Jan Notzon's Blog, page 34
February 11, 2017
Culture
In Francis Fukuyama's Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity, he makes the argument that it is primarily culture that determines how successful a society is. So, while people are equal as far as their inherent worth is concerned, cultures are not. Essentially, he argues that it is the degree of trust between members of a society that is the determining factor.
He also points out that the way multiculturalism is taught in American universities is to promote the idea that all cultures are equal in terms of their promotion of prosperity and happiness.
This reminded me of an old Bob Hope movie called (I believe) Call Me Bwana. He and his cohorts are captured by a tribe of cannibals. Hope asks the chief what is going to happen to them. I believe the chief's answer was, "Well, first we're going to torture you, then we're going to cook you and eat you. You understand, it's nothing personal, it's just a part of our culture."
He also points out that the way multiculturalism is taught in American universities is to promote the idea that all cultures are equal in terms of their promotion of prosperity and happiness.
This reminded me of an old Bob Hope movie called (I believe) Call Me Bwana. He and his cohorts are captured by a tribe of cannibals. Hope asks the chief what is going to happen to them. I believe the chief's answer was, "Well, first we're going to torture you, then we're going to cook you and eat you. You understand, it's nothing personal, it's just a part of our culture."
January 29, 2017
Miriamne the Magdala
I'm generally sparing of five star reviews, but there many reasons for loving this novel. First, the sheer audacity of the author in creating a very plausible story of the "lost years" of Jesus is something to behold. And for the secular, the story is still absolutely engrossing. (It might come under the rubric of "magical realism" for them).
Secondly, there is the love in telling the story that explodes from every page. These are two very close-knit families with devotion that expresses itself in such a variety of ways. The characters are so well-defined that I felt I could almost touch them. The relationship of Yeshua's four older brothers is so familiar it's astonishing. All of the other characters are equally rich.
Told from the point of view of Mary Magdalene, the agony of having a power you cannot use to save one you hold so dear is excruciating. But there is also much joy in this novel. It is the joy of that familial love that causes such heartache and such ecstasy. It is truly a celebration of life.
Secondly, there is the love in telling the story that explodes from every page. These are two very close-knit families with devotion that expresses itself in such a variety of ways. The characters are so well-defined that I felt I could almost touch them. The relationship of Yeshua's four older brothers is so familiar it's astonishing. All of the other characters are equally rich.
Told from the point of view of Mary Magdalene, the agony of having a power you cannot use to save one you hold so dear is excruciating. But there is also much joy in this novel. It is the joy of that familial love that causes such heartache and such ecstasy. It is truly a celebration of life.
January 11, 2017
Demoralized
iews > The Run of His Life : The People versus O.J. Simpson
I read this on a recommendation from my friend Caroline across the pond.
There is no question that this is a riveting account of one of the saddest episodes in American jurisprudence. It is the most damning indictment of the system of justice in the United States and, in my opinion, an equally depressing portrait of the disintegration of American society. It seems to me that there was only one member of the jury with even the barest hint of integrity, and, unlike the play 12 Angry Men, she folded with hardly a squeak.
The ego, vanity, self-serving cynicism, amorality, arrogance and sheer mendacity of the defense team is so beyond appalling that I actually feel a bit sick having finished the book. This is not to say that I am in any way disappointed with Mr. Toobin's account. Although I knew little of the actual evidence and strategy of the attorneys involved, it strikes me that Mr. Toobin does a remarkable job recounting and analyzing the events and their implications.
However, the egregious nature of the racism and hatred (on both sides), and the plain cynicism and misanthropy, leaves me so pessimistic concerning the future of this country that I feel completely disillusioned.
I read this on a recommendation from my friend Caroline across the pond.
There is no question that this is a riveting account of one of the saddest episodes in American jurisprudence. It is the most damning indictment of the system of justice in the United States and, in my opinion, an equally depressing portrait of the disintegration of American society. It seems to me that there was only one member of the jury with even the barest hint of integrity, and, unlike the play 12 Angry Men, she folded with hardly a squeak.
The ego, vanity, self-serving cynicism, amorality, arrogance and sheer mendacity of the defense team is so beyond appalling that I actually feel a bit sick having finished the book. This is not to say that I am in any way disappointed with Mr. Toobin's account. Although I knew little of the actual evidence and strategy of the attorneys involved, it strikes me that Mr. Toobin does a remarkable job recounting and analyzing the events and their implications.
