I suppose this book is best described as a companion to Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. Musk is certainly anI suppose this book is best described as a companion to Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. Musk is certainly an interesting fellow, and I have Isaacson's biography of him on my list. Lots of money does funny things to people. It's made Musk into a narcissistic autocrat who has taken Charlie Wilson's comment about General Motors ("What's good for General Motors is Good for the Country")** to heart. Substitute Twitter for General Motors.
You will remember that Musk offered $44 billion to purchase Twitter only to back down but then be forced to buy it. The company was saddled with a huge amount of debt (that continues to rise), Musk fired hundreds of employees, many of whom were involved with content moderation, others simply because they had the temerity to tell him the truth. Then he re-branded Twitter into X (he seems to have a passion for that letter -- personally I prefer the letter B for bullshit...) Advertisers began to flee in droves as the site became home to right-wing kooks and hate-mongers all in the name of free expression. What Musk did not recognize was that “Advertisers play an underappreciated role in content moderation,” says Evelyn Douek, a professor and speech regulation expert. “So much of the content moderation discourse has always been a highfalutin discussion on free speech, on safety versus voice. But content moderation is a product, and brand safety has always been a key driver in terms of how these platforms create value.”
Musk promised all sorts of things, including money, to some of the employees, promises he has yet to fulfill. Indeed, there are many outstanding lawsuits to force him to pay off on those promises. (Hundreds of millions in severance pay guarantees. As of today, April 1st, settlement talks have gone nowhere.)
It's important to remember that both of these books reflect the personal opinions and experiences of those willing to talk. Many of those remaining with the company were afraid to talk for fear of repercussions. As these author states: "This book is a snapshot of the lives of Twitter employees during a pivotal moment in tech history." Looking at the history of tech, lots of prominent, highly touted apps fall by the wayside, so I'm not sure just how "pivotal" Twitter/X is/was.
"But anyone seeking those answers discovered that the transition from Twitter to X wrought something entirely different. Musk’s intentions became clearer. In his mind, the company’s success had nothing to do with people’s work ethic or ability to think creatively. Instead, it was about placating the person at the top. Musk, after all, was the man with the vision. He was the one on the hero’s journey."
**This is the popular version of the quote. What he actually said was "Yes, sir; I could. I cannot conceive of one because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the Nation is quite considerable.” (p. 26 of the transcript of his confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense.) Substitute Twitter for General Motors and Musk believes this. Source: https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/20......more
The very personal story of a young lieutenant’s gradual disenchantment with the war in Vietnam. What especially comes through is the distinctness, of
The very personal story of a young lieutenant’s gradual disenchantment with the war in Vietnam. What especially comes through is the distinctness, often becoming bitterness, the soldiers feel toward the ARVN and the total lack of empathy for the “dinks.” Everything seemed pointless, They would spend days and weeks taking a piece of ground, taking casualties, only to pack up and leave after a period. Just as a company would become familiar with territory and feel like they are making progress, they would be relieved by a brand-new company of recruits who will have to learn their lessons all over, taking casualties in the process. In the meantime, everyone knows the one constant will be the permanence of the Vietnamese people who will be there and return to an area as soon as the Americans leave.
Some relevant selections:
However, we traveled in a vacuum of understanding among the villagers and farmers because neither we nor they understood the other’s language. Whenever we found a booby trap in or near a village full of people, we were powerless to question anyone or do anything about it. We couldn’t take the whole village prisoner, so we were forced to vent our anger by destroying the hootch closest to the booby trap.
The American strategy was to draw them into a fight so we could use our superior firepower to destroy them. To win a battle, we had to kill them. For them to win, all they had to do was survive.
The trouble with Nam was that we didn’t control anything that we were not standing on at the time. Anything that moved outside our perimeters at night was fair game because the night belonged to the enemy and both sides knew it. The reality of only owning the ground you stood on meant making sure you continued to stay on that ground.
Why did we want to kill dinks? After all, we had been mostly law-abiding citizens back in the world and we were taught that to take another man’s life was wrong. Somehow the perspective got twisted in a war. If the government told us it was alright and, in fact, a must to kill the members of another government’s people, then we had the law on our side. It turned out that most of us liked to kill other men. Some of the guys would shoot at a dink much as they would at a target. Some of the men didn’t like to kill a dink up close. The closer the killing, the more personal it became... I didn’t believe in torturing or in allowing a dink to die a lingering death. In the jungle we never took prisoners if we could help it. Every day we spent in the jungle eroded a little more of our humanity away. Prisoners could escape to become our enemy again.
I stood alone on the side of the road, smoking a cigarette and thinking, perhaps for the first time, that we could lose this war. Standing alone under the cloudy sky, I felt alien in this land. We had just finished an operation back in the jungle and these men now were going out to a different part of the jungle to play the same deadly game of hide and seek with the enemy, probably with the same inconclusive result.
Perhaps the most authentic Vietnam War memoir I have read. ...more
I like this kind of book. It’s an irreverent view of the geeks and misfits who created Twitter, perhaps the most used but least necessary software on I like this kind of book. It’s an irreverent view of the geeks and misfits who created Twitter, perhaps the most used but least necessary software on the planet. That is, until Elon got a hold of it.
This book was first published in 2013 and so much has changed since then. Twitter (now X, in what has to be the silliest of rebrandings) has become perhaps less relevant than it ever was. Musk has seen the price fall through the floor and see value evaporate.
Fun book if you like business origin stories, but he really needs to do a follow-up, perhaps annually. Just started Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter by Zoë Schiffer, that, so far, provides an in-depth view of Musk’s demolition of Twitter....more
The effect of Sputnik on the United States was electrifying. I was about 10 at the time. As it happened, we were on the 2nd and last year of our sojouThe effect of Sputnik on the United States was electrifying. I was about 10 at the time. As it happened, we were on the 2nd and last year of our sojourn in Germany where my father was researching at the University of Heidelberg. The effect there was minimal, but from what I’ve read since, everyone in the U.S. was horrified at the pity shown to the United States, now clearly in a distant 2nd place. There is no doubt it had a substantial impact on the presidential election in 1960 along with the non-existent missile gap.
The author begins with Soviet initiatives, but most of the book, which covers but a year up through 1958, is devoted to American political in-fighting and initiatives. It was former Nazi rocket scientists like Werner Von Braun(1) and his German colleagues who created their own little enclave near Huntsville, Alabama, that gave the U.S. an edge.
Aside from the interesting technical details, D’Antonio provides a broad picture of life in the fifties and especially the cultural changes that were wrought by enormous sums of money poured into places like Cape Canaveral and Huntsville; places that had been mere backwaters exploded into rapidly expanding subdivisions with concomitant increases in real estate values.
