Reading

Let's back off a bit and turn to some still serious, but less intense matters. 

How about reading?  I don't watch much television, very very little.  That's how I justify so much time I spend on my computer, sending e-mails, reading opinions, and, yes, blogging.  But I also read a lot.

I'm on pace to read my usual five or six books a month.  I still read some nonfiction, but not as much as I used to read.  Most of my nonfiction now comes from review books.  But I'll still pick up a book, any book, about Lincoln.

I've read about 50 or more books about Lincoln, including two more this year.  Two of my favorites are actually novels about Lincoln's life.  One, Gore Vidal's Lincoln, goes roughly 1,000 pages, with footnotes!  Yes, footnotes in a novel.  Also having footnotes is William Safire's novel Freedom, which leads up to the Emancipation Proclamation.  Because they are novels, the authors can speculate about Lincoln's thoughts, motives, etc.  Thus, they offer insights and food for thought about Honest Abe.

For my money, the best single-volume biography of Lincoln is Stephen Oates' With Malice Toward None.  Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is terrific, too.  It is a great demonstration of how Lincoln and his personality, his lack of ego, helped him to grow as a President and as a person.  He listened to others and, if their ideas were better than his, he took them.  Father Abraham by Richard Striner is hard to read without being moved by Lincoln's "struggle to end slavery."  There was a reason the former slaves called him "Father Abraham," the Biblical analogy intended.  And there are many other top-flight books.  Maybe I'll explore them later.

If you are interested in nonfiction about the Founders and the early US, pick up any and all of Joseph Ellis's books.  Especially good is His Excellency, the biography of Washington.

Fiction is what I read most now. Daniel Silva, I think, is terrific.  I've read all of his novels with Gabriel Allon as the protagonist, an unbelievable, yet believable Israeli agent.  Silva is a wordsmith of the highest caliber.  Nelson DeMille ranges from good to great.  The first two novels of his that I read were my favorites.  The Gold Coast and its sequel The Gate House were hard to put down. 

I also like spy/adventure novels.  Ben Coes (Dewey Andreas and Rob Tacoma) and Brad Thor (Scott Harvath) stand out, as did the late Vince Flynn (Mitch Rapp).  Lee Child and his Jack Reacher are tough to top.  Not only are the characters very likable, good guys; the writing from these authors is very good.  Their writing is noticeably better than most of the spy/adventure novelists.  There are others, too, who I like and will explore them in a future blog.

The Danish author, Jussi Adler-Olsen, has written some really good crime fiction.  His Department Q novels are well-written and full of suspenseful twists and turns.  I've read about half of the series and look forward to the rest.  Peter May, a Scottish television writer, has also attracted my attention with some good books.

Scott Turow has written some terrific legal thrillers.  His first, Presumed Innocent, might be my favorite.  But it's still tough to top others, such as Identical, Innocent, and Pleading Guilty.  While I'm stuck on Amherst alumni, Harlan Coben is always good reading, especially his Myron Bolitar series.  So is Dan Brown.  Although his noted DaVinci Code is wonderful, I still enjoyed a couple of others even more, especially Inferno.

Perhaps next month I'll post some other authors and their books which I have enjoyed.  I hope these have helped you pick out some good reading.  I think it beats he boob tube hands down.

Yard Signs

Can we finally insist those teachers whose yards bear the signs "Home of a Hero!" or "A Hero Lives Here!" remove them?  For many of them, I think "A Proud Teacher Lives Here!" should be removed.  How "proud" can one be of running from the very minuscule chances of catching the Corona Virus, an even much smaller chance of dying from it?   I won't argue that, say, grocery store workers are "heroes" or not.  But if stocking the food shelves, running a cash register, etc. constitutes being a "hero" in the face of CoVid, how do we then classify equally as "heroes" teachers who are refusing or at least resisting returning to face-to-face classes in a few weeks?  They are using their unions to fight normal returns.  It sure gives pause to the oft-repeated, "We're here for the kids," doesn't it?

I don't remember where I saw the photograph of the Los Angeles teacher who was urging the school district not to open schools.  She carried a sign that read, "I Can't Teach If I'm Dead."  No doubt she and her teacher friends thought this a profound statement.  She was, to those other teachers, a modern-day Kant or Heidegger, very deep.  Ha Ha Ha.  "I Can't Teach If I'm Dead."  (Shame on me.)