However, the egregious nature of the racism and hatred (on both sides), and the plain cynicism and misanthropy, leaves me so pessimistic concerning the future of this country that I feel completely disillusioned.
January 8, 2017
Ludwig von Mises
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
by Ludwig von Mises, J. Kahane (Translator), Friedrich Hayek (Foreword by)
12121037
Jan Notzon's review Jan 08, 2017 · edit
it was amazing
Read from December 22, 2016 to January 06, 2017
A quite challenging read, it took me a good while to finish. It describes socialism in all aspects: with respect to property, politics, economics, ideology, philosophy, etc. and demonstrates, remarkably clearly, its unworkability (the translator uses the word "impracticability"). I must admit I winced a bit at von Mises description of the romantic (in his view, socialism being a romantic dream) because it so closely described me as a young man: "the romantic imagines the pleasures of success but does nothing to achieve them. He has a grudge against reality because it is not like the dream world he has created."
If you're up for a challenge, I highly recommend this book. If you just want to hear your preconceived ideas regurgitated to you, I can't.
But I do believe every voting member of a democracy should.
by Ludwig von Mises, J. Kahane (Translator), Friedrich Hayek (Foreword by)
12121037
Jan Notzon's review Jan 08, 2017 · edit
it was amazing
Read from December 22, 2016 to January 06, 2017
A quite challenging read, it took me a good while to finish. It describes socialism in all aspects: with respect to property, politics, economics, ideology, philosophy, etc. and demonstrates, remarkably clearly, its unworkability (the translator uses the word "impracticability"). I must admit I winced a bit at von Mises description of the romantic (in his view, socialism being a romantic dream) because it so closely described me as a young man: "the romantic imagines the pleasures of success but does nothing to achieve them. He has a grudge against reality because it is not like the dream world he has created."
If you're up for a challenge, I highly recommend this book. If you just want to hear your preconceived ideas regurgitated to you, I can't.
But I do believe every voting member of a democracy should.
December 10, 2016
Choices
Ah, to have it all! That was the meme of the 1980s. But I find that life is about choices. Arthur Miller wrote a play about that called "The Price". You want to be rich? Famous? Well, now in my senior years I realize that it requires sacrificing other things (and then, you may not get it, anyway). There's a quote from a movie called "Tombstone" where Doc Holliday is on his deathbed and Wyatt Earp visits and tells him he just wanted a "normal life". Doc, at the end of his, replies: "There's no such thing as a normal life. There's just life."
Sounds rather trite, even tautological, but I think there's great wisdom in it. Even day to day, I wish I could write every day, but that abnormal "life" gets in the way.
Then again, I'm lucky I can write at all, lucky to have a reasonably well-paying job, a home, a yard (which took a lot of my time today). Another choice would be to live in an apartment and have no yard to bother about. Then I'd just have to deal with noisy neighbors.
Choices
Sounds rather trite, even tautological, but I think there's great wisdom in it. Even day to day, I wish I could write every day, but that abnormal "life" gets in the way.
Then again, I'm lucky I can write at all, lucky to have a reasonably well-paying job, a home, a yard (which took a lot of my time today). Another choice would be to live in an apartment and have no yard to bother about. Then I'd just have to deal with noisy neighbors.
Choices
December 2, 2016
Plus Ça Change
After the murderous savagery of the Stalin regime could no longer be denied, excused or rationalized, the American (and I suspect other countries's) Left was demoralized
David Horowitz, one of whose books I recently read, was a founding member of the new Left of the '60s. He swore he would not lie or rationalize the way his parent's generation had for the Soviet Union (he was what's called a "red-diaper baby"). Then he got involved with The Black Panther party. He knew the members intimately enough to call the organization "Black Murder, Inc.". He recounts drug-trafficking, extortion, shake-downs and murder, sometimes simply because a member felt insulted. He also has spoken to members who have recounted acts of brutality against their own members for disloyalty that defy imagination--including bullwhips, one of the most horrible iconic instruments of slavery.
I recently picked up a Socialist friend from the airport who told me one of the highlights of her trip to California was A VISIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER MUSEUM.
