I have a very strong memory of the day my youngest was born. I can still summon the piercing scent of puddled broken water in a middle room of the secI have a very strong memory of the day my youngest was born. I can still summon the piercing scent of puddled broken water in a middle room of the second floor of our house. Problem is that my daughter was born before we moved into that house. Yet I, and hopefully everyone else who comes up short in a quest for recollection perfection, can take solace from this outstanding book.
[image] Kathryn Schulz - image from TED
Schulz coins the term “wrongology” as a tag for her view that being wrong can, in the scheme of things, be a pretty good thing, that we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes, that mistakes involve motion while perfect success implies stasis. In terms of the sheer volume of concepts raised in Being Wrong, this is a hefty work. It could have become a bit too heavy, but Schulz presents her case and her research with such puckish good humor that it all goes down very smoothly indeed.
First of all, Schulz is a journalist, not a scientist, historian, philosopher or a linguist. Yet, all these viewpoints, and others, are well represented in this impressive work.
This is not a fast read. Don’t bring it to the beach looking for a quick diversion. I tend to take notes in books of this sort, marking passages that hold particular appeal. I was kept quite busy while reading Being Wrong, noting, then typing out many, many passages that called my name. One measure for me of how rich a non-fiction read is can be found in how much time I spend typing out marked items. My hunt-and-peck time was considerable here. So many worthwhile observations, so much interesting material to be absorbed. Mother’s milk. You will learn a lot from reading this book, and will be entertained while doing so.
I have a few quibbles. I suppose I was hoping for some familiar examples of error. Perhaps adding the Titanic to her trove of error evaluation chestnuts would be asking too much. And the most obvious and germane big-picture example of error, DNA mutation that results in evolution, receives only a passing mention near the end.
Yet, not taking Schultz up on this challenge to look into her analysis of error would be…well, a mistake. To err is human but to read Being Wrong is divine.
In this fascinating, informative book, Carr argues that the internet has not only affected how society communicates and works, but that how our actualIn this fascinating, informative book, Carr argues that the internet has not only affected how society communicates and works, but that how our actual brains work is being, has been changed by contemporary modes of communication. He delves into the history of research into brain function to make a case that similar biological changes occurred with prior technological breakthroughs, such as the typewriter. He cites a wealth of studies that dispel the notion of the brain as set in stone once adulthood is reached. The brain is plastic. All our neural circuitry can be modified, and it adapts to each new technology, not with slow genetic modification, but using inherent neurological plasticity to function in new ways.
[image] Nicholas Carr - image from his site
Next he follows the trail of language from cuneiform through wax tablets to papyrus, and actual pages, from Gutenberg to today, from the radio to television, from Turing to the iPhone. It is a fast-paced and information-rich journey.
The big guns come out in chapter 7, The Juggler’s Brain, where Carr argues forcefully that the medium of the internet is, by design, an engine of distraction, and it has changed how we read and how we think. The change may have some benefits, but the cost is quite high, particularly in reducing our ability to think reflectively. I found this chapter particularly compelling.
A later chapter reports on Google’s megalomaniacal plan to put all books in human history into a single database that Google will control. All that’s lacking is a smug, pinkie-ringed fat guy sitting in his secret lair stroking a fluffy white cat.
Chapter nine takes on the mechanistic view of the human brain as a sort of computer. In particular Carr takes issue with the view of long-term memory as being the equivalent of a hard drive, used solely to hold information. It turns out that, unlike the on-off character of digital memory, human memory is not so absolute. Information, observation and experience go through several steps before finding their way to long term memory, and even when a memory or bit of information is recalled, it finds its way back into long-term memory with the added color and texture of the time and circumstances of its recollection. This is fascinating stuff, but I think he goes a bit too far in his dismissal of the computer as a model for human brainworks. Consider that he fully embraces a concept of “working memory” as a temporary workplace in which new memory is mixed with retrieved memory to constitute the bulk of what we consider active consciousness. The similarity to RAM is just too obvious to ignore.
Quibble aside, this is a riveting and informative tale, with obvious implications for our culture, that is, if you can pay attention to reading it long enough for the lessons to sink in.
Review first posted - 2010
The 10th anniversary edition of the book, with new material, came out March 3, 2020
February 28, 2017 - The Guardian - How Technology Gets Us Hooked - by Adam Alter - this focuses on game design, but the concepts apply across the medium
P 6 - As McLuhan suggested, media aren’t just channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my [Carr’s:] capacity for concentration and contemplation.
P 115 – As revolutionary as it may be, the Net is best understood as the latest in a long series of tools that have helped mold the human mind.
P 140 – Jordan Grafman, head of the cognitive neuroscience unit at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, explains that the constant shifting of our attention when we’re online may make our brains more nimble when it comes to multitasking, but improving our ability to multitask actually hampers our ability to think deeply and creatively. “Does optimizing for multitasking result in better functioning—that is, creativity, inventiveness, productiveness? The answer is, in more cases than not, no,” says Grafman. “The more you multitask, the less deliberative you become; the less able to think and reason out a problem.” You become, he argues, more likely to rely on conventional ideas and solutions rather than challenging them with original lines of thought....more
Yeah I know, there are two reactions to the notion of eels. First there is fear when one thinks of large, oceanic moray eels popping up out of some hiYeah I know, there are two reactions to the notion of eels. First there is fear when one thinks of large, oceanic moray eels popping up out of some hidden coral niche to snatch a chunk out of your leg as you swim by. Second is “eeewww.” This is for the slippery guys who inhabit rivers, streams and extreme restaurants. Get over it.
[image] James Prosek - from NPR
James Prosek’s Eels is a fascinating look at an unappreciated creature. Did you know that scads of eels migrate from freshwater streams and rivers to mid-ocean to spawn? The location of the Pacific spawning ground is still unknown, (or at least unrevealed) but they head for the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic. The author attempted to keep eels once, but their wanderlust resulted in them damaging themselves trying to escape. The urge to get back to the sea can also result in the major YouTube wet dream of giant eel balls (no, Beavis, not oversized fish nads, but masses of intertwined critters, cavorting in a movable orgy) rolling their way over dry land to get to the ocean. It is probably a good idea to step aside.
Prosek offers wonderful profiles of people for whom the eel is a major part of their lives, scientists, eelers, eco-warriers, South Sea Islanders. Ray Turner is a back-woods sort in Pennsylvania who makes a living as an eeler from a year’s worth of work and a few nights of harvest. A large part of the book looks at the significance of the eel in Maori culture. This is quite eye-opening. Think buffalo and Plains Indians. He writes also of how the Japanese regard the eel and manages to find a flight to the very remote Micronesian island of Pohnpei, mentioned to him by a few of the people he interviewed for the book. It is a place of great significance in eel legend. Eels are reputed to be able to make sounds like barking dogs and crying babies, and are ascribed magical powers beyond that. Way cool. He also looks at the activities of conservationists who are trying to spare these remarkable creatures from extinction.
[image] a Moray eel from howstuffworks.com - not just another pretty face
Catches of eels are plummeting worldwide, the result of dams, overfishing, and the usual human fouling of natural waterways, increasing the need for information about the eel life-cycle so that this important fish (yes, eels are fish) can be preserved.
