REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

GUILT

A company and its employees can be convicted for insider trading and be sentenced to prison but a company’ owner can walk away with a fine and no criminal penalty or prison time.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Black Edge (Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wallstreet)

Author: Sheelah Kohatkar

Narration by: Kaleo Griffith

Sheelah Kohatkar (Author, staff writer for the New Yorker.)

“Black Edge” is about insider information that will give an advantage to a stock market’ investor. There is an elusive line crossed when an investor solicits information from an informed source that is not available to all investors. The line seems blurred by how the question is asked and whether the information given is available to everyone that is interested. Because the solicitation of information is not publicly provided information, the law defines it as illegal advantage to a singular investor rather than the general public. What makes this difficult to grasp is a diligent investor might do more research than the general public before investing in a stock. Is diligence a crime? Who is the criminal–the investor, the person who reveals proprietary company information, or the information pursuer? “Black Edge” implies all three are guilty but only one is criminally chargeable.

Steven A. Cohen (Former owner of SAC Capital.)

Sheelah Kohatkar researches the rise of Steven A. Cohen and SAC Capital to explain how complicated and difficult it is to prosecute an investor or his/her company for insider trading based on “Black Edge” information. One might argue Steven Cohen simply created an investment company focused on researching possible stock investments or sales based on the best information that can be found by diligent research on a company’s activities. Cohen gambled on that information by making large investments short sales or divestments of a subject company’s stock. SAC Capital became extraordinarily successful in buying, shorting, or selling publicly held stock based on that research. Kohatkar shows how those actions became criminal because of employee’ researchers that fed information to SAC Capital that is not readily available to the public. This became a violation of the law because Cohen’s company bet on what is classified as “insider information” found by SAC employees. Of course, that information may have been acquired by any investor who is willing to create an organization designed to research a target companies’ product before making a decision to invest in, short, or sell its stock.

SAC Capital is fined $1.8 billion dollars and is dismantled when found guilty of insider trading.

Cohen is never found personally guilty of insider trading, but SAC Capital is fined $1.8 billion dollars and is dismantled as part of a plea. The firm is found guilty with Cohen forbidden the right to manage outside money for two years with a payment of a $90 million dollar penalty. After expiration of the ban, he starts a new company, Point72 Asset Management, that manages billions of dollars for himself and his investors.

Cohen is never imprisoned for his investment activities but two of his employees were found guilty, fined, and imprisoned.

Cohen is never imprisoned for his investment activities but some of his employees were found guilty, imprisoned, and taken from their families. Cohen insulated himself from researchers in his firm and avoided direct communication with publicly held’ companies in which he chose to invest, short, or sell stock in. Cohen paid a penalty but served no time in prison for insider trading. In contrast, people he employed to get insider information went to prison, were fined, and endured family hardship caused by that imprisonment.

Kafka’s hell exists in today’s world just as it did when it was published in 1925.

Cohen’s attorneys manage to show prosecutors that he never knowingly participated in the collection of insider information. However, Mathew Martoma and Michael Steinberg, two of Cohen’s employees, were convicted because they were proven to have directly obtained non-public information, traded on it and personally profited from insider information. These two employees gathered (from personal conversations and private reports of publicly held companies) information not available to the general public. Their personal trades on non-public information made them guilty of “insider information” crime. In contrast, Cohen is not criminally prosecuted because he could not be affirmatively proven to have instructed his employees to gather insider information. Cohen is found to have failed to supervise his employees but that is only a civil, not criminal act.

This is a troubling history. “Black Edge” shows that an investment company’s structure can be set up to pressure employees to break the law without being held criminally liable for the use of insider information.

Even though an owner creates a company designed to solicit insider information, they shield themselves from criminal liability. The employees who actually gather insider information are guilty but the owner of a company who profits from their work is not guilty of the same crime. A company and its employees can be convicted for insider trading and be sentenced to prison but a company’ owner may walk away with a fine and no criminal penalty or prison time. As Lord Acton noted in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

URBANIZATION

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Devil in the White City (Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America)

Author: Eric Larson

Narration by: Scott Brick

Eric Larson (Author, American journalist, graduate of University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude in 1976.)

