Readings – notesfromnokomis

I Checked the List Twice

I didn’t read Around the World in 80 Books by David Damrosch, a professor of comparative literature at Harvard, but want to share the list of those books. They span the globe, illuminating various times, cultures, genres, and spaces. Damrosch was born in Maine (I like that ) and hopes “that the range of books * * * and the varied approaches to them here, can illustrate the opportunities that an expanding literary canon offers us to open out our world.”

London: Inventing a City

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

P.G. Wodehouse, Something Fresh

Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps

Paris: Writers’ Paradise

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

Marguerite Duras, The Lover

Julio Cortazar, The End of the Game

Georges Perec, W, or the Memory of Childhood

Krakow: After Auschwitz

Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Paul Celan, Poems

Czeslaw Milosz, Selected and Last Poems, 1931-2004

Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

Venice—Florence: Invisible Cities

Marco Polo, The Travels

Dante Aligheiri, The Divine Comedy

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

Donna Leon, By Its Cover

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Cairo—Istanbul—Muscat: Stories within Stories

Love Songs of Ancient Egypt

The Thousand and One Nights

Naguib Mahfouz, Arabian Nights and Days

Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

Jokha Alharthi, Celestial Bodies

The Congo—Nigeria: (Post)Colonial Encounters

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman

Georges Ngal, Giambatista Viko, or the Rape of African Discourse

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck

Israel/Palestine: Strangers in a Strange Land

The Hebrew Bible

The New Testament

D.A. Mishani, The Missing File

Emile Habibi, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist

Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden

Tehran—Shiraz: A Desertful of Roses

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis

Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds

Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz

Ghalib, A Desertful of Roses

Agha Shahid Ali, Call Me Ishmael Tonight

Calcutta/Kolkata—Rewriting Empire

Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World

Salman Rushdie, East, West

Jamyang Norbu, The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

Shanghai—Beijing: Journeys to the West

Wu Cheng’en, Journey to the West

Lu Xun, The Real Story of Ah-Q and other Stories

Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City

Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

Bei Dao, The Rose of Time

Tokyo—Kyoto: The West of the East

Higuchi Ichiyo, In the Shade of Spring Leaves

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Yukio Mishima, The Sea of Fertility

James Merrill, “Prose of Departure”

Brazil—Columbia: Utopias, Dystopias, Heterotopias

Thomas More, Utopia

Voltaire, Candide, or Optimism

Joaquim Maria Machada de Assis, Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

Clarice Lispector, Family Ties

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Mexico—Guatemala: The Pope’s Blowgun

Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs

Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Selected Works

Miguel Angel Asturias, The President

Rosario Castellanos, The Book of Lamentations

The Antilles and Beyond: Fragments of Epic Memory

Derek Walcott, Omeros

James Joyce, Ulysses

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

Judith Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands

Bar Harbor: The World on a Desert Island

Robert McCloskey, One Morning in Maine

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

Hugh Lofting, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

E.B. White, Stuart Little

New York: Migrant Metropolis

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Saul Steinberg, The Labyrinth

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I’ve read 24 of these books (bolded), some a whole lifetime ago, and none of them disappointed me, so I have high hopes for the other books in the list. For sheer fun, I recommend The Lord of the Rings, which details a raucous romp through Middle Earth, featuring a battle between good and evil. If you want to read a book quickly (to add to your total of books read on this list), I recommend One Morning in Maine, which is a children’s picture book. When Things Fall Apart does a remarkable job exploring what happens when a European culture supplants an existing indigenous culture—spoiler alert, it isn’t pretty for the natives. One book that I tried to read, and will not pick up again, is Ulysses (almost as unreadable as Carlyle’s The French Revolution). Another I am unlikely to read in toto is In Search of Lost Time; I have read one of seven volumes.

Most of these books were written in languages other than English and I cannot vouch for the existence or quality of the English translations. (The first two books I requested from the library are not in its collection, suggesting that they might not have been translated.) Given the constraint of only 80 books, there are some obvious gaps. For instance, Korea and most of South America are not included. Of course, it they had been, something else would have to be deleted. At a minimum, it seems that replacing Stuart Little with a Mark Twain book would improve the list.

I just ordered The secret life of Saeed: the Pessoptimist from the library because I love the “word” “Pessoptimist.” The summary from the library website states that Saeed’s “life is lived in constant fear, yet he is never without hope.” Despite knowing nothing else about the book or the word, that’s about what I would guess the mashup word means.

For future reference, if you’re trying to write a 1,000-word blog post, letter, or anything else, and you want to do it fast, include a 500-word list. Please let me know about any of these books that you especially recommend, otherwise I’ll have to attack the list haphazardly, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Merry Christmas

Shoe Dog

In 2016, Shoe Dog, a memoir by the creator of Nike, was published, authored by Nike founder Phil Knight. The story picks up early in Knight’s adulthood, after he had graduated from college (Oregon) and business school (Stanford). Despite some pretensions to a less than affluent upbringing, Knight was able to convince his father to fund a trip around the world. This occasioned the first use of one of Knight’s conceits: that he isn’t (wasn’t?) good at selling. And not for the last time, Knight was able to persuade someone to do something despite his belief that he had zero chance of success.

I read the book based on two recommendations: Warren Buffet and my son. That I didn’t love the book does not diminish the affection I have for either of them. The overall tale is compelling: a nimble (and at time mendacious) little company is always on the edge of doom, buffeted by hostile bankers, predatory competitors and, at times, rapacious suppliers. If that story line interests you, read the book, you will enjoy it, even though the book ends well short of Nike’s period of dominance.

