Books Completed in 2017

I didn't read as many books this year as I normally do. I found myself, in these weird political times, looking for contemporary analyses of our new political culture.  So magazines became more important than books.  Commentary, First Things, The Atlantic, National Review.  Agree or disagree with their points of view, the fact that others were as perplexed as I at the rise of Trumpist populism, and had intelligent things to say about it, kept me sane.  I did finish a few books though. 


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic 2007) Audio CD.  4 stars out of five.  

The best way to experience a Harry Potter story is not to watch one of the movies, or even to read one of the books.  It is to listen to one of the books being read and performed by an actor with a versatile voice range and a warm and gemuetlich voice.  Jim Dale and other gifted narrators of audible books have taught me to understand why the ancient Greeks preferred the oral tradition, in which the first works of Western literature were rendered, over the written.

American Ulysses, A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, by Ronald C. White (Random House 2016) Hardcover. 5 Stars out of 5.

I absolutely loved this Book!  No surprise, as I also loved Ronald C. White's A. Lincoln. My full review is found here:  http://www.mytakesonthat.com/2017/04/on-new-biography-of-ulysses-s-grant.html 


Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles (Penguin Random House 2011) Audible 2.5 Stars out of 5.  

Not sure what possessed me to listen to this Gatsbyesque book, as I have always despised The Great Gatsby.  Must have been a review from someone whose opinions I normally agree with.  The author's style is skillful and engaging, with a few similes, scenes, or passages that are moving, memorable, and even quietly truthful or important.  The main character/narrator's love of reading allowed for some enjoyable short digressions on the value of literature and the merits of certain authors' works.  But for all of that: I didn't really like it. Though set in 1938, nine years after the stock market crash and great depression brought the roaring twenties to an ignominious end, and 25 years before the dawn of the sexual revolution, the characters all seemed to be living in a world of moral apathy, with attitudes and behaviors more appropriate to a novel set in the 1970s. Maybe that's not an anachronism given the world of inherited wealth in which the novel is set (maybe aristocratic New Yorkers, and the social climbers who finagle their way into their lives, really have always acted this way, how would I know--but it does seem likely that this is yet another example of pop entertainment rewriting history to make it seem as though Americans of prior eras all had the same basic mindset and values as the 21st century author). In any event, I soon found that I had little desire to visit this setting or be with these people.  I admired the male author's ability to convincingly write in the voice of a female narrator (or maybe the audible performance by a female performer just covered up any flaws), but I didn't really enjoy that character, despite her voracious reading, which is usually the easiest way to make me like someone in either the real or the fictional world.  In the end, one character's decision to give up the most amoral aspect of his life provided a somewhat hopeful ending, but it wasn't quite enough to redeem the otherwise pointless plot. 

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Trade Paperback [original publication date 1959]).  3.5 Stars out of 5.  

One of those Sci-Fi classics I always meant to read but never got around to in my Sci-Fi loving teenage years.  The Bad: Like most such polemical twilight zone morality tales, the plot's destination is boringly obvious from the outset, and the story hasn't aged all that well.  If it is possible to write an engaging page-turner set in a monastery (which I highly doubt), this author hasn't pulled it off. The Good: The author demonstrates that he's well versed in some of the inevitable patterns and recurrent themes of history.  (It was an interesting experience in mental synthesis to be reading this book at the same time I was listening, during my commutes, to the beginning chapters of Will Durant's, The Age of Faith, on audible, describing the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of a Medieval Christianity which would preserve and eventually seek to restore the lost texts and scientific knowledge of the classical world.) And there are a few eery symbolic touches that work well, as well as a couple of scenes that will resonate with me for a long time.

Grace Is not God's Back-Up Plan.  Adam Miller. Paperback. 4 stars out of 5. 

We know that Greek was not Paul's primary language, and historians inform us that he did not write all that well in that tongue. (His parents, devoted Jews, would have given him enough Hellenic learning to get on in the world, but would have been primarily interested in his instruction in Judaism and the Law.)  That may be one explanation for why Paul's epistles, on theologically difficult and sophisticated issues which he was trying to express in a second language, which were then translated from that not-very-fluent Greek, into the Latin Vulgate and then into modern European languages, remain difficult for most readers to follow, and have led to so much theological confusion over the centuries.  

Or maybe it's just us.  

In this book, the author paraphrases Paul's epistle to the Romans into a modern English.  It's a paraphrase, and not a translation.  He's not claiming that the original Greek supports his revisions.  That would be an exercise in linguistics, where the point of this book is for one Latter-day Saint, speaking personally and without authority, to give us his own subjective understanding of certain doctrinal truths as he feels they are being expressed by Paul.   Miller wants us to better understand the central role of grace in Christ's plan for our happiness.  It's a fine effort, and there are some gems of wisdom to be found here.  I was especially moved by his take on Romans 14: "When you meet together for worship, welcome those weak in faith.  Welcome those with worries and doubts and questions. But don't argue with them. Don't welcome them in as a chance to prove --again-- that you're right about something. . . .  God welcomes everyone, insiders and outsiders both.  Who are you to judge what people wear or eat?  Who are you to judge how people think or vote? Let God sort it out. . . .  Judge no more.  If you're desperate to use your keen sense of judgment, use it on yourself."

The Age of Faith (The Story of Civilization Book IV), by Will Durant. (Simon and Schuster 1950).  Audible. 5 stars out of 5.

James Madison argued, in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (one of the most important but long forgotten tracts of the American founding), that Christianity had lost its way and soiled its purity when it had been joined with the secular government:

[e]xperience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. 

This fourth volume in the Durants' amazing work of popular history can be read as a 10,000 page treatise in support of Madison's claim.  

Covering roughly a millennium, beginning with Constantine's embrace of Christianity and the final decades of the western half of the Roman Empire, and concluding shortly before the beginning of the Renaissance, the book tells us everything we could want to know about the apostasy and silliness which infected the Christian Church, and the society it was built on, during this period. But it is not a diatribe, and the achievements of the Christian faith, and of its most important and enlightened adherents and advocates, in at least preventing the post-Roman world from falling into total anarchy, and in reforming and humanizing the world, are also highlighted. The achievements and the failings of Islam and Judaism during this time period are also covered, respectfully and at length. 

Stefan Rudnicki's narration is excellent, and, as with the other books in the series, the most engaging information is not the copious history, but the author's wry asides and wise commentaries on human nature and the inevitable patterns of life and history which emerge from the same. ("Transmission is to civilization what reproduction is to life."  "War does one good.  It teaches people geography.") 

There is an attitude in these books which, if widely emulated, would go a long way towards making the world a better place. That attitude, for lack of a better phrase, is non-polemical. This is scholarship largely devoid of ideological intent, without any particular bones to pick or premises to prosecute.  We are told the story, and its effects.  The follies of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, are offered up plainly and without sensationalizing. But the strengths of each movement, and its advances and gains, are also plainly acknowledged and credited. In discussing the lives of hypocrites and sinners, due regard is provided to their evils but also to their contributions. In discussing the lives of the saintly and devout, their goodness is acknowledged unashamedly, but without hagiography.  We meet scholars whose works advanced our understanding of the world, despite being punctuated by superstition and falsehood, and men and women of faith and valor, who sometimes acted in ways we would find horrifying. There were advances during these so called dark-ages, as well as retreats, in science, art, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. Much of the wisdom and learning of the classical world was lost, but much of it was also preserved and transmitted, to eventually play its own role in the development of thought and science.  Each of the three great Abrahamic religions of the day had their own important roles in that process.  And none are short shrifted. 

