Robert Jacoby's Blog, page 5
August 15, 2016
Review of Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta
As other reviewers have noted, this is not a collection of 13 short stories, but vignettes. In other words, there is no "beginning, middle, and end" in the sense of "short story." This is slice of life" fiction. No real plot, exposition, conflict, or dénouement.
Having said that, if you enjoy watching a person work the word-craft, you'll enjoy every one of these gems. The enjoyment is immediate and sticks with you. I mean: from the first sentence of each vignette you'll find yourself pulled into and strung along by Lancelotta's prose immediately--
Listen. Here is a love story. "The Guide"
This is the sort of air that sticks, the kind you want to pull off you, away from your skin, ... "What I Know"
There were these things I saw through the window: ... "Fesitval"
The man in the house next door is finished dying. "Other Water"
--all the way to...not a "conclusion" but a "leaving" I think is a better word. We leave that world Lancelotta painted for us in each vignette, painted so carefully. In each sentence you can feel her painstakingly work the words. We leave each world touched by her prose. That's the power and the craft in the haunting. It sticks with you. It's made to stick with you. As one of her characters says in "In Houses": I have been opened up, rewritten.
So will you.
Having said that, if you enjoy watching a person work the word-craft, you'll enjoy every one of these gems. The enjoyment is immediate and sticks with you. I mean: from the first sentence of each vignette you'll find yourself pulled into and strung along by Lancelotta's prose immediately--
Listen. Here is a love story. "The Guide"
This is the sort of air that sticks, the kind you want to pull off you, away from your skin, ... "What I Know"
There were these things I saw through the window: ... "Fesitval"
The man in the house next door is finished dying. "Other Water"
--all the way to...not a "conclusion" but a "leaving" I think is a better word. We leave that world Lancelotta painted for us in each vignette, painted so carefully. In each sentence you can feel her painstakingly work the words. We leave each world touched by her prose. That's the power and the craft in the haunting. It sticks with you. It's made to stick with you. As one of her characters says in "In Houses": I have been opened up, rewritten.
So will you.
August 8, 2016
Review of Paradise Lost by John Milton
Life feels more complete after reading the greatest poem in the English language.
Over the years I've tried on a few occasions to read Paradise Lost, but I could never get more than several pages in before giving up. The text is dense and intricately formed. My modern mind could not bear up under its weight for more than a few minutes at a time. And the book is long. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with more than 10,000 lines of verse. This is the second edition, published in 1674, arranged into twelve books. According to the front matter, Milton had been composing it in one form or another since he was a young man.
I really wanted to experience the poem that is Paradise Lost, though, so I wasn't giving up. I thought: How is poetry sometimes best digested? By the ear, of course! By listening to a reading. So, to help me get through and enjoy Paradise Lost, I decided to listen to it being spoken as I read along. (I'd done the same thing with Virgil's The Aeneid and really enjoyed that listening/reading experience.) I did some online sleuthing and found a remarkable reading of Paradise Lost done on December 14, 2012, at Trinity College, Dublin, which included Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. Search on "reading paradise lost trinity college" and you'll find the page with the live recordings.
To say that Paradise Lost is a "classic" and leave it there is to do a grave disservice to the work, I think. What Milton has done is.simply remarkable, wonderful, breathtaking, and spectacular. Use all the words. His turns of phrase are lovely, his compact use of language is startling, his rich descriptions are a delight. Any student of the English language can and should learn from him.
Often I stopped my listening to read or re-read a passage, for pure enjoyment of the language, or to read the profuse and very helpful footnotes or endnotes in this edition (Barnes & Noble Classics).
However you can, whenever you can, do yourself a favor and get your hands on this edition and read it, enjoy it, and relish it.
Guaranteed to change your mind on life and poetry.
Over the years I've tried on a few occasions to read Paradise Lost, but I could never get more than several pages in before giving up. The text is dense and intricately formed. My modern mind could not bear up under its weight for more than a few minutes at a time. And the book is long. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with more than 10,000 lines of verse. This is the second edition, published in 1674, arranged into twelve books. According to the front matter, Milton had been composing it in one form or another since he was a young man.
I really wanted to experience the poem that is Paradise Lost, though, so I wasn't giving up. I thought: How is poetry sometimes best digested? By the ear, of course! By listening to a reading. So, to help me get through and enjoy Paradise Lost, I decided to listen to it being spoken as I read along. (I'd done the same thing with Virgil's The Aeneid and really enjoyed that listening/reading experience.) I did some online sleuthing and found a remarkable reading of Paradise Lost done on December 14, 2012, at Trinity College, Dublin, which included Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. Search on "reading paradise lost trinity college" and you'll find the page with the live recordings.
To say that Paradise Lost is a "classic" and leave it there is to do a grave disservice to the work, I think. What Milton has done is.simply remarkable, wonderful, breathtaking, and spectacular. Use all the words. His turns of phrase are lovely, his compact use of language is startling, his rich descriptions are a delight. Any student of the English language can and should learn from him.
Often I stopped my listening to read or re-read a passage, for pure enjoyment of the language, or to read the profuse and very helpful footnotes or endnotes in this edition (Barnes & Noble Classics).
However you can, whenever you can, do yourself a favor and get your hands on this edition and read it, enjoy it, and relish it.
Guaranteed to change your mind on life and poetry.
August 1, 2016
Review of The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
This is not McCarthy's best work, but neither is it his worst work. It's the 2nd book in what is referred to as his "Border Triology," even though it's a completely different story than the first book in the "triology," All the Pretty Horses. I'll read the third book in the triology, Cities of the Plain, which picks up in 1952 with both main characters from the first two novels.
The Crossing is a good enough story. McCarthy's prose is powerful and carries the book where his actual story lags. The main character Billy Parham sets off to Mexico and ... (see other reviews for story details). Point is: McCarthy has poor Billy wandering all over the countryside, meeting mostly monosyllabic characters but occasionally meeting someone who has the mind of a Kierkegaard or Thoreau. Seriously. McCarthy has to do this because of his "God" pov. He never gets into any single character's head -- not really. I think I saw one "he thought" in the final 100 pages of the book. So, be aware of what you're getting into. The scenery/setting *is* a character. That's just McCarthy.
So: I admire McCarthy's prose style, very much, but at the same time I can say that the characters in this book read to me as either very flat or outrageously unreal. It's that "God" pov again. Because McCarthy the writer has so much to say, he must find a way to say it, either as "God" or through a character. He's best handling "God" through his own voice, because when he gives that voice to a character it becomes wildly unreal. There are, literally, pages and pages of text spoken by characters that could read from a philosophy textbook. Or Mann's Magic Mountain. If you want to go there, great! (As an aside, in Blood Meridian this works magically because those lines/philosophy are given to the judge, one of the greatest characters in all American literature.) Here, it doesn't always work, for me. By the end of The Crossing I felt that Billy Parham is a pretty dumb young man, indeed, almost deserving all he's gotten.
I recommend this book for any fan of McCarthy. And if you've not read any McCarthy at all, I'd recommend as a first read something else of his, like Child of God or No Country for Old Men, or even All the Pretty Horses. Savor his finest novel -- what I believe is one of the finest works of literature ever written: Blood Meridian.
PS: When reading The Crossing you'll want to have a computer nearby to look up both English and Spanish terms. Unless you read Spanish, you'll also want to have A Translation of Spanish Passages in The Crossing. Just search "mccarthy the crossing spanish words" and you'll find a pdf file for (most of but not all) the book's Spanish language text.
I liked it
4/5 Amazon
3/5 Goodreads
The Crossing is a good enough story. McCarthy's prose is powerful and carries the book where his actual story lags. The main character Billy Parham sets off to Mexico and ... (see other reviews for story details). Point is: McCarthy has poor Billy wandering all over the countryside, meeting mostly monosyllabic characters but occasionally meeting someone who has the mind of a Kierkegaard or Thoreau. Seriously. McCarthy has to do this because of his "God" pov. He never gets into any single character's head -- not really. I think I saw one "he thought" in the final 100 pages of the book. So, be aware of what you're getting into. The scenery/setting *is* a character. That's just McCarthy.
