Graduate Oregon State University and Northern Illinois University,
Former City Manager, Corporate Vice President, General Contractor, Non-Profit Project Manager, occasional free lance writer and photographer for the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The implication of “Queenie” is that who we become is highly influenced by how we are raised and treated as children.
Blog: awalkingdelight
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“Queenie”
By: Candice Carly-Williams
Candice Carly Williams (British Author, writer for “The Guardian” and “The Sunday Times”.)
Candice Carly Williams story will trouble every parent of conscience about their behavior when raising children. Williams adds an extra dimension to her story because it is about a woman of color.
Queenie, the heroine of Williams’ story, is a college educated writer for a British newspaper. She is the first person in her family’s history to have graduated from college. Queenie is in the midst of a breakup with her white boyfriend. She is pregnant but loses her pregnancy soon after her boyfriend decides they should take a break from their relationship. Her boyfriend keeps the flat they are renting by saying she cannot afford the rent so she should be the one to move out, either to her family or to a boarding house that she can afford. Queenie chooses to rent a room in a boarding house with other women. This is the beginning of Queenie’s journey down a Rabbit Hole of a psychic/neurotic breakdown that nearly destroys her life.
Queenie appears to use the break-up as license to exploit unattachment. She goes through a series of male acquaintances who capitalize on her vulnerabilities. Her sexual liaisons are for pleasure and pain, not affection or what might be considered love. Her ethnic beauty is shown as a curse and attraction to the worst nature of men. The men she chooses have little to no interest in who she is or why she allows them to treat her as a sex object. To Queenie, it is a matter of personal attention, pleasure, and pain that motivate her choice of mates. Queenie finds there are consequences for her behavior that range from hurting her women friends to diminishing belief in herself as an independent and competent human being.
Being Black in a white community magnifies Williams’ diminished self-esteem by illustrating how disrespected a person of color and a woman is in society.
However, Queenie’s sexual adventures and exploitation are applicable to many women in a misogynistic world. Being a woman in this world is hard but “Queenie” shows being a woman of color is even harder. The history of Queenie’s childhood is explained after events of her adult life are told. Childhood history is the base upon which the story of Queenie’s life has value to a reader/listener.
After being suspended from her job for an unjust stalking accusation, Queenie is compelled to move in with her grandparents. Williams offers a backstory of Queenie’s childhood. Her mother is in an abusive relationship with a second husband. She has no contact with her natural father who abandoned Queenie’s mother. Her mother re-marries. She is turned out of the house by her abusive stepfather when she is eleven years old. To a person of such a young age (despite help from grandparents) her stepfather’s rejection is unconscionable. It makes Queenie untrusting of everyone she meets but particularly men who have their own motives.
The “Queenie” story makes one think of what it is like to be raised in a broken family and how it impacts a child’s adult life. In Queenie’s case, she feels she can trust no one. Her many hook-ups are just a way of connecting with others to feel something other than being alone.
There are many lessons in Williams’ story. Men and women have a lot in common. Most, if not all human beings have some level of wanton desire.
Self- control is a power one can choose to use or ignore. Respect of every person is an ideal one strives to achieve but rarely accomplishes. When we lose self-control or when we fail to respect others, we diminish ourselves and society. Queenie grows to learn how to cultivate self-control with the help of therapy and the support of her friends, her grandmother, grandfather, and mother.
Like the longevity of Putin, and Assad, Kim Jung-Un is as likely to stay in power as long as the people who protect him are living better lives than the majority of their country’s citizens.
Blog: awalkingdelight
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The Great Successor”
“The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jung Un”
By: Anna Fifield
Anna Fifield (Author, Asia-Pacific editor at The Washington Post.)
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA: This file picture dated 15 April 1992 shows North Korean President Kim Il-Sung waving during the celebration marking his 80th birthday at Kim Il-Sung stadium in Pyongyang. The Chinese government announced last week it would not send “anyone” to attend Il-Sung’s 92nd anniversary in response to North Korea’s refusal of international nuclear inspections. (Photo credit should read JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images)
Anna Fifield offers a cloudy picture of today’s authoritarian leader of North Korea in “The Great Successor”. The reclusive and secretive nature of North Korea’s leadership makes Fifield’s analysis of Kim Jung-Un somewhat compromised. Her analysis is based on interviews of estranged North Korean’ exiles, other book writers, and news reporters about a regime that is notoriously opaque.
Despite the potential bias of secondhand information, Fifield shows a leader who exercises despotic control over 26 million people.
Kim Jung-Un (Supreme leader of North Korea.)