A museum to a brutally criminal organization? To me, that is the equivalent of a museum dedicated to the Nazi Party. And now, all of their crimes are being whitewashed EXACTLY AS THE STALIN REGIME'S WAS.
The French have a wonderful saying "Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose. Or, as George Santayana put it, "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
David Horowitz, one of whose books I recently read, was a founding member of the new Left of the '60s. He swore he would not lie or rationalize the way his parent's generation had for the Soviet Union (he was what's called a "red-diaper baby"). Then he got involved with The Black Panther party. He knew the members intimately enough to call the organization "Black Murder, Inc.". He recounts drug-trafficking, extortion, shake-downs and murder, sometimes simply because a member felt insulted. He also has spoken to members who have recounted acts of brutality against their own members for disloyalty that defy imagination--including bullwhips, one of the most horrible iconic instruments of slavery.
I recently picked up a Socialist friend from the airport who told me one of the highlights of her trip to California was A VISIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER MUSEUM.
A museum to a brutally criminal organization? To me, that is the equivalent of a museum dedicated to the Nazi Party. And now, all of their crimes are being whitewashed EXACTLY AS THE STALIN REGIME'S WAS.
The French have a wonderful saying "Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose. Or, as George Santayana put it, "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
November 27, 2016
Extraordinary
I just finished a most extraordinary novel: "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London. It is a truly gripping tale of the essential shiang-haiing of Humphrey Van Weyden, a self-described "gentleman" (i.e., as Captain "Wolf" Larsen says, "standing on his father's legs": living on his father's inherited fortune).
Captain Larsen is the most fascinating character, as Van Weyden describes him, an absolute "materialist". He has a totally amoral, social Darwinist vision of life. He is, for lack of a better term, an absolute beast, rejecting any higher goal than individual desire. It is a rather frightening portrayal. One thing that can be said for him is that he is true to his non-spiritualist philosophy unto his last breath. There is no deathbed confession.
The only complaint I have is of my own ignorance: there is so much sailing jargon and mechanical description that I wanted a glossary and illustrations of topsail, foresail, jib, watch-tackle, shears-tackle, etc, etc.
Still, it is an incredibly engaging story of savagery and mayhem that, astonishingly, turns into a love story. And, it is a love story in the genteel Victorian sense, when there were actual ladies and gentlemen who respected their honor (honour, for my friends across the pond). I know, I know, I'm a dinosaur.
It reminds me of the movie "A Walk in the Clouds": They had to put it back immediately after WWII to make credible the protagonist behaving with the "honour" he does.
Captain Larsen is the most fascinating character, as Van Weyden describes him, an absolute "materialist". He has a totally amoral, social Darwinist vision of life. He is, for lack of a better term, an absolute beast, rejecting any higher goal than individual desire. It is a rather frightening portrayal. One thing that can be said for him is that he is true to his non-spiritualist philosophy unto his last breath. There is no deathbed confession.
The only complaint I have is of my own ignorance: there is so much sailing jargon and mechanical description that I wanted a glossary and illustrations of topsail, foresail, jib, watch-tackle, shears-tackle, etc, etc.
Still, it is an incredibly engaging story of savagery and mayhem that, astonishingly, turns into a love story. And, it is a love story in the genteel Victorian sense, when there were actual ladies and gentlemen who respected their honor (honour, for my friends across the pond). I know, I know, I'm a dinosaur.
It reminds me of the movie "A Walk in the Clouds": They had to put it back immediately after WWII to make credible the protagonist behaving with the "honour" he does.
November 18, 2016
The Power of the Media
Similar to (I believe) most people, I had always bought the Hollywood line, expressed in film after film, that the "Red Scare" was an unconscionable witch hunt in which thousands of innocent people were harassed and even destroyed by malicious false allegations.
Thanks to a novel called "A Quiet Life" I have been inspired over the last month or so to do a little fact-checking. The latest book, make that TOME, I'm engaged with is "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America".
The extent of the Soviet web of American informants is truly astonishing. Even in the Manhattan Project, there were at least 5 American citizens (no, Klaus Fuchs was a naturalized British Austrian, I believe) who informed to the Soviet Union. Those are only the ones who've been identified. There were spies in the State Department, Treasury, the OSS, the White House itself, the Signal Corps, Aviation, etc, etc. And this is all confirmed by documents from the KGB itself!