Prosek’s book is, in short, great fun. By the time I finished I could honestly say, “I’ve been slimed,” but in a good way. This book was released in 2009. It is definitely worth your while trying to locate a copy and when you do, don’t let your chance to learn about these fascinating creatures slip away.
Review posted in June 2010 - updated December 2013
There is a video on PBS featuring Prosek, The Mystery of Eels that is definitely worth a look, although it is refreshing to see that there is something that this renaissance man, (yeah, he plays music too, in addition to being an accomplished artist and scientist) is not great at, voice-overs. The content and visuals more than make up for Prosek's stolid delivery.
12/3/13 - Gillian Anderson, in full eel attire, promoting conservation - must see
6/19/14 - Definitely check out the link posted by Jaye in comment #33 - a fabulous, and amusing, science article on eels, and the wonderful, cinematic, LOL link posted by Richard in comment #35
10/5/16 - European researchers have been looking into when European eels arrive at their once-in-a-lifetime mating extravaganza in the Sargasso Sea On Epic Spawning Migration, Eels May Travel at Their Own Pace - by Stephen Yin - The Science section of the NY Times
[image] European eel elvers for a reintroduction swimming in a large holding tank in Gloucester, U.K - image and text from above article (watch your step)
Rivlin has pulled together a lot on information on several types of enterprises that exist to exploit the poor people of our country. Although pawnshoRivlin has pulled together a lot on information on several types of enterprises that exist to exploit the poor people of our country. Although pawnshops are noted in the sub-head, they receive little attention. Of far greater concern here are check cashing stores, (tax) Return Anticipation Loans, or RALs, rent-to-buy shops and predatory sub-prime lending. It is quite clear that small loans make huge profits. You will be shocked when you learn what actual APRs are being charged.
I was not unaware, in general, of the issues Rivlin covers, but he goes into this range of businesses in serious detail and I learned a lot. He interviewed many players from businesses to consumer advocates to clients. I was reminded of the recent Michael Lewis release, The Big Short. Here also we get to meet people who had the prescience to see what was possible, on both sides, before the enterprise became mega. There are heroes and villains in Broke, USA, and some who shade towards gray, but you will never look at your neighborhood check-cashing place the same way again.
I was most intrigued by a section in which Rivlin shows that at the same time that a major bank was denying loans in a particular neighborhood, and closing its branches, it was buying up sub-prime lending shops in the same area, without attaching the familiar corporate logo to them, so was more than willing to lend, but only at usurious rates. Rivlin demonstrates that there is no economic basis for the extreme rates charged to poor people for loans. Lenders can make money by charging only a modest amount above the rates available to people with good credit.
This is a hard-hitting and important work, and deserves a prominent place in every discussion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and a hearing in every state and locality with an interest in protecting its citizens from the jaws of predators. It will make you angry. It should.
May 17, 2012 - A Barbara Ehrenreich article on how local governments and the private sector are squeezing the poor. Dickens would find 21st Century America far too familiar.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was once an agency dedicated to preventing banks and credit-card companies from scamming ordinary Americans. Now, it is an agency dedicated to protecting potential financial scammers from legal penalties.
April 16, 2019 - Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within - By Nicholas Confessore - As so often happens at the NY Times, the headline offers a tilt that is a bit misleading. Use of the buzzword bureaucracy in the title suggests that Mulvaney is out to reduce that other oft-cited, rarely-justified bête noire, waste and mismanagement. The article is actually a blow-by-blow look at how Mulvaney is dismantling the agency that was set up specifically to protect consumers from predatory financial institutions. Mulvaney is more than happy to side with wolves over sheep. It is well worth checking out how the destruction of our democracy is being implemented. ...more
Richard Clarke remains one of the most compelling writers about matters of national security and he is in top form here. He and co-author, Knake, poinRichard Clarke remains one of the most compelling writers about matters of national security and he is in top form here. He and co-author, Knake, point out how the United States is at risk, from whom, and what we should be doing to make ourselves more secure.
[image] Richard A. Clarke - image from the PRH Speakers Bureau
The authors offer a nice intro to how the internet works, pointing out where along that road vulnerabilities lie, noting soft spots that are inherent in the DNA of the web.
Perhaps most alarming is that the nation lacks a comprehensive plan of defense. Where there are defensive strategies, they pertain to defending military and government targets, while ignoring the need to defend infrastructure like railroads, electrical grids, the telephone system, private pillars of our economy like the banking, food and retail industries. Sorry guys. You’re on your own.
[image] Robert Knake - image from Global Resilience Institute
Clarke proposes a defense triad. First screening of all traffic on backbone pipes. He claims that software is currently available that can do this without impacting throughput. Second, a secure power grid is crucial, and would include means by which the grid would be disconnected from internet access, and finally, a robust defense of military cyber-communications. He espouses a firm statement by POTUS that cyber-attacks would be considered the equivalent of kinetic attacks and would be subject to kinetic as well as cyber responses.
In order to protect the nation from cyber attacks, it will surely be necessary for there to be some sort of monitoring of the traffic entering the backbone internet ISPs. This raises serious privacy concerns, as we know from persistent experience that those with the power to spy will undoubtedly use it for dark purposes. Yet the solution he proposes puts private entities in that driver’s seat. The notion is that if we can remove the government from a direct role in monitoring internet traffic, privacy will be assured. It is shocking that he does not seem to realize that people are at least as concerned about the misuse of private communications by corporate agents. Substituting Big Comm of Big Tech for Big Brother is not much of an improvement, particularly when much of the cyber war we are experiencing these days is being waged by domestic actors, with or without input from foreign countries.
Cyber War is not the first time that Clarke has been dashing about with his hair on fire. He has been right before. Hopefully, someone in a position to act will show up with a bucket of water in the form of taking seriously the concerns Clarke raises.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
It is definitely worth checking our the much more recent work by Dr. Bilyana Lily regarding Russia’s use of cyber-war in many theaters, including the USA, Russian Information Warfare.
10/18/11 - A New York Times article on how the US considered using cyberwar against Libya offers evidence that total iWar is getting closer.
3/9/17 - A RAND research report looks at how long vulnerabilities to hacks last (surprisingly long) and how quickly weaknesses are exploited (pretty quickly). It includes fascinating information on nations stockpiling exploits (hacks) the way they maintain weapons of mass destruction, and raises questions about when governments should release vulnerability information to companies, and when they should hold onto the intel. It is about 100 pps, and can be read on-line, downloaded for free or, if you prefer, you can order a printed copy. Real deal material. - Zero Days, Thousands of Nights - by Lillian Ablon, Timothy Bogart
3/17/17 - Yet another way to weaponize the internet. Some dirtbag decided to use the internet to assault a writer whose positions he opposes, by triggering a grand mal seizure. What a guy! Cecilia Kangmarch wrote the piece, which appeared in the NY Times - A Tweet to Kurt Eichenwald, a Strobe and a Seizure. Now, an Arrest.
[image] The Wolf Creek Nuclear power plant in Kansas in 2000. The corporation that runs the plant was targeted by hackers. Credit David Eulitt/Capital Journal, via Associated Press Image was taken from the NY Times article
8/22/18 - Wired - The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History - by Andy Greenberg Yeah, I had not heard of this either. The story is frightening, considering how our current president seems uninterested in doing anything to interfere with Russian cyber-war activities. Must-read for anyone interested in cyber warfare.