Fifield argues that North Korea’s government control is based on a cadre of carefully screened and highly benefited sycophants that obey Kim Jung-Un’s orders. At the age of 28 or 29, on December 17, 2011, Kim Jong-Un became the leader of North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
Kim’s most definitive action after appointment is to discredit his uncle, Jang Song-thaek who had government power and great influence in North Korea’s relationship with China and other sympathetic countries.
Fifield suggests Kim Jong-Un’s youth required assertiveness for him to show leadership legitimacy. The 67-year-old, Jang Song-thaek is accused by Kim of attempting to overthrow the state. He is executed on December 11, 2013, two years after Kim’s ascension. Fifield argues this action by Kim sent a message to his government employees and the public that he is in charge of North Korea.
Though the North Korean economy is nearer third world standards, the underground economy helps the poor raise their standard of living.
Fifield notes two critical factors that aid Kim Jong-Un’s control of North Korea. One is the fear created by his governments control of surveillance and propaganda. The other is his tolerance for an underground capitalist movement that bribes public officials while providing citizens added income.
Kim Jong-Un’s successful drive for a nuclear bomb gave him a position in the world of nuclear threat that tempers any nation-state’ action against his regime.
Fifield infers Kim Jong-Un is smart, his actions calculated, and his control of the country formidable. A primary example of Kim’s calculation is the story Fifield tells of his negotiation with President Trump. Kim manages to be the first leader of North Korea to meet with a President of the United States. Trump complimented Kim as a “strong guy”, a “great negotiator” and that he had a “very good relationship with him”. Fifield explains Kim’s success with the nuclear bomb program encouraged him to redirect his focus to modernizing the country and its economy.
Kim praised President Trump while leaving the idea of nuclear disarmament as a possible negotiable issue in return for American help with the economy. Fifield suggests Kim has no intention of abandoning his nuclear bomb program.
Fifield suggests Kim’s focus became the economy with an increased incentive to normalize relations with America. (In 2023, Kim’s failure to improve relations seems to have reignited his nuclear bomb ambitions with more testing and further rocket delivery tests.)
Very little was known about Kim Jung-Un before his ascendence to leadership. He received his early education in North Korea and Switzerland. He was strongly supported by his mother who promoted him to the then leader of North Korea, Kim il Sung, who wanted continuation of the Sung dynasty, the Mount Paektu bloodline, of which Kin Jun-Un represents.
Kim Jung-Un has two sisters, one half-brother, and one brother. The younger brother, born in 1981, Kim Jong-chul (on the lower right), lives a low-profile life in Pyongyang with no interest in government. The half-brother, Kim Jon-nam, was assassinated in Malaysia in 2017. The older sister, Kim Sul-song (upper left) is a worker in the propaganda department that supports Kim Jong-Un and his leadership but has more recently been sidelined. A sister who is younger than Kim Jung-Un is characterized as a publicity diplomat. She appears accommodating within the limits of Kim Jun-Un’s influence and control.
Fifield’s book is interesting but not particularly enlightening. Kim Jung-Un may be on the world stage for a long time. The Ukraine invasion by Russia, along with China’s support gives North Korea added weight in world affairs. Like the longevity of Putin, and Assad, Kim Jung-Un is as likely to stay in power as long as the people who protect him are living better lives than the majority of their country’s citizens.
“Girl Decoded, A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology”
By: Rana el Kallouby with Carol Colman
Narrated by: Rana el Kallouby
Rana el Kallouby (Author, Egyptian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur, founder and former CEO of Affectiva, Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School.)
Rana el Kallouby offers an autobiographical story of her personal journey from Egypt to America and her evolution from scientist to CEO of a facial recognition tech company. Though Kallouby’s story is personal, her experience shows what determination and commitment is required to start a tech company and grow it into something more than an idea. Of course, the underlying story is about American assimilation.
Egyptian women protesting inequality.
Growing up in Egypt in the 20th century, Kallouby experiences an upper middle-class life with a father who taught tech coding and a mother who works as a computer programmer for a bank. These were years of upheaval in Egypt and the Middle East for both men and women. Many educated Egyptian’s hired themselves out to work in other countries that needed technological help in business and finance. Women in the workplace in Egypt were less common than in the U.S. Kallouby’s mother chose to be both a housewife and a working mother who inspired her daughter to be more than a barer of children, homemaker, and companion to a husband.
Part of Kallouby’s early education is in Kuwait while her father works for the government.
She and her parents are there when Iraq invades Kuwait and when Gaddafi sets fire to the Kuwait oil fields when his invading army is ejected by American forces. Kallouby’s family returns to Egypt where Rana continues her education at the American University of Cairo. She earns a BA and Master of Science degree, and is subsequently admitted to Cambridge to pursue a Ph.D.