It is amazing to me how warped a vision we get from Hollywood, with paeans to Dalton Trumbo, an unrepentant Soviet agent, John Howard Lawson, Will Geer, et. al. (And I loved Will Geer in The Waltons!).
There were those like the Rosenbergs who were at least committed beyond defecting. But the vast majority vehemently denied their involvement and hid behind the "I'm a victim of a witch hunt" scenario.
It makes me wonder what other myths have been popularized by the media.
Thanks to a novel called "A Quiet Life" I have been inspired over the last month or so to do a little fact-checking. The latest book, make that TOME, I'm engaged with is "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America".
The extent of the Soviet web of American informants is truly astonishing. Even in the Manhattan Project, there were at least 5 American citizens (no, Klaus Fuchs was a naturalized British Austrian, I believe) who informed to the Soviet Union. Those are only the ones who've been identified. There were spies in the State Department, Treasury, the OSS, the White House itself, the Signal Corps, Aviation, etc, etc. And this is all confirmed by documents from the KGB itself!
It is amazing to me how warped a vision we get from Hollywood, with paeans to Dalton Trumbo, an unrepentant Soviet agent, John Howard Lawson, Will Geer, et. al. (And I loved Will Geer in The Waltons!).
There were those like the Rosenbergs who were at least committed beyond defecting. But the vast majority vehemently denied their involvement and hid behind the "I'm a victim of a witch hunt" scenario.
It makes me wonder what other myths have been popularized by the media.
November 5, 2016
Inspired
Since reading Natasha Walter's "A Quiet Life", I've been inspired to know the history of the Communist movement and Soviet Espionage in general and the Cambridge ring in particular.
To that end, so far I've re-read "Dupes", by Paul Kengor, which I highly recommend, "The Black Book of the American Left" (David Horowitz), another I rate five star (and quite personal for me since I basically followed his trajectory, and for much the same reasons).
I'm now reading "Stalin's Englishman", the title of which I read incorrectly, thinking it was "...Englishmen" (it's actually a biography of Guy Burgess, one of the Cambridge 5). I'd rate that a 3, because it covers more of his private life rather than dealing with his motivations and dealings with his Soviet handlers.
There is so much history to know. Having read "The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye view of world History, I'm aching to know more and more. It is invaluable in understanding how we got here and where we're headed.
Unfortunately, I'm not very optimistic.
To that end, so far I've re-read "Dupes", by Paul Kengor, which I highly recommend, "The Black Book of the American Left" (David Horowitz), another I rate five star (and quite personal for me since I basically followed his trajectory, and for much the same reasons).
I'm now reading "Stalin's Englishman", the title of which I read incorrectly, thinking it was "...Englishmen" (it's actually a biography of Guy Burgess, one of the Cambridge 5). I'd rate that a 3, because it covers more of his private life rather than dealing with his motivations and dealings with his Soviet handlers.
There is so much history to know. Having read "The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye view of world History, I'm aching to know more and more. It is invaluable in understanding how we got here and where we're headed.
Unfortunately, I'm not very optimistic.
November 3, 2016
The Saga Continues
Well, I gave up and went to Office Depot to get a paper copy of one of my plays scanned on to a flash drive, figuring that would be safest.
Well, the attendant put the whole 71 pages to be scanned and the machine started jamming, pages of my play were coming out folded, then accordioned, and as she pulled them out, she placed them folded on top of each other so the creases were permanent.
I said, "What are you doing to my play?" She calmly replied, "Oh, that's just because there are so many pages, sir." My master print copy was now worthless.
I showed it to the manager and he ran off a copy for me. I had to make sure all the pages were there and, lo and behold, one page didn't get copies. So, it had to be inserted in the file and copied onto paper, which, fortunately, the manager knew how to do.
Do you think technology just doesn't like me?
Well, the attendant put the whole 71 pages to be scanned and the machine started jamming, pages of my play were coming out folded, then accordioned, and as she pulled them out, she placed them folded on top of each other so the creases were permanent.
I said, "What are you doing to my play?" She calmly replied, "Oh, that's just because there are so many pages, sir." My master print copy was now worthless.
I showed it to the manager and he ran off a copy for me. I had to make sure all the pages were there and, lo and behold, one page didn't get copies. So, it had to be inserted in the file and copied onto paper, which, fortunately, the manager knew how to do.
Do you think technology just doesn't like me?