Sputnik had enormous policy and cultural implications and changes. Soon, in the guise of protecting America from the Red Menace, every group imaginable from the NEA and National Science Foundation, to politicians who wanted more money for their districts, to weapons manufacturers, to the Air Force and Army at loggerheads on which service was to control missiles, was clamoring for huge increases in the federal budget for their projects. Articles in the press, naively drawing on PR the Soviets were putting out, talked about Russian nuclear trains, ships, airplanes and satellites. So, not only was there a missile gap (ironically thanks to the U-2 Eisenhower knew this was a chimera)(2), but a science gap, and education gap, a you-name-it-gap, and anyone who suggested otherwise had to be a Commie. People who formerly had been unalterably opposed to federal support for local education, now changed their tune and bellied up to the trough. Eisenhower was in a touch position. He warned of the military-industrial symbiosis, but the political pressure from both sides was just too much.
In the meantime, rocket launches at Cape Canaveral were beset with all sorts of failures, some spectacularly public, others seemingly mundane. In one case, because some special paper had been loaded backwards into the printer, the results appeared to be the opposite of what was good, and the missile was destroyed fearing it would go off course or explode uncontrollably.
PR became crucial in the battle between the Army, Air Force and later NASA for control of rocketry. Eisenhower was anxious to have civilian control of space, while the military and people like Edward Teller were anxious to dominate the Russians using military control of space. The perception was the Russians were ahead and they clearly had more powerful rockets, but that dominance vanished quickly. This was the time of Public Relations. Edward Bernays had revolutionized how we view control of consent, and his book Crystallizing Public Opinion and Engineering Of Consent became bibles of the industry. I will have to read them.
It’s astonishing today to see what they got away with in the fifties in the name of science. Project Argos, for example, exploded low-yield high altitude nuclear weapons in space to determine the effect of radiation on all sorts of things, but the main objective was to study the Christofilos Effect hoping that it would be possible to protect against a Soviet nuclear attack by exploding nuclear bombs high over the Pacific. The idea was to create a barrier of electrons that would fry the electronics of Soviet warheads, and possibly also to blind Soviet radar to a U.S. counter-attack. I suppose one could argue the tests were a great success because we learned it wouldn't work. It was all terribly secret, of course.
A truly fascinating look into the culture and history of the U.S., and to some extent Soviet, space race.
(2) Beschloss, M. (2016). Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 affair. Open Road Media. Jacobsen, Annie. Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. Little, Brown, 2014. Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair...more
Crosby was one of the most experienced and best navigator’s in WW II. This is his extraordinary memoir. He reveals all his self-doubts in a most humblCrosby was one of the most experienced and best navigator’s in WW II. This is his extraordinary memoir. He reveals all his self-doubts in a most humble fashion. His superior navigating (he often ascribed it to luck, got him promoted to Group Navigator. At one point he was just one mission shy of the twenty-five needed to get sent home, when, ironically, because the horrendous loss rate had begun to decline, the number needed was raised to thirty. The rationale for doing so was truly monstrously evil. The assumption was that given the loss rates approaching 100% over 25 missions, when loss rates dropped, the logistics of supply changed:
“Until then, 8AF losses were about four percent per mission. Theoretically, by the time we had flown twenty-five missions, we were KIA or POW, and we had to be replaced. If we bucked the odds, we got to go home. Since the Eighth couldn’t plan on our being there we might as well not be taking up bunks and rations. Now, losses declined a little, down to about three percent, and our human logistics changed. We had to fly thirty missions”.
“On this mission, one crew, piloted by Glenn Dye, flew their twenty-fifth. They were done. They could go home. They were the only original crew of the 100th’s original thirty-five who finished a tour. One out of thirty-five made it through a tour. And even on Dye’s crew, one gunner was killed. None of the original crew all made it. That did not encourage us much.”
Navigators were crucial to the success, and return, of a mission. In his scrapbook* on the Smithsonian website, Crosby flatly states, “From a good pilot all I expected was a good truck driver. I wanted him to shut up, drive the plane, and stay out of things and as the navigator and the bombardier took care of the mission.” They had to rely on dead reckoning and radios for navigation; all the celestial navigation skills they had been taught as school were basically useless, and their octants soon piled up in the trash.
Lots of interesting tidbits. My favorite was why he decided not to bomb Bonn and picked another target. It’s in the scrapbook, if you don’t want to read the memoir. Crosby suffered from severe airsickness, common among navigators, as they spent considerable time watching the ground from low altitudes where it was always more turbulent. On one mission, they spun out of control, the pilot recovering with just two functioning engines. The plane had 1200 shell holes, 1 dead crewman, and five injured. They just made it back to England, landing on a “dummy” airfield.
Harmony between the Brits and Americans was problematic. So many British men were overseas, leaving the country to American males. Crosby was sent to attend a conference to discuss inter-ally relations. He found it enlightening. “All during the conference, no matter what the announced subject for discussion, we always kept returning to two knotty problems, disharmony among the Allies and too much harmony between the genders.”
The B-17 was known for being a tough old bird. There was always competition between B-24 and B-17 pilots on which was the better aircraft. “You can still start an argument with a WWII Air Corps veteran as to which was better, the B-24 or the B-17. Because of its highly efficient Davis wing, the B-24 carried a heavier load and flew faster. However, because of that same slim, narrow wing, the Lib was vulnerable. Hit that wing and down went the plane. A B-17 could get its crew back on one engine. Even with half its tail torn off or with a huge, gaping hole in the wings, fuselage, or nose, a good pilot could get his Fort and his crew back to the base.”
Regardless, the 100th was notorious for its high losses. “We had too much combat exhaustion, which was what they called it when a crew member was afraid to fly and quit. We had too many midair crashes of our own planes. We had too many cases of our airmen getting into fights at the local pubs." Losses were horrendus. Crews had a 1 in 35 chance of making it back alive.
A truly fascinating and humble look at what it was like to fly missions in a B-17 over Europe.
In my thirties and early forties, I was a soccer referee, working my way up from kids games until I was head referee for a large AYSO organization andIn my thirties and early forties, I was a soccer referee, working my way up from kids games until I was head referee for a large AYSO organization and certified as a FIFA referee that got me doing many college games (always welcome because they paid a lot more and added travel expenses. This was around 1978-83. In today's dollars, around $500, pretty good for a young man raising a family. High school games were about a fifth of that.)
I played soccer in high school, was mediocre at best, but really got into refereeing. I loved it. This was at a time when we used the two-man system rather than a ref and two linesmen. It’s a system that I still think has some advantages, but requires much training and teamwork on the part of the two on-the-field officials. (Remember this was some 35 years ago. That system no longer exists.) I did in fact get FIFA certified, passed all the tests, etc., etc., but never had the chance to work the middle.