If you’re a bit less credulous, you might not like it so much. I was constantly on hyperbole alert. Upon spending the night in the Philippines, but lamentably not in the hotel suite preferred by Douglas MacArthur, Knight wrote: “I vowed. One day I shall return.”[1] One of his earliest hires, an accountant named Delbert J. Hayes, was, in Knight’s eyes, “the best accountant in the [Portland Price Waterhouse] office,” which is entirely possible, who “made accounting an art,” which is not.[2] Prior to meeting a man named Sole, who was the protégé of a “genuine, head-to-toe shoe dog” (undefined), Knight stated “Given the man’s reputation, I was expecting some kind of godlike figure with fifteen arms, each one waving a wand made out of shoe trees.”[3]

Knight’s memory is both stupefyingly good and astonishingly bad. Writing 58 years or so after the fact, he recalled meeting his wife-to-be and especially “one long moment of eye contact that kept [him] awake that night.”[4] One of his employees was such a good negotiator that Knight wrote “Every time, Strasser walked away with more than we’d ever hoped.”[5] Great memory remembering “every time,” and hyperbole or a clear case of not hoping for enough. At other times, Knight’s memory fails him, for instance when he was responsible for getting kicked out of a club, but couldn’t remember why. Or when his colleague Johnson, who writes letters about everything, suddenly shows up at a meeting (from across the country) and nobody understands why he was there. Or when a colleague (Bork) was no longer working at the company and Knight can’t remember whether he quit or was fired.

Knight’s memory got me thinking about my own and feeling a bit empathetic. I have some very specific memories, for example: my kindergarten teacher telling us to cross our heart “with the hand you write with” before reciting the pledge of allegiance. But otherwise, although I know certain things about that year, I have no other specific memories. I know the names of many of the other kids who were in my class (small town), but I don’t remember anything any of them did or said. So maybe I should be a bit easier on Knight. But – no, his memory is just too selective and too self-adulatory.

Knight also left too many issues unexplained. He comments throughout, and his bankers complain throughout, that the company was growing too fast for its equity. I understand the issue, having taken a class on cash flow analysis back when I worked for a commercial bank, but Knight never explains it – and it’s not that hard. The problem is that a growing company can be profitable but have so much money tied up in inventory and accounts receivable that it has no cash to pay its bills. One freaking sentence somewhere in the book would have shown why he couldn’t (at times) pay his bills, but he didn’t do it.

There were too many forced sports or war metaphors. Some were just plain stupid. Some were both forced and stupid. He had a meeting with Onitsuka, his supplier. He had been to the company before and had always met in the same conference room. But this meeting was in a newly designed and furnished conference room, which “was like prepping for a meet at Oregon State and learning at the last minute that it had been moved to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.”[6]

I should be kinder to an old man who is reminiscing about the good old days and spinning a yarn about the birth of a company that retains considerable prominence. But then, Knight should have more respect for facts. He wrote about a typhoon that “completely wiped away the Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu.” Honshu still very much exists and, at 88,000 square miles, remains the largest island in Japan. He also describes Saco, Maine as a little town in the backwoods of Maine. Actually, Saco (pronounced socko) is neither small nor in the backwoods, it’s on the ocean and, combined with sister city Biddeford, comprises the second biggest metro area in Maine. Did anyone edit this book?

I could go on and on, but have been harsh enough already.[7] Even so, the book has a sense of urgency and wonder that compel the reader to root for Knight and his “crazy idea,” which incidentally made him the 25th richest person in the world.[8]

[1] P. 32. Allusions to history, and particularly to war, abound throughout the book.

[2] P. 82. He never gives any examples of how Hayes’s artistry.

[3] P. 186-188. Ok, this example is obviously intentional exaggeration, but to what effect?

[4] P. 123. I don’t know either Mr. or Mrs. Knight, but this seems like matrimonial pandering.

[5] P. 307 At least he gives an example of Strasser’s negotiation style.

[6] P. 99 The conference rooms were in the same building, not almost 900 miles apart like Corvallis and Los Angeles.

[7] For a very different (laudatory) review of the book, see https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2017/03/16/in-his-brilliant-history-of-nike-phil-knight-expertly-explains-economics/?sh=372c38c8361a

[8] https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Input > Output

Languishing has been something of an epidemic during the pandemic.[1] I prefer to think that I have been languidly accepting input, mainly from books, other publications, podcasts, and filmed programs (broadcast and streaming), while generating extremely little output. It’s probably not possible to generate more output than intake, but my ratio has been astonishingly low.

Some of the input is virtually valueless, that’s the languishing part. I have read a few Agatha Christie books this year, fun, diverting, virtue-free. I have watched the first nine seasons of the Perry Mason show, which my family delights in deriding me about.

To say the shows are formulaic is to belittle formulas. The victim or the alleged perpetrator (always of a murder) is invariably wealthy. The standard Mason client is innocent, if besieged with convincing evidence to the contrary. The actual murderer is typically unknown to anyone, except Mason, until the end of the show, when he or she breaks down under questioning and confesses to the crime.

Another part of the formula is the staggering creativity and determination of Mason. Though ably assisted by his secretary, Della Street, and his investigator, Paul Drake, they never solve the crime and rarely understand the big picture. Only Mason sees through the fake alibis, spurious motives, and callous hearts of the criminals. The bombastic prosecutor and his sycophantic police officers never even realize that it’s possible for someone other than Mason’s client to have committed the murder. How the supercilious, if honest, Hamilton Burger kept his job is astounding.

Fortunately, some of my current input is a bit more edifying. Rolf Dobelli, in The Art of Thinking Clearly (imagine “Thinking” to be upside down and red as it is on the cover of the book), is regaling me with three-page vignettes about how we don’t think clearly. Consider: the swimmer’s body illusion (swimming doesn’t give them that body type, they swim better because they have that body type) and the sunk cost[2] fallacy (considering costs to date causes us to improperly assess the cost/benefit of moving forward). There are many others: the winner’s curse, contagion bias, default effect, and planning fallacy to name a few, but I can’t give them all away – it would take too long.

