each household receiving its channel, and that figure could rise up to a certain maximum percentage during the term of a multi-year contract.

Due to the ultimate takeover by Capital Cities Communications, and a favorable change in media law– ESPN grew by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, it added professional tennis, golf, NASCAR, World Cup soccer, the America’s Cup yacht race, and Sunday Night Football (for which ESPN had to pay the NFL) to its lineup in the mid-1980’s.

Globalization, recording devices, the Internet and mobile devices have made the negotiations over intellectual-property rights and sports programming between and among ESPN and other stakeholders, infinitely more complicated. In 1985, ESPN could be watched in about 30 million viewer-households in America; in 1999– in about 80 million in America and about 100 million elsewhere worldwide.

Read the book to learn: of how the author achieved a high position at ESPN, and how he boosted the morale, energy and innovative thinking of his fellow employees; what the company did when it saw its ratings plummet; what his executive team did to resolve the controversy that arose when ESPN made a movie in which the “F” word was uttered approximately thirty times; about the author’s business philosophy; and much more about the history of ESPN.

ENDNOTE: The author’s photo appears on the book’s cover with his head very slightly tilted. This flex is pleasing to the human brain, projecting the impression that he is a people-person. His boyish good looks probably served him well, too. [Total lack of head-flex, projects an unfriendly vibe.]

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We’re Trigger-Happy – BONUS POST

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WE’RE TRIGGER-HAPPY

This is what the “Let’s Go Brandon” crowd ought to sing if they’re honest with themselves– sung to the tune of the partridge family (sic) theme song (Come On Get Happy) with apologies to the estate of Wes Farrell, Danny Janssen and whichever other rights holders this may concern.

SHOOting our mouths off;
JOIN in our zinging.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
A whole lot of anger is what we’ll be bringing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE being mean, and we stick together,
and spread a little hatin’;
no IMpulse conTROL.
We engage in profanity
instead of conflict res-o-lution.
We spread a crude feeling
wherever we GO.
Playin’ along with our hate-speech phrasing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
A whole lot of anger is what we’ll be bringing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE trigger-happ-y-y-y-y.

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Beyond Hitler’s Grasp – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Beyond Hitler’s Grasp, The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews” by Michael Bar-Zohar, published in 1998.

Bulgaria lost a large amount of territory in WWI, and became a Constitutional monarchy after 1919. Its prime minister and other ministers served at the pleasure of its king, Boris III. Other sources of the nation’s power lay in its Army, the Communists and Macedonian terrorists.

In the 1930’s, roughly half of Bulgaria’s fifty thousand Jews lived in the capital of Sofia. They were productive members of society, and were treated just like people of any other religious group. There were only isolated incidents of anti-Semitism because most of the Jews were merchants, craftsmen or poor laborers, and so were not the victims of class envy.

When WWII began, Germany was able to help Bulgaria regain some of the land it had lost in the Great War. Germany was trading with and supplying weapons to Bulgaria, but the Bulgarians had more of a Soviet cultural and Soviet social mindset. So the king sought to keep his country out of the war.

Alexander Belev, an opportunist with hubris syndrome was the Bulgarian Commissar for Jewish Questions. In summer 1942, he collaborated with the Nazis in changing the definition of “Jew” based on ancestry rather than religion. This is one source of the notion that people can be “born Jewish”– have genetic traits that Jews share (For an additional source, see this blog’s post “In Search of Memory”).

Anyway, beginning in autumn 1940, laws went into effect that oppressed Bulgaria’s Jews by taking away their assets and sullying their reputations through hate-spewing and other actions of greedy, local bureaucrats who were taking orders from Hitler.

Read the book to learn how the common people, Christian churches, and circumstances determined the fates of Jews living in Macedonia, Thrace and Bulgaria (complete with romantic subplot, of course; hint: “The deep hatred for the Jews infected only the lunatic fringe of the wartime society, the Ratniks, Branniks, and Legionnaires and some sadistic police and army officers and KEV officials”), and of the mythmaking– historical revisionism of various incidents and events.

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Vincent Price

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The Book of the Week is “Vincent Price, His Movies, His Plays, His Life” by Vincent Price, published in 1978.

Born in May 1911 in Saint Louis, Price was the youngest of four children. He broke into the movies in the 1930’s, when Hollywood made three to four hundred movies annually. In 1956, he appeared, along with Charlton Heston in the most expensive movie ever made at that time: The Ten Commandments. Filming it took eight years; some of it on-location in Egypt, where the Red Sea was parted with then-state-of-the art special effects.

