Michael McCormick > Recent Status Updates

This is scary stuff. "Everything that makes up the present-day Mexican, as we have seen, can be reduced to this: the Mexican does not want or does not dare to be himself." That's on page 73.

This is an incredible book. It illustrates for me so much about Mexican men and women and Mexico as a nation, and I am only on page 47 of 398! I increasingly want more and more to perfect my Spanish. This book blows me away. I'm so glad to be reading it.

I find that reading "Brooklyn" is deeply emotionally rewarding.

I am enjoying "Brooklyn" very much so far.

It is great to read Michael G. Vickers's memoir "By All Means Available." His book is packed with so many things that I have always wanted to know about and so much more great stuff is coming. I find myself propelled by an interest in this subject matter and am glad to know that I own a copy of Robert M. Gates's "From the Shadows" which Mr. Vickers references often. I am reading an NYPL.org book, which is a help.

Secretary Gates's memoir is to me thus far awe inspiring. I could only dream of serving my country so steadfastly and admirably as he has done over the course of his whole life. His book contains a wealth of ideas for moving forward programs and initiatives in government that make sense for American politicians and the hardworking American tax payers they serve. It is a truly humbling experience to read this book.

I spent a long while benefitting from Secretary Gates's book's cover, just looking at it, and now, after that time, I have jumped into reading his book. I find that reading a book certainly can calm one's anxieties. And I can do some testifying myself: this is certainly true for me as I read "Duty." I believe in the Einstein quote from my high school yearbook senior class photo. And I believe in the US Constitution.

I appreciate Mr. Koch's "Good Profit" very much, however I am of a different mind about aspects of "feedback" perhaps. I remember reading recently about how the best communicators, the supercommunicators, ask questions about behavior, both good and bad, to engender change, and to connect. The HBR not too long ago recommended zeroing in on great performance, and asking what someone was thinking, feeling when doing it

This is a great book: I particularly recommend it for the pages where Mr. Koch describes following hunches. His creative destruction idea incorporated into Koch Industries MBM framework makes so much sense in today's world. Clearly, Charges G. Koch is a good companion for the United States and Planet Earth, and "Good Profit" is a useful and valuable read, and I write this only being not even half way through!

Mr. Koch's book reminds me of the most basic and important lesson I learned in my first semester marketing course in B-school, namely that all great products are first grounded in great engineering, like P&G's "Tide" laundry detergent. Once that is accomplished, then it becomes a matter of advertising the hell out of it. I ask myself what government is good for: rooting out worms in the body politic, abuse, etc.

So far, I have only read Mr. Koch's introduction to his book, and I can't wait to finish it. I was motivated to purchase and now read Mr. Koch's "Good Profit" because I had heard that a Columbia Business School professor, Bruce Greenwald, had said something along the lines of, "whenever anyone buys something or sells something, someone in the transaction loses." Thus, I really want to hear what "Good Profit" can be!!

This is a great story by a great writer. I am amazed that Dr. Galchen has an MD degree from the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and yet has devoted her life to her writing. I think that is cool, regardless.

I finished another great chapter today in Bobby Clampett's "The Impact Zone." In reading Chapter Four, "The Full Swing," Clampett delves into "Dynamic #4--Lag and the Body Pivot (The Golf Swing's Workhorse)." Much of this reading reminded me of drills my two Summer veteran golf league pros showed us veterans. And I am reminded of practicing without the ball, and then doing worse with one, by being distracted by it.

Wow, I am so cheered up by reading "The Impact Zone" by Bobby Clampett. He presents his "Swing Dynamics" so clearly and everything makes perfect sense and is as clear as a bell. I think it is so awesome that he told that story about Gary Player demonstrating that it's how you swing the golf club that matters, not which golf club you use for a particular distance to the hole. This book gives me hope.

I remember that I purchased "The Impact Zone" after hearing a fellow on a Zoom call saying "please repeat that. It's important." He was referring to this book that I believe a PGA professional brought up. I can't remember which one for sure, but it might have been Brian Crowell. So far, I think it's really good.

