REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

ARRESTED

“No Land to Stand On” reflects on America as a country that has a long way to go to become a land of free speech and equal rights.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

No Land to Stand On (Notes from Detention)

Author: Mahmoud Khalil

Narrated by: Daoud Heidami & 1 more

Mahmoud Khalil (Algerian-Palestinian activist, former graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.)

Mahmoud Khalil tells his story of being arrested by ICE for demonstrating at Colombia University in New York, only weeks before his graduation. Khalil is part of a demonstration against the Gaza war and what is identified by Amnesty International in 2024 as a Palestinian genocide. He is detained without being accused of a crime and sent to LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana (approximately 1300 miles south). By coincidence or intent, the Trump administration cancelled approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University before Khalil’s arrest.

Kahlil’s book is a reminder of Presidential actions of former Presidents from both parties that have used their power to reinforce their government policies. Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Willson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and now, Donald Trump, are prime examples. Nevertheless, it is appalling to see the power of a President to arrest and illegally transport and/or deport foreign immigrants who are in this country to become productive workers or to attain an advanced education.

Are Americans more or less free in the 21st century?

America is founded on the principles of “free speech”, and “due process of law”, both of which are violated in the story of Khalil’s treatment by the American government. He is never charged with a crime but is arrested, and detained over 1300 miles from his home, a pregnant wife, and their newborn baby. The treatment of illegal immigrants by ICE is disgusting but Khalil’s experience shows it makes no difference when you look like a foreigner. America’s growing reputation as a bigoted country is confirmed. Khalil’s story shows if you look Black or foreign, your chances for success in America are diminished.

“No Land to Stand On” reflects on America as a country that has a long way to go to become a land of free speech and equal rights.

The power of an incompetent President is only mitigated by legislative and judicial powers, and the limits of their term in office. One hopes the next two years are better than the last two.

HEALTH CARE

“The Cost of Care’ recommends insurance companies, medical services, and government administrations focus on creating a policy of “Medicare-for-all” that treats all elder and/or ill American citizens equally.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Cost of Care (How Four Nurses Put Patients First in a Profit-Driven System)

Author: Theresa Brown

Narrated by: Donna Jay Fulks

Theresa Brown (PhD, BSN, Rn, Author, American clinical nurse.)

“The Cost of Care” is a somewhat frustrating book to review because it notes human faults that seem to dumb-down the profession of medical care in the United States. Like all products and services in America, cost is rising. Of course, a difference is that medical service is often a necessity rather than a choice. However, like all service organizations, some are managed well; others not.

Childbirth.

The first half of Brown’s book deals with childbirth and the costs and care for young families that choose to have children. Surprisingly, she finds Midwife birthing centers provide better care for pregnant mothers than most hospitals. She highlights Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Portland, Oregon Midwife centers. She notes the counseling and care from “Midwife” birthing centers are less expensive, equally effective, and more comforting for both mothers and newborn than major hospitals. Brown criticizes hospital treatment of pregnancy as emotionally sterile, less patient centered, and less likely to offer the best care for mothers and the newborn. This is an observation by Brown who is educated and licensed as a registered nurse.

A major criticism is Brown’s recognition of what one might call hospital clericalization of health care.

There is a sense of medical treatment becoming a mechanical job by caregivers, including doctors and nursing professionals who show little empathy or expressed concern for their patients. Many who have been treated by doctors, nurses, or hospital admissions employees will recognize some of her criticism. Large organizations, like hospitals, are highly regulated by the States in which they exist. Standardization of service in hospitals is required to mitigate possible mistakes in medical treatment. However, Brown notes that standardization works against the care, comfort, and safe infant delivery offered by mid-wife operations.

The right to choose.

However, what the author ignores is the volitional control a patient or pregnant mother has in choosing a physician. Human beings, whether doctors, nurses, midwifes, or pregnant mothers vary in their attitudes, habits, and beliefs. Both patients and those who provide medical services are human. The best any person can do as a physician, nurse, midwife, or patient is influenced by their education and the life they have lived. A pregnant woman’s choice of service is up to her. Brown argues mid-wife’ deliveries show lower C-section rates, fewer induced births and episiotomies, and higher rates of vaginal births with infant outcomes that are equal or better than hospitals.