So: I admire McCarthy's prose style, very much, but at the same time I can say that the characters in this book read to me as either very flat or outrageously unreal. It's that "God" pov again. Because McCarthy the writer has so much to say, he must find a way to say it, either as "God" or through a character. He's best handling "God" through his own voice, because when he gives that voice to a character it becomes wildly unreal. There are, literally, pages and pages of text spoken by characters that could read from a philosophy textbook. Or Mann's Magic Mountain. If you want to go there, great! (As an aside, in Blood Meridian this works magically because those lines/philosophy are given to the judge, one of the greatest characters in all American literature.) Here, it doesn't always work, for me. By the end of The Crossing I felt that Billy Parham is a pretty dumb young man, indeed, almost deserving all he's gotten.
I recommend this book for any fan of McCarthy. And if you've not read any McCarthy at all, I'd recommend as a first read something else of his, like Child of God or No Country for Old Men, or even All the Pretty Horses. Savor his finest novel -- what I believe is one of the finest works of literature ever written: Blood Meridian.
PS: When reading The Crossing you'll want to have a computer nearby to look up both English and Spanish terms. Unless you read Spanish, you'll also want to have A Translation of Spanish Passages in The Crossing. Just search "mccarthy the crossing spanish words" and you'll find a pdf file for (most of but not all) the book's Spanish language text.
I liked it
4/5 Amazon
3/5 Goodreads
February 6, 2016
Review of Is the American Century Over? by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Thankfully this is a short book, at 152 pages. I was able to breeze through it, taking some notes here and there. I found Nye's assessments to be usually woefully inadequate. too shallow and incomplete for the topics he's addressing. The book read more like a monthly status report that the president might flip through, or an essay from Foreign Affairs. It felt like I was correcting the author in my head as I was reading, or adding my own footnotes. I'll stick to a handful, then you decide if you want to read it. Two inward, and two outward: Inward first:
1. "Detroit bulldozing." Nye completely ignores the structural disintegration happening inside the U.S. in such cities as Detroit. If you don't know what's been happening in Detroit for the past 10 years, thank the Legacy Media for that. It's our best-kept secret. Because what's been happening to Detroit is that it's being bulldozed. Literally. Google "Detroit bulldozing." The city is in such a catastrophic state that authorities have had to bulldoze large swaths of land (up to 20% of the city) and let them go to field. Yes. Go. To. Field. This is the plan. But civil authorities. After you google "Detroit bulldozing," click on the images tab to see pictures of what once arguably was the shining "city on a hill" example of American industrial strength. That Nye does not mention once this domestic policy nightmare leads me to believe he's either ignorant or willfully leaving out information.
2. Illegal aliens in America. Nye mentions this problem in spots, brushing over it as if he's sitting down with an expensive Scotch at an after-dinner party. It's unreal. As if it's not much of a problem. I've been following avidly the freeflow happening in the US for some time now and how it's bringing in unheard of crimes, diseases, and community problems. That Nye brushes over this issue so swiftly speaks to, again, either his ignorance or his willful ignorance of the issue. I can abide neither. If you do want to be informed, try googling these search terms: "united states illegal alien disease"; "united states illegal alien crime"; and "united states illegal alien civic problems". (That Maryland allows illegal aliens to go to college on "in-state" tuition is just one example, of dozens, of our politicians collectively losing their minds.)
Two outward problems Nye glosses over:
1. European migrant crisis. I'll cut Nye a little slack here because his book was published in January 2015, before the freeflow really started. Now news reports tell us up to 2,000 migrants are hitting the Greek islands PER DAY; most are nearly illiterate; less than half are from Syria (see UN page: http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/r... and, as the New Year's Eve group attacks on women across Europe demonstrated, it's a clash of cultures. I have a feeling, still, that Nye would not address Turkey's role in suddenly letting the refugees have passage into the south of Europe. For more information, google "european migrant crisis" and "turkey role in european migrant crisis".
It's nonsense, of course, to think that this crisis won't affect America; or to think a similar influx is not already happening. With all its concomitant challenges and problems.
2. China and the Middle East. Nye's whole treatment of these two issues and how they are now and how they will impact America are entirely inadequate. Space won't allow me to go into any detail. Let me just say that my wide readings of news articles, books, and reports keeps me more abreast of what's to be found in reading Nye. Three things I will touch on: 1. remember the reports of the roaring economy that China experienced in the last 10 years or so, when they were cranking out annual GDP rates close or over 10%? Economists typically cheered this on. The US stock market loved it. Careful thinkers will understand that there might have been something false behind this, and they'd be correct. Google "china false economy". Sit down with your own Scotch, maybe, while reading. 2. AFRICOM was created in 2008 to counter China's need for natural resources, like oil, to fuel their growth. 3. The Middle East is a cauldron of problems, many stemming from consanguineous marriages. Google "consanguinity middle east" to find articles related to what it is and what areas of a country it impacts. Basically: everything. It's a ticking time bomb.
So what do I think should have been addressed? I'l offer four -- only four -- real internal American issues that Nye should have focused on (and these are just off the top of my head) as part of our nation's decline include:
1. Illegal aliens. This must top any list. Having undocumented people in one's country that number into the millions is unacceptable. And having porous borders to bring in drugs, weapons, human trafficking, and diseases is also unacceptable. One of the definitions of "country" is those thin, dark lines on maps. They're called borders.
2. Fatherless homes. Two stats:
-- In 2013, nearly 72% of black children were born to unmarried mothers (CDC)
-- Almost 41% of all births in the US are to unmarried women (CDC)
This issue is now and will come to haunt us as a nation.
3. The race gap in education. Two stats:
-- According to the ACT, the percentage of African-American students who are college-ready in all four tested subjects (English, math, reading, and science) ranges from 17% (in Massachusetts) to only 3% (in Mississippi)
-- Only 12% of Black eighth grade males are proficient in math
4. The gender gap in psychological issues. 1 in 4 adult American women is on some type of medication for mental health needs. (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11...)
My own prediction for America and the American Century? I can only hope and pray for a long and slow decline. Entropy happens.
Inwardly, I think we'll see repeats of Detroit -- the bulldozing -- across the country in failed and failing cities large and small across America in coming years. Municipal services won't be able to be maintained, so authorities will try to "pull it back". New ghost towns will arise and increase. It's already happening (google "new american ghost towns"), but it will increase. Riots like we saw in Baltimore in 2015 will happen with greater frequency. More typically, I predict we'll see "flash mob" rampages like the 2,000+ crowd of youths running through that Louisville mall over the holidays. Missed that on CNN? Yeah. They're good at that. Google "louisville mall shutdown". Dig a little deeper to read about "louisville middle school gang" and the FBI memo. Finally, the influx of illegal aliens will continue to weaken the country economically and continue to cause sporadic health crises. The same is happening now in the Migrant Crisis in Europe. Unchecked, it will continue to happen here. Infrastructure will continue to be neglected, too. Debt will become unsustainable; the people who implemented the liberal policies that caused the problems will be at a loss to explain or fix their own problems. Like children. Art and popular culture will continue in its degeneracy. We were shocked by "Piss Christ" in the 1980s, then "got over it"; shocked by gangsta rappers and gay marriage in the 2000s, then "got over it"; by the 2020s we'll be televising polyamorous episodes of "The Bachelors" and "The Bachelorettes", then get over it. Individuals will more and more retreat into virtual reality worlds. Paraphrasing Toynbee: I think everything will be dragged through the latrine and then lifted up and hailed as the "new culture," the "new politick," the "new way." Crime and instability will increase; in response, smaller and well-off communities will hire private security firms, as they're already doing in South Africa (google "private security police in communities in south africa"). The poor will suffer the most, as always. Everything will converge and become heavy under multiple weights from multiple stressors. This will be the beginning on the way to the fracturing of the U.S.