5/26/19 - NY Times - In Baltimore and Beyond, a Stolen N.S.A. Tool Wreaks Havoc - By Nicole Perlroth and Scott Shane - Digital danger continues to cause damage in the USA. Whatever is being done on a national level to protect our residents, businesses, non-profits, and government digital operations, it is pretty clear that more is needed. How about major investment in programming education instead of another useless F-35?
6/4/22 - AP - Deadly secret: Electronic warfare shapes Russia-Ukraine war - by Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Frank Bajak - This is not exactly Cyber War in the narrower sense that Clarke, and Bilyana Lily have laid out, but looks at an area where electronics intersects with kinetic military warfare. ...more
What is your vision of heaven? (presuming, of course, that you have one) Harps and angels, great swaths of light, one’s ancestors waiting in a receptiWhat is your vision of heaven? (presuming, of course, that you have one) Harps and angels, great swaths of light, one’s ancestors waiting in a reception line? There are plenty of notions from which to cobble together an image. How did the practice of ancestor worship, and its suppression lead to notions of heaven? How did notions from diverse religions regarding life after death influence each other? Where does the expression "7th heaven" come from? How do scientific understandings of the universe affect religious views about heaven?
[image] Lisa Miller
There is a wealth of extremely fascinating material in this look at how the notion of heaven came to be and how it has changed over the course of human history. Our contemporary parallel-universe notion is a far cry from early visions. Heaven was once thought of as the residence of the gods. Think Mount Olympus.
But the idea of heaven as we understand it—a place in the sky where the righteous go after death to live forever with God—that is a concept born to the Jews sometime during the second century before Christ…the connection between “righteous” behavior, as the Bible puts it, and resurrection and eternal life was entirely new and almost entirely Jewish.
Miller talks with a range of people with varying perspectives on heaven, some scholarly, some artistic, some personal. Don Piper had a near-death, or maybe post-death experience and wrote a book titled 90 Minutes in Heaven. Glenn Klausner claims to speak with those on “the other side.”
Heaven is a rich subject in literature and art, Dante, Revelations, the Koran, Gilgamesh, New Yorker cartoons. Albert Brooks talks with Miller about his film about the afterlife, Defending Your Life. She looks at the influence of artistic interpretations as both source and effect of popular notions of heaven. Dante and the Bible, in particular.
I quite enjoyed reading this book. There is great pleasure to be had in gaining new insights to the world, whether that world is this one or the next, and Miller offers it up in great dollops.
I had the pleasure of attending a book reading by the author in April 2010. Sitting in a Park Slope Barnes and Noble, waiting for the author to arrive, one could not help but note the presence of a pixie-ish young lady by the name of Josephine, maybe 6, 7, or 8 years old. She was beaming as she bounced up and down the aisles informing anyone whose eye she could catch that her mommy was the author. We are quite used to excessive numbers of parents, both of the helicopter and ground-based varieties, who regard their miniature walking DNA extracts as creatures deserving special (and often undeserved) admiration. How refreshing it was to see the reverse in action, but merited this time. Heavenly indeed.
Published - March 3, 2010 Review first posted - April 2010
This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in the Arctic will have great impact on the rest of the world. Alun Anderson offers a look at various aspects of that change with an eye to the potential dangers and benefits.
Anderson looks first at the people who inhabit the north, the Inuit, whether in Canada, Greenland, the USA or Russia, reports on the issues faced by local residents, their hopes for the future and the challenges they face.
Next he writes about the alarming decline in arctic ice coverage, looking at several of the factors that contribute to the change. The obvious decreases in area covered by ice does not take account of the decrease in ice depth or age. New ice is shallower, more susceptible to melting and, being lighter, is more easily pushed to warmer seas by arctic winds.
How will Arctic territorial claims by the several nations with Arctic borders be resolved? How much of the Arctic is national territory and how much is international waters? Who will have a say in how conflicting claims are resolved?
Oil drilling in the Arctic. Is it possible? If so, how will it be done, how much, by whom, with what benefits and what risks.
So much information here, and so many questions. There are opportunities to adapt, but the potential dangers are, well, chilling.
05/06/12 - The scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have come up with yet more confirmation for global warming being the cause of Arctic de-icing.
6/22/14 - The name Hank Paulson might ring a bell from the economic collapse of the late Bush administration. He is now counseling the world to not ignore the signs of impending climate disaster the way he did the signs of impending economic meltdown when he was in office. In this small NY Times article, he sees an opportunity for the USA and China to work together to make a difference. The piece is titled, The Coming Climate Crash, and I am certain Paulson is sincere, but in the absence of any gray matter in today's nihilistic, scorched-earth Republican Party, no common sense recommendations have a prayer when they have to compete with what he calls short-termism. Of course Paulson engages in the sort of self-serving, narrow-view interpretation of the past that one can expect from Republicans who have been bounced out of the public sphere (see recent pronouncements from professional liar Dick Cheney, griping about ISIS miseries in Iraq), somehow ignoring true details of their involvement in creating the messes they would have the rest of us pay to clean up now. He ignores the corruption that was inherent in causing the economic crash at his peril. All that said, it is encouraging whenever one of the dark-side sorts sees the light on any policy matter of substance. And while there is certainly room for debate on whether the carbon tax is the best approach to reducing emissions, it is encouraging that he is one Republican who seems ready to set aside the politics of blame-the-black-guy to seek actual solutions. Take it all with a grain of salt. Paulson will not be facing voters, ever, so can say things that politicians faced with the Deliverance demographic and the desire for Koch Brothers support would never admit to. Science is real. It is getting corrupt legislators to vote in the actual interests of their voter-constituents and not merely serve the demands of their funder-constituents that is the real challenge. And all the research in the world, and intelligent policy planning will not move that mountain. Still, it is a net positive to hear from a Republican that reality exists and should be addressed. It is a rare thing and should be cherished.
October 9, 2015 - This LA Times article, What Exxon knew about the Earth's melting Arctic, By SARA JERVING, KATIE JENNINGS, MASAKO MELISSA HIRSCH AND SUSANNE RUST lets us know what Exxon knew and when they knew it as regards global warming. Yet another sociopathic corporation lying to the public with a straight face. Strong stuff.
Although the book here is about the Arctic, there is plenty going on in Antarctica as well. You mighr want to check out Countries Rush for Upper Hand in Antarctica, a NY Times Magazine piece By Simon Romero, with photographs by Daniel Berehulan, about the international competition going on right now for for resources real and potential at the bottom of the world.
The March 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine has an amazing article about the challenges and dangers of resource extraction in the Arctic - In the Arctic’s Cold Rush, There Are No Easy Profits - By Joel K. Bourne, Jr. - Photographs by Evgenia Arbugaeva - check it out
[image] The new Goliat platform awaits commissioning in a fjord near Hammerfest, Norway, last April. Now moored in the Barents Sea at 71° north, it’s the world’s northernmost offshore oil platform. -= from the NatGeo article
April 26, 2017 - National Geographic - An interesting piece on the vulnerability of once-frozen archaeological relics to thawing and increasingly destructive erosion by a tumultuous Bering Sea - Alaska’s Thaw Reveals—and Threatens—a Culture’s Artifacts - by A. R. Williams -- Photographs by Erika Larsen
[image] This centuries-old ulu, or cutting tool, was plucked from the thawing ground at Nunalleq. Embodying the native Yupik belief that everything is constantly in transition, the handle can be seen as either a seal or a whale.