Some of my colleagues had far more presence of mind than I ever would. I remember Nels, a former Swedish ref who, after a kid kicked the ball high in the air following a call he disagreed with, just said, "If that ball comes down, you're out of the game." Or Howie, a ref I always enjoyed working with, who compassionately told a player who had just lost a front tooth after receiving a ball to the face, (we had located the tooth) to head off to the dentist. The player protested, but Howie just told him, in thirty years "you'll have forgotten this game, but if you don't get the tooth fixed, you have thirty years to regret it."
We had a very active association that scheduled all the refs and negotiated the fees. I was lucky that I had a job from which I could take off a couple afternoons a week to drive the considerable distances to the games.
Of course as a former ref, when I watch games now, I spend as much time watching the officials as the players. Some of them become celebrities in their own right, like Babiana Steinhaus, a first-rate woman official who was the first female ref to do the premier men’s German league games. She also, in real life, is a Police Chief Inspector. She retired from officiating in 2020, but I discovered she also married Howard Webb, a premier World Cup referee, also a policeman. Howard, as it happens, wrote this book about his career, the culmination of which was officiating at the World Cup final in 2014.
I was surprised to learn of all the technology required of and for referees at the Premier level. Each wore a heart rate monitor that would record every five seconds and then be uploaded to the league's headquarters, where fitness experts would pass judgement on the referee's fitness. Another was the laser device that would register when a goal was scored with an audible signal to the refs earphones.
I suspect unless you have some interest or background in soccer — it really should be called football all around the world; that other sport could be called pointy-ball or boring-ball — this book will probably not interest you. I really enjoyed it. The training program and learning experience of top-of-the-line referees is extensive, and that includes a great deal of analysis of mistakes. Webb is not afraid to discuss his blunders, and in soccer, the buck truly stops with the man in the middle....more
How did Henry Kissinger go from being the man the Playboy Bunnies would most like to have for dinner to a man hated by both left and right; a man who How did Henry Kissinger go from being the man the Playboy Bunnies would most like to have for dinner to a man hated by both left and right; a man who became an issue in a presidential campaign forty years after he had left government. Gewen answers that question in this intellectual biography. It's fascinating.
Kissinger was fond of citing the following story: When the nefarious Cardinal Richelieu died in 1642, Pope Urban VIII is said to have declared: “If there is a God, the Cardinal de Richelieu will have much to answer for. If not … well, he had a successful life.” I have never been fond of Kissinger, considering some of his policies and actions to be wrong-headed, if not criminal. That being said, Kissinger was the great realist and perhaps the most influential Secretary of State in the 20th century. How he got there is the intriguing subject of this book.
Kissinger distrusted democracy, suggests the author, after witnessing the rise of Hitler through the democratic process. (The early section of the book details how quite precisely.) The lesson Kissinger learned from that is that democracy fails at thwarting tyranny and totalitarianism. Free speech can co-exist in a non-democratic society. He had the choice of returning to Germany following WW II but having served in the Army and achieved his American citizenship, he had been thoroughly Americanized, even coming to appreciate those from the fly-over states as being a more accurate representative of American culture. He wrote in his memoirs, “Nowhere else is there to be found the same generosity of spirit and absence of malice, as in small-town America.”
Kissinger despised pieties, believing that, like Richelieu, chaos can be a useful instrument of policy and furtherance of goals for the nation-state. He ultimately lost his position in government by losing support of both the left and right. His mantra was simply that the end (order and stability) justified the means. National interest was paramount, and morality in its service was futile and counter-productive.
The author goes into some detail discussing the influence of Leo Strauss, Hans Morganthau and Hannah Arendt on the politics of Kissinger. All were of German Jewish background. Arendt is best known for her seminal works on the origin of totalitarianism, a pertinent topic given that the 20th century gave rise to innumerable tyrannical isms: Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and now Islamism. All of them had seen the failure of democracy during and following the Weimar Republic and the democratic rise of Hitler. This left all of them suspicious of democracy and populism in particular. Each opposed quantification as a way of making decisions (the direct opposite of Robert McNamara.) Foreign policy and history have a subjective quality, and one needs to beware of idealism, marching into some place you don't understand even with the best intentions.
Kissinger’s role under Nixon was surprising, given Nixon’s constant belittling of Jews and overt anti-Semitism. So many in both parties feared Nixon’s irascible temper and general craziness, they saw Kissinger as a temperate restraint on Nixon. He was the ultimate realist, believing power should be used in the service of the nation, and he initially opposed MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) arguing that the Russians would be emboldened by the policy as they could never believe the West would initiate its own destruction. His preference was for tactical nuclear weapons, and it was important the enemy believed the U.S. would use them. That was the only realistic self-defense strategy.
Where else can you find elements of a spy story, good guys against bad guys, weird characters, and cognitive dissonance all rolled into one? The Hiss/Where else can you find elements of a spy story, good guys against bad guys, weird characters, and cognitive dissonance all rolled into one? The Hiss/Chambers case riveted the nation, laid the groundwork for Nixon's rise, and epitomized national phobia.
Chambers, who died comparatively young at age 60, certainly made a mark. Considered by many to be an uncouth individual (with notoriously bad teeth - a key component at the Hiss trial), Chambers like many others during the depression feared Capitalism was moribund and unable to address the inequities that had been exposed so they were tempted by Communism which appeared to have solved some of those problems. Almost all became disenchanted especially following the pact Stalin made with Hitler and revelations of his ruthlessness. Post WW II anti-Communist fervor became the rage and HUAC (the House on Un-American Activities, itself spectacularly un-American in its behavior) became a mechanism for politicians to loudly trumpet their pseudo-Americanism.
Many of those had actively spied for the Russians including Hiss and Chambers. Chambers, who had been early in his disenchantment moved with his family dozens of times in a no-to-unrealistic paranoiac fear of the NKVD's possible revenge.
Chambers had a fascinating background. His family life was a mess, but he managed to get into Columbia where he first considered himself a conservative and where his literary career began. He was considered a talented writer (indeed, Witness, his autobiography is considered by many to be a masterpiece.) Following a trip to Germany where he witnessed wretched poverty, he joined the Communist Party and left college. Soon disenchanted, he left the Communist Party, and eventually became editor of Time Magazine and a favorite of William Buckley. Jacques Barzun and Meyer Shapiro said that had he not gotten mixed up with the CP he might have gone on to be one of the great poets of the 20th century, he was so talented. Once tarred by the Hiss brush, however, his life was virtually ruined.
No need to go into the details of the trials here, other than to report that both men became larger-than-life symbols: Hiss representing the New Deal and Chambers the rising anti-communist political movement. Each was used rather abysmally by his respective disciples to each's detriment. Chamber target was modernism, not just Communism, and his weapon was the scatter shot which hit all sorts of groups including liberals, socialists, and humanists, as well as Communists, all of which he blamed for societal ills. Chambers became more and more religious and mystical. He became an Episcopalian, then a Quaker from whom he was quickly estranged. He also considered Hiss to be one of his best friends and only wanted him dismissed from his post, certainly not jailed. He was a man of ideas but of inconsistent ideology, refusing to be labeled or identified with any group. He didn't last long writing for The National Review after alienating many of its readers by defending the right of Hiss and Robeson to get US passports.