If we could be as non-partisan and temperamentally mild, about the ideological struggles of our own time, as the Durants are about history, the world would be a gentler place. Then again, history doesn't advance that way when it's moving forward.  

The best expression of the author's attitude is perhaps that taken from his own words, on scholarship, from pages 343-344 of the hardcover, following his praise of the achievements of Islam: "As men are members of one another, and generations are moments in a family line, so civilizations are units in a larger whole whose name is history; they are stages in the life of man.  Civilization is polygenetic--it is the cooperative product of many peoples, ranks, and faiths; and no one who studies its history can be a bigot of race or creed.  Therefore the scholar, though he belongs to his country through affectionate kinship, feels himself also a citizen of that Country of the Mind which knows no hatreds and no prejudices, or racial discriminations, or religious animosities; and he accords his grateful homage to any people that has borne the torch and enriched his heritage."

The Alps, a Human History from Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond by Stephen O'Shea (Norton 2017) Hardback. 2.5 stars out of 5.  Enjoyable anecdotes I can use when I follow my dream and to start a new profession and become a tourist guide in Switzerland. 

Lincoln at Gettysburg by Gary Wills, Trade Paperback. (Simon and Schuster 1992) . 5 Stars out of Five. An absolutely amazing little book, about an absolutely amazing little speech.  Especially helpful, in these days of resurgent Southern revanchism, and Calexit, as an introduction to some of the Constitutional and political arguments in favor of the inviolability of the Union, which were key to Lincoln's understanding of his role. 

The Once and Future Liberal, After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla, Hardcover (Harper Collins 2017). Two stars out of 5.  It would be heartening to see a liberal take on the evils of identity politics, and be willing to say that anti-white racism is still racism, and that anti-male sexism is still sexism.  At times, Lilla almost seems to be doing that.  But alas, his true concern, like those of the identity-advocates he seemingly chastises, is purely cosmetic.  His criticism of identity politics isn't that it is wrong, which it is, but that it doesn't sell well.  (Also, somehow, its Reagan's fault.)  He provides his own best analogy of his true problem with identity politics: He believes the 92 Democratic Convention should have let a pro-life speaker, whose liberal credentials were otherwise flawless, speak.  It was stupid and counterproductive to prevent him from doing so.  Not because Lilla is, himself, pro-life, but because he passionately wants pro-choice politicians to win.  And pretending to ideological diversity will help achieve that goal.  His criticisms of identity politics is ultimately the same: He's fine with the substance of liberal racism, and considers the violations of the 14th Amendment to which white and Asian males are regularly subjected to be among the Democratic party's greatest achievements.  He just doesn't think these points of view should be advertised. 

Best Remembered Poems, by Martin Gardner (Dover 1992) Trade Paperback. 2 Stars out of 5.  A collection of poems which were famous and beloved in their day, many of which the editor doesn't particularly like. Thus, more an interesting historical reference than something worth reading for its own sake. 

Metaphors be With You by Dr. Mardy Grothe (Harper 2016) Hardback.  I love great quotations, and this book had some excellent ones.  2,500 to be exact: 10 each on 250 different subjects.  The organizing theme, allegedly, is that each quotation is either a metaphor, a simile, or an example of personification.  But I'm guessing that theme was introduced after the fact, for marketing purposes, and that an earlier edition of this book exists out there somewhere with a different title and subtitle, as every list of ten quotations almost invariably contains at least one, if not two or three, quotations which are not metaphorical or figurative in any but the broadest possible sense (in that all language is etymologically symbolic).  Here for example is Goethe on laughter: "There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at."  A great quote to be sure.  But not really figurative, unless the word betray is a metaphor for reveal.  But that's pushing it.  And here's another thought on character, from Stendahl: "One can acquire everything in solitude except character."  Not sure I agree, but in any event, not really metaphorical.  And Thoreau's famous statement on reading: "How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."  What exactly is being compared to what, figuratively, in this statement?  Unless the word "era" is only typically allowed to be applied to historical epochs, and not to the seasons of an individual's life (a dubious proposition), there is nothing metaphorical about this statement at all.  This trend bothered me enough that finding the quotes which broke the alleged reason for the collection soon became more interesting to me than finding the really good or resonant quotes.  Still, a great collection, worth having and using. Or just a good book for toilet reading. 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Broadway Books 2011) Trade Paperback. 3 stars out of 5.  A fun page-turner, especially for people who, like me, grew up in the 80s.  Adheres a little too closely to the plot which is laid out at the beginning, without any unexpected deviations which might have made it a better read.  Still, should be a great 2 hour movie. Very much looking forward to it. 

G. Vern Albright Tribute and Obituary

George LaVern (“Vern”) Albright (88), beloved husband and father, prominent local attorney, Air Force Veteran, and LDS Patriarch, passed away in the early morning of July 7, 2017, from heart failure, after 64 years of marriage to his Las Vegas High School sweetheart, Barbara Carruth.

Vern was born on May 30, 1929, in Albuquerque New Mexico, to parents George Harwood (“Bud”) Albright, a future Clark County Commissioner and “Father of the Las Vegas Convention Center” and Marjorie Eugenia Hageman Albright, a future beloved, beautiful and sophisticated grandmother. 

Vern was not blessed with a stable childhood, and spent his early formative years living with different relatives or foster families, in many different places, including New Mexico, California, Nevada, and Texas.  Beginning in the 7^th Grade, Vern was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada by his father Bud and his stepmother Ellen Finnerty Albright.  Vern was the oldest of Bud’s three sons, and had the privilege of being an older brother to local Police Officer Karl Albright, now deceased (married to Sue Ellen Howell) and to local Convention Industry member Ken Albright (married to Kathy Oden).  Vern, Karl, and Ken carried on a weekly tradition of eating lunch together with their father for many years during their adult lives.

Shortly after he moved to Las Vegas, Vern’s friend Carl Christensen invited him to join a local Boy Scout Troop where he gained many friends, and from which he earned his Eagle at 16.  Vern met his future wife Barbara Carruth (daughter of Scott Heber Carruth and Ella Calista Earl Carruth) during their days at Las Vegas High School, and remained smitten with her for the rest of his life.  Two days before his death, he told one of his grandsons, “Barbara’s touch still electrifies me the same way it did when we started dating.”  Vern graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1947, and was chosen by his classmates to give the Graduation Speech for their class.  

At 18 years old, Vern was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by his lifelong friend, Lloyd D. (“Duko”) George. Vern was devoted to the Church and accepted and magnified many callings throughout his life.  He served a full-time LDS Mission to South Africa from 1950 to 1952, and was able to be one of the first 8 missionaries to open the work in Rhodesia.  He remained close to his Mission President, and to many of his missionary companions, for many decades after his mission.  Vern would later serve as a Bishop of the Las Vegas 28^th Ward (“The Great 28^th”), as a Mission President in Tampa Florida (1988-1991), as a Single Adult Ward Bishop, and, for many years, as Patriarch of the Las Vegas, Nevada Stake. 