October 2017 - National Geographic Magazine - They Migrate 800 Miles a Year. Now It’s Getting Tougher, By Gleb Raygorodetsky - on the Nenets, reindeer herders of the Russian Arctic, and how their lives are being impacted by global warming and development
[image] A Nenet herder leading his charges past a Russian gas pipeline - from the above article - photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva
January 2018 - National Geographic Magazine - Last Ice - The Arctic’s perennial sea ice cover—the ice that survives the summer melt season—has shrunk dramatically - by Tim Folger
[image] Dripping wet, a polar bear climbs onto an ice floe in northernmost Hudson Bay. Polar bears perch on sea ice to ambush seals—the source of 90 percent of their calories—when the seals surface. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala is leading an effort to preserve some of the bears’ dwindling habitat. “In Russia we found bears stuck on islands eating grass and seabirds,” he says. (text from NatGeo - photo by Paul Souders) - from the above article
[image] The temperature difference from normal over the Arctic averaged over the next five days in the GFS model forecast. (University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer)
This is a popular science book that offers a very accessible look at how math figures in our lives, well beyond the obvious. What I found most interesThis is a popular science book that offers a very accessible look at how math figures in our lives, well beyond the obvious. What I found most interesting was the conclusion that math is not the bottom line hard truth we might think it to be. Everything, even math, depends on context and probability. There are many interesting notions considered here.
Chapter 5 goes into detail on how a difference in scale can also represent a difference in kind. Cole relates how scale would make it impossible for a sixty foot man to hold himself up with a body anything like the 6 foot variety. Height increases only in one dimension, area in two, volume in three. If you doubled the height of a man, the cross section, or thickness, of muscle that supports him against gravity would quadruple (two times two) and his volume and therefore weight would increase by a factor of eight. To bear such weight would require stout, thick legs. Think elephant or rhino. It called to mind a bit of personal experience. I grew up in the West Bronx, where lived the then tallest man in the world, Eddie Carmel, who measured about 8 foot 9 inches. Poor Mister Carmel was beset by a body that was incapable of comfortably carrying his mass. He walked with a cane, stooped over, and did not live anywhere close to three score and ten years, a sad example of math in action. Fleas form the opposite end of this spectrum. While their muscles are many orders of magnitude weaker than ours, the mass they have to push around is so much smaller that it makes each ant and flea into a superbeing. Leaping over tall buildings does not pose a problem.
[image] K.C. Cole
A chapter titled Voting: Lani Guinier was Right holds a fascinating discussion of democratic methods and structures, and Chapter 11, The Mathematics of Kindness: Math Proves the Golden Rule, are both enlightening. I have a different take on the latter than the author, parallel, not contrary, but both chapters are thought-provoking.
Probability comes in for some heavy, and interesting inspection as well. I would expect the odds are better than even that if you have any interest at all in how things work, enjoy learning new things, or just like accumulating interesting bites of info about life at large, you will enjoy this very easy-to-read book.
[image] Gretchen Peters image from DC Environmental Film Festival
Gretchen Peters was a very young field reporter for ABC news in Afghanistan and Pak[image] Gretchen Peters image from DC Environmental Film Festival
Gretchen Peters was a very young field reporter for ABC news in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She was much intrigued with the role of narcotics trafficking in the politics of the region. Ultimately, her thesis is that what we think of as the Taliban is not a unitary entity based on religious fundamentalism. It is instead a very local and amorphous phenomenon in which the primary moving force is financial gain and the primary movers are international narcotics dealers. Members of “The Taliban” in this or that location are as likely to be paid mercenaries working to protect drug traffickers as they are religious extremists bent on creating a pure way to Allah. Her perspective adds a compelling layer of nuance to our understanding of the political dynamic of the region. She looks at the divergence between the Islamic ban on the use of such substances and shows how that has been twisted by the unscrupulous to allow the growing of opium in order to use it as a weapon against the west. Religious types being used by moneyed interests for their own purposes? Hmmm, sounds rather universal, doesn’t it?
She offers a series of recommendations on how the West might attempt to address the problem on the ground. None of her suggestions are easy fixes, but all are at least worth a close examination.
With Seeds of Terror, Gretchen Peters has added a significant chunk to the information we have about the Taliban, Al Qaeda, how they operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their motivations. It serves as a welcome companion to Ahmed Rashid’s Descent Into Chaos and Sarah Cheyes’ The Punishment of Virtue as must reads for anyone interested in the dynamics of that part of the world.
PS - with the withdrawal of US troops in 2021, it remains t0 be seen what will happen inside Afghanistan. One thing is certain though. Whatever does happen, it will involve the cultivation and sale of drugs.
From her web site Gretchen (@gretchenspeters) is a leading authority on the intersection of crime and terrorism, money-laundering and transnational crime. She is Executive Director of The Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime (CINTOC), a strategic intelligence organization that finds hidden criminal networks. She chairs the Alliance to Counter Crime Online (ACCO), serves on the advisory board of the Center on Economic and Financial Power and previously co-chaired an OECD Task Force on Wildlife and Environmental Crime.
Asma takes us on a stroll down horror lane, from monsters of our imagination to those of a more concrete origin. Are monsters merely what is differentAsma takes us on a stroll down horror lane, from monsters of our imagination to those of a more concrete origin. Are monsters merely what is different, unknown, upsetting? How has our view of the monstrous changed over time? What was once considered monstrous is now often considered merely anomalous. What was once thought the creation of Satan is now seen as genetic damage or diversity. And why is it that people across cultures and history are so willing to seek out the monstrous and exclude it, sometimes terminally, rather than studying and trying to understand the nature of difference?
Asma has written a fascinating book that addresses just what it means to be a monster, in different times, in various places, in sundry aspects. While it is written for a general readership, I did get the sense that Asma was more comfortable with an academic audience, particularly in the latter third of the book. It might be useful to have a dictionary handy if you don’t know your epistemological from you teleological.
In all, I found this to be a worthwhile, informative and entertaining read. There be monsters there.
P 239 "Us-versus-them thinking comes remarkably easily to us," says the primate biologist Frans de Waal. He finds the demonization of others to be strong in primate communities as well: "There is no question that chimpanzees are xenophobic." Jane Goodall described some chimp aggression toward out-group members as so violent and degrading that it was clear that the chimps were treating the enemies as members of some other species. de Waal also describes such behavior: "One attacker might pin down the victim(sitting on his head, holding his legs) while others bit, hit and pounded. They would twist off a limb, rip out a trachea, remove fingernails, literally drink blood pouring from wounds, and in general not let up until their victim stopped moving." Chimps, like humans, can perceive their enemies as monsters and then respond with torture and other forms of excessive brutality. Perceived monsters bring out monstrous reactions.