He wrote, "counterrevolution and conservatism have little in common. In the struggle against Communism the conservative is all but helpless. For that struggle cannot be fought, or much less won or even understood, except in terms of total sacrifice. And the conservative is suspicious of sacrifice; he writes first to conserve, above all what he is and what he has. You can’t fight against revolutions so." But just what a counter-revolutionist stood for, except as the opposite of revolutionist, he never said.
Ironically, had Hiss simply fessed up to having been a member and having passed documents (mostly on European economic policy) that probably would have been the end if it, but he made the fatal mistake of suing Chambers. That brought to light the famous pumpkin and typewriter that were Hiss's downfall.
The left, according to Arthur Schlesinger, in a review of Witness, led a whispering and vilification campaign of Chambers that continued for decades, much of it homophobic even though Chambers was certainly not homosexual, and that this campaign was no less horrible than that orchestrated by HUAC.
The unanswered question we are left with is why out society requires a constant enemy. In the fifties and sixties it was the bugaboo of the Red Scare; today it's Islamic Facism. Is threat required as a glue for society? Just walk into any airport and realize you have become the sheep required to suffer indignities and silliness all in the name of the illusion of safety. Chambers and Hiss both served as useful stereotypes and straw men when each was far more interesting and complicated. The Communism each man was briefly enamored with never existed either; it was a chimera that Chambers recognized as such long before Hiss.
For a terrific series on the Hiss/Chambers case watch the 38 part series done by John Beresford on Youtube. It's very good. (A Pumpkin Patch, A Typewriter, And Richard Nixon .) On another note regarding government secrets -- the Chambers/Hiss thing was all about secrets, after all -- Thomas Powers wrote a review of Secrecy: An American Experience by Daniel Moynihan, which discusses, at length how secrecy is used within the government to hide things they don't want the rest of government to dins out about. This often puts decision-makers in awkward positions, e.g. Kennedy was never told of the CIA's own report on how the Bay of Pigs wouldn't work, and Truman was never informed of the VENONA decryptions. Moynihan writes:
All the bitter divisions of the McCarthy years, the exaggerated Republican charges of “twenty years of treason” and the Democratic countercharges of witch-hunting, might have been avoided, Moynihan suggests, with who knows what profound consequences. There might have been no fight to the death over who lost China, no lingering nightmares at the outset of the Kennedy administration that hands-off realism in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia would inexorably summon up new howling mobs demanding to know: Who lost Cuba? Who lost Vietnam?
I.e., there would have been no Hills/Chambers controversy, either. In the end, the secret documents Hiss passed along and the dotty actions Chambers was required to do undercover before he broke with the party, had no impact or consequence to anything. Looking back, it was like watching a children's game. I wonder how much of that has changed.
For an examination of why did otherwise reasonable men, at the highest levels of our political culture, succumb to these extreme suspicions see Ellen Schrecker’s book, Many are the Crimes. Her answer to this question is that the excesses of the cold war originated in “a sense of panic” that dated back to the Russian Revolution of 1917. That panic manifested itself in the fifties and continues today. The press failed during Hiss/Chambers.. To quote one reviewer, "Hysteria and paranoia aren't the exclusive preserve of ambitious politicians and the voters they seek to steer through the latest minefield of awful threats. Hysteria and paranoia aren't the exclusive preserve of ambitious politicians and the voters they seek to steer through the latest minefield of awful threats. The press made another muck of it here, too. The press couldn't cope with nuance or indecision." Watching the news today, you realize things haven't changed....more
Coram begins the begins his hagiography with an explanation of why Americans have an almost mythic view of the Marine Corps, a service that was close Coram begins the begins his hagiography with an explanation of why Americans have an almost mythic view of the Marine Corps, a service that was close to extinction by the turn of the 20th century -- before Belleau Woods. The American Expeditionary Force under General Pershing was sent quickly to France to bail out the exhausted British and French. Ludendorf, the German General, was about to deliver a hammer blow in an attempt to break through the trench lines and reach Paris. Pershing had forbidden war correspondents from identifying individual Army units, but left an inadvertent loophole with the Marines. The Army despised the Marines, wondering why they even existed as a separate command. At Belleau Woods, however, the Marines, identified as such by Floyd Gibbons, the only correspondent, to go with them, magnificently held off and beat a substantially larger force of Germans, and soon all anyone could talk about was the glorious Marines.
Krulak was a Marine. How he got there was quite interesting, but inauspicious. He was a Jew (non-practicing who lied about his background--antisemitism was rife with signs on establishments reading, "no dogs or jews"), short (5'4"), been married (it lasted but 16 days before being annulled as both he and the bride lied about their names), lied about his age, and failed the entrance exam the first time. So why Annapolis? One reason was that his father realized that graduating from the Naval Academy would open many doors for his son.
At the academy, because of some "commercial" activity, expressly forbidden by Academy rules, he racked up a huge number of demerits, but thanks to his friendship and mentor, an instructor (and unrequited racist and anti-semite, but then that was the Marine ethos of the time), made it through. Krulak had invented an entire backstory for his biography wholly at odds with his Cheyenne, WY and Jewish reality. Had the Navy known of that fiction he probably would not have made it.
Ever since the British debacle at Gallipoli, it had become standard doctrine that amphibious landings were obsolete and would never be part of future actions. The Ellis Report, part of War Plan Orange, presciently predicted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the island hopping strategy that made winning the war in the Pacific possible. That strategy required a multitude of amphibious landings but the Navy had no craft that would work. Krulak was to be instrumental in fixing that.
He and his pregnant wife had been posted to Shanghai, where, in 1937, he took the initiative to watch the Japanese amphibious landings in their conquest of the Chinese mainland. He was stunned to see the radical design of their landing craft and realized the flat-bottomed, ramp-equipped boats were just what the Navy needed. He whipped off a report (he was still a lowly 1st Lieutenant) to Washington anticipating swift action on their designing and building similar craft. The optimism of youth.
The story of the development of the famous landing craft and the role played by Krulak and, in particular, by a Louisiana boat builder named Higgins, is fascinating. Both Higgins and Krulak had to overcome Navy inertia and bureaucracy to get the boats built and approved. ( seeThe Boat That Won the War: An Illustrated History of the Higgins LCVP by Charles Roberts, Jr.) Inter-service rivalry also played a part and the Navy never did adopt the design. It was all Marines. Without the mentorship of General Holland Smith, whom Krulak knew from the Academy, however, he probably would have been drummed out of the Corps years before. He was later instrumental in developing tactics for the nascent Marine helicopter program.