I do understand there is some concern among teachers, especially those with youngsters, that day care can't be found.  At least that is the situation here in Michigan.  The governor's authoritarian, capricious and arbitrary, and harmful executive orders have reduced the number and capacity of day care facilities.  But what makes teachers so special?  Other people who have had to return to work also might have to find day care for their kids.  And with so many teachers insisting on remote/online classes, how is that going to work out?  Do your online schooling at day care.....

I think anyone who believes or argues that, for the vastly overwhelming majority of students, online learning/classes are quality education is delusional.  Several years back, I spoke with a college guru of online courses and asked him, "Are these online classes the equivalent of regular, traditional in-person classes?"  I barely got the question out of my mouth when he blurted, "Oh, good heavens no!  They're not even close."  And, apparently, this was a guy who taught and advocated for them.

Where are all those politicians and corporation who dumped all over the schools and teachers for the rotten products (Students became products!) they were turning out?  Why aren't they leading the charge for a return to full-time, traditional classes, from Kindergarten through to higher education?  After all, if they are so concerned with quality......

I know, I know.  "But what if a child gets the virus?"  People have been very selective in what "science" they have chosen to believe.  Policy has been set based on this selectivity.  Fear has been instilled in people (parents?) based on this, too.  A considered rethinking of data is required.  We can start with the fact that the median age of those dying from the virus is 80!  That means 50% of the CoVid deaths are of octogenarians.  And only about 6% of those are listed solely as Corona deaths, with no comorbidity factors.  Compare the deaths of children from the regular, seasonal flu with those from CoVid.

OK, I'm willing to make a concession here.  There have been so many lies, so much disinformation and misinterpretation of data, I really don't know what or who to believe.  But I know who I don't believe, not for one instant.  I don't believe those who say we are putting our children's lives in jeopardy by putting them back in school.

I'm not advocating "business as usual."  Obviously care must be taken.  If masks are deemed necessary or even just desirable, I can live with them.  Continue to wash hands often.  If it makes folks more comfortable/at ease, spread the kids around.  Be careful.

To those who might claim I don't care about kids, that I'm sending them to their deaths, I would suggest looking at some views other than what we get from our politicians and media.  Check some opposing views from scientists, even Nobel winners, views that disagree with the quarantine and shutdowns.  Many noted pediatricians, child psychologists and social workers, etc. have expressed the irreparable damage being done to our children, not only educationally.  They are being scarred socially, psychologically, and even physically.

Fraud

Fraud:  "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain."  I would add, perhaps, "deliberate" and "political gain."  Criminal fraud, which must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt, in Michigan can result in a prison term of up to 14 years.  A civil conviction requires a less strident standard and normally results in financial restitution.  Regardless.....

I've posted about this before.  But it was reawakened by the extortion tactics being used by some of the "peaceful protesters."  They are making "demands" of often small businesses.  "Comply with our demands or we'll shut you down."  Well, in some places like Louisville, the "peaceful" groups have, in effect, already shut down businesses with their violence.  But if these businesses agree to demands, some of which might be noble in spirit, the violence will cease.  Or, if some of the demands (in the form of quotas) are not met, the businesses will be required to make involuntary contributions to groups of the protesters' choosing. That sounds like the old neighborhood shakedown, almost like protection money.

 

What about politicians?  We call them "campaign promises" and routinely accept them as likely nothing more than lies.  We don't hold politicians to their promises.  I am surprised, but it was only a couple of years ago that one of my students introduced me to this question.  "How can you tell when a politician is lying?"  I didn't know the punchline and didn't even know it was a joke, regardless of its veracity.  I burst out laughing when she answered, "When his lips are moving."  

Obviously that's not true of all politicians.  And just as obviously there are some political roadblocks for some of the campaign promises.  But far too often we are just bombarded with known lies.  So, then, aren't those campaign promises really fraud?

Perhaps one way to get our politicians to behave more honestly is to prosecute for fraud.  Of course, many of the district attorneys/prosecutors are elected officials themselves; that is, they too are politicians.  So what are the chances of any prosecutions?

Maybe a more realistic solution is to vote against the worst of the liars.  We can whittle our way down, from the worst to the little less bad to the little less.....  I wonder, though, if they'd get the message.  I doubt, too, that voters would do that.  They are hung up on voting by political party, based on their unions' endorsements, how they are expected to vote because of their inclusion in this group or that, etc.