In 1910, the US Forestry Service was in its infancy. Teddy Roosevelt had put Gifford Pinchot in charge of the foundling agency. But robber barons and In 1910, the US Forestry Service was in its infancy. Teddy Roosevelt had put Gifford Pinchot in charge of the foundling agency. But robber barons and local commercial interests used all their resources to try to smother the infant in its crib, using their control of media to lobby against and lie about the Forest Service, and using their money to corrupt public officials in order to deny the Service the manpower and resources needed to actually protect the growing quantity of land held in public trust. Then, in a drought-parched lands of eastern Washington, western Montana and northern Idaho, the greatest forest fire in US history sparked a major change in public consciousness.
Egan offers historical context for this story, writing about the politics of the day, the forces, personalities and motives involved. As America saw its frontiers vanishing, a president took on the task of preserving some of the nation’s wilderness for future generations. Some things never change. Just as today’s robber barons are willing to despoil the entire planet to bolster next quarter’s bottom line, so the big business interests of 1910 were more than happy to spend the nation’s future to enrich their present.
When a wildfire broke out in the western forests, it was the Forestry Service that was charged with keeping it under control. Pinchot had oversold his vision of the service, believing that forest fires were an aspect of nature that man, and in particular the Service, would be able to control. He was wrong. And short-sighted, penurious Congressional funding for the Service ensured that there would be insufficient resources to manage any but the most modest blazes.
Entire towns were wiped off the map. In some cases this probably represented an improvement. Hundreds of people lost their lives, fighting the fire, fleeing it, or attempting to hide. Egan offers us personal stories of the people involved, the local rangers who tried to organize firefighting squadrons, townspeople who joined the battle, or trampled women and children to save their own lives.
I would have liked for Egan to offer more science in explaining the particularities of this fire. And it might have been informative, if gruesome to go into some of the details of why death by fire is so horrific. Some of that can be found in Daniel James Brown's compelling book, Under a Flaming Sky, about an earlier firestorm in 1894.
There are characters aplenty in The Big Burn, people with whom one can identify, and there are clear lessons to be gleaned that are applicable to contemporary issues. The Big Burn is a fast-paced read that is engaging, informative and thought-provoking.
UPDATES
July 5, 2012 - Egan's column addresses what can only be called The Burning Time as the summer of 2012 puts the lie to deniers of global warming ...more
Privatization of security and intelligence capabilities is “extending the espionage culture of the cold war into the global economy.”
A phrase kept ruPrivatization of security and intelligence capabilities is “extending the espionage culture of the cold war into the global economy.”
A phrase kept running through my head while reading while reading Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy, “Well, what would you expect?” We have privatized a lot of dodgy military work into the hands of entities like Blackwater (sorry, Xe), so it makes sense that an increasing amount of intelligence work would likewise be put into hands of entities that are not subject to congressional oversight. Of course, it’s not like this is brand new.
Javers offers interesting historical perspective, tracing the roots of today’s companies back to the era of the Pinkertons. You will learn some surprising things about that origin and about the rules they lived by, or claimed to live by. Of course, there are no rules these days, or very few. He traces some of the technological leaps that have advanced the capabilities of surveillance over the ages, from early wiretapping to the satellite technology and big-time private intel and security capacity of today. He tells of the rise and fall of several seminal security companies, each of which is very engaging. Howard Hughes does a turn here as well. Clifford Irving, Allen Pinkerton. The history telling here is both informative and entertaining.
In the world of private intel, there are two main trunks, private companies doing the work of governments and the same companies engaged in purely non-governmental research and operations. Some work involves little more than performing background checks on potential hires. But a lot involves spy vs spy intelligence gathering and sometimes facilitating dirty tricks on behalf of one corporate client against another corporation. Javers looks at both.
His organizing structure is to offer case studies as a way of telling his tales. There is a wonderfully illustrative story here about a corporate struggle between chocolatiers Nestle and Mars, fought by their respective private spooks. It captures the Armies of the Night feel of this world. It will come as no surprise that private intel firms were involved with Enron. And there are cases in which private intel companies are hired by the targets of their investigations to find out who is looking into their activities. Spooky.
Just as our public funds were spent training special ops personnel who now sell their services as mercenaries, the private intel world is staffed by former public servants from the CIA, FBI, NSA and any other three-letter governmental agency with intelligence gathering duties. (The schools of hard NOCs?) Your tax dollars at work. In the spirit of globalization, today’s private intel crews includes former members of the KGB and every other national intelligence service of note.
Although Javers does make note of how spies were placed in organizations like labor unions and Greenpeace, he does not emphasize the potential impact of increasing sophistication by intel companies on personal liberties. But the implication is clear. Today, we need not only be concerned about Big Brother, but about the entire bloody family.
In the same way that one should be alarmed about the rise of corporate military power, one should be concerned about the rise of unaccountable private intelligence entities. It seems inevitable that they will provide the same sort of cover for the government offered by private military contractors. Unwilling to actually gain popular support for a war, unwilling to institute a draft to give the army enough personnel? Don’t bother. Just hire private contractors. The bonus is that the private privates are not subject to the same rules as the military. In the same vein, in situations in which the government may be barred from performing particular monitoring or research tasks or intel operations, private firms may not be under the same restrictions, or even if they are subject to limitations, having private entities perform these questionable activities offers policy makers a layer of deniability. Personal freedom is a certain casualty here.
One of the externalizations of cost in today’s world can be found in the security business. Alarm systems that notify the police when a door or window is opened unexpectedly costs the public billions of dollars in wasted manpower, as the vast majority of such calls are false alarms. So the alarm company gets paid for providing a service, but the police force actually gets to do the work. In a similar way private intel organizations, because of the close ties between those still in government and their friends who have gone private, rely on government resources for help in performing their tasks, but the government does not get to share in the fees taken in by the private companies.
And for those who worship at the altar of free markets, this book shows yet another way in which the supposed Invisible Hand is being undercut. Why develop better products when you can steal one from your competition, or use dirty tricks to keep a superior product from market?
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is a must read, offering alarming, if not always new information about an aspect of today’s world of crucial importance to anyone who values his or her privacy and personal freedom. It is very readable and strangely enjoyable.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
This October 6, 2016 report by Matthew Rosenberg in the NY Times offers a very surprising look at the relationship between a Wall Street firm and the world of private intelligence operations - At Booz Allen, a Vast U.S. Spy Operation, Run for Private Profit
William Kambkwambwa was always a curious child. His curiosity about the workings of the world took a hit when his family was unable to afford to keep William Kambkwambwa was always a curious child. His curiosity about the workings of the world took a hit when his family was unable to afford to keep him in school. But he tried to keep up, going to the library and reading everything he could. He was particularly taken with books on science and on how things work. In this engaging and uplifting story, the young inventor tells of his experience in Malawi constructing a working windmill from bits and pieces retrieved from junkyards, using a design based on a book he got from the library. But the story goes well beyond his personal experience.
[image] William Kambkwambwa - image from kickstarter
He tells us about his community, a small village reliant on agriculture for sustenance and imperiled by the vagaries of nature and a corrupt government. He introduces us to his family, his much-admired father, his friends, the village chief, and offers a real feel for what life looks like in this part of the world. There is a long section in which Kambkwamba reports the frightening details of when famine struck his village, how the families coped, or failed, how the government responded. It is riveting material. Also of considerable interest is the degree to which people in Malawi hold on to a belief in magic one would have thought had faded long ago. William was at risk of being persecuted as a witch for his invention. Some people were killed as the hungry sought a magical explanation for the lack of rain, and scapegoats were found. That is as chilling as his tale of drought and desperation.