Krulak was prominent participant in the inter-service rivalries following WW II and I was surprised at the vicious enmity that existed between the Army, which tried to get the Marines disbanded and molded into the Army, and even the Navy, envious of their reputation. The Marines never forgave the Navy for deserting them at Guadacanal. One might make a case that some of the "Chowder Gang's" (the name given to the Krulak led opposition to unifying the services) actions bordered on insubordination in their efforts to thwart Truman's wishes. He was, after all, the Commander -in-Chief. Krulak's certitude in himself spilled over into his treatment of their children, the eldest of whom described their childhood as resembling that of the Great Santini.
Reading this book, it's impossible not to come away with the feeling that the Marines won WW I, the Pacific in WW II, and Korea and that Krulak personally saved the Marines from the Marine-hating Army. Then again, Truman, got into a lot of trouble for complaining that the Marines had a propaganda campaign to rival Stalin's. Perhaps he was right.
In a 1955 news show called See It Now Edward R. Murrow asked the inventor of the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk, who owned the patent to the vaccine. Salk In a 1955 news show called See It Now Edward R. Murrow asked the inventor of the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk, who owned the patent to the vaccine. Salk replied, "Well, the people. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
This book is about a specific case, but it's also about much more, an indictment of the current patent system. Myriad Genetics, a company held the patents on two key genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. Everyone has those genes, but women with certain mutations in their BRCA genes face much higher risks of breast or ovarian cancer. Through its patents, Myriad had essentially cornered the market on BRCA testing. The company charged more than $3,000 for a test, and insurers didn’t always cover it. Some women weren’t able to get tested because they couldn’t afford it. And the problem went beyond cost: One woman who joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff tested positive for a BRCA mutation but before undergoing surgical removal of her ovaries wanted a second opinion; because of Myriad’s patents, no other lab could confirm the diagnosis.
The Association for Molecular Pathology along with several other medical associations, doctors and patients sued the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office and Myriad Genetics to challenge several patents related to human genetics. The suit also challenged several method patents covering diagnostic screening for the genes. Myriad argued that once a gene is isolated, and therefore distinguishable from other genes, it could be patented. By patenting the genes, Myriad had exclusive control over diagnostic testing and further scientific research for the BRCA genes. Petitioners spearheaded by the ACLU, argued that patenting those genes violated the Patent Act because they were products of nature. They also argued that the patents limit scientific progress. Section §101 limits patents to "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof."
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of petitioners, holding that isolating a gene does not alter its naturally occurring fundamental qualities. (Judge Robert Sweet was ably assisted by his clerk who had an advanced degree in the bio-sciences. Sweey's opinion is worth reading as a clear exposition of both the science and the legal aspects of the case. You can read it here**.)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (specializing in patent cases, it was known as the "nerd's" court) reversed, holding that isolated genes are chemically distinct from their natural state in the human body. In March 2012, Petitioners sought certiorari; and in light of Mayo Collective Services v. Prometheus Laboratories. the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Federal Circuit judgment and remanded, i.e., sent it back for further consideration On remand, the Federal Circuit again upheld the patentability of the BRCA genes. Again appealed to the Supreme Court which ruled unanimously that genes were not patentable although cDNA was, as it was not a product of nature.
The case was unusual in that the Solicitor General's Office took a position in opposition to that of the Patent Office which had declared that since they had permitted patenting of genes already, to reverse that would just mess up previously decided cases. That the SG's office did so, was the result of compromise worked out by many agencies brought together at the behest of Obama to determine what the position of the government should be. (It's worth remembering that Obama's mother had died of ovarian cancer at 56, fighting insurance companies until her death, and his grandmother died of breast cancer.) The compromise was orchestrated by Mark Freeman who serves a gold star for bringing such disparate parties together. It's also notable that Francis Collins, NIH director was adamantly opposed to gene patenting. He had been a co-worker with Mary Kelly and Mark Skolnick in isolating and linking the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations to breast and ovarian cancers. Skolnick had recognized the monetary potential in their discovery and founded Myriad genetics, over the opposition of Kelly and Collins, which monopolized BRCA testing and made lost of money.
There are some very appealing characters: Lori Andrews, the "Gene Queen" an attorney who was upset with the patenting of a test for Canavan Disease; Michael Crighton, whose book Next and NYT op-eds laid some of the public groundwork for the court cases; Dan Ravicher, a successful patent attorney who became disillusioned with the way patents were destroying innovation and who formed his own public interest firm to challenge patents; Tania Simoncelli, the individual most responsible for getting the ACLU interested in gene-patenting; and Chris Hansen, the ACLU attorney who argued the case before the court.
A very interesting read that raises all sorts of bioethical, medical, economic, and legal issues.
For millennia, religion, spiritualists, and ghost hunters have maintained that contact with the dead was possible. Lots of money was easily made by alFor millennia, religion, spiritualists, and ghost hunters have maintained that contact with the dead was possible. Lots of money was easily made by all of these groups by fleecing people into believing there might be something beyond the grave (religious groups are still raking it in.) Magicians, knowing how easy it is to fool people, have none of it. This book details the interaction between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a believer, Houdini, definitely not, and Margery Crandon, a very clever purported spiritualist.
The early 20th century was beset with occult fever. Possibly related to the huge number of dead from the "War to End All Wars," numerous psychics and mediums (mediae?) popped up playing on the need of comfort for the bereaved, some "gauzy borderland" where the dead and living might mingle. In an effort to bring some science to the craze, the Scientific American offered a prize of $2500 (the equivalent of about $37,000 today) to anyone able to show and prove physical manifestations emanating from the dead.
Crandon looked to be the easy winner of the prize until Houdini entered the fray and insisted all her conjuring, voices, and sounds were fake. The group fo scientists the magazine had assembled to test her claims had been bamboozled, some by her (she had a sexual presence that was powerful), others by their failure to understand how they were being manipulated. When she began producing "ectoplasm" from, her "nether" regions, I have to say, it got really goofy.
I listened to this book as an audiobook. It's well-read and quite fascinating as a mirror on the 20's, 30's, with a peak into the lives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini. Some of the minute detail of the seances got a bit mind-blowing but not so much that I wouldn't recommend the book. ...more
This provocative book could have been entitled "Hubris, or, How Government Does Things Forbidden to Everyone Else." I've been reading a lot of books This provocative book could have been entitled "Hubris, or, How Government Does Things Forbidden to Everyone Else." I've been reading a lot of books lately about cyber security and warfare as well as a couple related to diplomacy and the discussions that go on behind the scenes in making difficult decisions. Jacobsen adds another thought-provoking element to the discussion. Just what should be the role of secrecy and unaccountability in actions taken by government in a democracy where citizens are expected to play a role in decisions of consequence. Do a few people have the right to make decisions of extraordinary consequence that involve killing without better oversight. All of our previous presidents have had to make decisions that could result in the death(s) of people whose innocence or guilt is determined by just a few others.