Even deeper is Dambisa Moyo, who tackles a topic that should be near and dear to all of us in Edge of Chaos. The subtitle is Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth—and How to Fix it. Moyo was born and (mostly) raised in Zambia, then educated at universities in Zambia, the US, and England. After stints at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, she became an author and speaker, and excels at both.

The book is wide-ranging, but I most enjoyed her discussion about suggested democratic reforms. She determined whether the following countries have adopted the following reforms: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States.

1. Ability to commit to long-term agreements. This seems crucial, especially for military alliances. Whatever you think of the merits of the Paris Climate Agreement, you must agree that embracing them, then disengaging, then reengaging, does not look good. No country has a way to lock in long-term agreements.

2. Campaign finance restrictions. This is a bit open ended, but generally considered necessary to reduce the undue influence of great wealth. Given that 11 of the 14 countries in her list (including the US) have adopted some form of restrictions, it is a relatively easy standard to meet.

3. Restrictions on ability to take on high-pay opportunities. This is supposed to prevent government officials from moving to positions that might encourage graft and self-dealing, whether before or after government service. Seven countries (including the US) have adopted some form of this reform, typically a cooling off period.

4. Extended elector cycles (more than 5 years). No country has adopted this reform, though US senators serve for six years.

5. Term limits for legislative and executive offices. Six countries (including the US) limit executive terms; only Mexico limits the terms of legislators.

6. Minimum qualifications for office. Only two countries are listed as adopting this reform. Indonesia requires candidates to “believe in one true god,” to have attended high school, to be “physically and mentally healthy,” and to not have declared bankruptcy. I like that last part. In Singapore, candidates must be at least 45 years old. In the US, all federal elected offices are subject to an age minimum, but typically state office holders are not.

7. Design of electoral districts to incentivize competition. This is one of my favorites – we need less gerrymandering. We need voters to elect representatives, not for politicians to select or create safe seats. (Here think about Hillary Clinton deciding to move to NY to run for the Senate.) No country has adopted this reform. In the US, some states have or, in any event, have tried.

8. Mandatory voting. Four countries have adopted this reform. I think more people should vote, but I’m not comfortable forcing everyone to vote.

9. Minimum voting requirements. This seems incompatible with the former reform and has not yet been adopted by any of the 14 countries in this survey.

10. Weighted voting system. Only France has adopted this reform. Some states in the US use versions of a weighted system. I endorse this reform idea because I believe it would drive politicians toward the center, leading to fewer far-left or far-right extremists.

Mexico has adopted the most reforms (5); Germany the fewest (0). The US has adopted three. For the record, none of the adoptions have occurred because of the book.

Whether or not you have been languishing, please think about these suggested reforms and consider whether they or other reforms would enhance our political system.

[1] See for example — https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html

[2] I have a sunk-cost story that is over 30 years old and still causes friends in the know to laugh out loud when they think of it.

Deconstructing Trump

Deconstructing Trump by Dr. Mardy Grothe is subtitled The Trump Phenomenon Through the Lens of Quotation History. I enjoyed the book, which consists principally of quotes. Many are quite famous, others rather esoteric. All were written or uttered before 2000 and none of them mention or specifically address Donald J. Trump. So there is no particular reason to believe that any of the quotes apply to Trump – unless you have been paying attention.

There are so many good quotes, so relevant (in my mind) to our president, that it was hard to narrow down the list. The quotes should appeal (at some level) to all intelligent readers. Make of them what you will. Grothe occasionally discusses the relevance of a quote or supplements with his understanding of the quote. But really, it’s a book of quotes with no narrative or other cohesion apart from the alphabet, by author.

Here we go:

As democracy is perfected, the office [of US president] represents more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken. I refer you to Donald J. Trump’s proud recitation of “person, woman, man, camera, tv” which is not even an appropriate list for this exceedingly modest memory test. Each item should be unrelated to the others.

We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Let me think, “simplistic slogans,” two come to mind. Make America Great Again is wonderfully nostalgic, sort of. Nobody has ever been able to tell me exactly, or even generally, when it stopped being great. Drain the Swamp is more oxymoronic than anything. A fair definition might be: flooding DC with yes-men and apologists.

There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity. Paul Bourget. When the president decided to host the next G7 meeting at his own golf resort (since retracted), it, at a minimum, raised conflict of interest issues. Not for Senator Kevin Cramer; he tweeted that the president demonstrated “tremendous integrity in boldness and his transparency.” Blind, check. Complicit, check.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato. Based on my understanding of our history, we have never had a president so inferior to so many. The two prior presidents were quite different from each other personally and politically, but they were both decent men trying hard to do a difficult job well. Donald Trump is not decent and he doesn’t even try to get the job done, preferring to watch TV, tweet about what he sees, and golf. He has already golfed 285 more times than he predicted he would as president.[1] [2]

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody. Franklin P. Adams. True that. Hillary was not a great candidate, seemingly one of the few Democrats capable of losing to Trump. I have no doubt that she would have been a better president – but you have to win first. The upcoming election will be a referendum on Trump, not a celebration of Biden.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Brooks Adams. Though Adams never heard the term, he would instantly understand the meaning of “fake news.”

To be ignorant of the one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant. A. Bronson Alcott. So many examples abound that would embarrass an ordinary person. I’ll pick just one quote from our president: “Having a drone fly overhead — and I think nobody knows much more about technology, this type of technology certainly, than I do.”[3]

The less you speak of your greatness, the more I will think of it. Francis Bacon. Almost comically applicable to our boastful president. Two quotes: “I’m like, very smart” and “true stable genius,” tell much of the tale. “Stable genius” has always fascinated me because of the unlikelihood that the term has ever been used in any context other than Trump extolling Trump.