[image] Chiwetel Ejiofor as Trywell Kamkwamba and Maxwell Simba as William - from the Netflix film
In the latter part of the book, the young inventor is finally discovered and we see some of his wonder as he is introduced to a much wider world and finally comes to gain a society of peers. There can be no doubt that William Kambkwamba is a remarkable young man, and that he will continue to achieve great things, for himself, for his family, for his village, nation and for Africa. This book should be counted among those achievements.
It will take me a while to put up a real review here, but overall, I agree with most of what Hedges has to say about the darkness all around us. I wasIt will take me a while to put up a real review here, but overall, I agree with most of what Hedges has to say about the darkness all around us. I was a bit alarmed at his tone in the book, which made him sound like one of those guys parading up and down the street crying "the end is near" or "Soylent Green is people." I agree that we may be entering dark times, but will have to think more on the content before completing this. Hedges is a thoughtful, perceptive and intelligent guy, so whether one agrees or disagrees with his take on things, he is worth listening to....more
This is a must read. In the same way that Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine mapped out a process that has been going on in plain sight for a long time,This is a must read. In the same way that Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine mapped out a process that has been going on in plain sight for a long time, Jeff Sharlet shows us a process that has been going on stealthily for many, many years. As The Shock Doctrine sheds light on an appalling abuse of power, so The Family sheds light on some very creepy goings on, primarily at home.
The notion one might have in approaching The Family is that it is primarily a tell-all about the people who live at C Street in Washington D.C., the grown-up frat house for (mostly) Republican elected officials and others involved in business and government. While there is some of that here, Sharlet is more interested in offering a historical perspective, not only exposing what underlies this ice-berg, but showing how it came to be.
[image] Jeff Sharlet - from his site
He traces a path from the 18th century fire and brimstone of Jonathan Edwards to the 19th century revivalist evangelical, Charles Finney, to the pulpit-pounding Billy Sunday of the 1920s through Abram Vereide, the major personal force behind what Sharlet (and its members) calls The Family. Vereide began his work in the 1930s, handing off eventually to Doug Coe, today’s leader (when this was written. Coe died in 2017. The current president is Katherine Crane.) and a familiar face and source of connections and financial support to many of our elected officials.
Underlying all is this group’s vision of the natural order as being the divine right of the wealthy and powerful to rule. The working man is seen as having no rights at all, and in fact, any attempt to organize to better his lot is seen as not only secularly seditious, but an affront against God, who has placed the worthy in their positions of ownership and power. Perhaps a better term for this might be Deo-Fascism. It will come as no surprise that major funding for this movement has always been found among the corporate elite of the country, and a major effort by this movement, throughout its history, has been to do all in their power to defeat organized labor.
I learned some new, alarming things in reading this. I always knew that many of the sci-fi films of the 1950’s were subliminal, or not so subliminal attacks on a perceived red menace. Sharlet tells of the genesis of the film, The Blob, and how it was directed by a fellow specifically intending to mainstream his fundamentalist Christian notions, and how the elements that led to the production came together at one of Abram Vereide’s gatherings.
[image] A red menace indeed
While one can use the Blob image effectively to portray how this movement functions, and the visible tip of the iceberg shielding the unseen nine-tenths, what works best for me is seeing the movement Sharlet describes as prionic in nature. Prions are infectious proteins that can lie low for extended periods of time, or stealth infections. The proteins that make them up are present in all people but the special ones that become prions are, ultimately deadly. Prions are what cause Mad Cow Disease and similar, awful diseases. The Family, The Fellowship are doing their best to spread their particular brand of infection throughout the body politic. In particular the spreaders of this worldview are interested in people in power. It is certainly possible to sell to working people an ideology based on the privileges of wealth. Just look at the anti-healthcare-reform screamers at town hall meetings, or Trump supporters these days. But a likelier medium in which to plant those seeds is with those who already have a large wedge of the pie.
These supposedly religious people would have us believe that they are submitting themselves to the will of god, of Jesus in particular. But there is only one thing before which they really fall to their knees, power. It does not matter how many tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of people die at the hands of their members, friends and sympathizers. It does not matter to them how many lives are ruined by their steering of government towards wealth and away from work. It does not matter to them how much of mother earth is raped and plundered by their corporate supporters. What matters is power, getting it, keeping it, wielding it for their private gain, and doing all this under the guise of submitting to will of the Lord. This movement is an infection in our nation, one that will, if left unchecked, lead to the destruction of our country, and possibly more, by making ours a leadership ridden with a prionic madness. These are people who are not afraid to nuke the world in order to save it. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
One aspect of the book is that it is a rather slow read. Be prepared to take your time accumulating all the information Sharlet has unearthed. There are many players in this enterprise. I found that I often came across a name that was unfamiliar and had to backtrack to check his or her (mostly his) role in the goings on. I was disappointed that there was not a list in the back of known members, and others who had less-than-full-membership in The Family. I was a bit surprised to find Hilary Clinton referenced. But do read it, please. Everyone needs to know what is going beneath our political wet rocks.
-----December 31, 2018 - NY Times - Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus - by Katherine Stewart - a very frightening look at how the evangelical right views Trump and justifies his many crimes
==================================QUOTES p 35 [Regarding a talk given by David Coe, son of Doug Coe, the Family head, at Ivanwald, a Family home in Arlington, VA. The subject is how God can forgive King David for all the atrocities he committed] He turned to Beau. “Beau, let’s say I hear you raped three little girls. And now here you are at Ivanwald. What would I think of you, Beau?” Beau, given to bellowing Ivanwald’s daily call to sports like a bull elephant, shrank into the cushions. “Probably that I’m pretty bad?” “No, Beau.” David’s voice was kind. “I wouldn’t.” He drew Beau back into the circle with a stare that seemed to have its own gravitational pull. Beau nodded, brow furrowed, as if in the presence of something profound. “Because,” David continued, “I’m not here to judge you. That’s not my job. I’m here for only one thing. Do you know that that is?” Understanding blossomed in Beau’s eyes. “Jesus?” he said. David smiled and winked.
P 43 “they take the same approach to religion that Ronald Reagan took to economics,” says a Senate staffer named Neil McBride, a political liberal with conservative convictions that puts him at odds with the Family’s unorthodox fundamentalism. “Reach the elite, and the blessings will trickle down to the underlings.”
P 44 They view themselves as the new chosen and claim a Christian doctrine of covenantalism, meaning covenants not only between God and humanity but at every level of society, replacing the rule of law and its secular contracts.
P 44 [In documents provided to members it is explained that] The cell has “veto rights” over each member’s life, and everyone pledges to monitor the others for deviation from Christ’s will. A document called “Thoughts on a Core Group” explains that “Communists use cells as their basic structure. The mafia operates like this, and the basic unit of the Marine Corps is the four man squad. Hitler, Lenin, and many others understood the power of a small core of people.”