In the fifties and early sixties, the United States had an inadvertent shadow government consisting of the Dulles Brothers, Allen and John Foster, Director of the CIA and Secretary of State respectively. (See The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer for more detail.) Couple their antagonism and paranoia of perceived Soviet aggression, particularly in Central America with power, and you have a recipe for covert U.S. intervention to prevent the rise of nationalist states or any hint of revolutionary behavior that might disrupt the status quo, i.e. dictatorial governments favorable to U.S. interests. Democratically elected governments were anathema given their messy nature and tendency to support their electors rather than the U.S.
In one of her presentations on YouTube, Jacobsen tells the story of a visit she received from one of her sources who had been in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He showed her sons (with her permission) his scoped rifle which, when they looked through it, revealed the veins on leaves across the valley. In another case, that he did not open for her boys, he showed her the contents: a very large knife with a serrated edge, the purpose, he explained, was for when quiet was required. Her reverence was palpable.
One of the covert operatives she reports on was Larry Thorne, recipient of the Finnish equivalent to the U.S. Medal of Honor, but also the only member of the Waffen SS to serve in the U.S. military. By all accounts he was an extraordinary individual who, I would guess, would have languished had he lived to see retirement (he was killed in a copter crash in Vietnam.) Thorne took a covert team into Iran to recover material from a U.S. plane that had crashed in Iranian mountains. They were never detected.
The CIA operated as a virtual shadow government with little, if any, oversight, often with future unintended consequences. The failure of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, was not just because the U.S. failed to come to the aid of the French, but also thanks to the superior guerrilla tactics of Ho Chi Minh and General Giap who had been taught the techniques by the OSS, precursor to the CIA, to use against the Japanese.
The title comes from the motto of the OSS, the covert operations group during WW II. It was "Surprise, Kill, Vanish." In a world filled with euphemisms (Reagan's name for the "kill list committee" (those targeted for assassination) was "preemptive neutralization" , Eisenhower's was "the Health Alteration Committee." The committee's role was to provide authorization for the assassinations.) The euphemisms were to hide the information. Jacobsen maintains in a democracy information must not be buried. The rules of engagement differ from the military to the CIA. The Seals who killed Bin Laden were enrolled for the day(s) in the CIA because the CIA can operate in a country with whom we are not at war. We have teams in 134 countries performing covert actions. Completely at the sole direction of the President.
The Bay of Pigs calamity was to have long-term implications for the CIA. Kennedy was so upset with their failure that he reorganized it and placed it in the military structure. This meant that the military would now be in charge of para-military operations. The man he placed in charge of the covert operations was Victor Krulak*, leader of the Marines he had rescued during WW II. (Jacobsen makes the mistake here of assigning the rank of Lt. Colonel to Kennedy when he was in reality a Navy Lieutenant (equal to the Marine rank of Captain). at the time. It was Krulak who was the Lt. Colonel. This change meant that during Vietnam, covert operatives had access to unlimited supplies of materiel that could be dropped to them using the endless resources of the military.
As the author gets closer to the present, the descriptions and details get longer, not a bad thing and certainly fascinating, but the book loses sight of the forest for the trees. The recounting of the debacle at Oscar 8, for example. The CIA had developed intelligence that General Giap would be at a certain location at a certain time on the Ho Che Ming Trail. A plan was created to kill or capture him, which, if successful, was certain to shorten the war. SOG (Special Operations Group forces) men would be inserted following carpet bombing of the area by B-52s. Description of the scene was provided by the observer watching from above in a Cessna who desperately tried to warn off the approaching troop helicopters after they realized the bombing hadn't diminished NVA anti-aircraft at all. Unable to warn them off, the observer and his pilot, watched as each chopper was shot down as were 100% of the support aircraft. Only about 25 survived in a huge bomb crater, so it was now a rescue operation.
I'm not smart or well-read enough to know the veracity of many of the stories Jacobsen recounts. Kai Bird, an author, for whom I have great respect, and who wrote about the CIA, doesn't think much of her book, complaining she relies to much on Billy Waugh's account of things and that her focus is often conspiratorial and silly witness her book on Area 15 and the one on paranormal phenomena. (https://tinyurl.com/2kdau6ec) I have read enough to know that many of the CIA's activities were rogue operations and of questionable long-term value with innumerable unintended consequences, often getting their presidents in trouble.
The question I think Jacobsen should have asked is whether this kind of activity is better than war. Good question.
*Krulak was an interesting character. It was he who, after seeing the unique designs of Japanese landing craft, that had a ramp in front which could be lowered, as a Lt. had proposed something similar to the Navy brass. His proposal was shelved and marked as the ravings of some lunatic. Unwilling to give up on the idea, he worked with boat designer Higgins to create the iconic landing craft used throughout the war, and without which, most beach landings could not have been accomplished. See Robert Coram's biography of Krulak. [https://tinyurl.com/y2h8zr8e]
Veritas in Latin translates as "truth". Sabar has written a detailed and fascinating book about how that was achieved in the case of a papyrus fragmenVeritas in Latin translates as "truth". Sabar has written a detailed and fascinating book about how that was achieved in the case of a papyrus fragment that had a series of words that could be interpreted to suggest that Jesus was married (ala DaVinci Code -- a fun book, btw.). Sabar's story contains confirmation bias, hubris, amateur scholars v. professional scholars, and academic jealousies. Truths might take a while to get into the Ivory Tower but they do make it eventually.
The temptation to read a concept into something because it matches an agenda we already subscribe to is an overwhelming temptation. Karen King, esteemed professor in the Divinity School at Harvard, fell victim to a forged papyrus that could (! not necessarily) have suggested Jesus had a wife. (That it's much more likely he was gay, given his predilection for hanging out with guys, has been suspected in other quarters.) Nevertheless, this scrap of papyrus was a dream come true for King who had argued the Church's position on women was all wrong.
The story is fascinating. Two amateur Coptic scholars, one an atheist, when they had a chance to look at the fragment, realized the translation and wording was lifted verbatim from the Gospel of Thomas and the translation of the word for "my" most likely had a different meaning anyway. Other professional scholars also revealed doubts although their argument that the grammar was inappropriate for the time period didn't convince me. All you have to do is watch television or listen to conversations on the street and you will quickly realize how perverted colloquial grammar can become. Words like notorious, infamous, and famous have all become synonymous, ruining any former subtleties, not to mention confusion of ran and run, nor the infamous "he gave it to you and I" which sends shivers down my Strunk and White. (If you don't know what Strunk and White is, then you're part of the problem.) Not to mention the total destruction of the past tense by the historical present. End of rant.
Sabar had followed the story from the beginning and it was his article in the Atlantic that reopened the furor. He had taken the time to track down the origin of the fragment and doggedly sleuthed out the seller of the fragment, something King most assuredly should have done.