Outwardly, I think we'll continue to see challenges around the globe to American leadership in every area. The dollar will be challenged as the currency of choice and debt. Cyber attacks like the stealing of 22 million personnel records from OMB in 2014 will seem like "the good old days"; hackers will continue to probe and expose weaknesses in our infrastructure grids. Militarily, we'll continue to be challenged by Russia, China, and rising powers like Iran, directly or through their proxies. We can't be the world's policeman, and within 10-20 years we won't be able to.
One last point: Nye brings up a host of challenges that America faces, but the one I'll rebut here is "climate change." Rarely in human history has a hoax of such magnitude been perpetrated on the masses so effectively, at such scale. See more than 1,350 peer-reviewed journal articles supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW alarmism here: http://www.populartechnology.net/2009...
I can only recommend this book as an extremely high-level gloss on important issues. It's too bad. Nye doesn't really serve anyone's interests except maybe his own and the few scholars he might be having that dinner party with, it seems to me.
So, in the end, does Nye think we're like Rome, or not? Not very much. But, I think the citizens in Flint, Michigan drinking water with lead for those many months (years?) would likely have a different take on things. Unfortunately, in this book, Nye's not seeing our pragmatic forest for his scholarly trees.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
1. "Detroit bulldozing." Nye completely ignores the structural disintegration happening inside the U.S. in such cities as Detroit. If you don't know what's been happening in Detroit for the past 10 years, thank the Legacy Media for that. It's our best-kept secret. Because what's been happening to Detroit is that it's being bulldozed. Literally. Google "Detroit bulldozing." The city is in such a catastrophic state that authorities have had to bulldoze large swaths of land (up to 20% of the city) and let them go to field. Yes. Go. To. Field. This is the plan. But civil authorities. After you google "Detroit bulldozing," click on the images tab to see pictures of what once arguably was the shining "city on a hill" example of American industrial strength. That Nye does not mention once this domestic policy nightmare leads me to believe he's either ignorant or willfully leaving out information.
2. Illegal aliens in America. Nye mentions this problem in spots, brushing over it as if he's sitting down with an expensive Scotch at an after-dinner party. It's unreal. As if it's not much of a problem. I've been following avidly the freeflow happening in the US for some time now and how it's bringing in unheard of crimes, diseases, and community problems. That Nye brushes over this issue so swiftly speaks to, again, either his ignorance or his willful ignorance of the issue. I can abide neither. If you do want to be informed, try googling these search terms: "united states illegal alien disease"; "united states illegal alien crime"; and "united states illegal alien civic problems". (That Maryland allows illegal aliens to go to college on "in-state" tuition is just one example, of dozens, of our politicians collectively losing their minds.)
Two outward problems Nye glosses over:
1. European migrant crisis. I'll cut Nye a little slack here because his book was published in January 2015, before the freeflow really started. Now news reports tell us up to 2,000 migrants are hitting the Greek islands PER DAY; most are nearly illiterate; less than half are from Syria (see UN page: http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/r... and, as the New Year's Eve group attacks on women across Europe demonstrated, it's a clash of cultures. I have a feeling, still, that Nye would not address Turkey's role in suddenly letting the refugees have passage into the south of Europe. For more information, google "european migrant crisis" and "turkey role in european migrant crisis".
It's nonsense, of course, to think that this crisis won't affect America; or to think a similar influx is not already happening. With all its concomitant challenges and problems.
2. China and the Middle East. Nye's whole treatment of these two issues and how they are now and how they will impact America are entirely inadequate. Space won't allow me to go into any detail. Let me just say that my wide readings of news articles, books, and reports keeps me more abreast of what's to be found in reading Nye. Three things I will touch on: 1. remember the reports of the roaring economy that China experienced in the last 10 years or so, when they were cranking out annual GDP rates close or over 10%? Economists typically cheered this on. The US stock market loved it. Careful thinkers will understand that there might have been something false behind this, and they'd be correct. Google "china false economy". Sit down with your own Scotch, maybe, while reading. 2. AFRICOM was created in 2008 to counter China's need for natural resources, like oil, to fuel their growth. 3. The Middle East is a cauldron of problems, many stemming from consanguineous marriages. Google "consanguinity middle east" to find articles related to what it is and what areas of a country it impacts. Basically: everything. It's a ticking time bomb.
So what do I think should have been addressed? I'l offer four -- only four -- real internal American issues that Nye should have focused on (and these are just off the top of my head) as part of our nation's decline include:
1. Illegal aliens. This must top any list. Having undocumented people in one's country that number into the millions is unacceptable. And having porous borders to bring in drugs, weapons, human trafficking, and diseases is also unacceptable. One of the definitions of "country" is those thin, dark lines on maps. They're called borders.
2. Fatherless homes. Two stats:
-- In 2013, nearly 72% of black children were born to unmarried mothers (CDC)
-- Almost 41% of all births in the US are to unmarried women (CDC)
This issue is now and will come to haunt us as a nation.
3. The race gap in education. Two stats:
-- According to the ACT, the percentage of African-American students who are college-ready in all four tested subjects (English, math, reading, and science) ranges from 17% (in Massachusetts) to only 3% (in Mississippi)
-- Only 12% of Black eighth grade males are proficient in math
4. The gender gap in psychological issues. 1 in 4 adult American women is on some type of medication for mental health needs. (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11...)
My own prediction for America and the American Century? I can only hope and pray for a long and slow decline. Entropy happens.
Inwardly, I think we'll see repeats of Detroit -- the bulldozing -- across the country in failed and failing cities large and small across America in coming years. Municipal services won't be able to be maintained, so authorities will try to "pull it back". New ghost towns will arise and increase. It's already happening (google "new american ghost towns"), but it will increase. Riots like we saw in Baltimore in 2015 will happen with greater frequency. More typically, I predict we'll see "flash mob" rampages like the 2,000+ crowd of youths running through that Louisville mall over the holidays. Missed that on CNN? Yeah. They're good at that. Google "louisville mall shutdown". Dig a little deeper to read about "louisville middle school gang" and the FBI memo. Finally, the influx of illegal aliens will continue to weaken the country economically and continue to cause sporadic health crises. The same is happening now in the Migrant Crisis in Europe. Unchecked, it will continue to happen here. Infrastructure will continue to be neglected, too. Debt will become unsustainable; the people who implemented the liberal policies that caused the problems will be at a loss to explain or fix their own problems. Like children. Art and popular culture will continue in its degeneracy. We were shocked by "Piss Christ" in the 1980s, then "got over it"; shocked by gangsta rappers and gay marriage in the 2000s, then "got over it"; by the 2020s we'll be televising polyamorous episodes of "The Bachelors" and "The Bachelorettes", then get over it. Individuals will more and more retreat into virtual reality worlds. Paraphrasing Toynbee: I think everything will be dragged through the latrine and then lifted up and hailed as the "new culture," the "new politick," the "new way." Crime and instability will increase; in response, smaller and well-off communities will hire private security firms, as they're already doing in South Africa (google "private security police in communities in south africa"). The poor will suffer the most, as always. Everything will converge and become heavy under multiple weights from multiple stressors. This will be the beginning on the way to the fracturing of the U.S.
Outwardly, I think we'll continue to see challenges around the globe to American leadership in every area. The dollar will be challenged as the currency of choice and debt. Cyber attacks like the stealing of 22 million personnel records from OMB in 2014 will seem like "the good old days"; hackers will continue to probe and expose weaknesses in our infrastructure grids. Militarily, we'll continue to be challenged by Russia, China, and rising powers like Iran, directly or through their proxies. We can't be the world's policeman, and within 10-20 years we won't be able to.
One last point: Nye brings up a host of challenges that America faces, but the one I'll rebut here is "climate change." Rarely in human history has a hoax of such magnitude been perpetrated on the masses so effectively, at such scale. See more than 1,350 peer-reviewed journal articles supporting skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW alarmism here: http://www.populartechnology.net/2009...
I can only recommend this book as an extremely high-level gloss on important issues. It's too bad. Nye doesn't really serve anyone's interests except maybe his own and the few scholars he might be having that dinner party with, it seems to me.