Jesus, continues the document, does not relate to all souls equally
p 181 [One Irvin] Yeaworth, a director of “Christian education” films [was] looking to broadcast his message into the mainstream. [The result was The Blob}
p 43 “Rights,” the Family taught, are the product of an arrogant mind—an infringement on God’s authority
p 90 A rich man may have little hope of getting into heaven, but an envious one could turn to violence and lose all hope for this world or the next. Abram had to help such creatures, the derelicts, the failures. How? By helping those who could help them—the high and the mighty—that they might distribute the Lord’s blessings to the little men, whose envy would be soothed, violence averted, disorder controlled. …Abram would coin a phrase for this vision: the “new world order.”
p 216 Contrasting American fundamentalism to secularism...in 1962, Bill Bright…who founded Campus Crusade, one of the biggest popular fundamentalist groups in the world, put it succinctly: “We worship a person, they worship ideas.” That was American fundamentalism’s Christ: a person, purged of the ideas that defined him, as if what mattered most about Jesus was the color of his eyes and the shape of his beard.
p 254 [Doug] Coe [the chief honcho of The Family] cites one of his favorite scripture verses, Matthew 18:20, “When two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of thtem.” “Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had, these nobodies from nowhere. Actually emotional and mental problems. Prisoners. From the street. But they bound themselves together in an agreement, and they died together. Two years before they moved into Poland, these three men had a study done, systematically a plan drawn out and put on paper to annihilate the entire Polish population and destroy by numbers every single house”—he bangs the podium, dop, dop, dop—“and every single building in Warsaw and then to start on the rest of Poland.
It worked, Coe says; they killed 6 ½ million “Polish people.”
p 269 A Kansas businessman who calls [Senator Sam] Brownback his friend and has known him for years told me that the de facto price of doing business with the senator—the cost of admission for a single meeting—was, last he checked, $2,000.
p 274 Hillary [Clinton] once said she regretted that her denomination, the Methodists, had focused too much on Social Gospel concerns—that is, the rights of the poor—“to the exclusion of personal faith and growth.”
…the spirit, conservative Christians believe, matters more than the flesh, and the salvation of the former should be a higher priority than that of the latter. In worldly terms, religious freedom trumps political freedom, moral values matter more than food on the table, and if might doesn’t make right, it sure makes right, or wrong, easier
p 276 For all The Family’s talk of Jesus as a person, he remains oddly abstract in the teachings they derive from him, a mix of “free market” economics, aggressive American internationalism, and “leadership” as a fetishized term for power, a good in itself regardless of its ends.
p 386 Fundamentalism wants to ease the pain, to banish fear, forget loneliness; to erase desire. Populist fundamentalism does so by offering a certainty, a fixed story about the relationship between this world and the world to come; elite fundamentalism, certain in its entitlement, responds in this world with a politics of noblesse oblige, the missionary impulse married to military and economic power. The result is empire. Not the old imperialism of Rome or the Ottomans or the British Navy, that of a central power forcing weaker groups to pay tribute. Rather, the soft empire of America that across the span of the twentieth century recruited fundamentalism to its cause even as it seduced liberalism to its service “presents itself not as a historical regime originating in conquest, but rather as an order that effectively suspends history and thereby fixes the existing state of affairs for eternity.”...more
Sarah Chayes offers an incisive, on-the-ground look at the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. She informs her observations with historical researSarah Chayes offers an incisive, on-the-ground look at the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. She informs her observations with historical research, ongoing contact with many significant political players in the country and the experience of living in the country for many years, and comes up with a better understanding of the forces at play than I have seen anywhere else. Her story begins while she is working as a foreign correspondent for NPR, and living with an Afghani family in Kandahar. Most telling, perhaps, is her recollection of the reaction to her stories by NPR management. It comes as no surprise to those of us who have mourned the right-wing tilt of much of NPR since the Republicans took control of Washington in 2000. (See http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/ for daily updates) So many mornings in my home have been interrupted by screams of outrage. I cannot imagine how unspeakable it must have been for a reporter of Chayes’ depth to have to confront such daily ignorance back home. Sorry, we don’t want to confuse the American public with nuance or any story that does not toe the extant political line. Thankfully, Chayes was offered an opportunity, outside of NPR, to do some good in a country she had come to love.
Taking a position as a representative for a non-governmental-organization, or NGO, Chayes sought to make a difference in this broken country. Chayes offers us further insight in to the workings of non-profits in Afghanistan, but most of all tells us about how the Afghans relate to each other and to the USA and where those relationships fall in a historical perspective. You will learn a lot and find answers to questions you never thought to pose.
Structurally, Chayes offers contrasting pictures of two main characters. Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal was a police chief and ultimately a friend to Chayes, a bright, basically good guy who tried to do the right thing in the wrong place. Chayes attends his funeral in the opening chapter and pledges to find out who killed him. She offers us a history of his career, pointing out the influences that impacted his ability to function in this or that place and job. Gul Agha Shirzai is his shadow image, a warlord with considerable political savvy and very little by way of scruples. Following the trail of these two individuals offers considerable opportunity for explaining how things work in Afghanistan.
It is a grim portrait Chayes paints. There was a time when Americans were indeed welcomed, and the Taliban reviled. But now, having seen how the USA drove out one band of psychopaths only to install another, patience with America has run out. Chayes goes into serious detail about how this works in the real world, why it is that the US selects this group or person to support while that or another group or person is ignored.
One of the wonderful things about Chayes' book is that she offers several chapters on the history of Afghanistan. These help explain why some ethnic groups view each other with such suspicion and hostility, tradition.
It was interesting to learn that the word “chain” refers not only to a set of overlapping metallic links, but also to having to pay off a chain of brigands in order to travel on major roads in the country. It was this chain that the Taliban was able to remove, but that the USA has inadvertently restored.
She shows how the Taliban is pretty much a creation of Pakistan, designed to keep Afghanistan from becoming a functional nation. There is much reportage on specifics supporting the fact that without Pakistani support, the Taliban would never have become a major power in Afghanistan, and would not, now be resurgent there.
Most alarming was the disappointment she felt with Karzai, the prime minister who seemed to have the charisma, intelligence and courage to lead the nation in a new direction. As it happens, not so much. And so, our hopes for the nation’s future are not reinforced. We get to see that there are many good people in Afghanistan. But the odds are against them.
Chayes' story is one told from the living rooms of the powerful (she worked for one of Karzai’s relatives and had met with most of the important people in the nation) to the neighborhoods in which she lives, among the locals. Hers is a hands-on view, visceral, grounded, incisive, informative and compelling. The Punishment of Virtue is a clear must-read for anyone with an interest in goings on in that part of the world.
P 74 [following the ouster of the Taliban from Kandahar in 2001:] it is no wonder many Kandaharis viewed the coming change with trepidation.
“Now will be the era of robbers,” a young auto mechanic told me in late November 2001, after tribesmen had looted a warehouse for refugees just inside Afghanistan, in the last days of the U.S. bombing. I asked if he didn’t trust the tribal elders to maintain order after the Taliban departed.
“No, I don’t.” He was emphatic. “They held power before, and they plundered the people and did bad things to them.”
Other shopkeepers and small businessmen told of reverting to the defensive measures they had learned during the mujahideen nights: sleeping in different places each night, bringing all their wares home at the end of the day, and shuttering their empty stalls.
P 101 As Michael Barry analyzes it, leadership among Pashtuns is acquired by a pretender’s ability to extract wealth from a lowland power in one of those three familiar forms—plunder or tribute or subsidy—and distribute it among his men. Ahmed Shah’ ability in this regard was undeniable.