Along the way, Sabar discusses the history of our attitudes toward marriage and Augustine's obsession with sex as well as the non-canonical Gospels. It all provides very appropriate context. In the end I don't damn King as much as others have in the media. We ALL suffer from confirmation bias and her case is simply confirmation of how powerful it can be. (Puns intended.) ...more
I am no fan of the Trumps. Nor do I approve of many of the financial shenanigans engaged by him, his company, and his family. But the problem lies priI am no fan of the Trumps. Nor do I approve of many of the financial shenanigans engaged by him, his company, and his family. But the problem lies primarily with the loopholes created by legislators at the behest of the rich so they can avoid taxes and get richer all the while sucking at the public teat through government contracts. Trump himself has acknowledged publicly in one of the debates that he used money to purchase influence and garner favor. The Fact is that politicians love power and want to keep it. To do that they need lots of money and people like Trump were there to fulfill their wishes. At a price.
"Consultants" hire themselves out to help get politicians elected. Then get hired to work in the government they helped elect. Then leave that government and create lobbying firms to sell the influence and connections they now possess thanks to their time in that government.
One of the advantages to owning a casino is how easy it is to launder money and get unregistered loans. His father bailed him out when Trump was close to insolvency and unable to make a bond payment by walking into one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City and purchasing $3.5 million worth of chips and then just walking out effectively giving his son a free loan. Clearly, following the refusal of American banks to loan him more money following a string of bankruptcies in which they lost millions, the Russian oligarchs stepped in to fill the void.
Given what Trump said during the debates, i.e., how he gave money to both parties in order to garner favor and influence, I should not have been surprised with the close political relationships between the Kushner family and the Democrats, especially Bill Clinton, but I certainly was with their connection to Benjamin Netanyahu. Perhaps the Jewish connection and appreciation for Israel stemmed from the horrific experience of their family under the Nazis. (The failure of Trump to denounce the anti-Semitism of his more radical followers is the more surprising given the Kushners' Jewishness and the conversion of Ivanka to Judaism.)
Trump benefited from the Bloomberg policy of seeking foreign investment for New York. Bloomberg actively solicited money from overseas, proclaiming that the city needed them to help pay taxes and fund schools and police. The Trumps took advantage of this policy, and so did the Russians, who invested heavily in Trump projects, often buying condos and apartments in his buildings for millions of dollars in cash. It was a marvelous way to laundry money and curry favor with the future president. More than 50% of these units were occupied less than two months out of the year. A less beneficial impact was a doubling of rental costs in the city.
Ultimately, this is a very depressing book. The clear lesson is that if you have money, you can flaunt the laws; if you have money you inherited, you can create an image for yourself that may be completely at odds with who you are; that if you have money, the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to you; and, if you have money, you can buy influence among politicians who then build loopholes for you to drive your trucks through. One wonders what the net effect of the Trump presidency will be. One danger will be, as a reviewer in the Washington Post noted, " cottage industry of Trump biographers and researchers has uncovered so many examples of deceptive, fraudulent and mean-spirited behavior by the president and his family that one succumbs to outrage fatigue."
Seeking adventure, Humphreys tried to join the French Foreign Legion, but was turned away because he was too young and couldn't get his parents' permiSeeking adventure, Humphreys tried to join the French Foreign Legion, but was turned away because he was too young and couldn't get his parents' permission. When he got a little older the Navy seemed a good alternative and the submarine force, as an elite, even more attractive. This is a skeptical and clear-eyed look at the process of becoming a submariner and what it was like to live and work in a submarine.
After some rather harrowing training, he discovered that leaving port in a submarine during rough seas (the best time to remain hidden), leads to rather extreme sea-sickness and given the fetid air the boat soon filled with everyone's previous meal. Life on board was boring, claustrophobic, all-consuming, and nerve-wracking, all at the same time. Amusingly, one of the most frequent questions asked by visitors to the boat, was "Where are the windows? How do you know where you are going?"
Circadian rhythms get completely discombobulated with watches on a 4-on, 8-off cycle, no natural light (high intensity lights are on all the time), no sunrise or sunset and never knowing whether it's morning or night except by the clock. That leads to instability and being thrown together with people you may not like, for months at a time, becomes another source of tension.
Humphreys finishes the book with a meditation on MAD. As he says earlier on, one misstep and its WW III that no one wins. If you have any interest at all in what it's like to be an ordinary seaman on a nuclear sub, then this is the book for you. Expect some claustrophobia. ...more
"Rage" by Bob Woodward is quite interesting on numerous levels. For one, I had not realized how competent Mattis was, nor how close we came to war wit"Rage" by Bob Woodward is quite interesting on numerous levels. For one, I had not realized how competent Mattis was, nor how close we came to war with North Korea. The media have focused on Trump's mendacity with regard to COVID-19, but the real story is how he pulled the rug out from under those people he had hired and who were trying to do a good job for America.
It was impossible for these folks to hide from events, nor did they want to, "Mattis had a light in his bathroom at his quarters in Washington that would flash if he was in the shower when the National Event Conference alert came. A bell would also ring in the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen announcing that the conference was standing up because a North Korean missile had been launched or was ready on the launching pad." Mattis was really concerned about his boss. Mattis had over 7,000 books in his personal library and believed studying and learning was key to developing and making policy decisions. "Mattis believed there were ways for a president to be tough and keep the peace. “But not with the current occupant. Because he doesn’t understand. He has no mental framework or mode for these things. He hasn’t read, you know,” he told an associate. Reading, listening, debating and having a process for weighing alternatives and determining policy were essential, Mattis believed. “I was often trying to impose reason over impulse. And you see where I wasn’t able to, because the tweets would get out there.. ..All the victories,” he said, “were becoming just submerged by this mercurial, capricious tweeting form of decision-making.”
Lots of revealing quotes, all taken from the tapes that Trump egotistically let Woodward make. Woodward had the temerity to suggest that the impeachment hearings and criticism of the Ukraine phone call would have gone away if only Trump had just apologized.
“I have this reputation of not being willing to apologize,” Trump said. “It’s wrong. I will apologize, if I’m wrong.” “When’s the last time you apologized?” “Oh, I don’t know, but I think over a period—I would apologize. Here’s the thing: I’m never wrong. Okay. No, if I’m wrong—if I’m wrong—I believe in apologizing. This was a totally appropriate conversation. It was perfect. And again, if I did something wrong, I would apologize. Okay?”
And Trump truly believes he knows everything and understands everything. In full Lamarckian mode:
He reminded me again of his late uncle, Dr. John Trump, a physicist who taught electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1983. “He was at MIT for 42 years or something. He was a great—so I understand that stuff. You know, genetically.”
As we all know the book was based on extensive interviews -- all taped -- with Trump. One piece that came across clearly from his own words was that Trump claims as accomplishments things that he has only talked about, not actually done, prison reform, fixing COVID, peace in the Middle East, a great trade deal with China, etc.
