Re-Reading Books

A few months ago, I re-read Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly.  I enjoyed it and recalled some of it, but also had some new perspectives.  I recently finished My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.  I was surprised that, even though I read it 40+ years ago, I remember very, very little, if any of it.  Wow!  But it was well worth reading--again, almost like for the first time.

Re-reading books, as a classmate of mine wrote, some years later is "a good thing."  It does allow one's life experiences to give new perspectives.  I read Asher Lev again because I came across its title and remembered it being a very thought-provoking and enlightening book.  Although it's been decades, I'm pretty sure that I didn't have the same reactions to Asher Lev that I had last week.  And I wasn't disappointed, not at all.

Potok's novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, is the story of an Orthodox Jewish boy, who practices Hasidic Judaism faithfully, in Brooklyn.  Asher becomes an artist, a world-renown artist who is frequently conflicted between his art and what drives him to create and his religion and even loved ones, his family and community.  The conflicts, at least to me, are also ones I experienced.  How do I take this artist Asher Lev?  Caught between the inner monster of creativity and the love he has for his mother and father, Asher often catches me the same ways--cheering for him and, often soon after, giving him the raspberries.  Yes, Asher, live your dreams, follow the inner voices!  No, Asher, how can you do this to those you love?

The novel is very well written as are all of Potok's books (I've just started to re-read The Chosen, which I remember better than Asher Lev), passionately written about passions.  To me it was a page-tuner and each time there was an introduction of sorts and the words "My name is Asher Lev" appeared I was excited!  There's a sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev, which I have read and plan to put on my summer reading list.

I am considering other "re-reads," too.  I have wondered what Catcher in the Rye will now read like. I might, too, re-read all of Joe Ellis' bios of the Founding Fathers, esp Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, but esp Washington.  I did try Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) which I remember as an all-time favorite.  I barely reached 50 pages and had to put it down.  Maybe that needs to be tried again, maybe.  I wonder, too, how Kurt Vonnegut's novels would read to someone other than a starry-eyed man in his early 20s.

I also read my dissertation.  It was not a re-read, since I don't think I ever really read it except to proof it.  I'd give it a passing mark, but not what my professors/committee gave me/it.  To them, it led to my induction to the graduate Phi Beta Kappa, whatever the Greek letters for it were.  I'm not sure I'd elevate it to that status.  It was lengthy (268 pp.) and heavily researched and documented, which surprised me. I remember doing a great deal of work on it, spending more time than I needed.  (My adviser told me the typical thesis length was 75 to 100 pages.  Hmmm......)  Again, I don't remember the specifics other than my "defense" of it.  The committee sat there waiting and my lead adviser merely said, "You obviously know more about this than we do.  What do you want to talk about?"  Nope, there was no "defense."  After my grueling (and that's not at all indicative of what they were) oral comprehensives at Amherst, I was expecting an academic Siberia of sorts.  Nope.  Whew!

I did get a kick out of hearing one of the members of the House of Representatives urging the chairman of the House Intelligence (?) Committee to step down because he "has lost integrity."  Wait a minute!  What member of the US Congress has the nerve to accuse another member of the US Congress of a loss of integrity??????  Comedy......

And the headline the other day read, "Russian protesters take to the streets in show of defiance."  Further reading led to the reason for the protests, that Russian government leaders had profited, quite handsomely indeed, from their political offices.  I laughed again.  Where have these Russians been hiding all these years?  After leaving your job, could you afford a $5.3 million home?  Heck, the guy who cries the loudest about "the greedy rich" has three houses, all of which are worth more than my single home and, yet, his tax bracket is half of mine, despite making about three or four times more.

Oh for good measure......  I had a student this week question me about the pages of reading not matching up with our topics in class.  Hmmm......  I had him explain or at least try to explain.  I asked to see his book to show him how the reading list/syllabus works.  I noticed, he had the wrong book!  Yes, the wrong book.  It was the text for the later half of US History, not the early half--Vol. 2, not Vol 1.  I told him that, meeting with a blank look.  Then I had a question.  "What took you nine weeks to figure all that out?"  Again, blank look......