The tech experience of Kallouby’s parents lead her to an interest in coding.
That interest evolves into an idea about modern communication and its reflection in face behavior. The growing popularity of the internet diminishes personal contact that gives emotional context through facial expression. Kallouby begins spending a great deal of time coding facial expressions with the idea of creating recognition software to give more clarity to human communication.
Hosni Mubarak (1928-2020, Fourth President of Egypt.)
As a young Egyptian woman and as a devout Muslim, Kallouby chooses to marry a fellow Muslim who has his own tech business in Cairo. They buy a house and eventually have two children, a boy and a girl. As she commutes between Boston and Cairo, President Hosni Mubarek resigns under political pressure fomented by the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed Morsi is elected in 2012 as the new leader of Egypt. Morsi becomes Egypt’s President because of his religious background and support by the Muslim Brotherhood. Because of Morsi’s inexperience as a government leader and its troubled economy, Egypt’s military re-takes control of the government under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2014. Though little is said by Kallouby about these events, her life’s journey continues.
Kallouby becomes obsessed with the idea of coding facial expressions.
That single-minded focus leads to further education in England and the U.S. After receiving a master’s degree, Kallouby chooses to seek a PhD at Cambridge with facial recognition as her thesis. Because of her chosen thesis, Kallouby’s education and drive lead her to an MIT lab in Boston.
This begins Kallouby’s Americanization which carries good and bad consequences.
Kallouby’s single-minded focus is two-edged. As a devout Muslim, she marries a fellow Muslim in Egypt. The person she marries is in the tech industry. He manages his own business in Egypt.
Kallouby’s travels between Egypt, England, and the U.S. create a growing disaffection in their marriage.
Though they manage to have two children, the strain of separation leads to divorce. The good that comes from Kallouby’s focus and ambition is evidenced by her success in being a co-founder of Affectiva. She did not do it alone and was aided by Dr. Rosalind Picard (the other founder), both of which were researchers at the MIT Media Lab. The bad is the personal price Kallouby pays in a divorce from her Egyptian husband and the hardship of being a single mother with two children.
Kallouby’s journey illustrates the great value of immigration to America.
Immigration comes with a personal price, but America is blessed by those who have the will and drive to make a better life for themselves and others. Kallouby’s story shows how religion, nationality, and personal ambition add to America’s prosperity. Kallouby became an Egyptian American with a foot in each country. Both Egypt and America are better for it.
CEOs and their Boards need to compensate workers equitably.
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite”
By: Duff McDonald
Narrated by: George Newbern
Duff McDonald (Author, Canadian American, University of Pennsylvania graduate in Finance.)
“The Golden Passport” explains how Duff McDonald believes America got to today’s state of income inequality. McDonald argues that inequality is largely created by one education system, Harvard Business School, founded in 1908. According to a team of academics that publishes “Academic Influence”, HBS produces most of the Fortune 500 companies’ CEOs. With an estimated 70,000 HBS alumni, there is some merit to McDonald’s argument, but the fundamental cause is not education but human nature.
The extent of HBS’s impact on business practices certainly has influence on business leaders and teachers around the world. This is a similar argument made by William Deresiewicz in “Excellent Sheep” about America’s political leaders and administrators who were educated in exclusive ivy league universities.
Both authors suggest Ivy league universities are turning out management automatons that tend to think inside the same box, i.e., a mind-set that perpetuates income and power as the primary motivations of those who manage the business economy. Both authors argue Ivy league’ graduates permeate the management structure of the largest businesses and most powerful political offices in the world. The graduates of the Ivy league have common backgrounds and education with predictable answers for thought and action that have accelerated and reinforced income inequality in America.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982, Russian-born American writer and philosopher associated with capitalist’ self-interest. Though not educated at Harvard, Rand is considered a philosophical precursor to a belief that one should have liberty of thought and action, i.e., the libertarian view of society.)
Though HBS may be a promoter and reinforcer of income inequality, it is only an influencer of what makes humans acquisitive. The majority, if not all humans, are self-interested. Though self-interest varies among individuals, wealth is power–particularly in capitalist countries. The more money one has the more freedom and independence accompanies their lives.
McDonald’s point is that the HBS’s business model focuses on profitability as the only measure of business success. Because of that focus, business executives myopically view workers as a cost rather than source of company profitability. By reducing worker costs, executives are rewarded with uncapped compensation policies.
Business decisions are always made without knowledge of all information needed to direct an organization’s actions.