I'm sure everyone reading this lived through 2020. This book lets you relive the events in a nifty chronological package that I could not put down. I I'm sure everyone reading this lived through 2020. This book lets you relive the events in a nifty chronological package that I could not put down. It was interesting to match my recollection against the book's actual account.
No one in the Trump administration connected in any way to COVID-19 fared well. Those who tried to warn the president got fired. Those, like Pence, the "oleaginous sycophant", in George Will's memorable characterization, deferentially who did their master's bidding, got burned.
The authors clearly had a lot of these folks as sources; even Trump agreed to be interviewed. But that also means the reader must be careful as many of the comments, made with full hindsight, are clearly attempts to put themselves and their own actions in the best light possible.
Even where Trump's policies were popular and would have benefited the country, his administration's incompetence prevented their implementation. The Supreme Court turned away several petitions because of incompetent presentation; the proposal to reduce drug costs failed because they ignored the rules, and it was tossed in court; and we all know about the Great Wall.
If there is any hero, it has to be General Mark Milley who repeatedly tried to be the adult in the room during meetings and was devoted to the concept of civilian control of the military, which he interpreted as also implying that civilians could not use the military as their own police force. Trump's recurring fantasy was that, as president, all the people and agencies owed personal loyalty to him and him alone, not the Constitution nor its principles.
Trump, who had refused to be interviewed for the authors' first book, gladly agreed to two hours for this one. It's recounted in the epilogue and consisted primarily of diatribes against those he had initially lauded but now despised and how he really won the election by the greatest margin in the history of the world. The man doesn't know how to speak in anything but hyperbole and superlatives. Doesn't say much for his ability to judge people.
Why would anyone live in Alabama? The political, cultural, and social history of Alabama during the George ("I will never be out-niggered again") WallWhy would anyone live in Alabama? The political, cultural, and social history of Alabama during the George ("I will never be out-niggered again") Wallace years is on stark display in this fascinating book by Casey Cep.
Before getting to the actual trial and relating it to the book that Harper Lee wanted to write, Cep delves into the lives of the three main characters: Maxwell, the serial killing reverend who killed multiple wives and others for their insurance; Maxwell's killer who shot him in front of 300 witnesses; and Tom Radney, as very likeable man who defended Lee and who had been physically threatened, his family terrorized, and his homes and possessions vandalized because, as state senator, he had supported Ted Kennedy's nomination to run for president the year that George Wallace run as an independent. And Harper Lee's peripheral link to the trial.
The insanity defense has a long history. It was even written into the Code of Hammurabi more than 3000 years ago. By the early 20th century it had fallen out of favor, seemingly allowing murderers to get away with murder and it had been outlawed in several states, but not Alabama. It was the only defense left to the defense. Burns had shot Maxwell from three feet away in front of 300 people and had confessed at least twice.
It's not your typical murder mystery or courtroom drama, Lee, a close friend and colleague of Truman Capote, sat in on the trial in Alexander City taking notes. Lee struggled to write a book about the trial, apparently worried it would never live up to her famous first book. She had been closely involved with Capote as his friend and research assistant in the writing of In Cold Blood , but she never wanted to be associated with the "new journalism" epitomized by Capote, Mailer, and Talese.
The section on Lee is a letdown. The reader keeps waiting for more on the book that never got written. Not to mention the debacle over Go Tell a Watchman. The writing is very good, if sometimes impenetrable, e.g. "her letters, which had at one time been Pentatuchal in plot and Pauline in syntax...."...more
This is the book Trump should have tried to ban. Forget Bolton et al. It reveals the incestuous relationship between a bank, Russia, money laundering This is the book Trump should have tried to ban. Forget Bolton et al. It reveals the incestuous relationship between a bank, Russia, money laundering, and its most famous client. The bank that Donald Trump came to rely on to subsidize his shrinking empire after banks in the US refused to loan him money, having been stiffed by him too often. He had a habit of just not repaying the loans.(A running joke is that Donald had written many books on making deals and business, but they all ended with Chapter 11.)
The bank itself, after having been taken over by US traders, was getting into trouble by emphasizing short-term profits through ever-increasing levels of risk. Traders were paid by the estimated return on a bet, usually using derivatives which formerly had been better used to lower risk. They would often over-estimate the return knowing that their compensation would not be adjusted downward if the bet failed to return their estimate. Many were earning millions every year in bonuses.
Steve Bannon, quoted in Fire and Fury, noted that the Trump family was all about cash. Eric Trump had been quoted as saying they could get all the money they needed from Russia, and Bannon (who himself has been charged with stealing money from Wall donors) saw the insatiable appetite for money that the Trump family had. Bannon"s story was interesting in itself. He had been a trader at Goldman Sachs, but his father had suffered financial collapse in 2008 and that turned Bannon into a flaming revenge artist vowing to get the eastern bankers, i.e. a standard economic populist. He allied himself with Trump's populist rhetoric.
It gets even messier as Enrich lays out the connections between Justin Kennedy to the Trump family. In case anyone has forgotten, Brett Kavanaugh clerked for Anthony Kennedy, Justin's father, who interceded with Trump on Kavanaugh’s behalf. The banks affairs became so entangled that there were several suicides of bank officers and lawyers who despaired of unethical and illegal machinations. Greed and money laundering would appear to be at the heart of much modern finance and Trump was right in the middle.
The all consuming emphasis on profit meant that traders would go anywhere, to any country, that needed hard currency. Since most of the world's trades were conducted in US dollars, much of those transactions occurred through New York. And since Deutsche was trading with rogue countries under US sanction, like Iran, Syria, and Russia, interest was aroused in intelligence and legal quarters. When it became apparent that US soldiers were being killed in Iraq by weapons used by terrorists being supported by Iran, the families of the dead soldiers filed suit against Deutsche. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, money laundering became endemic and an audit revealed that Russian mafia money was pouring into the US through Deutsche's Eastern Europe connections, most of it being washed in New York's lucrative luxury real estate market. Guess who was a big player in that market?
After the crash of 2008, caused in large part by the risky bets using unusual financial instruments of big banks, especially Deutsche, country leaders looked to those bank leaders for advice. In Germany, Merkle went to Ackerman, head of Deutsche whose advice profited no one more than Deutsche itself.
Without going into too much detail and having no desire to spoil a great story, thousands of emails from a Deutsche banker who had committed suicide fell into the hands of reporters. They revealed that the loans Trump had personally guaranteed (meaning the bank could go after his personal wealth should he default on the huge number of loans he had with them) had been layered off to a Russian bank, meaning that the loans were actually coming from the Russians. (Remember that Eric Trump had bragged his family could get all the money they wanted from the Russians.) So you had a situation where a new American president owed millions of dollars to a Russian bank that was controlled by the KGB.
A fascinating, if disturbing, read. Stay tuned, the story continues.
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