Brown suggests care for expectant mothers is diminished by hospitalization.

Few service organizations and their employees perfectly serve the public. If one is not satisfied with a particular physician or medical service, a patient’s options are to choose a different service, live with or self-cure their malady, or try to find another medical treatment service. If the medical facility is the only one in town and has rude or unresponsive employees, a patient’s options are to complain about the medical service to supervisors or owners of the facility. Complaints may or may not change anything but failure to register a complaint will only reinforce poor services of the company.

Aged American citizens.

Brown goes on to discuss medical services for aged American citizens. The majority of Americans cannot afford full-service retirement communities that cover all natural aging maladies of those over 65. Qualification for complete care retirement communities often exceed a net worth requirement of $1,500,000 while most aged Americans’ have net worths of less than $250,000. This economic reality makes ageing in place a necessity rather than a choice for most Americans.

As is true of all humans, medical professionals and businesses can be seduced by the desire for money, power, and prestige at the expense and disadvantage of those who need health services like elder care.

Brown ends “The Cost of Care” with a practical, though ideologically idealized, idea of how to improve medical care in America. She argues for caregivers, particularly nurses, be trained to base their care on human relationship. Brown suggests focusing on a health care change in America. She argues for health care to be reorganized. Her book recommends insurance companies, medical services, and government administrations focus on creating a policy of “Medicare-for-all” that treats all elder and/or ill American citizens equally.

BRAIN CONDITIONING

Damasio’s theory may explain why history is filled with so much human tragedy. If emotion is the source of human evolution and knowledge, one doubts humans will ever achieve broad societal peace

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Natural Intelligence & the Logic of Consciousness

Author: Antonio Damasio

Narrated by: Julian Morris

Antonio Damasio (Portuguese neuroscientist, Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology at the University of Southern California.)

This is an abstruse book to read or listen to because of the writer’s complex theory of emotions in human evolution. Professor Damasio’s research, education, and thought leads him to believe that consciousness comes from the emotions of human life. He argues that Descartes’ belief that “I think. therefore, I am” is wrong. Damasio suggests the correct phrase should be “I feel. therefore, I am”.

In contrast to Descartes, Damasio believes emotion, alone, made humans who they are.

René Descartes (A French philosopher 1596-1650.) believed thought, alone, made humans who they are.

To Damasio, feelings precede and determine human life’s reasoning abilities. He argues our biological being comes from feeling (not mind or thought) that conditions human belief and bodily existence. Damasio argues temperature change, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, and blood pH are thermostats of a human being’s bodily existence. He argues changes in emotion affect the thermostats of life that inform and educate the brain to remember and act as human beings.

Why do humans get angry? Why do we love? Why do we hate? Why are we sad or happy? (Damasio argues emotions change the thermostats of being)

“The Secrets of Consciousness” looks at the brain as a storer of information without revealing what conscousness means.

To reinforce Damasio’s argument, he writes of a patient who retains his reasoning ability and IQ but is unable to decide to act because of a lack of emotional feeling. Like Artificial Intelligence, without emotional input, a brain may understand facts but fail to use them without emotional context. Damasio argues human evolution began with emotions that trained the mind in ways that changed the thermostats of the living; i.e., whether humans, elephants, apes, dogs, or cats.

B. F. Skinner, Harvard Psychologist and founder of the Operant Conditioning movement seems to have believed something similar to Damasio’s theory.

Damasio argues that consciousness and feeling evolve based on a life’s ability to regulate their “thermostats”. A newborn possesses feelings from the moment of birth and begins learning about life from emotions that garner responses of others and affect the thermostats of an infant’s body and mind. One may ask oneself, how is that different from A.I. that creates operational decisions based on remembered facts and historical results without emotional stimulation. If one accepts the author’s theory, A.I. only presents a false flag because mere facts have no emotional content. The irony of Damasio’s theory is that A.I. decisions are as likely to be as wrong or right as one informed by human emotion. The point is that wrong or right decisions are possible whether informed by historical facts or human emotions. That is not to deny Damasio’s theory of evolution through emotion but seems to make the end result of human or animal decisions as easily good or bad for advancing life.