Never underestimate the power of self-absorption. Rita Mae Brown. For instance, it helped Donald J. Trump attain the presidency. Here’s an example: when asked about the legacy of the recently deceased John Lewis, President Trump said “He didn’t go to my inauguration.” Everything is first and foremost about Trump.

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism. G.K. Chesterton. The president was asked in May “with 4 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of the outbreak what would you have done differently facing this crisis?” He answered: Well, nothing.[4] I would call that an “absence of self-criticism,” and I would call much of the country and the world embittered about Trump.

The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. Confucius needs no commentary from me.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s own ignorance. Confucius.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. Charles Darwin. One of Donald Trump’s great strengths is an unshakeable confidence in himself. To wit: “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”[5] This is, of course, outweighed by his willful ignorance of virtually any issue involving serious thought or nuance.

Duplicity is a mark of second-rate ability. Luc De Clapiers. Ain’t nobody more duplicitous than Donald J. Trump.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. Charles De Gaulle. To be fair, Trump hates most Americans too.

Quotations are a great way to learn from brilliant minds of the past. I recommend this book wholeheartedly. The first person who requests it can have my copy.

[1] https://thegolfnewsnet.com/golfnewsnetteam/2020/08/09/how-many-times-president-donald-trump-played-golf-in-office-103836/

[2] https://woay.com/i-wont-have-time-to-play-golf-if-im-elected-president-trump-set-to-embark-on-1st-vacation/

[3] https://www.axios.com/everything-trump-says-he-knows-more-about-than-anybody-b278b592-cff0-47dc-a75f-5767f42bcf1e.html?te=1&nl=frank-bruni&emc=edit_fb_20200311

[4] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/05/20/trump_i_would_have_done_nothing_differently_with_coronavirus_weve_done_amazingly_well.html

[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/07/21/donald-trump-republican-convention-acceptance-speech/87385658/

Columbus Biathlon (and protesters)

The beating heart of Columbus, Ohio is Capitol Square. It is where the action is. Not retail action, that’s at Easton or Polaris.[1] Not food and beverage action, that’s in the Short North and scattered throughout the city.[2] But political action. The Governor works there, the General Assembly (Ohio’s legislature) meets there, and the Supreme Court of Ohio is just a block west. And when the times call for it, Capitol Square is where protests take place.

I have been using the area around Capital Square for my one-person Columbus Biathlon. I think I’ve mentioned that I like to read. Well, I also like to walk. And sometimes I combine the two, especially when it is hot. I walk until I start sweating, then sit down to read. I read until I stop dripping, then resume walking. And then I repeat. It’s pretty easy to read a few chapters and walk a few miles without losing interest in either activity.

Lately, I’ve been doing this against a backdrop of protesters. From our apartment we can see the rally point for the police, a large parking lot that has been hosting, at various times, mounted officers, jeeps, semi-armored vehicles, and plain old patrol cars.

Sometimes the vehicles sit all night and sometimes they deploy en masse, as they are here. Once, about 20 patrol cars parked on the Broad Street bridge, then officers piled out and marched to Capitol Square from there. We also have a great view of the helicopters. Usually at least one is aloft and, often, as the light wanes two helicopters cover the area, sometimes hovering over the protest group and sometimes circling downtown.

It is difficult to assess the damage that has been done, but it appears that most of it happened early, during the first couple of nights of protesting.[3] Many buildings have plywood concealing windows, whether to cover damage or prevent it is difficult to assess. Here is a picture of the Ohio Judicial Center, home of the Supreme Court. It was damaged enough to be closed for one day, which didn’t affect productivity because we are already working remotely because of covid-19. Windows are relatively easy to fix. Does anybody know how to clean graffiti off marble?

For the uninitiated, “12” is the unit number of the drug force used by the Columbus Police Department and is especially loathed by some. “ACAB” stands for “all cops are bastards,” which I know isn’t literally true. One of my son’s friends is a relatively new member of CPD and he is one of the nicest people I have ever met.

I have walked past Broad and High, which is one corner of Capitol Square and the starting point for most of the protests several times in the past week or so. Most days start slow, just a dozen or a few dozen protesters. But last Saturday was different. As I walked I saw that protesters were marshalling. Most of the people I have seen streaming toward the protest area have a suburban hipster vibe. That might not be fair, but mainly I see white young adults, carrying hand-made signs, with few non-adult or middle-aged compatriots. They dress in a lot of black clothing and, in the main, wear masks.

By 12:30 or so, the Statehouse grounds were crowded. There were so many people that two separate groups had formed. A smaller group, several hundred, gathered on the south side of the Statehouse, while a larger group, 2,000 plus, occupied the large expanse of lawn west of the Statehouse. Both groups were chanting independently of each other. Some were vulgar and not particularly helpful, such as “fuck the cops.” Some were eminently practical, such as “get out and vote.” Most of the chants were related to George Floyd – “I can’t breathe” and “George Floyd.”

Everyone seemed happy to be there, despite the circumstances that brought them together. The crowd exuded energy and compassion and displayed no disruptive behavior. There were a few vendors, just a couple of people either selling or providing bottles of water (it was hot). Despite all of these people, when I sat down to read on the north side of the Statehouse, it was quite serene; I could not hear either protest group.

Throughout the day, the Statehouse was patroled by State Troopers, who were both obvious and unobtrusive. They stuck close by the Statehouse, near all doors and corners, mainly mingled among themselves, and kept away from the protesters. Few protesters took notice of them and they ignored the protesters.

The east side of the Statehouse was also quiet. There are a couple of memorials and fountains and, for a splash of color, flowers in the shape of the US flag and the Ohio flag. It’s not obvious, given my poor photography, but the flag of Ohio is pennant shaped, the only non-rectangular state flag.