I am amazed over and over again by the stories of the lives of these incredible men and women in "A Scientific Revolution." Whenever I am feeling repressed and oppressed and suppressed, I will remember the life of Dorothy Reed Mendenhall and carry on! I am so grateful for this book, so grateful. I pray that my own life, with my hard work of course and the support of positive people around me, will be as significant.

These are inspiring stories of inspiring people. I live my life from the shadows.

I have learned so much already, especially about how to think anew about philanthropy, especially in light of what I read about Mary Elizabeth Garrett's "coercive philanthropy" which forced the administration of the Johns Hopkins University to admit women on an equal footing as men as soon as their medical school opened, let alone all of her requirements for having only top-notch students enroll. Bravo!

I read in The Journal that some serious male professional athletes like to read romance novels. I tried a Danielle Steele book, and it was okay, but a B&N bookseller advised me that this author's romance novels have more "heat" so I thought I would try it. Wow! There are well developed and graphically written sex scenes in this book. Whatever. Men are visual, right? We watch porn, women don't. But the bad guy's name

"The Butler" is my first Danielle Steel novel and I am enjoying it immensely. I find that when I started reading, I thought to myself that I'd finish it in an afternoon, but I did not come even close. I am liking it. I find it wholesome and satisfying.

"El Narco" is a challenging book to read because the reader naturally asks himself, "how can I make things better for Mexico?" I feel like there is "no separation," no breathing room to "form a perimeter" or a defense in depth as we would say in the Army. I read it and feel like I am in a unit, like in Vietnam, that is being overrun by the enemy. I have had to put the book down for a few days. Now I will begin again.

What a great book: it is like reading Tolsoy in non-fiction. I find it fascinating that Nixon was rabid about keeping marijuana illegal and, I believe, cynically flogged being anti-legalization for its political benefit, but who ended up being the only president in US history to resign later in disgrace. But hey, I also have not read this weekend's WSJ story linking marijuana abuse to mental illnesses.

Indra Nooyi needs to return as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo ASAP!!

I am up to the last story of this anthology of thirteen "Great Russian Short Stories." Of them all, so far, Leo Tolstoy's "Kholstomer" seems the most remarkable, but they have all been arresting in how they have grabbed ahold of me as I have read them. Sure, they speak of Russian life in the 19th Century, but I keep thinking of how much they make me think of life in these times.

I continue reading and these great Russian short stories continue to amaze me. "A Gentle Spirit" and "The Crocodlie" seemed fitting having been written by a man who had spent four years in jail as a political prisoner. And Tolstoy's "What Men Live By," while my favorite of them all so far, lends itself to a feeling of having come from a writer secure enough to worry about an angel's troubles.

I have read three of these great short stories by Russian authors so far. All have been revealing in a way of what this anthology's editor Norris Houghton describes as the "mysterious Russian soul," I feel. I find it fascinating that only one of the anthology's authors lived past through the Revolution, Maxim Gorky, There is truly something timeless in what I have read so far.

What's so delightful about "Absolution" for me are the characters and how well developed Patrick Flannery has made them. Clare is delightful, and I imagine sometimes while I am reading this book how magnificent it must be to be a successful someone in something other than successful in healthcare, or some other awful business. I ask myself about my own happiness, and how I can live for what I want, and that is it.

I am reading this book, written by a man born in America, educated in England and about South Africa and I am enjoying it immensely. I have found lately that I possess a new an impressive power in myself, namely that I have the power to change my mind and even more so, to see things for how they truly are. I LIKE JAZZ MUSIC. VA HEALTHCARE SUCKS. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS MANIPULATIVE.

This book is really cool. I find myself thanking Professor Cobb every time I begin a new page, for his profound explanations and interpretations of his "moral history of the genetic age" which is this book.

The things that stand out in the pages since my last check in are the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) and the Mellinium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The two successful programs initiated by Bush 43 put a lot of daylight between the paltry effort of the Clinton administration to do anything of substance about the AIDS epidemic in Africa