The easy part of consciousness is observed cause and effect. The hard part is knowing where the change comes from and why it sustains itself or disappears.

One comes away from Damasio’s theory about the critical importance of emotion with as much skepticism as one has of A.I. as the savior or end of humankind. Of course, that is not the importance of the author’s theory. His theory simply makes one wonder whether emotion was and is the driver of human evolution, and our reasoning, decision-making, and consciousness.

It seems his theory shows more of a threat than benefit to humanity. Damasio’s theory may explain why history is filled with so much human tragedy. If emotion is the source of human evolution and knowledge, one doubts humans will ever achieve broad societal peace.

ACHIEVMENT’S COST

What Daugherty’s biography shows is that success as a great writer mattered the most to Cormac McCarthy.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Cormac McCarthy (A Legacy Revisited)

Author: Tracy Daugherty

Narrated by: Graham Winton

Tracy Daugherty (American author, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Oregon State University.)

Cormac McCarthy.

One thinks of Cormac McCarthy as a recluse, but Tracy Daugherty’s biography shows him to be a young boy who is a charmer and high school cutup who outshines the intelligence of his classmates. Living and being raised in Tennessee, he lives a life of an upper middleclass son who has a troubled relationship with his father. He begins his writing life early in his high school years, graduates from the University of Tennessee, and joins the U.S. Air Force in 1953. He leaves the Air Force in 1957, returns to Tennessee, and begins writing seriously in his twenties.

Cormac McCarthy’s first published novel.

At age 31, McCarthy has his first novel (The Orchard Keeper) published in 1965. It is not a best seller, but it receives praise from accomplished writers like Ralph Ellison. It is not until he is near 51 years of age that literary success for his writing is achieved. “Blood Meridian” is published. His fame and notoriety grow. Daughterty infers McCarthy’s father read everything his son wrote and admired his son but never resolves their broken relationship. When Cormac’s father dies, he chooses not to attend his funeral.

Even though the Orchard Keeper outsold Blood Meridian, this is the novel that gave McCarthy the reputation as a great writer.

Before “Blood Meridian”, McCarthy had written “Outer Dark”, “Child of God”, and “Suttree” which were published without much acclaim. Despite Daugherty’s characterization of McCarthy as a highly intelligent writer, he did not become widely famous until “All the Pretty Horses” is published in 1992. Literary success is accompanied by substantial financial success.

Daugherty suggests McCarthy’s personal life is troubled by selfishness and his obsession to become a great writer.

McCarthy neglects his wives and family because of his driven desire to be a great writer. His first marriage to Lee Holleman lasts for two years with one son, both of which he abandons. His second wife, Anne DeLisle, lasts for over ten years but his literary ambition, as it had in his first marriage, gets in the way of the relationship. McCarthy marries two more times but his growing reputation as one of America’s greatest novelists is elusive. He achieves the sobriquet of “great writer” with “Blood Meridian” published in 1985. It is considered a masterpiece of historical fiction alongside works of writers like Herman Melville and William Faulkner.

Cormac McCarthy as a young man when “Suttree” is published.

Goals are based on plans for achievement.

McCarthy’s reputation becomes legendary after the success of the “Border Trilogy” and “All the Pretty Horses”. His critical acclaim is nationally and internationally recognized. He is perceived as a recluse, an outsider, and a literary hermit. In Daugherty’s opinion, McCarthy was a disciplined, and dedicated artist whose public image hides the truth of his peripatetic and storied life.

The life of McCarthy is a story of how every human being is guilty of self-absorption.

Daugherty argues McCarthy captures an American life characterized by violence, greed, love, and achievement of a singular focused goal. McCarthy’s goal is to be a great writer. He transforms the experiences of his own life with intensity and reality that makes his writing unforgettable. Having recently listened to “The Road”, one can see how McCarthy regrets his failure as a father. It almost seems “The Road” is a kind of apology for his neglect as a father. McCarthy’s dogged pursuit to become a great writer is based on an obsession. The written characters he develops, and life experiences noted in this biography are clearly evident in his books. Only McCarthy would know if the cost of many marriages, his estrangement from his father, and the neglect of his first son (he had a second son with a future wife) were worth the achievement of his goal. McCarthy dies in 2023.