A close up of a flower

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I walked by Capital Square tonight. It was very quiet. There were a couple of people, looking like they missed the crowds. They had a canopy and plenty of bottles of water, but no people to sell or give them too. It was hot tonight, but I didn’t stop and read. The Columbus Biathlon is my event and nobody else is competing, so I can make or break rules as I see fit.

[1] Easton is a modern outdoor mall, designed to look something like an old downtown business district. It has never stopped growing since it was built. Polaris is a modern indoor mall that has been morphing to be more like Easton. Both are now quite sprawling with many big box retailers circumscribing the malls.

[2] Like most cities Columbus (with a metro of approximately two million) has many and varied restaurants. The largest aggregation is probably in the Short North, the area north of downtown but short of OSU’s massive campus.

[3] I am not a journalist and don’t pretend to understand everything that has been going on. But I do know what I have seen.

A Few Unnecessary Details (unless you are me)

1. I type in Times New Roman, font 14 because that is what the Supreme Court of Ohio uses. If it’s good enough for my employer of the past 20 or so years, it’s good enough for me.

2. The last post (“Pandemic Reading List”) was post 100. I should have created fanfare upfront, instead of mentioning it after the fact. I am not a born marketer, nor a learned or learned one either.

3. One hundred posts you say, how can I find the one I’m looking for? (Thank you for asking.) I just added an index, which has all 100 posts by title in chronological order. You can also search by broad category on the home page.

4. The picture on the home page is of friends hiking with me last September in Acadia National Park in Maine. Five couples went and there were no arguments — except about my hike selections and descriptions. For instance, the hike pictured is four miles long, starts at 100 feet above sea level and ends at 1,500 feet above sea level. I said the hike was “straight up,” meaning, colloquially, that it’s a continuous uphill climb. I didn’t think anyone would take me literally and think that we would essentially be climbing a ladder. But someone did. Not surprisingly, it was more gradual than that.

5. I wrote five short posts in 2015. I was testing the system and my desire to write. I took eight months off, testing my inertia (and passing I might add), then (in an unprecedented burst of energy) wrote 36 posts in the last six months of 2016, an average of six per month. Never again. In 2017, I published 38 posts, a seemingly tolerable three per month. Alas, the toll of trying to get a business off the ground sidelined me in 2018, when I fell to just 12 posts. And the negative momentum increased in 2019, with only six posts. I’m on that same approximate (slow) pace this year.

6. I read a fair amount and often chide myself about not remembering as much as I should. Then as I typed the titles of the posts for the index, I realized that I had no idea what some of them are about. How is that even possible?

7. Thank you for the comments you send, both public (on the blog) and private (email, text, face to face). You are encouraging, complimentary, and many times complementary (with additional details and stories). I also appreciate criticism and correction; I didn’t use to but like to think I have matured a bit over the years. (Ask Phillip sometime about the joys of having a discussion with a 25-year old me. Spoiler alert: not pleasant.)

8. Several posts generated zero public comments. “Are you well-read?” generated the most: 13. The most views on a day was 136 on September 9, 2016, which coincided with the publication of “Freedom of Speech.”

9. I’m not sure how people who don’t receive an email from me find the blog. Well – it turns out that not many do. But through the years, people have read the blog from some exotic places. For instance, this year, with only three posts, the blog has been viewed by people in China, New Zealand (college roommate), France, Australia (nephew), Finland, Dominican Republic (another college roommate on vacation), Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Belarus, and Pakistan. Last year, people from 23 countries read a post, including someone in Gabon.

10. Blogging for some people is a living. For me it is a hobby, which is good because my earnings so far would fit on a single coronavirus with room to spare.

11. One hundred posts at an average of 1000 words a post – wait, let me do the math – that’s 100,000 words, the approximate equivalent (in length) of a whole To Kill a Mockingbird (100,388) or half a Moby Dick (206,052).

12. I’m reading a book called Brief Lives by John Aubrey, who died in 1697. It’s a series of biographical sketches, including luminaries such as Thomas Hobbes and John Milton. Most of the lives are obscure and most of the sketches are indeed brief, and to be honest, rather dull.

The following vignette about Richard Corbet, the Bishop of Norwich, is not dull: “One time when they went in procession about the cathedral church, he would not do it the usual way in his surplice, hood, etc. on foot, but rode on a mare, thus habited, with the Common Prayer book in his hand reading. A stone-horse [stallion] happened to break loose, and smelled the mare, and ran and leapt her, and held the reverend dean all the time so hard in his embraces, that he could not get off till the horse had done his business. But he would never ride in the procession afterwards.”

The “but” is a strange usage; it may be archaic, like “stone-horse” in the same passage. Having witnessed a breeding session at a horse farm, I can quite understand why the good bishop was reluctant to get back on the horse.

As always, thank you for reading.

Pandemic Reading List

When you hear somebody say: who would have ever thought this or that, best practice suggests that she is trying to provide cover for something. Somebody has always thought of this or that. It might not be credible, it might not make sense, but somebody has thought of it. Over 500,000 books a year are published in English.[1] Not to mention all the articles, columns, blog posts, etc. published in various venues. And, of course, there are other languages, hundreds of them, in which books and articles are published. Lots of really smart (and some not so smart) people are out there thinking about things all the time. So when you hear a politician in the middle of a pandemic say “who would have ever thought there could be a pandemic,” rest assured that he is attempting to defend himself.