So, in the end, does Nye think we're like Rome, or not? Not very much. But, I think the citizens in Flint, Michigan drinking water with lead for those many months (years?) would likely have a different take on things. Unfortunately, in this book, Nye's not seeing our pragmatic forest for his scholarly trees.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
Review of The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike Lofgren
I'm sorry, I can't keep reading hostile and juvenile drivel like this. I stopped on page 130. Where do I start with reasons why? The list is too long:
o The constant insults to anyone Lofgren doesn't like, which is any Republican
o The faulty research in spots, which makes me suspect the whole effort
o The extraordinary partisan presentation of facts
o The cherry-picking, revisionist history
The list goes on and on. I'm sorry I bought this book and put my hard-earned money into Mike Lofgren's bank account.
Know this: I'm a life-long, registered Independent, and I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book. I really wanted to get some insight from a person "on the inside" for so many years as a Washington bureaucrat, someone who could shed some light on America's decline, why it's happening, and the complex, multi-faceted issues facing our nation, and our world. I wanted to be informed with accurate, revealing, and unbiased history, information, and data. Instead, what I got was a book written like an undergraduate's breathless screed. "And did you know about *this*? And did you know about *that*?"
Lofgren claims that his "purpose with this book is to question the rationale of the game rather than attack the player who happens to be at bat in any given inning" (p. 34). Really? Could've fooled me. In the sentence before he called Bush the "lamentable specimen." And throughout the 130 pages I read Lofgren seems to take any opportunity to rail against Republicans, often in hideous and sophomoric ways: Vice President Cheney is "a physical as well as political trogldyte" (p. 28); Obama faces "ferocious Republican obstruction" (p. 31) -- neverminding this gem I saw on Twitter recently: "If the American left hadn't firebombed the big open space in the middle where discourse used to be, we wouldn't be dealing with Trump now."- Tom Nichols; George W. Bush was "out of his depth" when he became president (p. 33) (but Barack Obama, a man who served 743 days in the Senate from his swearing in to the announcement of his exploratory committee for U.S. president, is "qualified"???); Nixon was the "arch-ogre of Watergate" (p. 52). Another Republican is a "useful idiot" (p. 58). The insults for any conservative continue. It's exhausting. Page 128 is his first crack at Fox News. So sad, so misguided, and so uninformed. (But not surprising, after all. Research done across 9 nations, including the U.S., shows that conservatives are happier than leftists, even controlling for personal income. It's a measurable "happiness gap," and it's due to socio-political beliefs and values. They see the glass as half empty, and someone's got to be at fault.)
I'll stop there. There's plenty of blame to go all around. I understand the military-industrial complex better than the average American. Why heap responsibility (and insults) on one side? But Lofgren goes on and on with the traditional It’s Bush’s Fault® mentality typical of the modern American progressive Democrat. In my view, progressives--just as they're heaping insults on any thing and any one they disdain on The Right--are becoming caricatures of themselves.
Here are some points to consider before you purchase this book. Lofgren's attitudes seep everywhere:
1. Democrats good; Republicans bad is his mantra. Nixon is quite literally an ogre; but Bill Clinton is "a quick learner" of the crooked and failed system. Such a dualistic view of the American political landscape is myopic and simplistic at best and childish and retarded at worst. Even as a teenager I understood this; it's why I became a registered Independent at 18. I'd pose this question to Lofgren: So, you believe that money and power and influence are evil things in Republican hands, but when they're in Democrat hands they're wielded for "good" purposes?
2. The New York Times and the Washington Post are the received texts, and the Wall Street Journal is evil personified.
3. Corporate-funded think tanks are bad, but only if they fund conservative/Republican ideas.
4. The fantasy of a nuclear-weapons-free world. I can't. I won't even address this modern-day liberal delusion.
Here's the best:
5. "The United States uses its military muscle to sustain its economic model and dissuade other countries from deviating from its orthodoxies" (p. 109).
Now, I read Lofgren in context here to intimate the following from him:
A. He's genuinely surprised by it
and
B. He wants us, his readers, to be genuinely surprised by it, too
In reality, I think a first-year History major understands that, through all of recorded history, nations have been doing this. It's called self-preservation. I'd really like to ask Lofgren: Do you actually suppose that the United States is alone in this? Is that your thesis? That only the U.S. uses its military to try to get its way? That China, Russia, India, Pakistan, etc etc are not doing the exact same thing? And that smaller nations are aligning themselves where they can for their own self-interests and self-preservation? Nations and empires and countries have been doing this since...recorded history. This is what states do. They protect themselves and they protect (what they see as) their interests. In this and many other regards, Lofgren needs to grow up.
In addition to all this, I found it exhausting to read this book because I ended up doing my own fact-checking, Sometimes this will happen when I'm reading non-fiction, but I've never experienced it to this extent. It seemed like I was doing this on nearly every page. Let me correct here a few of Lofgren's mistakes and misunderstandings (I'm being generous):
1. "....the McCarythite hysteria over internal subversion..." (p. 51). Some historians have shown that McCarthy was essentially right. Whether it was stealing atomic secrets or influencing U.S. foreign policy, communist victories in the 1940s were fed by an incredibly vast spy and influence network. (sources: http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/joe-... and http://www.academia.org/cornell-the-c...)
2. The liberal lie that there were no WMDs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. See "The New York Times Rediscovers Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq".
3. Logren's assessments on the US use of torture as a policy is laughable at best and dangerously naive at worst. Of course our operatives use torture, and of course it's not reported to Congress. How dumb can you possibly be? Do you live in John Lennon's "Imagine" world, or do you live in the real world?
4. Nixon "suddenly" took the U.S. off the gold standard. There was nothing "sudden" about it. See: http://www.federalreservehistory.org/...
5. Manufacturing leaving the U.S. was only seeping into the public's consciousness in the early 1990s. I think Lofgren is betraying his cloistered D.C. viewpoint here. I was living in Ohio during the 1970s and 1980s, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that the Midwest was well- versed and -experienced with outsourcing a decade before Lofgren thinks it was.
There's much more, of course, but you see my point.
So, to sum up: Too many partisan attacks. Too many personal insults. Too much history rewritten. Too much research left undone. Mostly what Lofgren is providing here is his own inaccurate, biased, and cherry-picked story. The little bit of new and accurate information I got was overwhelmed by all of the problems. This book is neither a journalistic nor a scholarly work. It's one zealot's account, that's all. And it's a real shame. I wanted to read and get some insight into how here in the U.S. this is no longer a government of the people, by the people, or for the people. What I got instead was a bunch of loosely connected sophomoric rantings from a leftist idealogue who relishes heaping insults on any anyone who doesn't see the world his way. Which is the progressive Democrat way. In other words: You're an idiot if your opinion doesn't match mine. Lofgren reads like a kid with a stick poking into the lion's cage. It's sad, really. He comes off as a fool, not the "truth teller" he claims to be. I put the book down at page 130 and tagged it on my Goodreads shelf books-i-gave-up-reading.
1 star
o The constant insults to anyone Lofgren doesn't like, which is any Republican
o The faulty research in spots, which makes me suspect the whole effort
o The extraordinary partisan presentation of facts
o The cherry-picking, revisionist history
The list goes on and on. I'm sorry I bought this book and put my hard-earned money into Mike Lofgren's bank account.
Know this: I'm a life-long, registered Independent, and I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book. I really wanted to get some insight from a person "on the inside" for so many years as a Washington bureaucrat, someone who could shed some light on America's decline, why it's happening, and the complex, multi-faceted issues facing our nation, and our world. I wanted to be informed with accurate, revealing, and unbiased history, information, and data. Instead, what I got was a book written like an undergraduate's breathless screed. "And did you know about *this*? And did you know about *that*?"