Eric Larson’s “Devil in the White City” is a well written history of the famous Chicago World’s fair in 1893. Chicago became an international big city competitor with the creation of the World Columbian Exposition. At the same time, he writes of an evil human being born in America. Larson contrasts good and evil in middle America that reflects on the extremes of human nature that exist not only in America but everywhere in the world.

John Wellborn Root (1850-1891, Concept designer of “The White City”.)

Daniel H. Burnham is a famous Chicago architect who is asked to be Director of Works for the World Columbian Exposition. His partner, John Wellborn Root, is the visionary who designs an original conceptual and aesthetic model of a neighborhood in a prosperous city. However, Root dies in 1891, two years before the beginning of construction. As the design concept takes form, Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous designer of Central Park in New York City, is recruited by Burnham to become a part of the development. These three designers create what Larson identifies as the “White City”, a tribute to the architectural appearance and fame of the eleventh World’s Fair, 7 miles from the second largest city in America, Chicago, Illinois.

Larson juxtaposes this remarkable Chicago accomplishment with the fraud, deception, and predation of H. H. Holmes (aka Herman Mudgett), a handsome, charismatic murderer who moves to Chicago to begin a career in the medical profession. The idealism and success of Chicago’s world fair is a prime example of American urbanization with people who move to the city from small town America.

H. H. Holmes aka Herman Webster Mudgett (1861-1896, is the “Devil in the White City”.)

Holmes is a poster child for the dark side of urbanism. Urbanism is the congregation of people in self-perpetuating communities that grow with rising populations. Holmes move to the Chicago area leads to the murders of Benjamin Pitezel and his three children. Holmes urbane good looks and powers of persuasion set the table for a scheme to commit insurance fraud. Before their murder, Holmes conducts real estate boondoggles, pharmacy scams, forgery, bigamy, theft, and embezzlement. Though not legally proven, it is strongly suspected he killed five or more women for reasons ranging from theft to pure venality. Though living in an urban environment is not a cause of evil, it is a petri dish for human behavior that can be good or evil.

Education, like money, is only a tool of human beings, not a measure of human value.

Holmes early education is in Gilmanton, New Hampshire where he gains early interest in medicine and human anatomy. He enrolls at the University of Vermont in 1879 but leaves to enroll in the University of Michigan Medical School. He graduates from U of M with a medical degree in 1884. It is interesting to note that Holmes is formally educated just as the architects who gathered for the building designs of the 1893 Chicago world’s fair. Larson shows Holmes is motivated to exploit society in any way that only serves his self-interests. The world’s fair’ architects equally wish to serve their self-interest but within the boundaries of societal norms, i.e., not by bilking the public or murdering citizens.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903, American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator.)

The three main characters in this story of American urbanization are Daniel Burnham, Frederick Olmstead, and H. H. Holmes. Burnham and Olmstead are exemplars of success that make a contribution to America while Holmes is a villain of self-interest and evil. All three symbols of the power, value, and risk of urbanization. Burnham and the older Olmstead represent the best in American life with their skills and ability as visionaries and managers who get things done through others that benefit society. Holmes represents the worst of human nature as a singularly self-interested fraudster and murderer who cares nothing about others.

Six hundred acres of swampy, undeveloped land is turned into the Chicago World’s Fair in the 19th century. Fourteen major buildings, canals, and lagoons are built into a neoclassical “city”. The Chicago World’s Fair is 7 miles south of the downtown Chicago Loop. The site is called Jackson Park, bordered by Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods. Despite labor strikes, Chicago weather, political infighting, and the death of its visionary (John Root), Burnham manages the development of 200 low-rise (1 to 3 stories) buildings designed by famous east coast architects and the largest operating Ferris wheel in the world to complete the “…White City” in 26 months.

The City of Chicago today.