The author claimed that there was fierce competition for roles in the horror genre of the 1950’s, but he had acted in more than a hundred films by 1971. He worked with Boris Karloff, who was able to portray a sympathetic, human-like, but at the same time, scary character. When Karloff played Frankenstein’s monster– who committed evil acts– he wore an excessive quantity of makeup, and screws in his neck, but with a lisp in his speech. There must be villains as well as heroes in entertainment stories, in order to drive the plot.

In many films, Price had to put up with absurdity: “So here we both were, co-starring with a talking fly, and trying to speak our lines while staring at a spider’s web” in The Fly in 1958. By the 1960’s, he was guest-starring on TV as the villain “Egghead” in Batman; in the Brady Bunch, Muppet Show and Hollywood Squares.

In 1961, Price, for no pay, served on the White House Fine Arts Committee to help redecorate the U.S. president’s residence. Beginning in September 1962, upon amassing a valuable art collection, he also became an art consultant to Sears Roebuck & Co. Its stores sold works of truly famous artists (Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh, Whistler, and Andrew Wyeth) for the payment plan of $5 down and $10 a month thereafter. Price wrote cookbooks, too.

Read the book to learn additional information about Price’s life and times.

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Steinbrenner

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The Book of the Week is “Steinbrenner, The Last Lion of Baseball” by Bill Madden, published in 2010.

George Steinbrenner was born in July 1930 in Ohio. At fourteen years old, he was sent by his father to military school. He was groomed to inherit his father’s Great Lakes shipping company.

In late 1972, he got investors together to buy the New York Yankees baseball team from the media network CBS. His financial interest was the largest, however, so he was the face of the team. After the 1974 baseball season, he was indicted for committing felonies by making illegal, individual and corporate political contributions to the former late president Nixon’s reelection campaign. He never spent a day in jail, but was fined. The then-commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) Bowie Kuhn was out to get him for other reasons, though.

Nevertheless, in 1977, after just five years of ownership, Steinbrenner’s Yankees won the World Series, “… in spite of clubhouse dissension, a crazy manager [Billy Martin] and an even crazier owner.” This was due to overwhelming hitting talent. That is the most crucial skill required for a winning baseball team. The reason is– there is limited opportunity to score, unlike with all other major professional American sports (football, basketball, hockey and soccer). In baseball, a team must get its players on the bases and run around those bases in order to win the game. In all the other games, when there is a turnover, any player from the team on defense, can score on the spot.

Aspects of Steinbrenner’s character rubbed people the wrong way. His frequent dishonesty, temper tantrums, impulsive decision-making, micro-management, and excessive spending to recruit players for the Yankees caused emotional burnout and sky-high turnover among his employees. Even so, starting in 1976, there was a major change in the legal rights of Major League players– called free agency– that prompted the average player’s 1975 salary of $44,676 to rise by 1980 to $143,756. Steinbrenner was willing to pay top dollar for the players perceived to be the absolute best prospects for his Yankees, and also for his top executive team.

In 2004, the Yankees’ payroll was $185 million. Beginning in 2005, Joe Torre became the then-highest paid MLB manager, with a $19.2 million, 3-year contract. The following year, Brian Cashman became the then-highest paid general manager with a $4.4 million, 3-year contract.

Read the book to learn much more about Steinbrenner’s career as a professional baseball-team owner, and the constantly changing cast of characters who helped him navigate the Yankees’ ups and downs.

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World Class

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The Book of the Week is “World Class, One Mother’s Journey Halfway Around the Globe in Search of the Best Education for Her Children” by Teru Clavel, published in 2019.

Born in the early 1960’s, the author had very different educational experiences from that of her children. She spent her early childhood years in Greenwich, Connecticut; middle years in New York City, and teens in Westchester county, New York. She, her husband and their three children spent a decade in Asia, and moved back to the United States in 2016.

They began their stay in Hong Kong in the expat community, but the author wanted her children to see how the natives actually lived and learned. The rat race among the super-rich elitists had become tiresome. So in Hong Kong and later in Shanghai, she found a preschool and elementary school that were right for her then-two children. Even so, most local Asian schools demanded discipline and rigorous academics that were standardized nationwide.

In Shanghai, though, her family endured hardships in order for her children to get the best educations– authentic to the culture of that place and time. In Asia, teaching is a highly respected profession for which there is rigorous training and a highly selective hiring process.