Lofgren claims that his "purpose with this book is to question the rationale of the game rather than attack the player who happens to be at bat in any given inning" (p. 34). Really? Could've fooled me. In the sentence before he called Bush the "lamentable specimen." And throughout the 130 pages I read Lofgren seems to take any opportunity to rail against Republicans, often in hideous and sophomoric ways: Vice President Cheney is "a physical as well as political trogldyte" (p. 28); Obama faces "ferocious Republican obstruction" (p. 31) -- neverminding this gem I saw on Twitter recently: "If the American left hadn't firebombed the big open space in the middle where discourse used to be, we wouldn't be dealing with Trump now."- Tom Nichols; George W. Bush was "out of his depth" when he became president (p. 33) (but Barack Obama, a man who served 743 days in the Senate from his swearing in to the announcement of his exploratory committee for U.S. president, is "qualified"???); Nixon was the "arch-ogre of Watergate" (p. 52). Another Republican is a "useful idiot" (p. 58). The insults for any conservative continue. It's exhausting. Page 128 is his first crack at Fox News. So sad, so misguided, and so uninformed. (But not surprising, after all. Research done across 9 nations, including the U.S., shows that conservatives are happier than leftists, even controlling for personal income. It's a measurable "happiness gap," and it's due to socio-political beliefs and values. They see the glass as half empty, and someone's got to be at fault.)
I'll stop there. There's plenty of blame to go all around. I understand the military-industrial complex better than the average American. Why heap responsibility (and insults) on one side? But Lofgren goes on and on with the traditional It’s Bush’s Fault® mentality typical of the modern American progressive Democrat. In my view, progressives--just as they're heaping insults on any thing and any one they disdain on The Right--are becoming caricatures of themselves.
Here are some points to consider before you purchase this book. Lofgren's attitudes seep everywhere:
1. Democrats good; Republicans bad is his mantra. Nixon is quite literally an ogre; but Bill Clinton is "a quick learner" of the crooked and failed system. Such a dualistic view of the American political landscape is myopic and simplistic at best and childish and retarded at worst. Even as a teenager I understood this; it's why I became a registered Independent at 18. I'd pose this question to Lofgren: So, you believe that money and power and influence are evil things in Republican hands, but when they're in Democrat hands they're wielded for "good" purposes?
2. The New York Times and the Washington Post are the received texts, and the Wall Street Journal is evil personified.
3. Corporate-funded think tanks are bad, but only if they fund conservative/Republican ideas.
4. The fantasy of a nuclear-weapons-free world. I can't. I won't even address this modern-day liberal delusion.
Here's the best:
5. "The United States uses its military muscle to sustain its economic model and dissuade other countries from deviating from its orthodoxies" (p. 109).
Now, I read Lofgren in context here to intimate the following from him:
A. He's genuinely surprised by it
and
B. He wants us, his readers, to be genuinely surprised by it, too
In reality, I think a first-year History major understands that, through all of recorded history, nations have been doing this. It's called self-preservation. I'd really like to ask Lofgren: Do you actually suppose that the United States is alone in this? Is that your thesis? That only the U.S. uses its military to try to get its way? That China, Russia, India, Pakistan, etc etc are not doing the exact same thing? And that smaller nations are aligning themselves where they can for their own self-interests and self-preservation? Nations and empires and countries have been doing this since...recorded history. This is what states do. They protect themselves and they protect (what they see as) their interests. In this and many other regards, Lofgren needs to grow up.
In addition to all this, I found it exhausting to read this book because I ended up doing my own fact-checking, Sometimes this will happen when I'm reading non-fiction, but I've never experienced it to this extent. It seemed like I was doing this on nearly every page. Let me correct here a few of Lofgren's mistakes and misunderstandings (I'm being generous):
1. "....the McCarythite hysteria over internal subversion..." (p. 51). Some historians have shown that McCarthy was essentially right. Whether it was stealing atomic secrets or influencing U.S. foreign policy, communist victories in the 1940s were fed by an incredibly vast spy and influence network. (sources: http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/joe-... and http://www.academia.org/cornell-the-c...)
2. The liberal lie that there were no WMDs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. See "The New York Times Rediscovers Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq".
3. Logren's assessments on the US use of torture as a policy is laughable at best and dangerously naive at worst. Of course our operatives use torture, and of course it's not reported to Congress. How dumb can you possibly be? Do you live in John Lennon's "Imagine" world, or do you live in the real world?
4. Nixon "suddenly" took the U.S. off the gold standard. There was nothing "sudden" about it. See: http://www.federalreservehistory.org/...
5. Manufacturing leaving the U.S. was only seeping into the public's consciousness in the early 1990s. I think Lofgren is betraying his cloistered D.C. viewpoint here. I was living in Ohio during the 1970s and 1980s, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that the Midwest was well- versed and -experienced with outsourcing a decade before Lofgren thinks it was.
There's much more, of course, but you see my point.
So, to sum up: Too many partisan attacks. Too many personal insults. Too much history rewritten. Too much research left undone. Mostly what Lofgren is providing here is his own inaccurate, biased, and cherry-picked story. The little bit of new and accurate information I got was overwhelmed by all of the problems. This book is neither a journalistic nor a scholarly work. It's one zealot's account, that's all. And it's a real shame. I wanted to read and get some insight into how here in the U.S. this is no longer a government of the people, by the people, or for the people. What I got instead was a bunch of loosely connected sophomoric rantings from a leftist idealogue who relishes heaping insults on any anyone who doesn't see the world his way. Which is the progressive Democrat way. In other words: You're an idiot if your opinion doesn't match mine. Lofgren reads like a kid with a stick poking into the lion's cage. It's sad, really. He comes off as a fool, not the "truth teller" he claims to be. I put the book down at page 130 and tagged it on my Goodreads shelf books-i-gave-up-reading.
1 star
February 3, 2016
Review of The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
I stopped reading this book on page 87, and I'm going to have to put it in my Goodreads category of books-I-gave-up-reading. Here's why:
Up to this point the author is starting with his conclusions, which is, in his term, that reality is a Quilted Multiverse. (This is the Many Worlds hypothesis.) In an infinite space, he writes, there are an infinite number of universes, and the particles that formed one (ours) are in every other one. In other words: you exist an infinite amount of times somewhere "out there." To this point in the text he's provided no proof of his claim, only his description that this is so. And I really appreciate his descriptions and explanations. Some really bring them to life; like his describing the multiverse bubbles as the air pockets in a block of Swiss cheese. Neat, but he presents it as a logical conclusion. It's anything but that. It's illogical.
How is this science?
Disappointed, I put the book down. I read several other reviews on Amazon and found one of three other 1-star reviews that provided confirmation of my suspicions. String theory is untestable, and so it is a metaphysical belief, not actual science. (I had no idea there was such a war going on within physics today; some googling led me to several Wikipedia pages of various authors, blogs, and articles; wow.)
Such a shame, I was really looking forward to reading this book.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
Up to this point the author is starting with his conclusions, which is, in his term, that reality is a Quilted Multiverse. (This is the Many Worlds hypothesis.) In an infinite space, he writes, there are an infinite number of universes, and the particles that formed one (ours) are in every other one. In other words: you exist an infinite amount of times somewhere "out there." To this point in the text he's provided no proof of his claim, only his description that this is so. And I really appreciate his descriptions and explanations. Some really bring them to life; like his describing the multiverse bubbles as the air pockets in a block of Swiss cheese. Neat, but he presents it as a logical conclusion. It's anything but that. It's illogical.
How is this science?
Disappointed, I put the book down. I read several other reviews on Amazon and found one of three other 1-star reviews that provided confirmation of my suspicions. String theory is untestable, and so it is a metaphysical belief, not actual science. (I had no idea there was such a war going on within physics today; some googling led me to several Wikipedia pages of various authors, blogs, and articles; wow.)
Such a shame, I was really looking forward to reading this book.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
January 19, 2016
Another 10 Indie Movies You Should See
This is now my third list of "10 Indie Movies You Should See."
My first two lists are 10 Indie Movies You Should See and 10 More Indie Movies You Should See .
Enjoy!
1. '71 (drama, action&adventure)
Top film on this list. Very tense and graphic.
It's 1971 in Northern Ireland and a British soldier is dispatched to Belfast on a house search mission. The mission goes terribly wrong, and in the confusion he's left behind and has to find his way back to his barracks as factions of the IRA try to kill him and undercover police try to help him.