The point of Larson’s history of the Chicago World Fair is that urbanization is two edged. One edge improves societies’ economic, cultural, and technological values. The other amplifies inequality based on citizen’ power, wealth, race, gender, and ethnicity rather than innate human value. Contrasting the great accomplishments of Burnham, Root, and Olmstead with the evil of Holmes is an exemplar of human nature that can either benefit or destroy societies.

Holmes is convicted and sentenced to death. He is hung on May 7, 1896, at the age of 34. Burnham goes on to build his reputation with Union Station in Washington D.C., the Flatiron Building in New York, and what became the Museum of Science and Industry in “The White City” of Chicago. Burnham dies in 1912 at age 65. Olmsted dies in 1903 at age 81.

CHOICE

The surprising message in “The Glass Castle” is homelessness may be a choice. One wonders if that is the fault of American society or the nature of human beings.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Glass Castle (A Memoir)

Author: Jeannette Walls

Narration by: Jeannette Walls

Jeanette Walls (Author, American journalist, former gossip columnist for MSNBC.)

“The Glass Castle” is Jeanette Walls remembrance of her nomadic family and the way she is raised in America. With 3 siblings, an alcoholic father who knows something about electrical and mechanical engineering, a mother qualified as a schoolteacher who is an aspiring artist, Jeanette Wall’s parents choose to roam America.

The Walls Family.

“The Glass Castle” is a memoir of Jeanette Walls upbringing in America. Her story is enlightening if not entirely believable. Walls writes about her chaotic peripatetic life in America, mentions two personal marriages, and a life she lives with a father who loves her and a mother who holds the family together. Jeanette Walls is the second child of the family. She has an older sister, Lori, a younger brother named Brian, and a younger sister named Maureen. She and her brother are characterized with above average intelligence. In the beginning of her story, she notes living on Park Avenue and seeing her homeless mother rummaging through a dumpster in New York city. She confronts her mother, Rose Mary, who walks away saying Americans are wasteful and throw away perfectly useful, sometimes beautiful, things. This shocking introduction is about Jeanette Walls’ and her family’s life in America.

Arizona and West Virginia.

Listener/readers are introduced to Wall’s grandparents who came from two different economic backgrounds with Jeanettes mother’s family being middle class living in Arizona and her father’s parents being poor and living in West Virginia. Both grandparent families are matriarchal with mothers being rulers of the roost. The grandmother in Arizona dies and leaves two houses and Arizona land with some money to Jenette’s mother that offers, for a short time, some economic stability to the family’s life in America. However, Jennett’s family decides to move on to pursue their peripatetic life. They visit her father’s parents in West Virginia. Her dad’s father is an alcoholic with a wife that sternly rules the house. That sternness causes Jeanette Walls and her family to leave for New York City.

“The Glass Castle” is a story about how children are raised in America.

There is no particular standard for those who grow up in America or, for that matter, anywhere in the world. Living life anywhere can be romantically identified as perfect but that is a universal fiction. There is no safety net whether in America or anywhere in the world. There are “haves’ and “have nots” in every society. Children growing to adulthood, whether wealthy or poor, are faced with the trials of life that begin with their birth, extend through family relationships and the exigencies of making their way in the culture in which they live. Children live and are raised in a “…Glass Castle” that hides little from the world and can be shattered by the random circumstances of life. “The Glass Castle” shows experiences of childhood are universal and are either constructive or destructive in ways that mold a child’s character.

Children are influenced by their parents in both good and bad ways.

Alcoholism in a parent may lead to a child’s following or rejecting its influence in their life. Seeing the consequence of a parent’s experience can turn one toward their parents or steer one’s life in an opposite direction. America purports to be a land of opportunity but like every culture in the world there is inequality, instability, risk, and reward that change a child’s direction in life.

The surprising message in “The Glass Castle” is homelessness may be a choice. One wonders if that is the fault of American society or the nature of human beings.

WHAT’S NEW?