Sometimes we just have to laugh.

Good Guys

Sometimes the good guys actually win.  I'm writing here of Clarkston's boys' basketball team winning the state Class A title under long-time coach Dan Fife.  Fife has been the coach there for more than 30 years.  He's been recognized as one of the top coaches in the state, winning numerous league, district, and regional titles.  But the state crown had eluded him, until Sat.

I normally don't follow sports much these days, at any level, unless my kids are playing.  But I picked up on Clarkston early in the state tournament, hoping that maybe this was the year for Fife.  It was.  From all I have read, heard, and seen, he's done wonders for the community of Clarkston.

I played baseball with Fife, oh about 50 years ago, on the sandlots of Detroit.  He seems to be the same unassuming guy he was then, confident but friendly.  It was nice to see one of the good guys win.

One thing that still stuck with me in reading several of the articles about this were references to "not winning a state title," despite all the other titles, great teams and players, etc.  Those references reminded me of all the talk of the Minnesota Vikings back in the '70s, getting to the Super Bowl, but never winning it, as if that was a big blot on the team's greatness.  I have found that, for the most part, such talk comes from people who didn't play the game(s), at least not at a high level.  They just don't know how hard it is to perform and achieve like, well, like the Vikings did.  No, getting to the Super Bowl as often as they did, win or lose, was a great achievement.

I think the term "bridesmaids" is often used, pejoratively, for the continued runners-up.  I find nothing wrong with bridesmaids!  I first really met my wife when she was "a bridesmaid" and that turned out just fine.

Like Swampcare/Trumpcare/Ryancare/Obamacare Lite or not, the fiasco last week was very telling in more ways than one.  Like "repeal" or not, that's what the President and many members of Congress, both the House and the Senate, were elected on.  The proposed Republican bill last week did nothing of the sort, was not a repeal.  Wasn't that their promise?  So, while they passed repeal legislation (not exactly, but close) while there was no chance of it withstanding an Obama veto, now that there was the strong likelihood of a Presidential signature, they showed their true colors--both dishonesty and lack of courage.

It was humorous to read one former House Freedom Caucus member, who resigned from the caucus citing the failure of Swampcare, say, "Leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do."  The man needs to look at what they really "were elected to do," to repeal Obamacare and then do it.  If you don't really plan to do something, quit lying about it during campaigns.  He then added that all sides have "to come together," something that always produces a chuckle.  Why is it that one side always is forced "to come together," "to reach across the aisle," "to be biparisan," "to compromise," etc., while the other side isn't?  We haven't seen this from "the other side" since Bill Clinton, have we?  Maybe we have and I just don't remember.

It is also humorous to see how many are citing figures from the Congressional Budget Office.  With its track record of inaccuracies, why would anyone consult it or accept its estimates?  George Will had a great comment regarding that.  Citing a 19th Century religious skeptic who scrawled on the doors of a church, Will wrote "Important if true."

DST

Daylight Savings Time.

Last week I had the wonderful thought that my running in the dark was over, at least until next November or December.  Ah......  No more flashlight and/or headlamp.  No more, even with the illumination, stepping in pot holes or on ruts on the shoulders--well at least not as often.

Nope.  I forgot about Daylight Savings Time.  How disappointing, Sun AM, to think about heading out to run at 7:30 and it's still dark out!  Oh, no......  On the AMs I work, I am usually out there by 5:30, if not before.  The past few weeks I finished up on those days in an hour of daylight.  I'll have to wait a few more weeks for that again.

I think Ben Franklin, perhaps with his tongue in his cheek, proposed it back in the mid-1700s.  I have my doubts about that, mostly because time was not at all standard back then; it was a local matter due to transportation and communications of the day.  The US enacted some DST during the First World War, in an attempt to help the war effort.  This was the rationale, too, in the 1960s when Congress passed The Uniform Time Act (?) and later tweaks in the '70s--to help save energy.