Nominated for 8 British Independent Film Awards, including best film, screenplay, lead actor. It won Best Director.
The trailer does not do the movie justice, plus it will spoil it.
2. Restrepo (documentary)
No narration in this documentary, to speak of. Just action and post-action interviews.
Two filmmakers are embedded with a platoon of U.S. soldiers in one of the most contested areas in Afghanistan.
Brotherhood of war. Graphic. Very moving.
Restrepo received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR...
3. Particle Fever (documentary)
Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland are searching for the elusive Higgs boson particle.
It's the largest machine humans have ever built.
C'mon.
95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rikc7...
4. It Follows (horror)
"Wherever you are, it's somewhere walking straight for you."
Really gripping, frightening, low budget indie horror.
96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX38j...
5. Coherence (science fiction)
Do you know your friends? How do you know what's really...real?
A group of friends gather for dinner. A comet passes overhead. Strange stuff starts happening.
One of the best indie SF movies I've seen in the last 10 years.
Won a handful of awards at smaller film festivals.
Don't watch the trailer.
6. Spring (science fiction, fantasy, romance)
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl turns out to be .... no. You're gonna have to watch the movie to find out.
DON'T WATCH THE TRAILER.
7. The King of Kong (documentary)
You wouldn't think one man's humble quest to topple the Donkey Kong high score would be so engaging and nerve-rattling. But it is. All the way to the end.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zet7g...
8. The End of the Tour (drama)
This is a writer's movie, but I put it here because it is so powerful. The film opens with a phone call to a journalist-novelist, letting him know David Foster Wallace is dead by suicide. The journalist gets out tapes of his interviews with DFW years ago, and the time he shadowed him at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest, doing a report for Rolling Stone magazine.
You should be crying by the end.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBk1M...
9. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (horror, romance)
The best Iranian vampire movie I have ever seen.
Killer soundtrack to boot.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YGmT...
10. The One I Love (drama, romance, science fiction)
Mix one part Twilight Zone with another part romantic comedy and you get this movie.
Quirky and smart.
Grab the popcorn and your boy/girlfriend.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCOvh...
My first two lists are 10 Indie Movies You Should See and 10 More Indie Movies You Should See .
Enjoy!
1. '71 (drama, action&adventure)
Top film on this list. Very tense and graphic.
It's 1971 in Northern Ireland and a British soldier is dispatched to Belfast on a house search mission. The mission goes terribly wrong, and in the confusion he's left behind and has to find his way back to his barracks as factions of the IRA try to kill him and undercover police try to help him.
Nominated for 8 British Independent Film Awards, including best film, screenplay, lead actor. It won Best Director.
The trailer does not do the movie justice, plus it will spoil it.
2. Restrepo (documentary)
No narration in this documentary, to speak of. Just action and post-action interviews.
Two filmmakers are embedded with a platoon of U.S. soldiers in one of the most contested areas in Afghanistan.
Brotherhood of war. Graphic. Very moving.
Restrepo received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR...
3. Particle Fever (documentary)
Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland are searching for the elusive Higgs boson particle.
It's the largest machine humans have ever built.
C'mon.
95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rikc7...
4. It Follows (horror)
"Wherever you are, it's somewhere walking straight for you."
Really gripping, frightening, low budget indie horror.
96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX38j...
5. Coherence (science fiction)
Do you know your friends? How do you know what's really...real?
A group of friends gather for dinner. A comet passes overhead. Strange stuff starts happening.
One of the best indie SF movies I've seen in the last 10 years.
Won a handful of awards at smaller film festivals.
Don't watch the trailer.
6. Spring (science fiction, fantasy, romance)
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl turns out to be .... no. You're gonna have to watch the movie to find out.
DON'T WATCH THE TRAILER.
7. The King of Kong (documentary)
You wouldn't think one man's humble quest to topple the Donkey Kong high score would be so engaging and nerve-rattling. But it is. All the way to the end.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zet7g...
8. The End of the Tour (drama)
This is a writer's movie, but I put it here because it is so powerful. The film opens with a phone call to a journalist-novelist, letting him know David Foster Wallace is dead by suicide. The journalist gets out tapes of his interviews with DFW years ago, and the time he shadowed him at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest, doing a report for Rolling Stone magazine.
You should be crying by the end.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBk1M...
9. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (horror, romance)
The best Iranian vampire movie I have ever seen.
Killer soundtrack to boot.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YGmT...
10. The One I Love (drama, romance, science fiction)
Mix one part Twilight Zone with another part romantic comedy and you get this movie.
Quirky and smart.
Grab the popcorn and your boy/girlfriend.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCOvh...
January 11, 2016
Review of The Rise of Islamic State by Patrick Cockburn
The book's subtitle is "ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution". The further into this book you read, the more you realize how fitting a subtitle that is. For ISIS is Sunni Islam, and they hate adherents to Shia Islam. And vice versa. When you heard about sectarian violence in Iraq that followed President Obama's pullback of U.S. troops around 2009, Sunni-Shia relations went completely off the rails.
Remember, too: back in 2014, al-Qaeda felt that ISIS was too extreme for even them and so severed ties with them.
Besides this sectarian violence you have many other jihadist groups operating in the area. Groups Cockburn brings into the discussion here include the Kurds; the Free Syrian Army, consisting early on of defectors from the Syrian military; al-Qaeda; Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), a splinter group of ISIS but now affiliated with al-Qaeda; Islamic Front; Cechen rebels; Morrocon jihadists; the Salafist Ahrar ash-Sham, backed by Qatar and Turkey; Army of Islam, "created by Saudi Arabia as a jihadi counterbalance to JAN"; and Hezbollah, among others. Google "list of armed groups in Syrian Civil War" and you'll find a list of ~100 different groups.
Eye-opening and spine-chilling information abounds. Cockburn, an Irish journalist, is a correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent (among others), so his writing is crisp and engaging:
"Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qaeda have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of U.S. policy aims" (p. 52).
"Al-Qaeda is an idea rather than an organization, and this has long been the case" (p. 54).
"An exit of senior Saudis, including bin Laden relatives, from the US was facilitated by the US government in the days after 9/11. Most significant, twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 Commission Report about the relationship between the attackers and Saudi Arabia were cut and never published, despite a promise by President Obama to do so, on the grounds of national security" (p.57).
"The US response to the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 targeted the wrong countries when Afghanistan and Iraq were identified as the hostile states whose governments needed to be overthrown. Meanwhile, the two countries most involved in supporting al-Qaeda and favoring the ideology behind the attacks, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were largely ignored and given a free pass" (p. 138).
And on and on.
Other gems include:
--Pakistani military intelligence training the Taliban
--Rampant corruption in the Iraqi state (before and after the 2003 American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein)
--Rampant corruption in the Iraqi military, leading to easy jihadi takeovers of major Iraqi cities
--The year-long "Breaking the Walls" campaign to free other jihadi prisoners (estimates up to 1,500 prisoners freed)
--Misperceptions, naivete, and "simple-minded delusions" in the West regarding the "Arab Spring" uprisings in 2011
--A government in present-day Baghdad "that is as sectarian, corrupt, and dysfunctional as Saddam's ever was"
--The disintegration of Iraq into separate Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia regions
--Turkey's preference for ISIS over its Kurdish population
Interestingly, Cockburn does not address the serious cultural issues that complicate this picture even more. I mention them here as additional background:
1. Child marriages in Iraq. A 2013 report by the Population Reference Bureau states that 25% of women aged 20 to 24 were married before their 18th birthday (6% before 15).
2. Status of women in Iraq. That same 2013 PRB report states: "In Iraq, for example, a third of men believe that a father has the right to marry off his daughter before the legal age of 18; and more than half believe that a husband has the right to beat his wife if she disobeys."
3. Consanguineous marriage in Iraq. In 2006, the Christian Science Monitor reported that half of all marriages in Iraq are between first or second cousins. Perils of inbreeding are too numerous to list here.
These cultural issues are rarely discussed, I imagine, because they seem so unsolvable. But not addressing them now is not a solution and, in my opinion, complicates present-day policies and relations even more.