Both the author’s family’s local public school and their residence were structurally dilapidated. The former had classrooms that were unheated, so in winter, the kids wore their coats all day. The grounds had no playground, only a concrete basketball court with a bare hoop. The family’s home had vermin and unreliable water and internet service.

At the elementary school, the teachers specialized in math, Mandarin, English language or other subjects, and were paid more than the homeroom teacher. The kids learned with pencils and paper; not tablets and videos.

Every day before preschool began, the kids were subjected to a color-coded health examination: red (a lucky color in China) meant the child was well, yellow meant slight illness but okay to be in class, but blue indicated that the child would spend the day at the school infirmary. Most parents of elementary schoolers work to support a multi-generational household: an only child, the parents, and both sets of grandparents of the child.

The author’s six-year old son’s report card was a 46 page bound book containing assessments in each subject including social skills– comprised of opinions of the parents, teachers and students themselves. According to the author, the Chinese education system is a meritocracy, with high school and college entrance exams the keys to the kingdom.

The author wanted her children to attend high school in the United States, so the family moved to Palo Alto in California– the best school district in the nation; but, as the author found out, only reputationally.

Read the book to learn: many more details of Asian education and cultures, and how they compare to the American system in recent years; the author’s advice and tips for how parents can seek out the best education for their kids; and biographical information on the author and her family.

Featured

Flight of Passage – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Flight of Passage, A Memoir” by Rinker Buck, published in 1997.

In July 1966, the fifteen-year old author and his seventeen-year old brother flew from New Jersey to California in a Piper Cub they’d refurbished themselves. For fun. They weren’t attention whores. It was their famous father who helped publicize their flight. Completion of the trip was a major feat, as conditions were life-threatening from time to time. Built in 1946, the prop plane had no battery, no radio and no lights.

The media thought it was a big story: “America just wanted a good dose of innocence that summer and we perfectly fit the bill. The Jack-and-Bobby look-alikes bouncing out to California in their homemade Piper Cub was a heartwarming tale for the masses.”

Read the book to learn of: the brothers’ adventures; the issues the author had to deal with, between and among his brother, father and himself; other information on his family; and how his father’s view of black people changed radically when they saved his life.

ENDNOTE: The author focused mostly on the flight and ignored the ugly historical events then happening in the United States. Times have changed on two fronts in 55 years: back then, there was minimal security and a lot of privacy for ordinary Americans.

Once the media began to follow the author’s story and he and his brother became momentarily famous, though, hordes of journalists engaged in stakeouts at every place the plane touched down. Even so, the pilots didn’t hire a publicist and didn’t try to stay in the spotlight in any way. Even their father didn’t try to keep their space in the news cycle going. That is the antithesis of the current social climate in this country. Here’s a little ditty that shows how times have changed:

EVERY SELFIE YOU TAKE
sung to the tune of “Every Breath You Take” with apologies to Sting and the Police.

Every selfie you take,
from the moment you wake,
every post you make,
every ID you fake,
spyware’s watching you.

Everyone you unfriend,
every text you send,
every photo you post,
every site from your host,
spyware’s watching you.

Oh, you emotional wreck,
you belong to Big Tech.

Your hypocrisy grows
with your privacy woes,
your attention whore ways,
your social media days,
hours of video-game plays,
every political craze,
spyware’s watching you.

ComplAINTS on privacy are a SLIPpery slope.
Lawyers spin disclaimers in ORDER to cope.
Look around, you’re hanging YOURself
on your own rope.
You feel so mad but can you TURN back? Nope.
You keep crying,
world– LOOK at me, LOOK at me, PLEASE!

Oh, you emotional wreck,
you belong to Big Tech.

Your hypocrisy grows
with your privacy woes,
your attention whore ways,
your social media days,
hours of video-game plays,
every political craze,
spyware’s watching you.

Every selfie you take,
from the moment you wake,
spyware’s watching you.
Spyware’s watching you.

Your attention whore ways,
your social media days,
hours of video-game plays,
every political craze,
spyware’s watching you.

Everyone you unfriend,
every text you send,
every photo you post,
every site from your host,
spyware’s watching you.

Every selfie you take,
from the moment you wake,
every post you make,
every ID you fake,
spyware’s watching you.

Everyone you unfriend,
every text you send,
every photo you post,
every site from your host,
spyware’s watching you.