In May 2006, the CDC published National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza.[2] In April 2017, the CDC put out a 16-page brochure about pandemic flu.[3] In the July/August 2018 issue of The Atlantic, Ed Yong wrote an article entitled: The Next Plague is Coming. Is America Ready?, in which he noted that over the past 30 years, on average, “a new infectious has emerged every year.” And perhaps most poignantly, “seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans. In a sober briefing, Trump’s incoming team learned that the disease was an emerging pandemic — a strain of novel influenza known as H9N2 — and that health systems were crashing in Asia, overwhelmed by the demand.”[4] Despite these warnings and a mock disaster for practice, a certain someone[5] has never considered the possibility that a pandemic could happen. You can’t make this stuff up.[6]

Well before these recent events, authors have addressed the perils and opportunities posed by plagues, pandemics, and pestilence. The topic is both fascinating and frightening; interesting enough (to me) to necessitate the creation of a pandemic reading list. Unlike Dave Grohl’s recently published Pandemic Playlist,[7] which is to be listened to during a pandemic, my list comprises books about pandemics. I have read each of these books and you can too, either during the pandemic or after.[8]

First, three general books that touch on the matter at hand:

The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by John Robert ...

I recommend all three, each has its charms and an interesting thesis. The essential bottom line is that we are all in this together, that there is an inevitability to the merging and blending of people and the various pathogens that affect them.

If you are looking for something more specific, there are plenty of options.

Pandemic eBook by Sonia Shah - 9780374708740 | Rakuten Kobo

Sonia Shah looks at pandemics through the years, with cholera as a focus. One comforting takeaway is that even a scourge like cholera, that has killed untold millions, can be tamed. Education about clean water and treatment have essentially eliminated cholera from the developed world, though it still kills tens of thousands every year in the developing world.

This book is awesome, extremely well written, and rather disturbing. It presages our current situation by discussing diseases that spill over from animals to humans. By some measures, over 50% of the infections that afflict us originated with animals. Most of the diseases Quammen discusses are more deadly than covid-19, but, fortunately, not as contagious.

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the ...

Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak ...

The subtitle of The Hot Zone tells you everything to know: Ebola is terrifying. If that virus ever figures out how to spread easily, we won’t have to worry about overpopulating the planet. The book reads like a Michael Crighton thriller, except it is real. Preston can be a bit sensationalistic, but then the Ebola virus is a sensation. Crisis in the Red Zone is more measured, but not more reassuring. It describes how close the virus came to escaping the backwaters of Africa and spreading into urban centers in 2013.

Finally, we come to the book I have read that focuses on the last great global pandemic, during which as much as 5% of the world’s population died.

This book is already a classic, it described the advent of modern medicine and is written in a crisp engaging style. The book transports the reader to an earlier time; among other things, I learned that I’m glad I didn’t live then. Despite the many things we don’t know about covid-19, we at least have the people, resources, and tools to attempt to make sense of it. Throughout history, most victims of disease and pestilence could only guess.

Currently, there are research teams working on over 100 different vaccines. Many doctors and scientists are attempting to find a cure or a palliative. Public health experts are studying the various approaches taken thus far to determine best practices to stop or slow the spread of the virus. We don’t yet have all the any answers, we may never have all the answers, but we have a chance. Our ancesters never did.

If you want to read only one source mentioned in this post, I recommend Ed Yong’s Atlantic article. He foresaw the dangers to the U.S. of our just-in-time and decentralized medical economy, foreign supply chains, ineffective political leadership, and the defunding of infectious disease health resources. Who could have envisioned a pandemic like covid-19? Lots of people. I hope we listen to those people better next time. Because there will be a next time.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/books/

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/pdf/gr-pan-flu-work-set.pdf

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797

[5] President Trump

[6] A sentiment sadly relevant more than it should be, which is most commonly, and I think rightly, attributed to the great late Don Imus.

[7] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwHMjrsVBhNrzMMKrtzMkHStjPB

[8] Is it necessary for me to mention that you need not read any of these books or that there are dozens (hundreds) of others that I have not read?

1941, the book

World War II was a defining event of the 20th century and we continue to celebrate pivotal moments of the war. A friend traveled to Normandy, France last summer with his father to commemorate one: D-Day.[1] That was the day the democratic empires struck back against Hitler’s totalitarian regime, landing over 150,000 soldiers on the shores of France to begin taking the battle to the Germans from the west in earnest.

For those who don’t follow these things closely, it happened rather late in the war, in June 1944.[2] Journalist Andrew Nagorski thinks the outcome of the war had long since been determined. His book 1941 The Year Germany Lost The War makes a compelling case. Told largely through the eyes of Great Britain and the Soviet Union, who were bearing the brunt of Hitler’s might, the book depicts the conversations, deal-making, and decisions that were to prove decisive.

1941 dawned with Germany ascendant, the lord of Europe, save for Great Britain, which was under constant air assault. Germany was never able to achieve aerial or naval supremacy, and therefore could not invade the home island of the British Empire. But immunity from tanks did not guarantee that Great Britain would prevail. It had few fighting allies, just the remnants of various overrun European countries, particularly France and Poland.[3] And it had many other issues to contend with, including attacks by Germany and Italy in Africa, preserving access to oil from the Middle East, and protecting a host of territories around the world.

Then Great Britain got lucky. Instead of pressing his advantage, Hitler turned on his putative ally, the Soviet Union. Hitler couched his many territorial depredations in terms of “lebensraum,” meaning “living space.” The Soviet Union was the mother of living space. In Hitler’s eyes, Germany was great and deserved to have more territory and resources for its great people. The obvious counterpart is that other people, in particular Slavs, Jews, and gypsies, were weak and disposable, essentially in the way.

The decision to attack the Soviet Union was not guided by experts, but by Hitler’s gut instincts. A great albatross of autocrats is that they think they know everything and don’t like to take advice, even from those with superior knowledge and experience. This tendency hurt both Hitler and Stalin. Hitler refused to believe his economic and logistical experts, who told him that attacking the Soviet Union would lead to a breakdown in resources – because Stalin had been supplying Hitler with a vast store of natural resources as a means of placating him.