Belief in God is a work in progress for every human being. The proof of God will be peace on earth, a human accomplishment that may only be possible with a belief in something greater than us.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

Narration by: Richard Dawkins & Sara Jill “Lalla” Ward

Richard Dawkins on the left is a British author, evolutionary biologist, ethologist, and science communicator. Sarah Jill “Lalla” Ward is an English actress, voice author, and actor on the former TV series “Doctor Who”. (A woman’s narration seems solely to represent a non-gender based argument for God as a “…Delusion.”)

Richard Dawkins is a formally educated Zoology and Philosophy graduate from the University of Oxford. He became the first Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. “The God Delusion” is a daunting book that argues God is a fiction created by authoritarian faiths. In light of the history of human violence in the name of different God’ beliefs, Dawkins offers a compelling argument for God as a delusion.

Religion and Science.

Religious belief has rarely, if ever, been the primary cause of war in history but millions of deaths from The Crusades to the Holocaust to the present day have fueled wars in the name of different concepts of God. Judaism preaches that there is one, indivisible God. Christianity believes one God exists in three forms; i.e. God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit”. Islam believes in the oneness of God with no partners, no intermediaries, no incarnation, and no images. Hinduism believes in many gods, one God, or God beyond form, depending on respective sects of the Hindu faith. Buddhism is non-theistic and believes there is no creator, or divine judge. Buddhists believe understanding reality is the source of enlightenment. Sikhism believes in one God that is formless, without gender, and beyond religion. Sikhs blend belief in one God with emphasis on equality. The Chinese traditions of Taoism, Confucianism believe in a natural order of the universe based on ethical behavior and social harmony.

Dr. Jay Lombard agues God is real because His existence is proven by evolution and human consciousness.

The point is God means something “other” in different cultures. That difference in belief has caused an uncountable number of deaths. To a believer and non-believer in God, those deaths are an appalling loss to humanity. Is a different belief in God, worth a human’s death? Dawkins argues God is a delusion because He or It cannot be proven. The weakness of that argument is there are many discoveries that have been found to be wrong with further scientific exploration. Science progress cuts both ways; i.e. it proves and disproves what seems right but turns out to be wrong as further experiments prove.

Girl at War (a novel about the war in Croatia).

The patent differences in religious beliefs in God shows that dogmatism replaces further exploration for God’s existence. There are religious scholars who have challenged dogmatic arguments for God’s existence. At the very least, Dawkins makes one think about the horrible consequence of authoritarian beliefs in God and the slaughter of innocents from those beliefs. We are seeing that slaughter today in Iran and Lebanon from attacks by America and Israel. Of course, there are reasons beyond religion for those attacks but is murder of innocents an answer or just collateral death and destruction for desired results?

Belief in God is a work in progress for every human being. The proof of God will be peace on earth, a human accomplishment that may only be possible with a belief in something greater than us.

HISTORY LESSON

There is an irony in Higginbotham’s “Midnight in Chernobyl”. It is ironic to see what is happening in the 21st century with the revisionism of Presidents Trump and Putin. Their ideas of openness (glasnost) and system reform (perestroika) are a return to the past rather than the future.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Midnight in Chernobyl (The Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster)

Author: Adam Higginbotham

Narration by: Jacques Roy

Adam Higginbotham (Author, British journalist, contributing writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The New York Times.)

Adam Higginbotham reminds reader/listeners of the terrifying consequences of nuclear power mistakes in “Midnight in Chernobyl”. Over 400,000 people are evacuated from the area of Pripyat, a carefully planned Soviet city of 50,000 people, near four nuclear reactors. One of four reactors explodes on April 26, 1986, at 1.23 A.M. There were actually two explosions. The first was a massive steam explosion while a second explosion blew a 1,000-ton concrete lid into the air. The core of the reactor is destroyed. The building surrounding the reactor blew apart and radioactive fuel and graphite filled the early morning night sky. Fires were ignited on the roof and surrounding structures.