Your attention whore ways,
your social media days,
hours of video-game plays,
every political craze,
spyware’s watching you.

Everyone you unfriend,
every text you send,
every photo you post,
every site from your host,
spyware’s watching you.

Featured

In Bolivia

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The Book of the Week is “In Bolivia, the Adventurous Odyssey Through the Americas’ Least-Known Nation” by Eric Lawlor, published in 1989. In the late 1980’s, the author visited various parts of Bolivia, speaking with natives and tourists to learn how the culture evolved, based on its history.

There was labor unrest in the Bolivian mining industry in 1919, 1922, 1927, 1942 and 1967. Over the years, thousands of unarmed, protesting miners of tin or silver died when fired on by the military. In the 1942 confrontation, the government blamed the deaths on Communist agitators, and later, Nazis. The government sociopathically crushed the miners’ revolts every time.

The author visited Santa Cruz, which put out such products as oil, cotton, sugar, rice and coffee. Its major industry was black-market cocaine, sold by small-time dealers. They were left alone because the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of the United States was interested in catching only kingpin Roberto Suarez. After having made about half a billion dollars a year– some from supplying America with about one third of its illegal cocaine– he was caught in July 1988.

Prior to that, there was a cocaine gravy train. Pilots made lots of money flying the drug to Miami. Even teenage boys made a living, stomping barefoot on kerosene-marinated coca leaves to process them. They were rumored to develop skin cancer. The author was offered but declined a job drug-running, from two different men he’d just met. He bought a small amount of cocaine, and was advised to stash it in his underpants. He was actually fortunate that it was stolen from its hiding place in his hotel room, because shortly afterwards, the DEA came around and interrogated him.

More and more farmers were finding the growing of coca more lucrative than food crops. The Bolivian government warned the drug lords in advance that American law enforcement and the Bolivian army were going to raid their labs. They fled to Panama. Another way America made a token gesture of cracking down on the cocaine industry was to threaten to withhold about $60 million dollars of annual aid. Ordinary Bolivians were angry at U.S president Reagan for crashing their economy and being a hypocrite. They said, “We’ll stop exporting cocaine when he stops exporting weapons.”

The author visited a region in Bolivia called La Loma. The tribe who lived there depended on a river for their very simple lifestyle. There was plenty of fish, and they were happy. The people in Tarija– near the border of Argentina– were unhappy. For, they went on strike to demand that the government build the power plant it had promised them six months prior. The author interviewed a Bolivian army soldier who told him the country should be ruled by the military. The military was nonpartisan, and its goal was to do only what was best for the country, not what was best for the politicians. If it achieved its goal of improving the economy, however, the military budget would grow with it.

The author was trapped in Tarija for weeks. He couldn’t leave by bus, train or plane, and there were guarded barricades all around the city. He spoke with a man who had fought in the Bolivian war with the Paraguayans over disputed territory in the Chaco in 1932. Many more Bolivians died of dehydration, starvation and disease, than from their wounds.

The Bolivians fought incompetently, lacking training and resources. The war ended in 1935, due to attrition on both sides. Bolivians’ emotional turmoil was comparable to that of Americans’ after Vietnam and Watergate. Trust had been broken between the Bolivian people and their leaders. So revolution (during which ninety thousand people died) ensued in 1952. But the aforementioned interviewee thought Bolivians were worse off after the revolution.

Some changes were made: nationalization of the tin mines, land reform, and Indians got the vote. But Bolivia went bankrupt in 1956. The United States instituted a stabilization program there. The military led the country again until 1985. The takeaway from Bolivia’s governments through the decades, is that dictators are largely similar the world over:

“He had wealth and status… He produced nothing and provided no leadership. He was not very smart and had few skills… his contempt for his countrymen and his belief in his own superiority was not typical of what is normally considered moral.”

Read the book to learn a smattering about Bolivia’s history of missionaries, violent occurrences, and mindset over the last several centuries.

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How I Cracked the Alpha Code – BONUS POST

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“The new guys were preoccupied with being reelected, the demands of which were not well served by ridiculous fantasies like fiscal discipline.”

American politics? Rogers was actually referring to the money managers of the euro in the early 2000’s. He was cautiously optimistic about the euro when it was first launched. Oh, well.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “How I Cracked the Alpha Code” by Jim Rogers, published in 2013. This was a partially autobiographical, extended essay that gave tips on how to gauge economic prosperity and prospects in different places. At all times, Rogers is on the lookout everywhere for investment opportunities. He made his (take this job and shove it) money and retired from investment banking at 37 years old.