What Daugherty’s biography shows is that success as a great writer mattered the most to Cormac McCarthy.

FASCISM

This is not a book that objectively assesses the truth of our times as seriously dangerous as they are for America and its allies.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

End Times Fascism (And the Fight for the Living World)

Author: Naoimi Klein, Astra Taylor

Narrated by: Astra Taylor, Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein (Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker.)

Has American government become fascist? Is America being led by a Benito Mussolini and becoming more like Nazi Germany than a democratic nation?

The characteristic of a fascist nation is authoritarianism, ultranationalism, cultism, and opposition suppression designed to mobilize myth and emotion. Trump is an authoritarian. He believes America is the superior of all nations. He surrounds himself with sycophants who endorse his belief and fear his criticism. However, an estimated 59 to 61 percent of American citizens disapprove of Trump’s leadership. That opposition provides a belief that America is not and will not ever be like Mussolini’s or Hitler’s fascist regimes.

Klein and Taylor clearly mark the fascist actions and belief of America’s current president, but their arguments become tiresome and increasingly disrespectful of the power of democratic government and beliefs of an American majority. Their argument is diminished by being too judgmental, ignoring the feelings of most Americans, underestimating the power of America’s form of democracy, and oversimplifying the disgusting policies of an aged and incompetent President.

This is not a book that objectively assesses the truth of our times as seriously dangerous as they are for America and its allies. The picture drawn by these authors is a hyperbolically negative judgement of today’s American democracy. The book is returned to the library without being completed.

ADULTHOOD

Thomas Wolfe shows how we become adults. He implies adulthood is a function of genetic inheritance, personal experience, and acceptance or rejection of our parents’ life experience.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Look Homeword Angel

Author: Thomas Wolfe

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900-1938, American novelist and short story writer. North Carolina’s most famous writer.)

“Look Homeward Angel” is a tribute to the history of America in the early 20th century. What makes it a classic is that it reminds one of life in the 21st Century. In Wolfe’s short life, he captures a picture of America that is as reminiscent of today as yesterday. He tells the story of the Gant family as recalled by the book’s main character, Eugene Gant. Much of what is written seems like an experienced life of its author, Thomas Wolfe.

“Identity” is lost among Americans who do not have jobs or are grossly underpaid for the work they do.

Wolfe notes life is a search for identity filled with experiences of happiness, sadness, love, and loss. Our memories remind us of who we are, and how we became the person we think we are, despite the truth seen by others. Wolfe shows how humans are launched into life with experiences that make them something greater or smaller than their parents. As a child grows to adulthood, they become the sum of their personal life experience and inherited qualities of their parents.

S. J. Watson reminds reader/listeners of the nature and development of human beings.

The main character of “Look Homeward Angel” is Eugene Gant. Eugene’s story is about growing up in early 20th century America. Eugene is born into a big family, some of which die early in life. He is not the first born. The relationship between his father and mother show the trials of life between a husband, wife, and their children. William Gant, the father, drinks too much and seems to be in search of himself for a place in the world. He seems adrift with a self-destructive personality, an incoherent and somewhat peripatetic existence. He eventually settles into singular home life, but with scars from family separation and a wife who kept the home fires burning.

Can one be guilty of events for which they have no control over, or responsibility.

As in all families, every human being struggles to define themselves. Even though Eugene, his father, mother, and siblings have their own memories and history of life, Wolfe focuses on the growth and maturity of one son who grows to adulthood as a college graduate and an accomplished writer. It is the aspiration and self-discovery of Eugene and Wolfe’s engaging writing that keeps one engrossed in “Look Homeward Angel”. Wolfe is an extraordinarily gifted writer who paints imaginative, detailed, and believable pictures of an American family in the early 20th century. He portrays the vividness of life from the early 1900s through WWI and makes one think this is Thomas Wolfe’s life story.

Life’s journey.