Back to Cockburn's book: Highly recommended as background information, but this is a very fluid situation. I wish I'd read this little book when it first appeared back in February 2015. Since then much has changed, most notably Russia overtly entering the fray with airstrikes targeting ISIS, starting in September 2015. Still, I can recommend this brief book as a solid introduction to the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Loved it
4/5 Goodreads
5/5 Amazon
Remember, too: back in 2014, al-Qaeda felt that ISIS was too extreme for even them and so severed ties with them.
Besides this sectarian violence you have many other jihadist groups operating in the area. Groups Cockburn brings into the discussion here include the Kurds; the Free Syrian Army, consisting early on of defectors from the Syrian military; al-Qaeda; Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), a splinter group of ISIS but now affiliated with al-Qaeda; Islamic Front; Cechen rebels; Morrocon jihadists; the Salafist Ahrar ash-Sham, backed by Qatar and Turkey; Army of Islam, "created by Saudi Arabia as a jihadi counterbalance to JAN"; and Hezbollah, among others. Google "list of armed groups in Syrian Civil War" and you'll find a list of ~100 different groups.
Eye-opening and spine-chilling information abounds. Cockburn, an Irish journalist, is a correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent (among others), so his writing is crisp and engaging:
"Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qaeda have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of U.S. policy aims" (p. 52).
"Al-Qaeda is an idea rather than an organization, and this has long been the case" (p. 54).
"An exit of senior Saudis, including bin Laden relatives, from the US was facilitated by the US government in the days after 9/11. Most significant, twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 Commission Report about the relationship between the attackers and Saudi Arabia were cut and never published, despite a promise by President Obama to do so, on the grounds of national security" (p.57).
"The US response to the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 targeted the wrong countries when Afghanistan and Iraq were identified as the hostile states whose governments needed to be overthrown. Meanwhile, the two countries most involved in supporting al-Qaeda and favoring the ideology behind the attacks, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were largely ignored and given a free pass" (p. 138).
And on and on.
Other gems include:
--Pakistani military intelligence training the Taliban
--Rampant corruption in the Iraqi state (before and after the 2003 American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein)
--Rampant corruption in the Iraqi military, leading to easy jihadi takeovers of major Iraqi cities
--The year-long "Breaking the Walls" campaign to free other jihadi prisoners (estimates up to 1,500 prisoners freed)
--Misperceptions, naivete, and "simple-minded delusions" in the West regarding the "Arab Spring" uprisings in 2011
--A government in present-day Baghdad "that is as sectarian, corrupt, and dysfunctional as Saddam's ever was"
--The disintegration of Iraq into separate Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia regions
--Turkey's preference for ISIS over its Kurdish population
Interestingly, Cockburn does not address the serious cultural issues that complicate this picture even more. I mention them here as additional background:
1. Child marriages in Iraq. A 2013 report by the Population Reference Bureau states that 25% of women aged 20 to 24 were married before their 18th birthday (6% before 15).
2. Status of women in Iraq. That same 2013 PRB report states: "In Iraq, for example, a third of men believe that a father has the right to marry off his daughter before the legal age of 18; and more than half believe that a husband has the right to beat his wife if she disobeys."
3. Consanguineous marriage in Iraq. In 2006, the Christian Science Monitor reported that half of all marriages in Iraq are between first or second cousins. Perils of inbreeding are too numerous to list here.
These cultural issues are rarely discussed, I imagine, because they seem so unsolvable. But not addressing them now is not a solution and, in my opinion, complicates present-day policies and relations even more.
Back to Cockburn's book: Highly recommended as background information, but this is a very fluid situation. I wish I'd read this little book when it first appeared back in February 2015. Since then much has changed, most notably Russia overtly entering the fray with airstrikes targeting ISIS, starting in September 2015. Still, I can recommend this brief book as a solid introduction to the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Loved it
4/5 Goodreads
5/5 Amazon
January 4, 2016
Review of Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel
Boy, I'd hate to be stuck on the top floor of a burning building with Professor Nagel and have to rely on him for a quick and understandable description for the best route of escape. We'd die waiting for a lucid explanation.
If I remember correctly, my reading comprehension scores in school were at about the 98th percentile. I tell you that to tell you this:
This book is not a light read.
This book is not a pleasant read.
This book needed an editor to render it into readable English.
I was so glad to be done with this book. I wanted to finish it just to write that I had finished it. Otherwise, it would've been added to my Goodreads shelf "books I gave up reading".
Professor Nagel states his aim clearly on page 15: "My aim is not so much to argue against reductionism as to investigate the consequences of rejecting it--to present the problem rather than to propose a solution."
That's fine. After all, presenting the problem accurately is the first step on the road to getting to a solution.
His entire argument can be summed up as follows:
A purely materialistic explanation of the world (as described by biologic evolution) is incomplete. It is incomplete because it cannot explain the appearance of conscious beings. In fact, he writes: "Materialism is incomplete even as a theory of the physical world, since the physical world includes conscious organisms among its most striking occupants" (p. 45). He goes a step further to even claim that the physical sciences cannot provide an adequate explanation of the appearance of beings with consciousness.
Nagel is a philosopher writing a philosopher's book, so specialized terminology abounds. By page 17 he's on to the principle of sufficient reason and by page 24 radical scepticism. You get the idea. Terms he covers often and in depth include teleology, neo-Darwinian,Cartesian dualism,psychophysical reductionism, physico-chemical reductionism, mind-body problem
reductionism/antireductionism, and value realism.
Lay aside the specialized terminology and we come to Nagel's style of writing, which is often maddeningly incomplete, unnecessarily complex, and needlessly convoluted. Imagine text written by Toni Morrison and revised by Thomas Pynchon.
Here are some gems:
"Mechanisms of belief formations that have selective advantage in the everyday struggle for existence do not warrant our confidence in the construction of theoretical accounts of the world as a whole."
English translation: The ways we use to form concepts of our daily life may not be the best way to think about the great big world.
"Prudential judgments are the manifestation of a calm passion of temporally impartial self-interest that generates an equal desire or aversion for future and present benefit or harm to oneself." (p. 100)
English translation: Good judgments come from a person's long-held self-sustaining interest to want good things and to avoid bad things.
When it got to be too much, I had to put the book down. When it got to be REALLY too much, I had to count the words: the longest sentence I counted had 85 words.
Why? Why do this to your readers? You're not Faulkner; you're not Cormac McCarthy. You're not writing art; you're a philosopher trying to make yourself understood, hopefully to a broader audience. The terms and concepts with which you are dealing are complicated enough. Your writing should try to make clear, not make more obscure.
In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Professor Nagel has a penchant (at least in the first 75 pages of this short book) to write "more on this later." I'd guess he uses this at least 4 or 5 times. Does he get to those points later? I'm not sure, because I'm so lost in his word salads I'm not sure what he's intending to convey.
What I understood of his main argument...I agree with. That is, neo-Darwinism (a purely chemical account of life) cannot account for creatures that have consciousness and reason and that, through those things, ascribe value to things. But I'm puzzled by a thought Nagel provides late in the game: "...it would be callous and objectionable to cut down a great old tree just for the fun of trying out one's new chain saw" (p. 118). I don't get it. "callous" to whom? "objectionable" to whom?
we humans are purely chemical-made and chemical-bound creatures, there are no objective values.
In other words: do what you will.
Because, ultimately, who cares?
Reproductive fitness? Survival of the fittest? Take a trip to your local Walmart to see those two axioms blown out of the theoretical water.
All in all: I wanted to finish this book just to say that I finished it. I did. Not a good place to be in as a reader.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
If I remember correctly, my reading comprehension scores in school were at about the 98th percentile. I tell you that to tell you this:
This book is not a light read.
This book is not a pleasant read.
This book needed an editor to render it into readable English.
I was so glad to be done with this book. I wanted to finish it just to write that I had finished it. Otherwise, it would've been added to my Goodreads shelf "books I gave up reading".