After his time in South Africa, Vern was finally able to marry his beloved Barbara, who had graduated as Salutatorian from the University of Nevada Reno, and was working as a teacher.  They were married on August 25, 1952, in the Salt Lake City Utah Temple, by Spencer W. Kimball. Vern then resumed his studies at Brigham Young University and joined the Air Force ROTC. After he graduated, Vern and Barbara lived in many different locales as Vern served for 4 and ½ years (1954 – 1959) as an officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, fulfilling a boyhood dream to become a pilot.  He would later recount how well he had been prepared to learn to fly, by all of the childhood afternoons he had practiced dive-bombing in his imagination.

Vern and Barbara then lived in Arlington Virginia as Vern attended George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C.  Vern earned his way through school by working graveyard shifts guarding the Capitol building as a U.S. Capitol Policeman.  To balance this job with his rigorous school schedule, he slept in 3 hours shifts throughout the day and night, but still managed to obtain such good grades that he was invited onto the Editorial Board of the Law Review, and graduated early, and with honors, in 1961.

Vern then served briefly as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator for Nevada Howard Cannon, and then relocated with Barbara and their oldest children to Las Vegas, then a small but growing town, with few lawyers and lots of opportunity.  Vern quickly became the only Las Vegas assistant to Nevada’s U.S. Attorney, and subsequently joined the D.A.’s office, which offered higher pay, weekly felony trials, and the chance to do private civil work on the side.  These jobs allowed Vern to obtain invaluable experience, and prosecute over 50 jury trials in his first 18 months as an attorney, often against well-known local attorneys who had been practicing for decades, who were defending the cases by court appointment.  After leaving government practice, Vern continued to be appointed to prosecute criminal cases and also to defend a number of murder trials, but ultimately spent most of his career as a civil litigator, becoming a highly regarded and successful business attorney, and remaining a member of the Bar for over 50 years.  Vern tried his hand at family law, but could never have made a living in that field,  as, whenever a new client tried to hire him to handle a divorce, he would talk them out of getting one, and tell them what they needed to do to fall back in love with their spouse.  The firm he formed in 1970 soon received an AV rating, and still exists today as Albright, Stoddard, Warnick & Albright. In 1973, Vern served as President of the local Kiwanis Club, which, under his tenure, helped to establish and began to sponsor the Varsity Quiz program for CCSD High School students, which is still ongoing to this day, and recently honored Vern for his founding role.

Vern and Barbara raised four children, who all continue to live in Las Vegas: Mark, an attorney (married to Karyn Wasden);  Douglas, a commercial real estate broker (married to Megan Stromer); Karen, a homemaker and real estate agent (married to Paul Callister); and Chris, an attorney (married to Elaine Bowman).  In addition to his wife Barbara, his brother Ken, and his four children, Vern is survived by 18 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren. 

Vern’s children and grandchildren have many fond memories of Vern’s serious side, lecturing and teaching them about the importance of positive thoughts and that they would become what they think about, Emerson’s essay on the law of compensation, and the principles of the Gospel including especially the power of the priesthood, and the miracles he had seen in his own life when he or a loved one were called upon to exercise that power.

Vern’s children and grandchildren also have many fond memories of Vern’s fun side, including how he loved to sing, and teach them all the lyrics to, comedic songs during road trips; how much he enjoyed sneaking up slowly behind someone (in a melodramatic fashion for the benefit of others in the room who could see what was about to happen), and then scream and grab his victim under their arms to scare them when they weren’t paying attention; and how much he loved to embarrass his children on chairlifts by taking off his upper layers of clothing one by one and belting out a song, prompting his children to pretend he wasn’t with them and to ask loudly, “where are you from sir?”  He also loved to sneak out of hospital rooms when he had decided, against a doctor’s orders, that it was time to leave, and rejoiced to find out from a subsequent visitor that he was later being hailed over the intercom to return to his room.

Vern retained a keen intellect up until the end of his life, reading the newspaper daily and exhorting his children to read that day’s Wall Street Journal editorial, sometimes providing them a copy if he suspected they wouldn’t get around to doing so. Vern and Barbara’s children were blessed to be raised, and his grandchildren were blessed to be influenced, by a man who believed in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ; strict honesty; positive thoughts; hard work; service to others; and in doing fun things, which included, at one time or another over the years, motorboating, waterskiing, sailing, motorcycling, shooting, golfing, RVing, snowmobiling, travelling, attending plays and operas, and lots and lots of snow-skiing (but no camping if it could be avoided).  

Vern was a dynamic speaker and leader whose influence will never be forgotten by the many people, young and old, who were blessed by his service to his family, his Church, his clients, his profession, and his community.  His family is blessed by the knowledge he taught us, that, through the loving providence of our Heavenly Father, and the grace of Jesus Christ, we can all be with Vern and our other family members, once again.

Memorial services will be held at the following times and locations:

Viewing. Friday July 14^th, 2017 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the LDS Chapel located at 3400 West Charleston, Las Vegas Nevada 89102. 

Pre-service Viewing. Saturday July 15^th, from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the LDS Chapel located at 3400 West Charleston, Las Vegas Nevada 89102.  

Funeral.  Saturday July 15^th, at 11:00 a.m., at the LDS Chapel located at 3400 West Charleston, Las Vegas Nevada 89102.

Internment. Saturday July 15^th, at 1:30 p.m. Palm Northwest Cemetery. 6701 North Jones Blvd. 

A luncheon will be provided after the Internment, at the Charleston Chapel. 

On the New Biography of Ulysses S. Grant: A Great Man's Legacy Refurbished

Just recently finished American Ulysses, A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, by Ronald C. White (Random House 2016), which I picked up mainly because White's A. Lincoln is one of my favorite Lincoln biographies.  http://www.mytakesonthat.com/2015/09/a-lincoln-by-ronald-c-white-jr.html

I was not disappointed.  Indeed, I loved this book!  

What do you think of when you hear the name Ulysses S. Grant? If you're like I was before starting this biography, the thumbnail sketch you remember from school goes something like this: Great Civil War General (the General who Lincoln had been waiting for, finally, someone willing to fight). But had a drinking problem. And was a lousy President whose administration was rife with graft and corruption. Well, I no longer believe that thumbnail sketch, and I hope this book helps to restore Grant to his once vaunted and now long forgotten reputation. Clearly, he's been shortchanged, and clearly, this author came to love and admire him. Here's what I didn't know about Grant that I know now: 