Every child in a family has different expectations and experiences in life. Life is a singular journey for every human being. All of the Gant family members represent different aspects of life. Eugene’s mother is the anchor of the family. His father is a lesser light because of his lack of discipline, and employment instability. His sister, Helen, seems to understand Eugene as the aspirational child of the family. Eugene’s older brother and closest sibling, Ben, is a realist about the family’s instability and acts as protector of Eugene during the family’s hard times. Ben dies in the course of the story which gives reader/listeners a sense of the hardship in early 20th century America. Of course, the identified hardships of the Gant family remain in America today. That is what makes Wolfe’s story a literary classic.

Working in America.

Some Americans succeed in life; others fail. One sibling chooses to go to college while another chooses a different path. Each has an opportunity to succeed or fail. Education is no guarantee of a better life. However, doors are opened while others are closed without education. A minority of people become great, happy, and semi-contented while others fall into a cycle of poverty, unhappiness, and ever-present discontent. There is no clear path to success in life. One out of five of the Gant family presumably achieved fame and fortune. The other four seem to have lived a life of limited success in quiet desperation, insecurity, and struggle. “Look Homeward Angel” is as much a story of today as it is about early 20th century America.

A home of one’s own.

Wolfe shows that one can never fully go home again. Eugene has grown beyond his attachment to home because the past is only a memory and his future lays before him. Time changes everything. Wolfe shows the differences in how one becomes who they are; i.e., the family we come from shapes us in great and small ways. How and by whom we are raised is always with us. It does not mean we are not different from our parents. Thomas Wolfe shows how we become adults. He implies adulthood is a function of genetic inheritance, personal experience, and acceptance or rejection of our parents’ life experience.

WORLD COMITY

John Sedgwick gives a glimmer of hope for world comity in his history of American Southwest railroad construction. It may be just a matter of time as long as humans do not destroy the world.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

From the River to the Sea (The Untold Story of the Railroad War That Made the West )

Author: John Sedgwick

Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd

John Sedgwick (Author, American writer and historian who died at the age of 72 in 2o26.)

John Sedgwick’s history of the growth of railroads in America is well written and entertaining. The impact of his history reminds one of the advances of A.I. in America and around the world. His history recounts the movers and shakers of the 19th century that created a rail system that transported physical goods and connected American citizens of the Southwest to the United States.

General William Jackson Palmer, William Barstow Strong, and Jay Gould built railroad empires. Palmer built the railroad through the Rockies into the Southwest. Strong built the Santa Fe Railway that moved the rails westward from Kansas. Later, the wealth of Jay Gould raises the stakes and competition between Palmer and Strong. In effect, these men became nation builders who integrated the Southwest into the United States. They shaped rail routes that connected and integrated the Southwest to the economy of America.

Michael Wooldridge, in his Brief History of A.I., explains A.I. also had a roller-coaster history of highs and lows with new highs in this century.

Today, it is not railroads but A.I. and the internet that is connecting not only Americans but the entire world’s citizens, both economically and socially. A.I. and the internet spread ideas and information rather than physical goods, but the end result is economic and societal change. A.I.’s effect is to connect citizens of the world, like railroad rails connected citizens of the Southwest to the United States with product availability, cultural understanding, and sadly, many differences and misunderstandings that are evident throughout the world today.

A.I. and the internet.

Business models grew from singular entrepreneurs’ prerogative to build railroads to improve trade opportunities among America’s States. Just as entrepreneurs of the railroad industry created connections and trade in America’s early history, companies like Amazon in America, and the Alibaba Group in China have created connections and trade in the world. As A.I. and the internet grows–world markets, human knowledge, and decision-making became a possibility for the world in the same way railroad growth connects the Southwest to the United States.

The railroad expansion noted by Sedgwick shows how railroad construction hubs might be compared to today’s scramble for A.I. data centers.

The fiber networks of today are like railroad construction hubs sought by entrepreneurs of the 19th century. For China there is China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom. For America, there is AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others. These internet models resemble the hubs of early railroad conglomerates. The similarities of rail construction that changed America is like today’s internet that is connecting the world.

Railroads unified American States in a similar way that a worldwide web connects cultures of the world.