Born in 1942, Rogers and his wife and young children tried living in Shanghai and Hong Kong (where there was horrible air pollution) beginning in 2005, before deciding to move to Singapore from New York City.

Singapore requires no security at public events, so it is safe for children. He claimed that the education and healthcare systems are excellent. It has entitlement programs in those areas and in home ownership that are roughly equivalent to health savings accounts and 529 plans in the U.S. with contribution-matching through employers, but administered by the government. The public schools require parents to volunteer to help in various capacities. Medical treatment is a great value compared to that in the U.S. No surprise there. It also has the equivalent of America’s E-ZPass system on toll roads and for parking, too.

However, Rogers merely listed the positive aspects of Singaporeans’ lifestyle. He listed no negatives, except for potential, general economic threats that could affect any nation. Another glaring omission of inconvenient information was cryptocurrencies. But he did reveal his basic philosophy: one’s real worth is what one would be worth if one lost all of his or her money. And let financial entities fail so as to encourage creative destruction. Do not bail them out.

Rogers listed some of the kinds of policies and practices that bring a country down economically: wars, litigation, and incompetent leadership. This blogger would add one more: excessive deregulation. He gave tips on what a nation should do to try to reverse its serious financial position: reform the tax system so as to encourage savings and investment, not consumption; “change the education system” and reform healthcare and litigation.

Read the book to learn more cherry-picked information that bolstered the author’s too brief, too pat pronouncements.

Featured

Fatal Subtraction

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The Book of the Week is “Fatal Subtraction, How Hollywood Really Does Business” by Pierce O’Donnell and Dennis McDougal, published in 1992.

“I asked myself whether this uncanny similarity and anticompetitive market was the result of coincidence or conspiracy. Thanks to my populist tendencies and a healthy distrust of powerful institutions, I opted for the sinister explanation.”

Politics? Big Tech? Medical, legal, music, sports or oil industry?

The above quote happens to refer (in various ways) to all of the major Hollywood movie studios, just after their most lucrative years. The skyrocketing size of the home video market in the 1980’s made movie studios richer and richer, what with cable TV, VCRs and global distribution. They retained the best entertainment law firms on an ongoing basis so that whenever any powerless parties who felt wronged, tried to hire those firms to bring legal actions against them, there were conflicts of interest.

In 1988, Art Buchwald and Alain Bernheim– respectively a seasoned humorous newspaper writer and lecturer who dabbled in the movie industry, and a producer– sued Paramount Pictures Corporation for thirteen causes of action; among them, breach of contract in connection with the movie Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy. They were fortunate in that they were able to hire a big firm and could afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire topnotch attorneys to fight a years-long legal battle.

The crux of the dispute involved the boilerplate contracts almost everyone in Hollywood was compelled by their agents to sign, in order to get work. The studios engaged in cartelizing behavior, so the powerless creative personnel were at their mercy at contract-signing. Only a tiny percentage of powerful elite stars reaped a ton of money for all movies they did, regardless of financial success. The agents claimed they were getting great deals for their less powerful talent, but that was a lie. For, starting in the 1950’s, the contracts evolved pursuant to the studios’ shady accounting practices, in a way that cheated screenwriters especially.

By the dawn of the 1990’s, big-name actors were allowed to behave like prima donnas, basically enjoying excessive expense accounts and reaping outrageously generous compensation from gross movie revenues. The movie idea originators and writers received net profit participation– i.e., the crumbs after all expenses had been deducted. The studios’ definition of “profit” was topsy turvy so when it came time to pay lowly workers, they claimed their movies were losing money!

O’Donnell and his legal team argued that certain provisions in Buchwald’s and Bernheim’s contracts were unconscionable, and therefore legally unenforceable. On principle, the studios’ oligopoly was economically bad not just for his clients, but for society (See this blog’s post “Wikinomics / Courting Justice”).

Read the book to learn every last detail of the case.

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You Can’t Trust Them – BONUS POST

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YOU CAN’T TRUST THEM

This is the song Steve Bannon is singing now.

sung to the tune of “You Can’t Touch This” with apologies to (M.C.) Hammer.

