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Book of the Week

Category: Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous

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.

Author authoressPosted on August 24, 2023December 4, 2024Categories History - U.S. - 20th Century, History - U.S. - 21st Century, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Wrongdoing, Publishing Industry Including Newspapering, Technology

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.

Author authoressPosted on February 16, 2023February 9, 2025Categories Autobio - Originally From America, Career Bio or Career Memoir - Scientist, Education, Females in Male-Dominated Fields, Gender-Equality Issues, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Miscellaneous, Science-Biology/Chemistry/Physics, Technology

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.

Author authoressPosted on January 24, 2023September 3, 2024Categories Christianity (including Catholicism and Mormonism) Issues, History - U.S. - 20th Century, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Elections, Politics - Presidential, Race (Skin Color) Relations in America, Religious Issues

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.

Author authoressPosted on September 20, 2022February 9, 2025Categories Animal - Related, Career Bio or Career Memoir - Scientist, Collective Biography, Environmental Matters, History - Western Europe, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Miscellaneous, Science-Biology/Chemistry/Physics, True Crime

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.

Author authoressPosted on September 13, 2022December 4, 2024Categories Energy Issues - Oil and Gas, Environmental Matters, History - U.S. - 21st Century, Native American (Indian) Relations in America, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Miscellaneous, Politics - Wrongdoing, True Crime

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

Author authoressPosted on September 8, 2022September 3, 2024Categories -PARODY / SATIRE, Account of War and/or Crushing Oppression - Various Lands, Compilation of Articles, Anecdotes and / or Interviews, Economics - Economy Types, Economics - Miscellaneous, History - Currently and Formerly Communist Countries, History - Eastern Europe, History - U.S. - 20th Century, History - U.S.S.R., Humor, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - non-US, Religious Issues, True Crime

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.

Author authoressPosted on August 25, 2022February 27, 2025Categories Childcare Issues of Elitists (Including Divorce), Education, History - Currently and Formerly Communist Countries, Immigrant Relations in America, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politics - Miscellaneous, Race (Skin Color) Relations in America

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.

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.

Author authoressPosted on August 18, 2022September 3, 2024Categories -PARODY / SATIRE, Account of War and/or Crushing Oppression - Various Lands, Compilation of Articles, Anecdotes and / or Interviews, Gender-Equality Issues, History - Caribbean lands, History - Currently and Formerly Communist Countries, History - U.S.S.R., Humor, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politician, Political Worker or Spy - An Account, Politics - non-US, Politics - Systems, Religious Issues, Trump Era

Getting Stoned With Savages

[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 “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!)

Author authoressPosted on July 28, 2022December 4, 2024Categories -PARODY / SATIRE, History - Oceania, History - U.S. - 21st Century, Humor, Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Personal Account of War and/or Living Under Crushing Oppression - Asian Lands, Sports - Various or Miscellaneous

Secrets of the Sprakkar – BONUS POST

[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 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!).

Author authoressPosted on July 3, 2022February 20, 2025Categories Childcare Issues of Elitists (Including Divorce), Gender-Equality Issues, History - Northern Europe (not including U.S.S.R.), Nonfiction, Personal Account of Journalist or Professor, Miscellaneous, Politician, Political Worker or Spy - An Account, Politics - non-US

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Sally loves brain candy and hopes you do, too. Because the Internet needs another book blog.

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The Education and Deconstruction of Mr. Bloomberg, by Sally A. Friedman
This is the front and back of my book, "The Education and Deconstruction of Mr. Bloomberg, How the Mayor’s Education and Real Estate Development Policies Affected New Yorkers 2002-2009 Inclusive," available at
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