Specialization, science research, and coordination of new discoveries have greater potential with the interconnectedness of A.I. systems in ways that remind one of railroad connections of 19th century Southwestern American States. Interconnectedness is shown by Sedgwick’s history of railroads to have hugely benefited American society. The growth of railroads in America is not a perfect story of progress because of the grasping nature of human beings which reminds one of the leaders of all nations that seek power and influence. All of the movers and shakers of the railroad business pass into history but their legacy remains.

One hopes world interconnectedness from A.I. and the worldwide web will, like America’s rail expansion, become the seeds for worldwide improvement.

Sedgwick’s excellent history of railroads in Southwestern America offers insight to technology’s potential for world comity and greater economic prosperity for citizens of the world. The story of railroad construction as the glue that makes the Southwest part of America suggests A.I. and the world wide web may have a long way to go but world unity is at least conceivable if not guaranteed.

John Sedgwick shows how human nature gets in the way of national unity, let alone, international unity. Sedgwick gives a glimmer of hope for world comity in his history of American Southwest railroad construction. It may be just a matter of time as long as humans do not destroy the world.

TECH FASCISM

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Nerd Reich (Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy)

Author: Gil Duran

Narrated by: Vincent Price & 1 more

Gil Duran (Author, American journalist based in San Francisco.)

Duran has written a provocative book suggesting there is a cabal of tech entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and others who are engineering a potential master control system that will influence and eventually dominate society. He argues this system of control and influence is creating a “…Nerd Reich” in the sense of Hitler’s Third Reich that initiated WWII.

Leaders of a “Nerd Reich”?

The weakness of Duran’s argument is that most, if not all, human beings have self-interests that are different in ways that are great and small. Theil has strong opinions about what society gets wrong and seeks tech solutions to change societal belief. In contrast, Musk focuses on specific goals, like exploration of space, rocketry, and driverless cars. On the other hand, both show a desire to control humanity’s future like the biblical belief in God’s infallibility. Thiel pursues independent human thought by entrepreneurs not constrained by formal education. Musk pursues civilization-scale engineering based on technological education of the work force. The point is that these two entrepreneurs, like every human being, looks at life differently and emphasizes their personal biases in achieving their goals. Thiel looks for ways to change society by creating entrepreneurs while Musk looks to build things that do not exist with public/private education of workers. The point is that there is no entrepreneurial Tech cabal. There are Tech individuals looking for ways to change the world but in different ways.

Einstein is among a select group of extraordinary human beings.

Brilliant minds do not pursue the same goals. Revelation comes from different pursuits by those interested in different things. Some look for universal truths of science like Einstein while others look for truth about morality like Friedrich Nietzsche. Technologists will pursue both fields of study. They may agree on one avenue of exploration and not the other. There is no single cabal of interest by technologists, there are many different interest groups. Science and philosophical revelation generally come from an individual, not a consortium of people whether technologists, or scientists, or one person. Franklin Roosevelt and Adolph Hitler were leaders with immense power, but their power came from the people they led. The same is as true today as in the times of Roosevelt and Hitler. It is up to society to decide which path, which leader, we will follow.

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

The “Nerd Reich” is an exaggerated view of human revelation, discovery, creation, and execution. It does not give a complete picture but only a sliver of life, a period of temporary societal success or temporary failure. There will be and surely are tech cabals today, but that is and always will be the nature of human association or what is called society. Human beings associate with each other because of common interests and pursuits. Revelation always comes from the individual with hangers on that may have played a role in new discoveries, but social change comes from the “many”; not the “one”.

“Reich” is a harsh word to use in respect to people who have a common interest in technology.

Technology is a widely held interest of millions of citizens of every country in the world. However, it is only one discipline among many. Tech association within society is not a singular controller of action or outcome.

Truth or truthiness?

General human judgments are often based on “confirmation bias”. The nature of thought and belief of human beings is often based on evidence that others say is true without personally investigating the basis for their judgement. In addition, we tend to understand information based on things that are compatible with views we already believe. We also have selective memory and tend to forget contradictory evidence. We often fail to consider alternative explanations because of preconceived beliefs that comport with what is being stated as fact or fiction. Further, many are not willing to clearly look at the evidence that supports or denies drawn conclusions.