I don't really see a solution.  Voters have proven time and time again they are  more than willing to vote for, not good candidates, but "the lesser of two evils."  It seems the best "liars" are rewarded.  It's very disheartening.

I guess I'm still living in my little dream world.

Censorship

Censorship is becoming a big problem in this country, in more ways that one.  I'm not a Libertarian as far as censorship goes.   But I think we need to be very, very careful in restricting freedom of expression.

There was a reason the Founding Fathers made the First Amendment the one protecting freedom of expression.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the people peaceably to assemble......"  These men were wise and they realized that once a government ("Congress shall make no law......") can control people's thoughts, self-rule is all over but the shouting.

We encounter today two variations of censorship.  Both are included in this sentiment, "I may disagree with what you say," or write or....., "but will fight to the death your right to say it."  It's a misconception that the French philosophe (yes, philosophe, not philosopher) Voltaire wrote this.  He almost assuredly didn't, but he also most assuredly believe it.  Federal and state governments have, over the years, attempted to curtail certain speech.  Often it's in the name of national security, in wartime, etc.  But citizens can also exercise censorship through a variety of means--ostracism, boycotts, and today, peer pressure under the guise of being "woke," "cancel culture," and other current evils.  (Oh, there I did it.  I spilled the beans as to my views.  Ha Ha Ha.)

Freedom of expression means, above all, protecting the right to say things that are not popular, indeed, things that are despicable.  (I'm not talking here of slander, pornography, etc., but the expression of ideas.)  It's easy to allow people to say and write things that we like or support.  It's the ideas we hate that need to be protected.  Laws and social pressures are not the ways to combat such hated ideas.  That includes views that favor fascism and communism.  Those views need to be, not censored, but defeated in the arena of ideas. 

I wonder, in schools today, if students are taught about Frank Collin and his American Nazis in the late '70s.  They wanted to hold a march, a demonstration, ("peaceful" of course) in Skokie, Illinois.  Skokie was the target because of the sizable number of Jews who lived there.  Some of the Jews were relatives of survivors of the German Nazi extermination camps; some were survivors themselves.  I won't go into the history of the legal battle, but it is worth studying.  Ideas we hate......

Today, although I am still very wary of Big Government's penchant and abilities to control what is said, printed, and even thought, I think a bigger danger comes from the "woke" and "cancel culture" people.  This has come to the utterly ridiculous.  We've all read or heard of people who have been forced to resign or even been fired, who have issued apologies to snowflakes, er, people who have been "offended," for what they have said.  Locally, a teacher was dismissed for, it now appears, several tweets/twits (I can't help myself with that!) he made.  One was, "Liberals suck!"  (My aversion to that word, "suck," is well known.  I hate it and always have.  But, if the shoe fits......)  Another was simply, "Trump is our President!"  There have been other dismissals and forced resignations nationally at big-name companies, newspapers (Isn't that the epitome of irony?), and television networks.  I imagine liberals might take offense at such a characterization "suck!", but aren't conservatives often called names, too?  Aren't conservatives--or so I've read and heard--"greedy" and "selfish," "bigoted" and "racist," and "white supremacists," among other things?  (I don't know where that leaves people like Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Kira Davis, Candace Owens, and others.)  In fact, one of the e-mails the local school district received urging this teacher's dismissal called the President "a fascist."  (OK, no doubt like a majority of those throwing around the word "fascist," the letter-writer likely has no real idea of its meaning and its historical context.  But they heard--probably didn't see it as that would entail reading, Ha Ha Ha--it somewhere and it sounded good and got a desired reaction, so......)

Intelligent people I know, ones who have been educated to examine different viewpoints, to listen to all sides, before making judgments have also jumped on the bandwagon of intolerance.  I was struck a while ago by a guy who was very tentative in expressing to me the beginnings of an opinion that wouldn't fly with the woke folks.  In a way, I was offended.  (Ha Ha Ha!)  But my initial response was not at all critical, but open and tolerant, and he eventually said a lot more that the woke folks wouldn't tolerate.  I agreed with all of it.

This, the woke censorship, the cancel culture, and the like is what we need to combat.  I wonder how loudly these self-ordained censors would cry if their ability to yell and scream was, ahem, "canceled."