You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
No. No. No. No.
You can’t trust them.
Again, you made America GREAT,
makes me say, just you WAIT.
Thank you, for voting TRUMP
with a Wall to build
and a fist to BUMP.
We feel good, even NOW
we won again in this cheating TOWN.
We’re innoCENT.
So they can’t charge me with conTEMPT.
We beat the radical left.
You can’t trust them.
Yeah, that’s how we roll,
and you know, uh,
you can’t trust them.
Don’t look in my files, man.
You can’t trust them.
I ignore the subpoenas.
You can’t trust them.
We deflect their licks,
we keep it REAL.
We’re strong like that.
We say stop the STEAL.
So get out on the STREET
and get a big sign
and use your free SPEECH
while we’re polling.
On TOP.
Update a little bit.
Keep on fighting. Don’t STOP.
Like me, like me.
They’re hot on my trail,
so back me up.
They accuse us of trying a PUTSCH,
but we’re the winners, uh, they can’t TOUCH.
Yo, don’t even.
You can’t trust them.
Why they harassing me, man?
You can’t trust them.
Yo, let freedom ring,
election’s still on, sucker.
You can’t trust them.
Give me a rally and a MIC,
they’re so dull.
See we’re all PSYCHED.
Now they JUMP,
you mess with the Bannon
you’re messing with TRUMP.
That’s risky, and NAIVE.
Accusers are hatin’,
we’re not gonna LEAVE,
won’t CAVE IN.
We know, how to catch the next WAVE IN.
We’re LEGIT.
We’ll take over, so they might as well QUIT.
Sure thing.
They’re so not.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
We’re on a roll.
Stop. Bannon time!
I’m not guilty, this I KNOW.
If you can’t groove to my podcasts,
you’re too SLOW.
So wave, your arms in the AIR.
Take back the country.
The ballot-counting was so UNFAIR.
We can’t stand this any LONGER.
Stick with me and you’ll get STRONGER.
Now listen, Biden’s going down,
let’s open our eyes and look AROUND (around, around, around).
No. You can’t trust them.
Get with it.
You can’t trust them.
You’ve got lots of problems, ’cause
you know, uh, you can’t trust them.
Let freedom ring, election’s still on.
We keep it real.
Stop. Bannon time!
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
We’re on a roll.
Stop. Bannon time!
No bones about it,
that Bannon’s just so DEFT.
I’m always on your phone
and I shame the radical LEFT.
Now they won’t ever, stop with their PLOTS.
To end this outrage, we can do LOTS.
I visited the world,
from China to D.C.
It’s Bannon GO
Bannon, Steve Bannon YO
Keep calm and follow ME.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
You can’t trust them.
No. You can’t trust them.
I’m bad. You can’t trust them.
So deft. You can’t trust them.
Yo, we’re on it. You can’t trust them.

Featured

The Daughters of Kobani

The Book of the Week is “The Daughters of Kobani, The Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice” by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, published in 2021.

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“She didn’t have time to offer hourly updates to her family, who were tracking every moment of the battle for Kobani on Facebook and WhatsApp.”

No, the above referred NOT to an American political campaign, but a real-life war.

Violence in northern Syria resumed between Kurds (an oppressed minority in Iraq and Syria) and non-Kurds in March 2004 after tensions boiled over at a soccer game. At the same time, there was hostility over water-rights of the Euphrates river between Syria (a non-NATO member) and Turkey (a NATO member).

Turkey harbored anger and resentment toward Syria’s leader, and wanted him out. The Soviets backed Syria’s leader, as did the U.S. initially. In the 1990’s, a Marxist-Leninist activist named Abdullah Ocalan formed a violent (some might say terrorist) pro-Kurdish, pro-gender-equality group called PKK, that agitated for self-rule for the Kurds in Syria.

The decades-long cliche is: the latest terror group (ISIS) obtained modern war weaponry from Iraqi forces, who had received the equipment from America. As is well known, the region has been a foreign-policy conundrum for the governments of industrialized countries (with their strategic interests), for forever. The U.S. thought it needed to fight ISIS, but didn’t want to send in ground troops (and invite yet another “Vietnam” in the Middle East). But it did want to protect its physical diplomatic and military presence in northern Iraq– Kurdish territory, near the Syrian border. So it sent some in, anyway.

The author described a handful of females who volunteered to join one of PKK’s spinoff militias (YPK and YPG). From the city of Kobani in Syria, the females were resistant to their arranged marriages and limited educations decided on by their families’ patriarchs. Two of the females commanding troops engaged in guerrilla warfare that resembled “capture the flag” or paintball, but with real war weapons, real deaths and really widespread destruction of civilians’ communities.