• The drinking claims were mostly rumor and innuendo, spread by military and political rivals. Other than a brief period of depression early in his military career, while stationed far away from his wife, Grant seems to have relied more on the consolations of literature than liquor to get through life's stressful patches. 
• After marrying he inherited a slave from his Father-in-law. At a time when his poor economic condition might have been remedied by selling the slave, he instead took him to the courthouse and emancipated him.
• He was the first President to mention Native Americans in his inaugural address, and he reformed the governmental agencies overseeing Indian affairs in an attempt to protect Native American rights. 
• He was fiercely committed to civil rights for African Americans living in the South and to the dream of a nation where all Americans were treated equally before the law. Frederick Douglas considered him superior to Lincoln in this regard. 75 years before Presidents like Eisenhower and JFK sent the national guard to enforce desegregation rulings in Southern cities, Grant was sending federal troops to the region to protect black citizens from the violence of the Ku Klux Klan and from white attempts to suppress their votes. Alas, he was ahead of his time. The viciousness of white Southern Democrats and the apathy of white Northern Republicans meant that these policies ended with the end of his second term, as Americans were more concerned with a return to normalcy than following Grant's lead in supporting the rights of freedmen.
• He was a trailblazer in establishing international tribunals to mediate disputes between nations, setting the example by agreeing to submit America's Alabama claims against Britain (for having built and sold raiding ships to the Confederacy) to such a tribunal. 
• Having learned his military skills in the Mexican war, which he came to see as unjust, he sought to improve economic conditions in Mexico and supported efforts to establish a republican form of government in the nation. 
• Yes, his second term was marked by the discovery of graft and corruption among certain of his appointees. But he was never implicated himself, and his own insistence that his administration investigate and prosecute corruption is what brought many of the scandals to light. 
• His quiet leadership in the disputed election which occurred at the end of his second term, reaching out to both parties and both campaigns, and to the Republican controlled Senate and the Democratic controlled House, to agree upon the appointment of an independent commission to determine the outcome, averted a Constitutional crisis in a time when feelings about the Civil War were still strong enough to have otherwise led to a new bout of regional and political violence.\
• A private trip he and his family took around the world at the end of his time in office turned into an unofficial goodwill tour for the United States, which substantially increased the standing of the nation abroad.
• His memoir, written to provide for his wife, in a race against death as he was succumbing to throat cancer (shouldn't have smoked all those Cigars), was an economic sensation in its time, and is still considered today to be of landmark importance both as history and literature. Virtually every President who has written a memoir in the years since has mentioned Grant's memoir as the high mark against which all other entries in the genre are inevitably judged. 
• His funeral procession became the largest public gathering to that time in American history. It was also a moment of national reconciliation, with many confederate veterans in attendance. The four leading pall bearers were two Union Generals and two Confederate Generals. 
• For many years after his death, he was considered as part of a triumvirate of the three most important Presidents: Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. But in subsequent years, Southern scholars criticized the Union's march to the sea and the loss of life Grant was willing to impose and suffer to secure Union victory; and played up the scandals of his second term; while a nation not much interested in Civil Rights forgot his advocacy on behalf of the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution. The old saying that the victors write the history, isn't always true. I'm glad I got to read this.

The Founders' Forgotten Fears

Americans love to mine the lives and words of the founding generation for ammunition in many of our current political battles. That's healthy: certain arguments continue to endure in American life across generations, and as we continue to be inspired by the Declaration of Independence, and guided by the text of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it's important to know and be familiar with the lives and political philosophies of the generation which bestowed those documents upon their heirs. 

But the founders lived in a very different world than the one they helped, in many ways inadvertently, to create.  And the more I learn about them, the more I find myself enjoying the study purely for its own intrinsic value and fascination, and without regard to seeking out ideologically useful quotes or allies.  It is fascinating to simply learn about their world and their lives more clearly, without worrying about any modern applications.  Why, for example, the Third Amendment?  And did they know how infrequently it would come up? 

Here are three things the founders feared, which, for better or worse, don't seem to agitate us much any more, examined here merely to better understand the world of Colonial America, and the mindset of its citizens, without any suggestion, one way or the other, that I agree or disagree with these points of view, or that they are or are not capable of any useful modern application: 

1. Democracy.  When the founders used the term "democracy" they intended it as a pejorative, synonymous with words like "anarchy" or the phrase "mob rule," and they viewed the rise of a democratic ethos in the country with the same degree of horror I now feel about the rise of enthusiasm for Sanders-style socialism among modern Millennials.  The founders opposed hereditary monarchy, but that didn't mean they were ready to turn the governance of the country over to the great unwashed. Even Jefferson, who would spin his Republican party as representing the majority of the common people, and accuse the Federalists, by contrast, of being the party of elitism, would opine that the voice of the people was not typically known for its wisdom. 

The golden mean solution, between hereditary monarchy and democracy, upon which the Founders originally hoped to build the new nation, was known as "filtration."  Indirect, representative, democracy, would ensure that the country's ultimate rulers were chosen through intermediate gatekeeper institutions, so as to prevent the vices of rule by the mob. And so: they created the electoral college, which was originally intended as much more than a mere mathematical exercise. As envisioned at Philadelphia, the members of the electoral college would be those whose lives of prominence proved to their fellow citizens that they were worthy to participate in selecting the American President, a choice which was not to be left to those citizens themselves. That you would have no earthly idea what "elector" you were voting for, whose name would not even appear on the ballot, was not really Madison's original idea. Similarly, for 125 years, until ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, Senators were not chosen by the direct democratic choice of the citizens living in a State, but by the State legislatures, ensuring a degree of separation between the legislators chosen by the people, and the U.S. Senators then chosen by those legislators.  This also provided some handy vertical checks and balances, intended to keep the Federal Government in check. 

We don't hear much about filtration any more (though George Will still likes to use the term), and most Americans are now pretty sure that democracy is what the founders sought to bequeath us. But were we to find ourselves in a face-to-face conversation with one of the founders, Alexander Hamilton let us say, freshly arrived by time machine into our living room, it's hard to say which side of that conversation would be more bemused and startled by tones with which the other used the term democracy.  

2. A standing military. Illustrating a point I have made elsewhere, about the dangers of speaking about the founders in the collective (http://www.mytakesonthat.com/2016/11/the-problem-with-arguments-about-what.html), this next example is not necessarily true, to equal degrees, of all the founders.  But at least the Jeffersonian Republicans, if not always the Hamiltonian Federalists, were deeply concerned about the dangers of a standing military.  Steeped in Roman history, including the military exploits which allowed Julius and Augustus to turn the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, and aware that, for many years, the Praetorian Guard chose the Caesar, the founders were strongly aware, and many were deeply concerned, about the ways in which a country's military could take control of its civilian government, putting an end to self-rule.  Their solution: no standing military in peacetime. 

The founders, alas, could see into the past, but not into the future.  They were aware of the dangers of the Praetorian Guard, but could not foresee the power of biased journalism in an era of mass media communications, controlled by a tiny elite.  

Today, we still hold vigorous "guns vs. butter" debates about the proper scope and extent of our military vs. domestic spending, and we still argue with each other about the propriety of foreign military interventions.  We even have a growing chorus of both liberals and libertarians and now even Trumpian anti-globalist populists arguing we should dramatically downscale the presence of American military bases on foreign soil.  But it has been many, many, decades since any serious political voices in America have claimed that we should disband the military altogether, until the next war, let alone argued that this was necessary to prevent a military takeover of our governmental institutions.  To even suggest such an idea would strike most Americans today as grossly paranoid and delusional.  For that, we can largely thank the honorable way in which our military has comported itself throughout our history.