Professor Nagel states his aim clearly on page 15: "My aim is not so much to argue against reductionism as to investigate the consequences of rejecting it--to present the problem rather than to propose a solution."
That's fine. After all, presenting the problem accurately is the first step on the road to getting to a solution.
His entire argument can be summed up as follows:
A purely materialistic explanation of the world (as described by biologic evolution) is incomplete. It is incomplete because it cannot explain the appearance of conscious beings. In fact, he writes: "Materialism is incomplete even as a theory of the physical world, since the physical world includes conscious organisms among its most striking occupants" (p. 45). He goes a step further to even claim that the physical sciences cannot provide an adequate explanation of the appearance of beings with consciousness.
Nagel is a philosopher writing a philosopher's book, so specialized terminology abounds. By page 17 he's on to the principle of sufficient reason and by page 24 radical scepticism. You get the idea. Terms he covers often and in depth include teleology, neo-Darwinian,Cartesian dualism,psychophysical reductionism, physico-chemical reductionism, mind-body problem
reductionism/antireductionism, and value realism.
Lay aside the specialized terminology and we come to Nagel's style of writing, which is often maddeningly incomplete, unnecessarily complex, and needlessly convoluted. Imagine text written by Toni Morrison and revised by Thomas Pynchon.
Here are some gems:
"Mechanisms of belief formations that have selective advantage in the everyday struggle for existence do not warrant our confidence in the construction of theoretical accounts of the world as a whole."
English translation: The ways we use to form concepts of our daily life may not be the best way to think about the great big world.
"Prudential judgments are the manifestation of a calm passion of temporally impartial self-interest that generates an equal desire or aversion for future and present benefit or harm to oneself." (p. 100)
English translation: Good judgments come from a person's long-held self-sustaining interest to want good things and to avoid bad things.
When it got to be too much, I had to put the book down. When it got to be REALLY too much, I had to count the words: the longest sentence I counted had 85 words.
Why? Why do this to your readers? You're not Faulkner; you're not Cormac McCarthy. You're not writing art; you're a philosopher trying to make yourself understood, hopefully to a broader audience. The terms and concepts with which you are dealing are complicated enough. Your writing should try to make clear, not make more obscure.
In addition, as other reviewers have noted, Professor Nagel has a penchant (at least in the first 75 pages of this short book) to write "more on this later." I'd guess he uses this at least 4 or 5 times. Does he get to those points later? I'm not sure, because I'm so lost in his word salads I'm not sure what he's intending to convey.
What I understood of his main argument...I agree with. That is, neo-Darwinism (a purely chemical account of life) cannot account for creatures that have consciousness and reason and that, through those things, ascribe value to things. But I'm puzzled by a thought Nagel provides late in the game: "...it would be callous and objectionable to cut down a great old tree just for the fun of trying out one's new chain saw" (p. 118). I don't get it. "callous" to whom? "objectionable" to whom?
we humans are purely chemical-made and chemical-bound creatures, there are no objective values.
In other words: do what you will.
Because, ultimately, who cares?
Reproductive fitness? Survival of the fittest? Take a trip to your local Walmart to see those two axioms blown out of the theoretical water.
All in all: I wanted to finish this book just to say that I finished it. I did. Not a good place to be in as a reader.
Did not like it
2/5 Amazon
1/5 Goodreads
December 28, 2015
Review of Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig
This book is a textbook treatment on the subject of Christian apologetics. Seriously. It is used as a textbook on the subject. And it shows. Dr. Craig notes in his introduction that this has become his signature book, so that's another reason to pick this up if you're looking for a touchstone or standard in the field.
Dr. Craig approaches his subject with an extraordinarily far-ranging and far-reaching grasp of his materials. These are primarily Christian apologetics, theology, and philosophy, of course, but he also draws from his knowledge of history, cosmology, theology, ethics, logic, argumentation, and science. You'll be delighted as he writes eloquently about such historical and current thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, John Barrow, Karl Barth, Richard Dawkins, Gary Habermas, Alvin Plantinga, Plato--I'll stop there. The result is a monumental work that is not for the casual reader but for the serious student of Christian apologetics. Dr. Craig hits his topics head-on, without stopping to explain much, so you have to hang on for the ride sometimes. It will help to have your computer/laptop handy to look up names and terms and concepts; it will also help to have some background in any of the topics/authors I've already mentioned. I do, so that helped some. Still, I learned about a wide range of new authors and topics and terms, including kerygmatic, noetic structure, veridical, concertina-like, otiose, revivification--I'll stop there.
Be warned: Dr. Craig's approach to his topics is nearly overwhelming in its detail and breadth and depth. He literally seems to leave no stone unturned. The index is very thorough and the recommended readings list he provides at the end of every chapter are among the most exhaustive I have ever seen. This cuts both ways: it's enjoyable to a point and then a bit exhausting beyond that if you stay in the book too long. I found my best experience with this book was when I read a bit--say, a few pages or even a good chunk of a chapter--then set the book down for some days or even weeks to rest from it, then come back to it.
Overall, I had just two real nitpicks with the book. First, the chapter on knowing Christianity is true rests too much (for me) on the individual's subjective experience. In future editions, I'd trim that text to its minimum and re-think its presentation. Second, the lengthy section near the end on the resurrection of Jesus and laboriously going through McCullagh's seven criteria for justifying historical hypotheses. This was a real slog, and during reading it felt a bit like I was lost down the rabbit hole of argument and debate.
Set those aside, though, because I can't give this book less than 5 stars. Rarely do I use the word "monumental," but it applies here; what Dr. Craig has compiled in Reasonable Faith will likely serve theologians and philosophers (and interested laymen and students) for decades to come. This book is that good. J.P. Moreland calls Dr. Craig "the finest Christian apologist of the last half century" and also states that Craig is "among the top one percent of practicing philosophers in the Western world." After reading this book I don't doubt either claim.
Dr. Craig approaches his subject with an extraordinarily far-ranging and far-reaching grasp of his materials. These are primarily Christian apologetics, theology, and philosophy, of course, but he also draws from his knowledge of history, cosmology, theology, ethics, logic, argumentation, and science. You'll be delighted as he writes eloquently about such historical and current thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, John Barrow, Karl Barth, Richard Dawkins, Gary Habermas, Alvin Plantinga, Plato--I'll stop there. The result is a monumental work that is not for the casual reader but for the serious student of Christian apologetics. Dr. Craig hits his topics head-on, without stopping to explain much, so you have to hang on for the ride sometimes. It will help to have your computer/laptop handy to look up names and terms and concepts; it will also help to have some background in any of the topics/authors I've already mentioned. I do, so that helped some. Still, I learned about a wide range of new authors and topics and terms, including kerygmatic, noetic structure, veridical, concertina-like, otiose, revivification--I'll stop there.
Be warned: Dr. Craig's approach to his topics is nearly overwhelming in its detail and breadth and depth. He literally seems to leave no stone unturned. The index is very thorough and the recommended readings list he provides at the end of every chapter are among the most exhaustive I have ever seen. This cuts both ways: it's enjoyable to a point and then a bit exhausting beyond that if you stay in the book too long. I found my best experience with this book was when I read a bit--say, a few pages or even a good chunk of a chapter--then set the book down for some days or even weeks to rest from it, then come back to it.
Overall, I had just two real nitpicks with the book. First, the chapter on knowing Christianity is true rests too much (for me) on the individual's subjective experience. In future editions, I'd trim that text to its minimum and re-think its presentation. Second, the lengthy section near the end on the resurrection of Jesus and laboriously going through McCullagh's seven criteria for justifying historical hypotheses. This was a real slog, and during reading it felt a bit like I was lost down the rabbit hole of argument and debate.
Set those aside, though, because I can't give this book less than 5 stars. Rarely do I use the word "monumental," but it applies here; what Dr. Craig has compiled in Reasonable Faith will likely serve theologians and philosophers (and interested laymen and students) for decades to come. This book is that good. J.P. Moreland calls Dr. Craig "the finest Christian apologist of the last half century" and also states that Craig is "among the top one percent of practicing philosophers in the Western world." After reading this book I don't doubt either claim.