P 101 [Afghanistan:] is a state founded not on a set of thoughts held in common and articulated through texts and institutions, but rather a state founded on the strategic nature of its territory—the crux between empires. It is a state founded on a fluid and tenuous interaction between collective structures, structures of nation, of tribe, of family, and a highly developed sense of freedom, a violent aversion to submission.
P 107 [In Kandahar:] there was no hostility to the American presence. On the contrary, Kandaharis were looking to the Americans for help. They expected the Americans to help them gain their country back, help them rein in their own leaders’ well-remembered corruption, help them come up with a new version of qanum, of law and order, which would be a little less repressive than the Taliban’s rendition. Help them start making something of themselves.
I told this to the young marine. I told him U.S. soldiers were in zero danger. They were seen as Kandahar’s ticket out of backwardness.
“That’s really interesting,” the marine replied. “I had a feeling that’s how things were. See, they keep giving us these briefings about the situation here, and I’ve been wondering if they’re bullshitting us. They keep saying this is a combat mission. ‘Combat?’ I’m saying. ‘What combat?’ There’s nothing happening out here. I’m feeling pretty dumb in this hole in the ground. And I’m getting a little ticked off too. I think they’re taking advantage of us. I feel like we’re just a symbol—like a great big American flag stuck in the dirt out here. What’s the use of that? I’d like to do something real. I’d like to get out there and start building that road.
I wanted to throw my arms around the kid. “And you know what?” I said. “If you built the road, it would do more for your security than another thousand guys out here in foxholes. The Afghans would protect you. If they saw you helping them, they would take care of you.
I had this entire conversation down on tape. It was going in my story. Because, like the tale young Fayda had told me on the way to Kandahar a couple of weeks before, it seemed to hold the crux of what was already going wrong.
But my editor nixed it. She said there was nothing new or interesting in this conversation. Soldiers are always disgruntled. This marine was just the same as every other grunt. ...more
Be careful when you pick this book up. You won’t want to put it down. In 1925, Percy Harrison Fawcett, armed with information only he had unearthed, aBe careful when you pick this book up. You won’t want to put it down. In 1925, Percy Harrison Fawcett, armed with information only he had unearthed, accompanied by his son, his son’s best friend and a small company of bearers and support personnel, headed off into the Amazonian wilderness in search of a large, ancient, fabled city, the City of Z. Fawcett, his son, Jack, and Jack’s friend, Raleigh, were never seen again. There were many attempts by later explorers of varying levels of expertise to find Fawcett, or at least to learn definitively of his fate. Professional writer David Grann joins that horde, armed with little or no experience as an outdoorsman and having his athletic prowess honed by years as a subway-riding resident of Brooklyn. Not, perhaps, the likeliest starting point. He sets out on a strenuous enterprise in an attempt to explain this 80 year old mystery.
[image] David Grann
While Grann’s book is non-fiction, it reads like an H. Rider Haggard action adventure novel. You will feel palpable excitement as Grann digs up first one then another then another clue as to where Fawcett might have wound up. He follows research directions ignored or unsuspected by prior investigators, to great advantage. I won’t spoil the ending by telling what he does or does not find. That is almost beside the point.
[image] A still from the film
It is the journey that counts here, and part of that journey is the window Grann offers on a part of the history of exploration, the sort of people who were drawn to it, their reasons, their personalities, the effect of their quests (or obsessions, depending) on their careers, families and on the body of human knowledge. We learn also of competing theories about the potential for the Amazon to support a large, urban population. Grann shows, as well, the challenges, the horrors of trying to traverse one of the most unwelcoming areas on earth. This is a very entertaining, very informative and very engaging journey.
The Film was released in the USA - 4/14/17 - sadly, it is a sure cure for insomnia
If you are expecting a Mary Roach approach, forget it. While there are more than a couple of yucks in George’s book,Or as we call it, “The Poo Book.”
If you are expecting a Mary Roach approach, forget it. While there are more than a couple of yucks in George’s book, they provide spice and not substance. This is a sober examination of a crucial public health matter. George offers plenty of supportive stats, without letting them clog her storytelling pipes. How do societies in diverse cultures cope with human waste? George looks at methodologies and social standards in the USA, Japan, India, China and beyond. It is clear that there is no single best solution.
[image] Rose George from her TED talk
Be prepared to learn a lot about how people eliminate. (Illuminated elimination?) It is very educational and thought provoking, a must read for people with an interest in public health, city planning, international aid, water use, agricultural, and energy issues. The Big Necessity is very good public health book that should not go to waste.
August 21017 - National Geographic Magazine Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg Talking Toilets With Matt Damon - He is involved in trying to reduce open defecation across the planet
Ok, I was not shameless enough to end the review with this, but I am indeed shameless enough to tuck this into a dark corner of a re-post ten years later.
The Big Necessity might not be the number one book of 2008, but maybe number two?
Ok, there, I've done it, and I am not ashamed. Embarrassed maybe?...more
This is great stuff! Bowden’s 1999 best-seller, Blackhawk Down, was a masterpiece of the genre. Killin[image] Mark Bowden - Image from Grove Atlantic
This is great stuff! Bowden’s 1999 best-seller, Blackhawk Down, was a masterpiece of the genre. Killing Pablo, published in 2001, keeps that momentum going. It tells the tale of the rise and fall of, arguably, the greatest gangster (outside of government) of the 20th century. It is fast-paced, gripping, and gives one a feel for Colombia during the period when narco-terror ruled. (It’s all better now, right?) There is a large cast of characters portrayed here; Steve Jacoby, and American signals intelligence expert, Colonel Hugo Martinez, an incorruptible leader of Colombian police, and his son who was determined to contribute to the battle with Escobar, Mossir Busby, an American diplomat who was instrumental in gaining US involvement in tracking Escobar down. What makes Pablo Escobar significant for more than his mere criminality is that his level of influence and terror led to a change in American policy. It changed from seeing Escobar as a gangster to defining him as a threat to American security and ultimately waged war against him. This is a book you will not want to put down, even knowing that the bad guy gets it in the end.
July 2017 – National Geographic and ProPublica joined forces for this alarming report of a drug cartel outrage in the town of Allende, near the US border in Mexico - How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico - By Ginger Thompson...more
[image] Robert Baer - Image from Penguin Random House
Nearly everything the average American has been told about Iran is wrong.
This is a compelling a[image] Robert Baer - Image from Penguin Random House
Nearly everything the average American has been told about Iran is wrong.
This is a compelling analysis of one of the major players on the world stage. For those who have read much about the Middle East there is not a whole lot of new information here, but Baer has the ability to gather the strings of information and weave them together into a coherent tapestry. Iran has been growing as a regional power. This will continue and there is pretty much nothing we can do about it. This raises serious questions about how the USA should proceed. Baer is insightful and fact-based. There is no screaming here about islamo-fascists, but a reasoned view of an extant reality. He offers interesting suggestions on how we can best cope with the inevitable change. As a former (can one really ever be a completely former?) spook, with deep experience in these parts of the world, (Middle East and South Asia) his analysis carries additional weight. One may agree or disagree with his take, but it is an informed and compelling one. It has been about fifteen years (in 2023) since Baer's book was published. But his analysis and conclusions remain insightful and relevant. This is a must-read for anyone with any interest in events in the Middle East.
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