Higginbotham explains the explosion occurs because of a safety test that is botched by the operators of the plant. The nuclear reactor is set into a low-power state that disables an automatic shutdown system. By setting the reactor into a low-power state, control rods lowered into the reactor cause cooling water displacement and a spike in radioactive activity. This is noted as a design flaw that Higgenbotham argues is known by Soviet leaders before the disaster. In less than a second, the reactor surges to more than 100 times its normal power level. This massive energy surge generates runaway fission that destroys the reactor in two explosions. Chernobyl becomes a highly radioactive death trap for workers and residents of the surrounding area.

The total number of people affected by the Chernobyl accident may never be known because of Soviet obfuscation and historical indeterminacies, but Higgenbotham suggests it reaches 5 to 8.4 million people living in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. According to archival records, all residents of Pripyat are evacuated and an additional 300,000 are resettled. Twenty-eight people die within three months of the accident, 134 develop acute radiation syndrome. The estimate of cleanup workers is 600,000 made up of firefighters, soldiers, engineers, and volunteers.

As Higgenbotham ends his history, he notes a Russian worker’s death in the 21st century from leukemia. Was his death a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986? Who knows? The point is representative of the consequence of uncountable deaths that may be related to erasure of truth in any country.

The Chernobyl accident reaches 5 to 8.4 million people living in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Higginbotham argues Chernobyl is a proximate cause of the unraveling of the Soviet Union. He suggests it accelerates the collapse of Soviet authority. This is an interesting supposition. He argues that Soviet leadership believes their system of government had a level of technological and administrative capability that illustrates a level of competence and achievement that is superior to all other forms of governance. The Chernobyl disaster challenges that self-perception. Hierarchal state control fails to train and manage the complicated nuclear industry. A rigid managerial hierarchy hides incompetence. It also breeds corruption and bureaucratic paralysis with top-down management because of information obfuscation and concealment at lower management levels. Fear of criticism by leadership leads to distortion of the truth at lower levels of government. Higgenbotham’s interviews of Russian investigators of the disaster reveals the incompetent training of lower-level employees who operated the facility. Their inclination is to cover-up mistakes rather than reveal them to their direct reports.

The economic cost of the Chernobyl disaster exposes the USSR’s Communist Party’s failure as a system of government.

Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan signing the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

Higgenbotham notes environmental movements, and Russian anti-nuclear activists grew to express anger with Moscow and its leaders. The disaster undermined Soviet scientific and technological belief in Russia’s superiority. In 1986 and 1987 speeches Gorbachev notes in a Politburo address that the Chernobyl meltdown is a harbinger of the Soviet Union’s need to change. In a 2006 speech Gorbachev speaks of the need for apparatchiks to tell truth to power, to reduce soviet secrecy, and accept glasnost and perestroika as solutions for improvement of Russian leadership.

DIVORCE

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Strangers (A Memoir of Marriage)

Author: Belle Burden

Narration by: Belle Burden

Belle Burden (Author, former attorney, urban planner, socilite, and descendant of the Vanderbilts.)

In some respects, “Strangers” is an unrelatable example of the trauma of divorce. In other ways, it is a testament to divorces’ hardship for women and societies’ inequality. The unrelatable parts are in the difference between divorce for those who are wealthy and those who are not. What is brilliantly revealed is the trauma of divorce and its disproportionate effect on wives and mothers.

Having been married for 20 years and facing divorce is a traumatic experience whether one is rich or poor.

However, women who are not rich face a different experience when their husbands leave a marriage. In most cases, the burden of coping with divorce is more impactful for children and a wife than a husband. Often, as in the case of Belle Burden, a mother faces having to return to a work environment that discriminates against women in ways that diminish their value in society. Women often retire from the workforce when they become pregnant because of the consuming responsibility of raising a child.

As a woman, regardless of wealth, job prospects are challenged by sexual discrimination.

It is worse for women who are poor and less educated than Ms. Burden. The point that Burden makes clear (regardless of her wealth and education) is women sacrifice much of their lives raising their children while husbands are freer to explore economic success. The wealth of Ms. Burden and her education exempt her from the trials of most women in the world. Burden clearly explains the emotional impact of divorce whether one is wealthy or not. Her wealth does little to reduce feelings of betrayal and failure.