Stalin refused to believe his experts, who told him that Hitler was preparing to attack the Soviet Union. He preferred to continue the placation game to the full extent. Hitler believed that his successes against Poland and France were just a precursor to greater success – without considering how much smaller in territory and fewer in soldiers those countries were than the Soviet Union. Stalin so believed in his treaty with Hitler that he refused to relocate critical assets or shore up defenses in case (as all his spies warned him) Hitler did attack.[4] In this, the author states that “Stalin was demonstrating that he was even more delusionary than Hitler.” No small task.

The German army’s early success led to concerns that it might take Moscow, the heart of historical Russia and modern Soviet Union. That may have ended the war for the Soviets. But stung by his earlier refusal to believe his experts, Stalin heeded intelligence that Japan would not attack Siberia, and transferred 400,000 soldiers from the east to Moscow in time to save the city.

Meanwhile, Winston Churchill was trying hard to convince the United States to commit to the war effort. It wasn’t easy – there was a vehement group of isolationists in the US, led by Charles Lindbergh and his America First movement. President Roosevelt had marginal support in Congress to supply Britain and the Soviet Union, but not enough to declare war. It would take another misguided decision by an autocrat (this time in Japan, against the advice of the senior leader with the most knowledge about the US) to effectuate that decision.

When Japan attacked the US, the stay-out-of-the-war America First crowd suddenly lacked a safe harbor. When Germany supported its ally by declaring war on the US, the US reciprocated, leading three and a half years later to D-Day. Churchill considered these declarations of war against the US the beginning of the end. Ultimately, he was proved right. (I don’t think I’ve spoiled the ending.)

One of the reasons to read history is to avoid repeating the mistakes of others. See Santayana, George. So, while reading, I often think about lessons for our own times; this time, I found at least two. The tyrants’ disdain for experts disquietingly reminds me of President Trump and the anti-science wing of the Republican party. Churchill’s belief in an inevitable victory is similar to today’s optimistic Democrats as they seek to unseat President Trump. But nothing in history is inevitable (except when viewed in hindsight). Winning WWII was not preordained, and neither is the continued success of our experiment in republican government. If you like history in general or WWII in particular, you will enjoy this book, which accessible and interesting. It might even give you a few insights into our current crises.

[1] Kevin Diehl movingly describes his father Harry Diehl’s D-Day experience, including their visit to the 75th anniversary celebration at https://www.neelawfirm.com/post/d-day-75th-anniversary

[2] The war started in 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Poland; the Nazis annexed western Poland and the communists annexed eastern Poland. The war ended a little over a year after D-Day: in September 1945.

[3] One American commentator at the time declared that London contained so many governments in exile that it was the capitol of six to eight countries.

[4] One of the great what-ifs of history is what if Hitler had not attacked the Soviets Union, but instead had redoubled his attacks on Great Britain, taken the island, and stood down. He would have controlled the vast majority of Europe and been essentially at peace, with a continued flow of resources from the Soviet Union. It is possible that the European Union would be called “Germany” to this day.

Podcasts

I am not typically an early adapter of technology. I purchased my first personal computer, HD TV, and smart phone at least five years after they had hit the mainstream. And I was usually complaining about the price and unnecessity of the item right up until the moment I started using it. At which point: Eureka!

So it is with podcasts. What took me so long? These things are awesome. They come is so many flavors and sizes, there is something for everyone.

First, what is a podcast? According to Wikipedia, “a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download in order to listen.” [1] A podcast does not involve a person reading a book or a series of lectures, which have their own charms, it’s much better. The podcaster might be reading, but it’s something that was written specifically to be presented in a podcast, something intended to be listened to. Some podcasts allow modest interaction, not during the podcast of course, which is recorded, but after, often in the form of questions or a supplementary website.

I came by podcasts slowly, fending off many recommendations from friends because – why do I need podcasts. After reading Lost to the West, by Lars Brownworth (which I recommend), I discovered that he had produced a podcast called 12 Byzantine Rulers. Turns out, he wrote the book after attaining some acclaim from the podcast, which is a bit sensationalist for my amateur historian sensibilities. Brownworth tends to highlight the most salacious or vicious stories and rumors from antiquity. His style is entertaining, but it left me wanting more.[2]

My search led me to The History of Byzantium; I was captivated.[3] The podcast is not for the faint of heart; I’m up to episode 195 (which covered roughly 550 years, starting in 500 A.D. or so) and there are still 400 years to go. The podcaster, Robin Pierson, is outstanding: great voice, sense of humor, terrific research and writing skills. He also provides a complementary (as well as complimentary) website and Facebook page with maps and pictures.[4] I have read many books about the Roman Empire, but I had done nothing systematic. Pierson is systematic and it has helped me better understand the scope and nuance of the empire.

He recaps the centuries. He highlights social features (marriage, education, etc.) with special episodes. He surveys the provinces and provides much general information about empire-wide practices and changes. And, of course, he provides the nuts-and-bolts of the historical narrative — battles, wars, assassinations, and plagues, both mighty and petty. The podcast is a tour de force. I cannot recommend it more highly. I am so glad I have many episodes left.

Because I was late to the party, I didn’t realize that Pierson was reprising Michael Duncan, whose The History of Rome podcast might be the seminal history podcast. He starts at the beginning with Romulus and Remus being raised by wolves, continues through the fall of the republic and the rise of the empire, and concludes with the fall of the west. I’m on episode 161, the Vandals and Goths and Huns (oh my) are ready to assert themselves. The podcast ends on episode 179, so I’ll be able to wander back over to the History of Byzantium and finish off the entire 2,100-year history of the Roman polity.