During the early 2010’s, the U.S. decided to let the Kurdish militias on the ground do the most dangerous fighting. The YPG had communications devices of radios, cell phones and walkie-talkies, and U.S.-supplied guns. ISIS had rifles, rocket launchers, artillery, car bombs, snipers, IEDs, land mines and suicide bombers. In summer 2014, the U.S. launched tens of airstrikes on ISIS in and around Kobani.

Read the book to learn: the fate of the fight’s many stakeholders that included countries, groups and individuals, how ruling authorities furthered gender-equality for Tunisians and Syrian Kurds in 2014 and 2016 respectively, and much more about the tentative progress made by various parties.

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A Dedicated Life – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “A Dedicated Life, Journalism, Justice, and a Chance for Every Child” by David Lawrence, Jr., published in 2018.

“More money is almost never the right first response. Rather, we need to begin by figuring out how well we are doing with the money we already have.”

-the author, on embarking on a quest to improve the lives of preschool children, beginning in 1999 in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Born in March 1942 in New York City, the author was raised Catholic in a wealthy family of eventually, nine children. His father was a journalist covering politics in New York. In 1948, the family moved to a residence that was a six-hour drive north of the city to tend to a farm that had animals and food-crops.

The author retired as a newspaper executive at the end of 1998, to take on a new career as an advocate for young children. There were two possible ways to institute “high quality” (the author never exactly defined what he meant by that) pre-kindergarten for all, regardless of need, in the entire state of Florida:

Lobbying the Florida state legislature to pass a bill, or
Propose a Constitutional amendment, voted on by the people, during an election for state officials.

The latter required: that hundreds of thousands of Floridians sign a petition; that an expensive campaign be launched in order to raise awareness and promote the initiative and get people to vote for the amendment. Unfortunately, the opposition always launches a campaign to smear such an initiative (or oppose it in order to smear a prospective candidate for office or an incumbent who would run for reelection– in planning for the next election; for example, currently– 2022 and 2024).

Anyway, read the book to learn whether the author and millions of others, in November 2002, actually achieved their ultimate goal (Hint: over the course of decades, through the cumbersome political process that is democracy– such radical, widespread change happens in baby steps; with the aid of the trick of telling voters that funding for the new program wouldn’t come from raising taxes!), and learn much more about his philosophy, careers, and fundraising successes for good causes (for which, it appears, he deserves bragging rights.)

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I Am A Girl From Africa

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The Book of the Week is “I Am A Girl From Africa, a memoir (sic)” by Elizabeth Nyamayaro, published in 2021.

Born in 1975, Nyamayaro grew up in Zimbabwe. Her family belonged to the Shona tribe. She spent her early years residing in a hut in a rural village, where she was treated like an only child, unwittingly through dysfunctional-family circumstances. Her grandmother taught her to do all sorts of chores: fetching water, hunting birds with a slingshot, fishing with a sharp stick, shelling maize, tending to the goats and chickens, weeding the fields, and cooking vegetables in a clay pot over a fire that she ignited.

Life-threatening conditions abounded from diseases, poor nutrition, hostile animals such as hyenas, and droughts such as those that occurred in 1983 and 1985. The author’s gratitude for the life-saving rehydration by a member of UNICEF, led her to develop a burning desire as an adult to “give back” through working for the United Nations.

In the early 1980’s, initially, Nyamayaro’s grandmother rejoiced at the news from her battery-operated radio, that the country had a new leader, the dark-skinned Robert Mugabe. The end of British colonialism ought to have meant an end to the needless killing of wildlife, theft of precious stones, and oppression of Africans. However, a new leader is just one individual who might or might not change things for the better in the long run, given his personality and the vicissitudes of his time and place in history.

The author– who appears to have bragging-rights, given the hardships she faced– made progress on various Third-World, quality-of-life causes during her career. Mitigation of the global oppression of females was one such cause. The author was pleased to report that in 2013, the nation of Rwanda, in the previous decade, had made great strides in electing women to its parliament. But there is still so much work to be done in Mongolia, India, Zimbabwe, and the United States, etc. because propagandized gender-stereotypes are still discouraging women from running for office.

The author recounted that one day in 1975 in Iceland, all the women went on strike. The country then realized how vital females were to life. Even so, it took until 2018 (!) to legislate there on the issue of gender equality in the private sector, of equal pay for equal work. Additionally, on so many other fronts, gender equality is lacking even in the nations that consider themselves the most advanced on earth!