Unlike that of so many other nations over the course of the past 250 years, our own history offers few if any clear-cut examples of attempted military coups, led by successful or popular generals. Instead, again and again, our military has been a blessing to the nation, and its Generals, from Washington to Grant to Eisenhower, have for the most part respected and renewed the precedent and ideal of civilian control.  If fear of a standing military has subsided, we can thank our military itself for that fact. Over time, both the military's victories and its deference, taken together, have largely obliterated this founding era fear.  The turnaround began when Madison was able to forestall complete disaster for America in the War of 1812, largely due to naval victories brought to him by ships he had voted against building when he served in Congress.  The Military Academy of West Point was seen, for many of its initial years, as a waste of money, and was often on the brink of political defunding, until its graduates proved, during the Mexican American War, and then the Civil War, the worth of professional training for military officers, by repeatedly outgeneralling the untrained political generals.  When we speak, today, of the debt we owe to our Veterans, we should be grateful not only for the lives they laid on the line to bring us ultimate victories in WWI, WWII, and the many battlefields of the Cold War, but also for having done so without becoming a threat to the sovereignty and self-government of the nation they had sworn to serve. 

3. The Rise of a Hereditary Aristocracy.  It will probably never be possible for Americans born after 1800 to understand the acute foreboding with which the Revolutionary generation viewed this threat.  It was in their minds all too likely that the work of the Revolution would be undone by the rise of an elite and hereditary aristocracy, to be treated with deference by the rest of the citizenry, and afforded special privileges and preferences under the law. And who could blame them for fearing this eventuality?  They were not only rebelling from a society in which such a hereditary aristocracy had been an ingrained element of societal order for as long as anyone could remember, but they were also well-read enough to know that the same had been true of virtually every society in the history of Western Civilization, from the Greek City-States to the Roman Empire, with aristocrats once again rising to power in the feudal Europe which succeeded to govern the middle ages after the fall of Rome, including the aristocratic society of Britain.   

So great was this fear, that it almost prevented the formation of the Constitution.  George Washington's attendance at the Philadelphia Convention was vital to the success of that endeavor, especially as Hamilton and Madison, who had organized and called for the States to send delegates to the conference, had no intention of using the meeting for its advertised purpose.  Madison understood that his most important job, prior to the convention, was ensuring Washington's attendance, the only thing which could give the meeting any veneer of legitimacy for the radical and transformative work which he planned to accomplish once it was in session.  But there was a problem: a group of Revolutionary War Veterans had formed an organization which they called the Society of the Cincinnati, which was to hold its first meeting in Philadelphia at the same time as Madison and Hamilton's planned convention.  Washington had been invited to attend as the society's honorary first president.  But when word broke that future membership in the society would be bequeathed upon its initial members' first-born sons, Americans smelled a rat, and began castigating the society as the possible germ from which an American aristocracy might grow. Washington had to decline to attend the society's first meeting, to avoid being accused of seeking to establish an aristocratic body in America.  But to save face with his former compatriots, he offered an excuse which did not take any side in the criticism which the society's establishment was generating. This made Madison's job, of getting Washington to endure the awkwardness of setting aside that excuse to attend the Constitutional Convention, to be held in the same city and at the same time , infinitely more difficult.  That he somehow pulled it off anyway is one of many testaments to the man's political genius.  Without Washington's chairmanship of the convention's deliberations, ratification of the proposed Constitution by the States would likely never have occurred. With it, ratification became a foregone conclusion in many locales.  

John Adams, for his part, would go to his grave believing that the rise of an American aristocracy was inevitable, as the history of virtually every other nation he had ever studied amply demonstrated.  Rather than forestall it, he felt its inevitable rise should be accounted for in the government's structures, and he believed that this was the chief reason for states and the national government to have a bicameral legislature, as the Senate of any state or national government would inevitably become the place where the aristocrats' views were promulgated, and where the aristocrats should be segregated, to be checked and balanced against the commoners' assembly or congressional house, and by the restraint of a powerful executive.  His publication of these views, in treatises on government published after his return from England, did more to damage his reputation, then and now, than perhaps any other act in his life.  At the time he was labelled, at best, a crank, and at worst, a monarchist (Jefferson's favorite charge against the Federalists). And today it is argued that Adams clearly became irrelevant after his initial contributions to the fight for a congressional resolution of independence, as his time abroad as an ambassador to the United States, separated him from the developing political philosophies of the younger minds who were writing the Federalist Papers, in which the need for checks and balances were based upon entirely new premises.  
This reaction demonstrates how early the fear of a rising aristocracy had waned once the Constitution was in place, as an increasingly larger and larger share of Americans, began demanding an increasingly egalitarian society, with such eventual consensus that the fear of any threat from an emerging aristocratic class soon dissipated. Today, we still worry about elites having too much power in our society, but these worries mainly focus on those who control wealth, or who occupy the spotlight in, or exercise control over, the news and entertainment media, or on large multinational corporations.  If the wealth and power of these families and these corporations tends to be inherited, then the fears of an earlier generation about the emergence of an aristocracy may well still come to pass.  But nobody seems to think it will be titled or officially recognized; let alone given sole legal access to a Senate which has become the equivalent of the English House of Lords. Some might argue that an unnamed and invisible aristocracy might be even worse than an officially recognized one.  But until Bill Gates starts asking his fellow citizens to kiss his ring, the fear of an emergent aristocracy will likely remain in the past for some time to come.  

Sources: The Idea of America; Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different; and The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by Gordon S. Wood; American Creation and The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis; John Adams by David McCullough; Washington, A Life and Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow; Thomas Jefferson, the Art of Power by Jon Meacham; James Madison by Lynn Cheney.

Analogies, Similes, and Metaphors.

White privilege is to modern liberal orthodoxy what original sin is to the dogmas of creedal Christianity.  It's not your fault, but you're guilty anyway.

For people like me, a conservative Republican who disdains Donald Trump, but considered Hillary by far the greater evil, contemplating the next four years is a lot like the old joke about growing old. I don't relish what's coming but expect it to be far better than the alternative.

The Bundy family / sovereign citizens movement, are, to right-wing America, what Michael Brown and the Black Lives Matter movement are, to left-wing America.  Both groups rely on false narratives and incendiary rhetoric, to invite the radicalization of their followers.  Both groups received far more mainstream support from their most closely aligned political party and its media representatives than they should have.  And both groups have inspired and incited the murders of police officers.  If the Black Lives Matter movement has caused by far the greater harm, murder, and mayhem, that's only because they have more powerful forces in the mainstream media and in the universities on their side. UPDATE: The same analogy applies to the alt-right and antifa, two sides of the same fascist coin. 

Listening to NPR cover a Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama campaign event, is a lot like reading an article in the Deseret News about the First Presidency attending the groundbreaking for a new LDS Temple.  Very uplifting for the faithful, but not exactly journalism.

The left's obsession with the bizarre meme that Russia hacked the 2016 elections to give us Donald Trump, is akin to the right's obsession in 2008, with the bizarre meme that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.  Both claims are based on innuendo instead of hard facts, and both claims are a diversion from more important concerns, revealing more about the psychology of their most ardent proponents, than about the more important critiques which could be made of either politician.  Again, given its support in the mainstream media, the Russia-hacked-the-election mythos is doing far more harm. 

Attending a modern American university as a conservative must be very similar to attending divinity school as an atheist.  If you aren't seeking instruction in the tenets of social justice warriordom, let alone seeking to join its priesthood, you must often wonder what on earth you are doing there.  

The role of the Southern Poverty Law Center in modern American politics is essentially the same as the role of the Grand Inquisitor in medieval Catholicism: to persecute heretics and others who dissent against the universal modern faith that everyone is required to believe in. 
   

