Michael McCormick > Recent Status Updates

I just finished the chapters on Afganistan and Iraq. Both were monumentally troubling but what shines through is the imperative for leadership and the necessity for patience and resolve. One thing is for sure: freedom is everyone's business: those ideas for PRTs were good and the ones on the ground were effective it seems, especially in Iraq, but there were just too few.

I appreciate Secretary Gates's book because he provides a great "scene setting" for American foreign policy challenges upon which to build more highly specific reading in other publications I try to read such as "Foreign Affairs," which he mentions, and others. His book is highly important not least because he emphasizes the need for strategic and comprehensive solutions to foreign policy opportunities the USA faces.

Sacks used the words "joyously free" in describing this book, and I want to feel that way, so I'm reading it in the hope that some of that feeling will rub off on me.

I cannot imagine a book more worthy and compelling that has been in my collection longer without me reading than Ambassador and Professor Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell," which I have had since I bought it in 2002. I feel the need to push on, to read about whatever she writes about that can get me lined up to do my part to see the end of genocide from our world. We need a checklist.

I'm not too encouraged having finished the introduction of Professor Power's book and reading that "the system is working." How can the system be working if her "Problem From Hell" is still happening? At least the UN voted to oust the Russians from the Human Rights organization, but that is the least that the world can do to the murderers, rapists and thieves of the soldiers and officers of the Russian Army.

Very exciting stuff. The wheels in my mind are already starting to turn about all the checklists that I can create. I have created one already, to take care of my morning shaving, showering, topical testosterone medication application, brushing, flossing and rinsing, etc. Generally speaking, I can really relate to Professor Gawande's contention that checklists are a great way to work through complexity.

I am reading Gawande's book because my case manager mentioned it so I told him, my case manager, that I would read it. My other motivation is that I have challenged myself to read 36 books this year, and I am four books behind, and this book is rather short. I have already read two books so far this year. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Yours, too!!

The author, Ms. Horn, writes that we ought to celebrate more people like Varian Fry, but the trouble is that (1) there aren't more people like Varian Fry and (2) it would not be wise to do so. Probably the best thing that ever happened to Varian Fry was that he was not lauded for his accomplishments in saving European culture by saving European Jewish artists and intellectuals. We must, after all, be ourselves.

On the back cover, the James Carroll writes, "...Because antisemitism is a Christian problem more than a Jewish one, Christian readers need this book. It is urgently important." James Carroll is right. The horrors have shown through amply thus far. I can identify. EARLY ON I STARTED READING PRIMO LEVI.

Thank God for Peter Strzok and the FBI, especially James Comey. Reading "Compromised" has been a revelation about all of those events that transpired around the 2016 elections. What is more, the early chapters of the book describe in detail how the FBI caught those illegal Russian "worms" in our body politic, surveilled them for years and finally arrested them, thank God.

To my chagrin, I learned that a cooling center without a bathroom is just an inconvenience waiting to happen. I read this book, and think to keep to my schedule, which means I turn now to reading the news, but to me now, that is like tearing me away from my love, with whom I have waited years to be with, even for a few moments. Tomorrow I will not compromise and take in the full SNFL experience. To hell with it.

This book is Russia. It's seriously good literature. Shishkin comes up with some brilliant everything.

I'm reading "The Hot Rock" because I remember how much the editors of "The Weekly Standard," namely Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol, loved Donald E. Westlake. Right now, I am two pages in, and I am already hooked. I miss "The Weekly Standard." I wish I had more of an insight into what Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol were writing currently, but it's probably all in "National Review" which I get and need to read more of.

The author comments that the work of fighting violent extremists is the work of generations. The WSJ commented on how some US military personnel fighting in Afghanistan had been born after 9/11. The Taliban commit atrocities, killing innocent men, women and children. The Taliban are violent extremists. It is the work of generations of men and women of the civilized world to fight them and terrorists like them.

Air strikes are nice, but old man Joe needs to face facts: only boots on the ground can stop Taliban from retaking that country. We need to figure out a way of preventing the Taliban from retaking power in Afghanistan.

As Mr. Mudd published his book in 2013, a lot has changed in the world, most significantly this summer with our current Commander-In-Chief's decision to abandon America's commitment to figure out how to deal with keeping the Taliban from gaining power again in Afghanistan. Biden is a coward, and his seeking to be like Trump versus China and like Trump in abandoning the Kurds (Afganistanis) reflects his cowardice.

I heard from a guy that there really are wolves in Westchester or somewhere up there.

It's not hard to see this book coming together from a long way off. I am not an artist, at least in the way an average person would think of one. But the bottom line is art saves and as they say art is its own best defense. The sun shines. Andy Weir's sun mold is pure sci-fi. The more I think about Andy, the more that I agree with Shaina that "The Martian" is his best, and I only saw the movie.

This book is so awesome that I want to be friends with O. Carter Snead right away. It's like with this very book he is saving America.

This book's introduction promises an enlightening read to come. I can't wait to read the rest.

A lot of fun so far! Too bad about all those cheating teachers and the Japanese organized crime sydicates' control or Sumo wrestling there.

Really great read so far. I appreciate the emphasis on extreme ownership from early on in the book.

Reading fiction can be a drag because there aren't any endnotes and index to skip, so the reader has to go to the last page, which usually is the last page goodreads lists for the book. I'm reading this one I don't know why, except Sam Sacks liked it and I was in a bookstore and bought it on his recommendation and a whim. I can't wait to dig out his review out of my box and compare my thoughts to his about it.

Knock down, drag out funny: I was not sure that I could continue reading because I have been laughing so hard. This book makes me want to fly to the UK, go to the Midlands and give people hugs.

I don't know if I am projecting, but sometimes as I am reading "Leaders: Myth and Reality," I marvel that former military officers wrote it, because it is erudite and entertaining. I tend to think that I would benefit from perspective taking when it comes to people I knew when I was in the military, both civilian and soldiers, but I would need to have some power first, to make the process more impactful. I don't.

I am reading this as an "oh, what the heck," warm up to "Abraham Lincoln in His Times." Now that I am through the first 16 pages, hopefully the book will open up a little bit. It is nice to know that the authors care about theory, however, and give the reader a nice "orientation " before charging ahead.

This book is a lot of fun so far, and I could use some of that at the moment.

This is a thoroughly fascinating read, and, for what is essentially a textbook, reads just as well if not better than at least one best selling novelist's last book does.

Very interesting reading so far. I have had a lot of questions answered and I have yet to get to the third chapter.