Reviewing the “Nerd Reich”, one must ask themselves what they have seen that suggests there is a “Nerd Reich”. Does Musk’s actions as an American government employee who fires Department heads and employees at the general direction of President Trump make him a member of the “Nerd Reich”. I think not, in view of his position of Trump’s Presidential appointment and Trump’s ordered direction. President Trump is not, by any stretch of imagination, a “Nerd…”. Trump is simply an autocrat who has risen to the level of his incompetence.

The world will have driverless cars, robotically produced merchandise, and cultures based on A.I.’ service to others in the future.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence is a concern of both politicians and the “Nerd…” generation. One doubts the American government will endorse or succumb to a “Nerd Reich” despite the threat of AI in the wrong hands. At least to those of us who believe AI is a tool of humanity, not a superior form of intelligence.

CREATIVE GENIUS

A reader/listener of this audio collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s prose illustrates his imaginative genius.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection

By: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by: Vincent Price & 1 more

Edgar Allan Poe (American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic.)

This photograph of Poe reminds one of characters in his macabre tales. This audio collection of the most famous Edgar Allen Poe’ short stories shows how creative, poetic, and disturbing his imagination is to an unwary listener. Short stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” are beautifully poetic but terrifying tales of life and death. Two of the chosen stories are haunted and terror filled narrations by Vincent Price or Basil Rathbone with voices that resonate with macabre messages about living and dying. From guilt that cannot be escaped to the impossibility of eternal life, Poe writes two stories to explain what it means to be a human being.

The hearts and minds of humanity.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is of a murderer of an old man whose body is hidden under the floorboards of a house where two men live together. The murderer perceives his victim had a “vulture eye” that, when it looked at him, made his “blood run cold”. He murders the old man who has this “…eye” and is confident that when the police arrive, the victim will not be discovered. However, as the police arrive to investigate, the murderer can’t help but hear a beating heart of the dead old man that is hidden below the floorboards. Of course, what he is hearing is his own heart from the guilt he feels for having murdered the old man. He confesses to the police because he cannot escape his own conscience. Or as Poe is famous for having written: “A guilty conscience needs no accuser.”

Russian murder room during Stalin’s rule in a visit to the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. (It is not a dungeon with a pendulum, but it speaks to the truth of man’s inhumanity to man.)

“The Pit and the Pendulum” is a clever story about the inevitability of death. Most human beings do not know why, from what, or when they will die but like the swing of a descending pendulum’s blade, life’s end will come. Poe makes it clear that even though we know death will come, most people have a will to survive.

Anthony Ray Hinton (Spent 28 years on death row for a crime he could not have committed.)

To some, the fear of death is worse than death itself. For others, because of not knowing where you are in life, what will happen in the future, and what one will die from makes fear an irrational way to live life. Descent of a blade’s pendulum, whether slow or fast, is a brilliant symbol of time as life’s executioner. As a human being, we look at our surroundings whether in a dungeon or not, the luck of an animal gnawing through ropes to help keep us alive reminds one of doctors trying to cure our illnesses or an attorney freeing a man from death row. Whomever ties us down in life are the people and circumstances of the life we live. The walls of the pendulum’s chamber are the boundaries of human existence.

A reader/listener of this audio collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s prose illustrates his imaginative genius.

DEMOCRACY

Timothy Ryback’s history of Hitler’s rise in Germany is a reminder of how fragile democracy can be.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

53 Days (How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy)

By: Timothy W. Ryback

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Timothy W. Ryback (Author, historian, director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, former lecturer on Concentration of History and Literature at Harvard.)

In writing “53 Days” Timothy Ryback identifies warning signs of democratic policy violations in Germany by Adolph Hitler in the 1930s. Hitler’s methodology is to attack institutions of government like the court system, the election process, government employment, and the media while blaming communist sympathizers trying to capture the government. The condition of the German economy is dire. Between 24 percent and 30 percent of Germany’s population were unemployed. Industrial output fell by 46%. A growing number of middle-class workers were losing their savings because of job losses. Faith in democracy collapses with citizens turning toward a belief in something different; i.e., either Communism or Nazism.