On the New York Times, Part I

Every New York Times story regarding economics, politics, socialism, communism, or the economic conditions of foreign countries, should be required to be accompanied by the following disclaimer, at the beginning of the story: 

DISCLAIMER: You are about to read a news article published by The New York Times, concerning the politics or economics of a foreign country.  Before doing so, please be aware of the following facts: In the 1930s a Pulitizer Prize was awarded for a series of articles by Walter Duranty which were published in this newspaper. These articles contained glowing reports of life in the Soviet Union, which parroted Stalin’s lies and propaganda, and assisted Stalin in covering up the brutal measures he was employing to liquidate private ownership of farms by the Kulaks, an effort which led to a man-made famine which killed up to 12 million innocent people.  As the forced famine was going on, and was being reported on honestly by other news outlets, The New York Times ran articles which denied other reporters’ truthful reporting on the subject, and Duranty and the newspaper insulted the millions of victims by cavalierly proclaiming: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” The New York Times, May 14, 1933.  In 2003, Ukrainian descendants of the victims of the famine, now known as the Holodor, asked the Pulitzer Committee to rescind the Pulitzer for these New York Times published articles, and the Committee asked the New York Times to respond.  The New York Times retained an independent historian as a consultant, of its choosing, to study and report on the issue. The consultant chosen by The New York Times advised the paper that  the prize should be taken away "for the sake of The New York Times' honor."  The New York Times forwarded this report to the Pulitzer Committee, but included a cover letter in which the paper rejected its own consultant’s conclusions, and argued instead that rescission of the Pulitzer would set an unfortunate precedent. The cover letter also argued, without apparent irony, that rescission of the prize would be akin to the former Soviet airbrushing of history (with which The New York Times had so helpfully assisted the Soviet Union). The Prize was not rescinded.  Please carefully take this history into account before reading the following news article written by one of Walter Duranty’s ideological successors, now working as a reporter on this newspaper’s staff: 

On doing hard things

I posted this on facebook once upon a time, and got a very positive response.  When I needed to find it recently to send it to someone who I thought it would help, I realized just how hard it is to find old posts on facebook, so I'm posting it here where it will be easier to retrieve.

THOUGHTS ON MARRIAGE, MISSIONS, AND DOING HARD THINGS. It's been wonderful over the past few weeks to observe a couple of recently called Latter-day Saint missionaries get ready to leave for the MTC this month, to be with them in the Temple, as they entered into covenants which will help them stay true as they journey to Billings Montana and Tokyo Japan, to teach people of Christ. I've been remembering how hard the first few weeks in the field, after the MTC, were for me, as I discovered the reality of the day-to-day grind I had, unknowingly, apparently dedicated myself to perform. I stayed the course through that challenging and miserable time, not because I wanted to, and not on the strength of my testimony or love for the Savior, but for the lowliest of all possible reasons: the sheer embarrassment I would have felt in giving up and coming home.

I am so grateful for that embarrassment. It kept me on my mission long enough to make it to the days when I was excited to wake up in the morning, and grateful to be there. It never got completely easy, but it got quite a bit easier, and often very joyous, after that initial rough patch, and one or two more along the way, and I experienced things during the last year of my mission I wouldn't give up for anything in this world.

I've had occasion in the past few years to sometimes chat and try to counsel with people who were going through a difficult time period in their marriage, sometimes in the very early months of their marriage, when they are discovering that life is not a Disney movie or a pop song, and they had to decide why they got married, and if they were willing to stick through some inevitable initial difficulties, in order to build a life that would not necessarily always be easy, but could be meaningful and joyous.

I have come to believe that a respect for the institution of marriage, as such, and a general understanding that staying married is simply "what married people are expected to do" kept many members of my parents' generation married, through initial hard times, allowing them to eventually flourish, and their stable union to eventually be a blessing to their children, raised with a sense that the world is a safe and secure place. But we have lost that mentality in our modern world. Indeed, we stigmatize that era, the 1950s, as a time of mindless conformity by men in grey flannel suits, instead of remembering that the adults of the 1950s had lived through WWI, the great depression, and WWII, and might just have some wisdom a later generation missed as it lived through a somewhat easier youth, experiencing the dawn of videogames and multiplexes.

I am sure that our no-fault divorce laws and our no-stigma divorce culture have been a great blessing in the lives of many people who might otherwise have been trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, but I think that, overall, we are a poorer world for having lost the sense that marriage is intended to be a commitment, and quickly abandoning commitments when we learn they aren't as fun as we had hoped, is to be avoided, perhaps even shunned as sometimes dishonorable. I'm not criticizing any one who has been divorced or come home early from a mission or given up on any other dream or goal. There are numerous perfectly valid and strong and legitimate reasons for all such decisions, and I have no right, nor ability, to judge anyone else's life. I'm just saying that perhaps we have lost something in our instant gratification society in recent years, that, had it not been lost, might have kept some people married, or kept some people in college, or kept some people on their own personal mission, whatever that mission may have been, long enough to get past the tough parts and get to the good parts.

I'm not sure what that lost thing was. Perhaps the WWII generation, to motivate their sacrifices, needed to be indoctrinated into putting as high a premium on honor and duty as we have been indoctrinated to put on happiness and success. Or perhaps it had to do with higher percentages of Americans attending church during previous times, where, through the message of Christ's life and selfless death, they would have imbibed the idea that a life lived purely for one's own personal satisfaction and happiness, will, paradoxically, not be nearly as fulfilling or meaningful as a life in which sometimes we do things that we don't want to do, or don't bring us instant gratification and immediate happiness, but that we feel we are supposed to do. I really don't know.

But as I've had these things on my mind lately, I came across this quote from one of my favorite writers, a staunch Roman Catholic who spoke as one having authority to an earlier generation, which I think teaches a lost principle that is applicable to all faiths, and should be remembered at the beginning of missions, marriages, and before embarking on numerous other commitments as well:

"[I]n everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender. In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. . . . [This is what justifies] the general human feeling of marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault, or, at least, an ignominy . . . . Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage. . . . Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging." G.K. Chesterton.

My New Year's Resolution

In an attempt to infuse my life with more spirituality, I'm going to blog my way through the scriptures, to make sure I'm actually meaningfully pondering what I read:

http://blogthebofm.blogspot.com/

Books Read in 2016

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Penguin Random House Crown/Achetype 2012).  Audible. 4 stars out of 5. 
A book that criticizes some of the modern trends I find most maddening, and also vindicates my entire way of being.  What's not to like? Key Quote: "Any time people come together in a meeting, we're not necessarily getting the best ideas; we're just getting the ideas of the best talkers."

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Barnes and Noble Softcover Classics edition.  2 stars out of 5.
An evil fable.  I was surprised how little plot there was. If you know the main idea, which almost everyone does, there's really little need to read the book, which doesn't offer much story beyond that main idea.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Trade Paperback 60th Anniversary Edition. 4 stars out of 5.
A re-read of an old favorite.  It's interesting how at different ages and different times in my life the same story seems to mean different things to me.  In this reading, the book really didn't seem to be about the dangers of totalitarianism or censorship, but about the dangers of mass media, and living a life of complacent acceptance of things we would really rather not accept.

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1955) Kindle.  5 stars out of 5.
The best biography of C.S. Lewis is his own memoir of his conversion from Atheism to Christianity. Key quotes: "A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.  There are traps everywhere . . . .  God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous." "The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation."