The argument that farmers benefit was shot down, I think, in the '70s.  One farmer said it doesn't affect him one way or the other.  "I start to plow when the sun comes up and I stop when the sun goes down."

I think some studies have shown this is not necessarily so, but I don't know for sure.  I know I'm not a big fan of it, unless......  There are some studies that show increased physical problems, such as more heart attacks the first couple of days after it goes into effect, circadian rhythms that run amok for a few weeks, interruptions of sleep, etc.  I have no idea if these are true, partially or otherwise.

I think when Indiana enacted DST about a decade ago, energy usage actually increased.  I'm not sure if that is so or, even if it is, if the enactment of DST was the cause.  (How do they determine that, the specificity?)  There is some evidence that auto accidents increase significantly the day or two after DST goes into effect; I guess people, from lack of sleep, are more tired behind the wheel?

Once it kicks in, there are more daylight hours at the end of the day and fewer at the beginning.  I noted how this affects my early AM running, but only to April or so.  The argument goes that now people can better use the outside time.  Maybe......

I don't know if this is feasible, but maybe the solution would be to have DST year-round; but then would it be "DST" or not, just regular time?  And would our circadian rhythms be continually fouled?

I figure some folks somewhere must be making money off of this.

"Almighty Wind"

Lou Rawls once sang about living on "Dead End Street,"  where "There was nothing to blick or buffer the wind, the elements, to keep them from knocking my pad down, Jim!  I mean really socking it to me."  Of course, he was talking about Chicago, the "Windy City," which supposedly picked up that nickname from "windy" politicians more than Mother Nature. But that's not clear......

We had our own winds here this week.  Wow!  One utility CEO claimed they were "near hurricane-force winds."  I don't know why he used the term "hurricane" instead of "tornado," given that we are far, far more likely to experience tornadoes than hurricanes.  But his point was made.  I read that there were readings of 70 mph winds!  I don't know how "near" those are to anything, but they sure were strong.

The utilities said this was the largest emergency/loss of power in the state's history.  That is astounding, in two ways.  One, there was just wind and I don't mean that lightly.  That is, there was no ice or snow or rain or thunder/lightning.  It was just wind, albeit very strong wind.  Two, I guess more than a million utility customers were without power.  I don't know if that means "people" or "households" and includes "businesses."  Regardless of that, it sure is a lot of people.  Top it off with the deep freeze returning.  (My blind buddy called last night to cancel our run this AM.  Temperatures were to dip to 10 degrees or lower and he said, "It's too cold!")  Some folks have been told their power wouldn't be returned until Sunday eve, from Wed during the day.  Yeow!  That's a long time and that's pretty cold.

There are pockets of outages around us.  We had some considerable flickering of lights, etc. on Wed, all day and night long.  And I don't remember if it was during the night on Wed or Thur that we lost power, for just a bit, though.  It wasn't long, just enough to cause all of the clocks to require resetting.  We were lucky.

While running and walking, there were considerable number of twigs, branches, and limbs down on the streets and roads and bike path.  Across the street, there was a very sizable evergreen that had fallen.  Right next to our neighbors' porch, it fell across the front yard and covered the entire street.  Two days later, yellow tape still prohibited passage.  Neighbors were parking at the ends of the block.

Farther down, to the north, a very big tree went down, blocking a dirt road, completely.  No one could get through on Wed or Thur and finally I saw a removal crew cutting it up on Fri.  It was quite big, maybe three or four feet in diameter.  

And Einstein was right about "relativity."  It's all about "frames of reference."  The wind was very strong still on Thur and even Fri AM.  Compared to Wed though, it was a light breeze--but not really.  And last night, on our run, the wind had picked up considerably again.  Running on the side with no trees to "buffer" it, we were afflicted with "brain freeze."  (Yes we kept running and did our four laps--or was it five?)

Often around here we are reminded of Mother Nature's power only in photographs, videos, etc. from other parts of the country.  This time, although not of the proportions of some hurricanes, flooding/rains, wildfires, etc., we faced first-hand the effects that are out of our control.