Pierson and Duncan both turned their podcasts into careers. Duncan has subsequently published books. Both have led Roman history-oriented tours. Both have embraced their topic, which was not a significant part of their former professional lives.[5] The lesson for all of us – pursue your passion, pick a subject you love and champion it, perhaps you’ll create a new career for yourself.

In the meantime, I’m going to need a new podcast at some point. I’m open to suggestion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast Should it be “listen to”? Shouldn’t it be “listen to”? Well, should it or shouldn’t it? I enjoy when seeming opposites are actually the same – consider: flammable and inflammable, thaw and unthaw, loosen and unloosen.

[2] Brownworth is not a historian.

[3] I have always been fascinated by Rome. Through the years, I have been increasingly interested in the lesser known latter part of the empire, which is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire, even though it shouldn’t be.

[4] https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=history%20of%20byzantium%20podcast&epa=SEARCH_BOX

[5] Duncan was a fishmonger and Pierson a TV producer before turning to researching and delivering podcasts.

Empty Planet

In the fall of 1980, I took a class entitled “Human Population and Natural Resources.” It satisfied a science requirement, without forcing me to engage in either the scientific method or lab work – important for this fledgling English major. It also got me thinking, in a way I never had, about the carrying capacity of our planet.

We have been taught that the Earth has finite resources, that we can only produce so much food.[1] And at some level, it’s probably true, although the world’s population has been growing as if it isn’t — from 1 billion people in 1800, to 2 billion (1927), to 4 billion (1974), to over 7 billion today. The United Nations projects a population of 10-11 billion by 2100. That’s a lot of people, who will all need food and water every single day, along with other necessities and a few luxuries.

Not to worry (about that) say Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, the authors of Empty Planet,[2] because we are facing an even worse problem than too few resources: too few people. They attribute this primarily to urbanization and educated women. The world is now over 50% urban, which leads to fewer births because children are no longer treated as farm assets. When women become educated, they have more options, exercise autonomy, and inevitably have fewer children.

One of my favorite (small) takeaways from this book is a definition for extreme poverty. A person lives in extreme poverty when it is a daily challenge to feed his or her family. I doubt anyone reading this post has ever lived in extreme poverty, but in 1800, 85% of the world did. Today only 14% of the world does. “Only,” in this case, means about a billion people.

The main thesis of the book is that the birth rate across the planet is plummeting, it is already below replacement level (2.1 live births per woman) in most countries. Italy’s birth rate is 1.4, which resulted in fewer babies being born in 2015 (population 60 million) than in any year since 1861 (when the population was 25 million). In the US, the birth rate is 1.7, which led to fewer babies being born in 2017 (population 325 million) than in 1953 (when the population was 160 million). Most other countries have seen birth rates dip below replacement level, including Brazil (1.8), China (1.6), and Thailand (1.5). South America and the Caribbean are at 2.1, but dropping, down from 5.9 in 1960. Africa is the only continent whose birth rate remains above replacement level, but even there, the birth rate is falling.

Current projections indicate that Bulgaria will decline from 9 million people today to 5 million in 2050. South Korea’s population could drop by a third over the next 50 years, its birth rate is already below 1.0.[3] You might be thinking – this is great, fewer people will reduce the demand for resources. But think again, who is going to buy your house or the product or service you sell.

Fewer people means fewer consumers, which means less (or worse, no) economic growth. Japan has been grappling with this problem for decades – without success. It now has the highest debt level in the world (250% of GDP) and is the oldest nation, with 64 people of non-working age (retirees and kids) for every 100 of working age. That is not sustainable. For comparison purposes, the US is pretty high too, 52; China is 39.

The authors provide an easy solution to the problem of low birth rates and the subsequent declining population.[4] It’s rather obvious and it is one that has benefitted the US throughout its history, even when we had a high birth rate. Unfortunately, the obvious answer is not currently politically palatable. The answer, as most of you probably already guessed, is immigration.

One nation has embraced this solution. As Europe, Japan, and other countries deal with the consequences of a declining population, Canada has committed to welcoming immigrants—though not without limits. Canada has determined that it can assimilate immigrants at 1% (of its population) per year.[5] This is good for immigrants, who are seeking better opportunities, and Canada, which would otherwise have a declining population.

The authors paint a compelling narrative centered around immigration. Countries must either embrace it or lose population, which will lead to lower economic growth, productive capacity, etc. For those who imagine a future where birth rates trend hight, don’t get your hopes up. In Sweden, where women are allowed up to 480 days of paid leave (at 80% of income) when they have a child, the birth rate has ticked up, but remains below replacement level. And, of course, that policy is rather expensive.

We must either allow immigration[6] or we will inevitably suffer a population decline and concomitant economic decline. Professor Austan Goolsbee estimates that immigration at 200,000 per year (last year’s level) instead of a more usual 1,000,000 per year will result in GDP being $1 trillion lower over the course of a decade.[7]

There might be a plus side for those of you worried about climate change, the authors believe that a declining population is one of the surest ways to address it. I recommend Empty Planet, reading it might change the way you think about the present and the future.

[1] Proto-economist Thomas Malthus posited that human population increases geometrically and that food production increases arithmetically leading inexorably to an inability to feed all the people. This prediction caused Thomas Carlyle to dub economics the “dismal science.”

[2] Most of the factual references in this post come from this book.

[3] https://www.yahoo.com/news/forget-north-korea-south-koreas-160000907.html

[4] This solution will not work for the world, only for certain countries.

[5] According to the authors, the less nationalist a country, the more easily it can absorb immigrants.

[6] Neither the authors nor I advocate uncontrolled or illegal immigration.

[7] New York Times, October 13, 2019. The professor also noted that immigrants (or their children) started almost half of the current Fortune 500 companies.