Tour of the Jungfrau Region.  A Two Week Trek in the Berner Oberland by Kev Reynolds (Cicerone Press 2012)  5 Stars out of 5.
A book for dreaming.

Walking in the Bernese Oberland.  Over 100 Walking Routes by Kev Reynolds (Cicerone Press 2015).  4 stars out of 5.  
The book which taught me to seek out Oeschinensee, a locals favorite known to few tourists, where we spent my personal favorite hours of our Swiss vacation.  Key quotes: "With the classic trio of Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau as its most iconic symbol, the Bernese Oberland hosts some of the best-known mountains in the Alps.  Rising out of lush green meadows they tower above chalets bright with geraniums and petunias; a stark contrast of snow, ice and rock against a kaleidoscope of flower shrub and pasture; an awesome backdrop to an Alpine wonderland." "Every corner of the Berner Oberland range has its own touch of magic."

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic 2016).  Hardcover.  3 stars out of 5. 
An enjoyable Potter-world take on the classic Butterfly Effect time travel plot device (the best version of which is still to be found in Ray Bradbury's classic short story "A Sound of Thunder.").  As a book, it's a fun way to spend a couple of hours, but not likely to pass the test of time in the same way as the novels.  I suspect it's better as a play and would like to see it someday.

Flashpoint, by Geoff Johns, Andy Kubert, and Sandra Hope. Paperback Edition Graphic Novel (DC Comics 2011).  3 stars out of 5. 
Another take on the butterfly effect story.  In some ways better, and in some ways less so, than Rowling's version.

The Life of Greece, by Will Durant (Simon & Schuster 1939) Audible Edition (Narrated by Stephan Rudnicki).  5 stars out of 5.  
To be ignorant of "Greek thought and life, and of the arts in which the Greeks expressed their thought and sentiment," is, in the words of Charles Eliot Norton, to remain "ignorant of the best intellectual and moral achievements" of the race of man.  If this is true, then it is truly tragic that Americans no longer know what we should about ancient Greece and its key personalities, because the ruthlessly utilitarian nature of our educational reforms for the past century have cut us off from our heritage as the heirs of Western Civilization.  Reading this book is one way I have tried to remedy this deficit in my education, and to restore that which was stolen from me by John Dewey.
The book is magnificent, not just for the history it covers, but for the way that Will Durant has with words, and for his aphoristic asides on the inevitable patterns of history ("A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean." "It is as difficult to begin a civilization without robbery as it is to maintain it without slaves." "Around every Rome hover the Gauls; around every Athens some Macedon.")
The Audible Version, read by narrator Stephan Rudnicki, one of my favorites, who also reads several of Audible's versions of Orson Scott Card's books, is amazing.  The book led me to believe this: There are no new or modern ideas.  Every idea I have ever heard or read, about philosophy, literature, parody, satire, humor, art, science, medicine, atheism, politics, social science, economics, etc., can it seems be found, in its original and nascent form, in the writings of some ancient Greek.  Nor are there any original ways for a society to commit suicide.  Every version of societal decay and dissolution and fall from prosperity and prominence has been reenacted hundreds of times before in the various epochs of the hundreds of city-states of ancient Greece.  All that is wrong with America today might be remedied if we knew enough about this history to heed its warnings.  But we don't.  So we won't.
Key quotes: which in this book prove the enduring nature of the repeating patterns of history. "Excepting machinery, there is hardly anything secular in our culture that does not come from Greece.  Schools, gymnasiums, arithmetic, geometry, history, rhetoric, physics, biology, anatomy, hygiene, therapy, cosmetics, poetry, music, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, theology, agnosticism, skepticism, stoicism, epicureanism, ethics, politics, idealism, philanthropy, cynicism, tyranny, plutocracy, are all Greek words for cultural forms seldom originated, but in many cases first matured for good or evil by the abounding energy of the Greeks."
"All of the problems that disturb us today --the cutting down of forests and the erosion of the soil; the emancipation of woman and the limitation of the family; the conservatism of the established, and the experimentalism of the unplaced, in morals, music, and government; the corruptions of politics and the perversions of conduct; the conflict of religion and science, and the weakening of the supernatural supports of morality; the war of the classes, the nations, and the continents; the revolutions of the poor against the economically powerful rich, and of the rich against the politically powerful poor; the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between individualism and communism, between the East and the West -- all these agitated, as if for our instruction, the brilliant and turbulent life of ancient Hellas. There is nothing in Greek civilization that does not illuminate our own."
"Individualism in the end destroys the group, but in the interim it stimulates personality, mental exploration, and artistic creation.  Greek democracy was corrupt and incompetent, and had to die.  But when it was dead men realized how beautiful its heyday had been; and all later generations of antiquity looked back to the centuries of Pericles and Plato as the zenith of Greece, and of all history."
"Historians divide the past into epochs, years, and events, as thought divides the world into groups, individuals, and things; but history, like nature, knows only continuity amid change: . . .  history makes no leaps."
"Equality is unnatural; and where ability and subtlety are free, inequality must grow until it destroys itself in the indiscriminate poverty of social war; liberty and equality are not associates but enemies. The concentration of wealth begins by being inevitable, and ends by being fatal."
"Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.  Hence the road to power in Greek commercial cities was simple: to attack the aristocracy, defend the poor, and come to an understanding with the middle classes."
"Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.  That the Greeks, so far as our knowledge goes, were the first to achieve this recognition and this freedom in both philosophy and government is the secret of their accomplishment, and of their importance in history."
"Science and philosophy, in the history of states, reach their height after decadence has set in; wisdom is a harbinger of death."
"No great nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself."