The Nazi party became the largest political force, though not a majority, in the 1932 election which gave legitimacy to the rise of Adolph Hitler.

Hitler preached power and refuses compromise. This nearly kills his appeal to the German majority but as Hitler exploits divisions among his rivals, their disorganization and infighting creates a vacuum that reduces resistance to the public’s interest in Hitler’s party. Most conservative leaders miscalculated the political appeal of Hitler. They took comfort in the appointment of President Hindenburg who expressed disdain for Hitler and his party platform. The tide soon turns with the suspicious Reichstag fire. (The suspicion is whether the fire is started by Nazis, the communists, or a lone arsonist unassociated with either party. The inference of the author is that it was a lone arsonist, but Hitler used the incident to inflame a political fire among fence sitters who sought governmental change.)

Power is impersonal, sometimes structural and emergent in ways that are non-intentional but significantly more powerful than one individual.

Surprisingly, Rybeck notes Hitler did not defeat democracy or the communist movement through a simple exercise of power but by using legal and constitutional procedures to overthrow a German democracy based on a distortion of democratic principles. Hitler’s rise, in Rybeck’s opinion, was not inevitable. However, many political leaders underestimated Hitler’s ability to undermine democracy by using democratic principles to undermine its efficacy. Rybeck believes democracy is a workable form of government rule in Germany’s time of economic strife, even in the 1930s. If constitutional safeguards, political parties, courts, and leaders upheld democratic norms, Rybeck believes real democracy could have restored the German economy. Of course, that is a road not taken because Hitler’s distortion of democratic norms gains control over the German government that turns into an autocracy. A listener/reader wonders whether America is at risk of being ruled by a clever tyrannical leader like Hitler.

In modern times, Trump’s rhetoric disingenuously appeals to blue-collar workers but with an underlying appeal to the rich who believe in “trickle down” economics.

The erosion of trust in elections is apparent in America from outsized influence of wealthy Americans and corporations that have agendas that are as likely to support as impede democratic ideals. Challenges to American Democracy have appeared from the influence of the politically and financially powerful in America. The independence of the judiciary and restrictions on news media access by the President are examples of challenges to the norms of American Democracy. Actions by today’s American President lean toward making America more autocratic than democratic. Trump’s vilification of the press, arbitrary firing of government employees, reliance on sycophancy as a measure of ability to manage government departments, undermining America’s election system, and the weakening of Constitutional checks and balances are examples of growing autocracy in America.

Ann Petry explains how decaying roots of a democratic government fertilize future generations of poverty-stricken families.

As one listens to Rybeck’s book, one sees parallels between Germany’s economy in the 1930s and rising economic insecurity in America. Like the society in Germany of the 1930s, America shows growing economic inequality, and declining trust in government departments from the arbitrary firing of competent employees. The rising political polarization of America is magnified by the election of an autocrat to govern an America that is founded on the principles of democracy. The wealth of people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Michael Dell and corporations like Google, AOL, Meta, Comcast, Walt Disney Company, Fox and other media conglomerates have inordinate power to influence public opinion; largely based on “what government policies benefit them”.

“One person, one vote” as the power of democracy is seriously challenged in today’s America. America’s economic situation is nothing as dire as Germany’s in the 1930s. American democratic institutions are firmly established by the Constitution. We are not recovering from a world war. However, a concern remains because of the rising gap between rich and poor in America.

The rising Gap between the rich and poor in America.

Politicians seem more focused on winning elections than defending democratic norms. Democratic ideals are being undermined by major influencers that have money and power in America. Independence of the courts needs to be reinforced. Elections must remain free and competitive without threats from a President that undermines the integrity of Americans right to vote. News media must retain its independence and a fundamental right of access to public government meetings. Federal government departments must have a level of independence with continuing education to professionalize their management skills. Constitutional limits must be respected by government representatives. Political parties and the elites of America need to constrain political leaders who violate the ideals of democracy.

Ryback’s history of Hitler’s rise in Germany is a reminder of how fragile democracy can be.

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