Belle Burden exemplifies the emotional toll of divorce.

Twenty years of marriage creates a bond never completely broken. For husbands the reliance they have on a wife’s care of children makes it difficult to offer the care and understanding that children need from both parents. Husbands are often inadequately prepared for relationship building that a mother has with their children. The consequence is a father’s failure to understand how to help their children deal with their parent’s separation. Those who share raising their children are less likely to have that problem, but social convention leaves most American men in the dark about how to take parental responsibility.

Divorce rates in America may be in decline but the emotional impact on parents and their children is the same.

Burden clearly explains the emotional impact of divorce in America, but her wealth diminishes the scope and reality of divorce to the majority of women who have children and are left by their partners. That is not a criticism of Burden’s book but of sexual inequality that exists in most countries of the world.

WHO’S CHOKING

Economic chokepoints illustrated by Fishman are real, but their effectiveness is problematic.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Chokepoints (American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare)

Author: Edward Fishman

Narration by: Robert Petkoff

Edward Fishman (American author, international relations scholar, former diplomat at the Council on Foreign Relations, professor of Public Affairs at Columbia, University.)

Edward Fishman offers a detailed history of economic “Chokepoints” that have become a tool of war between nation-states. He reminds readers of Trump’s first term as President of the United States. Trump did not change from policies he believed in his first term. He only became more effective in carrying out his beliefs in his second term.

Trump’s beliefs.

Fishman shows how Trump combines the tactics of warfare with economic chokepoints to decimate Iranian cities while starving its citizens of their right to believe and live. Trump is convinced of the potential of Iran’s current leadership to use weapons of nuclear war to destroy civilization because of religious belief. Trump chooses to bomb Iran while expanding economic policies instituted by both Democratic and Republican administrations to choke petroleum revenues from a country that provides 20% of the world’s oil needs.

Like the bombing of Dresden in WWII, today’s America is senselessly bombing Iran.

Trump is waging a war on the singular belief that he can force Iran to abandon research for a nuclear bomb. The consequence is to embroil America in a war of attrition and destruction based on Trump’s belief that Iran’s leadership is willing to use nuclear war to end life on earth for a place in heaven. Trump’s actions are deluded idea of a “bully in a school yard”. Denying nuclear bomb development by force is a fool’s errand. North Korea, Russia, China, and America are as likely to instigate a nuclear war as Iran. Religious belief is Trump’s excuse; not a cause for war.

Iranian citizen protest.

It is the citizens of Iran that bare the consequence of America’s chokepoint decisions.

Fishman explains how economic chokepoints have becomes as devastating as war. The Iranian people have been impoverished by American allies’ cooperation in restricting their economy. It may be, like the physical war against Germany and Japan in WWII, economic chokepoints will make Iran bend its knee. On the other hand, it may continue a “forever war” that only diminishes humanity. Chokepoints are a war by other means that offer compromise, or dictatorship. Chokepoint effects are poverty, death, or compromise. Religion, like political belief, is a personal choice that cannot be eradicated by force.

Effects of human descent.

Economic chokepoints illustrated by Fishman are real, but their effectiveness is problematic. First, one must identify the economic target that is affective. Second, there must be unity and credibility among nations that can enforce a chokepoint. Even with a chosen chokepoint, the target may make citizens willing to sacrifice everything for belief in sovereignty.

WISDOM

Levi makes we who follow rather than lead ashamed. “Theo of Golden” shows human value is in the kindnesses we offer other people.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Theo of Golden (A Novel)

Author: Allen Levi

Narration by: David Morse

Allen Levi (Author, songwriter, blogger, former lawyer, University of Georgia graduate.)

“Theo of Golden” offers a view of human society. It seems based on a conversationally gifted businessperson who reaches an age of maturity that encourages reader/listeners to contemplate belief in God and heaven. Allen Levi creates Theo, a name undoubtedly chosen because of its Greek language equivalent to God. The chosen name shows where the author and his main character stand in their beliefs.