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro (Simon & Schuster 2010).  Trade Paperback Edition.  3 Stars out of 5.  
I remember walking into a music store in Provo Utah shortly after it was revealed that Milli Vanilli were not really singing on their CDs.  Scratched and destroyed CDs of their music were hanging from the rafters, donated by outraged one-time fans.  I found this perplexing.  I was not a fan of Milli Vanilli, but if I had been, would the music I liked somehow become less likeable, the tunes less hummable, the hooks less engaging, because Milli Vanilli didn't sing them?  Somebody wrote that music.  Someone sat down and played the tunes, or at least programmed a synthesizer to do so.  And somebody went into a recording studio somewhere and sang the songs.  If you were a fan, wouldn't the proper response to the discovery of the fraud be to keep listening to the music, while demanding to know who really crafted this music, so you could buy that anonymous person's next, no-longer anonymous, CD? If scholarship decides that Rembrandt didn't paint one of his famous works, but a student probably did so, why does the painting's value decrease?  If the painting was at one time highly regarded, isn't the painting itself still worthy of appreciation on its own merits, for whatever artistic talent it displays, regardless of whose talent was thereby displayed?
Most of those who dispute the judgment of history that Shakespeare wrote his own plays do so on the grounds that the plays are so well-written that the man from Stratford was not possibly sufficiently educated or experienced in the ways of court to have done so.  But I wonder, if a majority of scholars were ever to decide that Shakespeare didn't write the words, what would happen to the reputation of the plays themselves? Would they suffer in popularity and eventually be forgotten, like so many other works from that same time period?  This book, alas, does not address that question.
It does, however, address another question which I find equally intriguing: the psychology of conspiracy theorists, who, I have often noted, tend to know far more about their own theories than they do about the official history (and the evidence for the same) which they are challenging.  This is as true of moon-landing deniers and JFK-was-killed-by-the-CIA claimants as it is of Shakespearean authorship question devotees.
The book gives us a historical blow-by-blow of the rise and fall of the Bacon partisans and then the Oxford partisans, and their attempts to win legitimacy for their theories that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone else.  It's a fascinating story, that says more about the philosophical movements of the eras in question ("Higher Criticism" of biblical studies in the Bacon era, and Freudian psychology in the Oxford) than it does about who wrote Shakespeare.
The author does eventually get to that question, in a final chapter which (Spoiler Alert) argues that only Shakespeare could have written Shakespeare (although he collaborated with other playwrights, a common practice at the time, on at least one early play and two or three later ones).  The main evidence for Shakespeare's authorship, in addition to the historically impossible hurdles to alternative theories, seems to be (at least in Shapiro's telling) that his plays were so clearly written with specific members of his company in mind, whose physical characteristics and acting ability (as well as language and singing talents) would need to have been intimately known to the author of the plays, ruling out anyone who wasn't a member of the company, at the time the plays were written and first produced. This theory is backed up by Shakespeare's habit of sometimes mistakenly writing the name of the intended actor for whom the part was written, in lieu of the character, a mistake which sometimes was repeated in early published versions of his works. This renders fairly ridiculous the manner in which Oxford partisans breezily overcome the fact that he died before many of Shakespeare's plays were ever staged, by contending that they were written before Oxford's death, and stored up to be staged later. Ridiculous: the actors who appeared in the plays match the members of the company when they were produced, and many of the parts were clearly written with particular members of the company (active at that specific time) in mind.
A fun book, the last 75 pages or so is all you really need to read if you want to know the basic arguments in favor of the case that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.  

Presence, by Amy Cuddy Audible. 3 stars out of 5. There are some good motivational ideas here, in a book which is a great follow-up to Quiet.  The science of power-posing is, of course, the type of thing which will inevitably be debunked by some new study which fails to replicate Cuddy's results.  But hey, if it works for any particular reader: why not?  There's a reason they test new medicines against a placebo, and we all need whatever placebos help us get through the day more effectively.  Maybe it's even real stuff. Couldn't hurt.  And it makes a strange kind of logical sense.

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright (Vintage Books 2006) Trade Paperback 5 Stars out of 5.  Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt always asks his first-time guests two questions: (i) Was Alger Hiss guilty of being a spy? (Yes-see Sam Tanenhaus's biography of Whittaker Chambers); (ii) Have you read The Looming Tower? Well, now that I have read this 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner, if I ever go on Hugh's show I'll be able to answer both questions correctly.

The book tells a vitally important story, in a masterfully engaging, fascinating, and compelling style.  It is a book which all Americans living in the post 9/11 world really have a duty to read.  Nevertheless, I didn't get around to it for a long, long time after it was published, and now I regret it.  Here is the history of the men whose writings and ideas created the radical Islamic movement that emerged in the post WWII era, and eventually swept far too much of the Near-East from 1990 to 2000, and lives with us still in the form of ISIS.  The conditions that allowed for this movement to emerge and be successful are many and varied, and all of them need to be better understood.  But mostly, this is a book that will make you angry at the inevitable inefficiencies of big government, as it describes the bureaucratic red tape and intra-agency rivalries that kept anyone in the government from connecting the dots, all of which dots were possessed by our government, but not known to any one person. Again and again, in the final pages of the book, we learn that the FBI asked the CIA for information, which the CIA had but would not reveal, and which would have allowed the FBI, based on the information they already had, to investigate and apprehend the hijackers in time to halt their plans.  Hollywood likes to portray the CIA as dangerous because of its terrible power: a ruthless, omniscient, omnipotent force which can tap into security cameras the world over to hunt down and assassinate its internal enemies including anyone seen talking to Jason Bourne, oh my!  If only.  To anyone reading this book or Legacy of Ashes, it soon becomes very clear that just the opposite is true: the security services of the U.S. Government are, more often than not, dangerous because of their typical bureaucratic governmental incompetence, not because of their efficiency.

Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, by Corey Olsen (First Mariner Books, 2013).  Trade Paperback. 3 stars out of 5. I loved the Hobbit when I first read it in the 5th grade, as an assignment from the director of a children's play version I was acting in, for the Las Vegas Rainbow Company.  I played Fili. But then I read the Lord of the Rings at some point after 6th Grade and I was never able to get all that excited about The Hobbit again. This book helped to remedy that, pointing out some of the literary and mythological techniques and ideas that Tolkien is playing with in this sometimes whimsical and sometimes grim children's story.  Highly worth reading for any true fan of Middle Earth.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  J.K. Rowling Audible CD. 4 stars out of 5.  Many of my fondest memories involve driving with our children to, around, and back home from a Southern California vacation, while listening to Jim Dale narrate a Harry Potter book on CD or audio-cassette. There's only two children left to take on such trips now, but since we were going to the new Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, this was the perfect book to listen to while we were underway, and to finish up while commuting after we got back.  I'm pretty sure this is my favorite of the 7 volumes. In the final book, Rowling stumbles a bit in her first attempt to write a classic fantasy quest story. But this penultimate book is the last one set at a Hogwarts, a place Rowling has gotten better and better at writing about since the first book. So she is in her top Bildungsroman form here, and she knows just how to exploit the natural opportunities for humor that would present themselves amongst a group experiencing not only wizardry but also adolescence.  Additionally, we finally get the background information we need, both to better understand the earlier volumes (especially book 2), and to set up the basic problem of the final book, while leaving just enough mysteries unsolved for a final resolution at the right time.  But mostly, I love all the trips into the Pensieve, and all the bits that involve both the fake and the real utilization of Felix Felicis.

After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981 (Third Edition 2007) Kindle 5 stars out of 5.  Like a lot of political and social conservatives, I spend some of my time wondering what exactly caused the modern world to be so screwed up.  This book offers an answer: when mankind stopped believing in humanity's telos, i.e., the revealed (from a religious viewpoint) or rationally discernible (from an Aristotelian viewpoint) purpose of a human being, and of a human community, it lost, along with it, any rationally justifiable basis for traditional morality. This was demonstrated, argues the author, by the ultimate failure of the many Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophers who attempted to create a rationally defensible basis for morality in a post-telos world. If we wish the world to be restored to a place where human beings can flourish, we need to reject Nietzsche, recapture the Aristotelian viewpoint, and the communal projects, that were available to earlier eras.  There are some amazing insights in this book, about our modern misuse of moral terminology we no longer understand in its proper context; about the triumph of emotivism in modern political arguments; about Nietzsche and King Kamehameha II and Jane Austen, and about the pros and cons of earlier eras of Western Civilization.  The nuances of the book should have been harder to follow than they were, as the author's arguments depend on a knowledge of philosophy and history which I have never obtained (thanks again John Dewey).  But the writing is clear and explicit enough to allow the basic premises to be followed, even when the syllogisms take several paragraphs, or chapters, to come together.  Might just be the most important book of the 20th Century.  Absolutely fascinating.

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Currently reading:

Seven Men, by Eric Metaxas