Read the book to learn many more details on the struggles Nyamayaro faced in her life and times.

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20 Years of Rolling Stone – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “20 Years of Rolling Stone, What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been” edited by Jann S. Wenner, published in 1987. This volume was comprised of some of the best articles from the magazine on its twentieth anniversary.

One contributing writer who always delivered rich, colorful prose was Hunter S. Thompson. In April 1972, he described his beef with America’s brand of leaders thusly: “…crowd pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage to whup their supporters to orgiastic frenzy, then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards to the Conglomerate Loan Company for a nickel apiece.”

In March 1975, Howard Kohn penned a serious piece (headlined “Malignant Giant”) about Karen Silkwood, a nuclear-power plant worker and whistleblower who tried to alert America to the dangers of radioactive substances such as plutonium. Sadly, her story is typical for this country, on the nuclear power conundrum. The author provided (scary!) information on the link between radiation– especially that emanating from plutonium– and CANCER:

lab animals have developed cancer from as little as a millionth of a grain of plutonium;

all people on earth would very nearly certainly develop cancer from a carefully dispersed softball-sized parcel of plutonium;

“Silkwood learned that several [workers] had no idea that plutonium could cause cancer.”

When airborne plutonium is inhaled, human lungs cannot be decontaminated.

The cancer rate among employees of Silkwood’s workplace was seven times higher than that of the population of the United States, according to the Denver Post at the time.

The article causes the reader to wonder what the real cancer rates are from the toxins to which everyone is unwittingly exposed on a daily basis (never mind power plants), not only in the U.S., but in Japan, China and France.

Anyway, read the book to learn about or nostalgically relive the era of (excuse the cliche) sex, drugs, and rock and roll of Wenner’s crowd, and see (uncensored!) photo spreads.

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Exorbitant Privilege

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The Book of the Week is “Exorbitant Privilege, The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System” by Barry Eichengreen, published in 2011.

“Often these individuals had little professional training, there being no meaningful federal or in some cases, even state licensing requirements.”

No, the above refers to neither tax preparers nor life coaches.

The author was referring to the bandwagon-jumpers who worked for lenders taking advantage of the excessive deregulation that resulted in the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis in America.

The author listed some factors favoring, and some disfavoring the American dollar’s ability to maintain its global power as a currency and store of value. However, one major factor the author completely neglected to mention (a glaring omission) was that of cryptocurrencies.

Anyway, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, raised the alarm in the late 1990’s on the excessive deregulation that was to lead to the subprime crisis. She deserves more of a historical footnote than she has since received, because sadly, greedy alpha males are better propagandists than prescient, conscientious public-officials such as she.

The author contended that one major reason the American dollar will continue to maintain its dominance in the world, is that other industrialized nations can’t agree on what financial instrument should replace the American dollar as a stabilizer of the world’s other currencies. The greenback has compiled a longer history of trustworthiness, value-consistency, related liquidity-maintenance, and other benefits, in connection with transactions and international trade balances, more than any other instrument. China’s policy of keeping its central banks’ foreign-reserves balance a secret, reduces China’s currency’s trustworthiness.

The powerful U.S. government backs up its currency through treasury bonds and bills, while a (sometimes contentious) collective of European countries (not one government) must agree on how to act when a monetary crisis rears its ugly head. It stands to reason that disagreement or indecision leads to uncertainty, which leads to instability, and a possible worsening or hastening of, the collapse of modern civilization.

The aforementioned are just a few reasons why 54 countries pegged their currency’s values to the American dollar, while 27 pegged theirs to the euro, as of 2009. As is well known, the George W. Bush administration did a number on the U.S. economy, as “… tax cuts and unfunded spending increases [on two extremely expensive wars and a Medicare drug benefit] pushed the budget from surplus in 2000 to a structural deficit of 4 percent of GDP in 2007-2008.” The next two years saw the American government’s debt explosion at its worst.

The author outlined several possible (yet raucously controversial) ways to keep the American dollar globally powerful, through cost-cutting:

In a period of non-war– less defense-spending;

Reforming healthcare;

Raising the retirement age– less pension spending;

Liberalizing immigration policy — helps fund Social Security going forward; and

Increasing taxes of all kinds.

Read the book to learn a lot more about how the American dollar has fallen in stature in recent decades, and about other geopolitical international: monetary, financial and economic issues; explained for laypeople.