“Theo of Golden” is about the value of life.

Theo is an independently wealthy octogenarian who has lost his wife and beloved child in an auto accident. After working through the grief of his personal loss, he chooses to use his wealth and remaining life to influence others by simple measures of kindness. Theo believes in the value of the life people live and the importance of small kindnesses they extend to others. Levi’s story illustrates a belief that even small kindnesses are a powerful influence on society. At the same time, he is setting a table for societal belief in God, heaven, and presumably an afterlife.

American immigrants.

In the age of Trumpism immigrants are treated poorly, bombing another country is acceptable, and wealth is considered a measure of human value. Levi’s story condemns the Trump-s, Putin-s, and Xi-s of the world. The power of national leaders multiplies the strength and weakness of societies. The leaders of America, Russia, and China are in the same age group as Mr. Levi but their impact on society is immense in comparison. Levi makes we who follow rather than lead ashamed. “Theo of Golden” shows human value is in the kindnesses we offer other people.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

This is a well written and fascinating story. On the one hand, it shows the adventurous nature of human beings. On the other hand, it shows the absurdity of a human goal that can kill you with no value beyond personal achievement.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Into Thin Air (A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster)

Author: Jon Krakauer

Narration by: Philip Franklin

Jon Krakauer (Author, American writer, journalist, and mountaineer. Raised in Corvallis, Or., lives in Boulder Co.)

Human beings test themselves in many ways, some of which make little sense. Jon Krakauer is a mountain climber. Why does one choose to climb a mountain? Well, he is a writer and a magazine offers to pay the $65,000 fee required by an expedition leader to climb Mt. Everest in Tibet. At least, Krakauer has a purpose which undoubtedly is to have an adventure to write about that might offer monetary reward. It appears others have other motives but at least Krakauer took the trip for a reason that makes some logical sense. Considering the reward, one comes away from his book with the feeling that no amount of money is worth the trial he experienced and the lives lost in a climb to the pinnacle of Mt. Everest.

Mt. Everest is 29,032 feet high, located in the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet.

Krakauer writes that he idolizes mountain climbers. He believes the opportunity of climbing the tallest mountain in the world seems worth the risk. Mount Everest is 29,032 feet high, located in the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet. Krakauer introduces reader/listeners to Rob Hall, the expedition leader and guide who heads the adventure. Hall, a New Zealander, had created a company that offers mountain climbing expeditions. Andy Harris, who also comes from New Zealand, is Hall’s employee and an additional guide.

Rob Hall (1961-1996, New Zealand mountaineer, led the Mt. Everest climb in 1996 where he and two clients died.)

Scott Fischer, an entrepreneur and guide with his own company has another Everest climbing group. Fischer dies on a descent during the same time as Krakauer’s group climbs Everest. This is a brutal reminder of the great risk being taken by Krakauer.

Yasuko Namba (1949-1996, the second Japanese woman to climb the Seven Summits, the tallest mountains in the world.)

Yasuko Namba, a Japanese climber joins the Krakauer group. Namba is motivated to join the group because of her interest in completing the climbs of the seven tallest mountains in the world. She is 47 years old. Though not as strong as some of the younger climbers, Mt. Everest is the last of the Seven Summits she is determined to conquer. Hall, Harris, Namba, and Fischer die from the climb, either from the exertion, a storm, or their descent from Everest.

Campsites on Mt. Everest.

It is interesting to find there are many Mt. Everest expeditions that occur at the same with different companies. They camp in the same areas as they attempt their ascent. Krakauer writes of Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness group, a Taiwanese National Expedition, an IMAX Filming Expedition, a South African Expedition, and their Sherpa support teams who aid all of the climbing groups. Krakauer notes how coveted the Sherpa are by companies that are dependent on their skills.

Doug Hansen, an American postal worker who joins the Hall expedition

Doug Hansen, an American postal worker joins the Hall expedition. Hansen dies in a storm before reaching the summit and had to be carried by the group to the summit at the insistence of Hall. Hansen had attempted to climb the peak the year before with a Hall group. Surprisingly, the group leader Hall dies on this 1996 climb from altitude sickness which confuses his sense of direction. He loses his way as they descend from the South Summit. In the descent from Everest, Harris and Fischer die during another mountain storm. The only woman on the trip, Yasuko Namba dies on the descent because of exhaustion and exposure that had killed Hall. Beck Weathers, an American climber survives after appearing to die twice. Weather’s experience leaves him with severe frostbite and requires major surgery after the climb.

Sandra Pittman

The oddest adventurer that Krakauer writes about is Sandy Pittman who is in the Mountain Madness group. Pittman is a New York socialite who is known in the fashion world. In Krakauer’s telling, Ms. Pittman seems representative of the commercialization of mountain climbing. Pittman manages to make the mountain top and survives the storm that kills some of Krakauer’s group. However, Pittman became exhausted during the descent. She requires rescue. She survives but became a symbol of privilege and wealth to some who are offended by those who can afford the extravagance she represents in climbing famous mountains. Krakhauer does not criticize her despite her wealth and privilege because he sees her as no better or worse than every person looking for adventure.

LOVE

True love is made of many parts; none of which make us better than what we are, i.e., love can be unconditional, but it can also be a path to self-destruction.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Idiot

Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Narration by: Various Actors

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian author.)

This L.A. Theater representation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” is less entertaining than the book because it is incomplete. However, it gives one a sense of the author’s characterization of human relationship. The main character of “The Idiot” is Prince Myshkin, a recovering epileptic who has just been released from a treatment center in Russia. In some ways, the dramatization gives structure to what is a difficult book to follow. However, it diminishes the beauty and clarification of Dostoyevsky’s writing.

Compassion.

The main character, Prince Myshkin, is a vulnerable and compassionate young Russian who has inherited wealth from his family. He is released from an asylum meant to cure his ills. One of the first people he meets on a train as he leaves the asylum is Rogozhin, a passionate Russian who can become unruly and violent toward those around him. Rogozhin represents a divided soul; not unlike that which exists in Myshkin but in different and significant ways. Myshkin shows compassion, humility, and spiritual benevolence while Rogozhin is passionate, confrontational, and driven by emotion. They are kindred spirits with one who has reserved emotions and actions while the other fully expresses emotions and often acts in their fulfillment.

Eve Babitz as an example of a beauty like Natasya or Aglaya.

Myshkin meets a Russian beauty named Natasya Filippovna whom he loves in a self-sacrificial way. That acquaintance leads to a tragedy. The tragedy comes from the love he feels for Aglaya Yapanchina, an equally beautiful young woman. The irony is that Myshkin’s emotions attach him to Nastasya out of compassion. That compassion keeps him from expressing his underlying feelings for Aglaya. He cannot abandon Nastasya because of his compassion, even though a more fulfilling love appears likely with Aglaya.

Characteristics of outsiders.

Both Myshkin and Rogozhin are social outsiders. Myshkin because of his epilepsy and social isolation. Rogozhin because of his poverty and emotional instability. Both love Nastasya but in different ways and for different reasons. Myshkin loves Nastasya out of compassion and self-sacrifice while Rogozhin is obsessed with her beauty and sees her as his possession. Both are in love with Nastasya in different but committed ways. Myshkin loves out of goodness while Rogozhin loves out of passion.

Believing in yourself.

Nastasya is drawn to both men but feels she is not good enough for Myshkin. Rogzhin’s attention and love of Nastasya is based on being the object of one’s desire, i.e. a feeling she has felt from all men she has met in her life. The tragedy of Dostoevsky’s story is that Rogozhin murders Nastasya. Rogozhin is sent to prison and Myshkin collapses from the soul crushing murder. Myshkin returns to the asylum as a broken man. Dostoevsky is showing that pure goodness in life is a fiction. True love is made of many parts; none of which make us better than what we are, i.e., love can be unconditional, but it can also be a path to self-destruction.

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