The case study method of education, pioneered by the Harvard Business School, focuses on profitability as the primary, if not singular, goal of a business enterprise. Efficiency becomes the mantra of business management which discounts, often ignores, workers’ compensation within corporations. By focusing on profitability, there is a point of diminishing return because of its impact on workers’ motivation. Pressing for higher productivity and reducing labor costs have diminishing rates of return that are not taken into account by CEOs interest in cost cutting. CEOs are incentivized to choose efficiency over worker welfare and productivity.
Robert McNamara (U.S. Secy. of Defense in the Kennedy administration.)
The real-world example McDonald uses to make his point is the war in Vietnam and the role of U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. McNamara is a Harvard graduate that by any measure was a brilliant student. He outclassed most of his business class students in his ability to bolster arguments with recalled information that most would have to look-up to use as part of their policy decisions.
Henry Ford (1863-1947, American industrialist and business magnet who founded Ford Motor Company.)
McNamara accepted the Controller’s job at Ford Motor Company when Henry Ford’s son took over the company. His education at Harvard led him to focus on efficiency as a primary tool for improving the business performance of Ford. His drive for efficiency is based on reducing costs of labor and material while increasing automobile production.
McNamara developed what became known as the “Whiz Kids” of management that carried out his drive for efficiency to increase corporate profits.
By the measure of profitability, the “Whiz Kids” were extraordinarily successful. The drive for efficiency increased corporate officer salaries because of corporate profits. What is not taken into consideration is that it disproportionately depressed worker compensation increases. The long-term worker’ effects were not part of the “Whiz Kids” concern; in part because those effects are difficult to measure. There are many reasons why Ford’s profits fell after McNamara left the company, but McDonald implies an underlying cause is Ford’s penchant to address worker income as only an efficiency measure. Ford loss of profit rises in the early 1970s and reaches $2.3 billion in 1991.
McNamara became Ford’s General Manager in 1949 and served as President in 1960. He left Ford in 1961 to become President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense.
McDonald writes that McNamara’s experience at Ford led him to believe statistical analysis is the only basis upon which success may be measured. That focus discounted human intensity of belief in the political cause of the Vietcong. American superiority on the battlefield could not defeat Vietcong political intensity. McDonald’s point is that a CEO who looks at employees as only cost centers rather than humans with a social underpinning will eventually cause business failure.
The difficulty is in measuring worker social impact on performance. A CEO is unable to make rational decisions about employee compensation without better understanding of workers’ needs. With CEO emphasis on corporate profits, the inclination is to either to ignore or minimize workers’ compensation when making business decisions. The end result is to widen the compensation gap between CEO pay and most employees of the company. McDonald argues the 1970s became the beginning of a pig feeding for corporate CEOs that has only accelerated with further influence by HBS’ education changes.
McDonald explains how business education at Harvard created a self-perpetuating engine for CEO salary acceleration with HBS Directors like Michael Porter who created the Five Forces Framework. The Five Forces Framework is a statistical analysis of the competitive environment of specific industries. By using that analysis, business mergers and divestiture decisions could be made based on profitability.
Michael Porter (Born in 1947–appointed Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard in 2000. Considered the strategy guru at Harvard that led to mergers and acquisitions around the world.)
The net effect certainly increased business profits but minimized employee enrichment while multiplying CEO compensation.
The Five Forces Framework led to a spate of mergers that continued to accelerate CEO compensation without commensurate salary increases or, in some cases, continued employment of workers.
Before beginning “The Golden Passport”, one might think the unconscionable incomes of CEOs of large corporations is a moral, not pecuniary, observation. However, CEO’s pay in relation to salaries of working men and women is not about morality. It is about money, worker employment, and the work contribution a motivated worker offers to business. There are many variables to the profitability of a corporation with a CEO’s contribution being management judgement, time, and skill. The argument based on morality ignores the truth that one person’s role as CEO cannot be justified when it is 300 to 400 times the annual salary of a worker (an estimate noted by Statistica, a global analytics software package).
How can any human being be worth 30 to 40 million dollars a year–even if he/she is expected to work every hour of a 24-hour day as a CEO? McDonald suggests HBS’ educated CEOs press for short term profitability because it offers outsize rewards for their performance. Workers are laid off when mergers occur and they never receive compensation increases equal to bonuses paid CEOs.
McDonald goes on to give many examples of the evolution of HSB curriculum for students. The emphasis remains based on statistical analysis of profitability because it is an easily measurable criterion. Corporate performance improvement, whether it is improved profit or an industry’s ability to stay in business, CEOs and their Boards need to compensate workers equitably.
Evolution may ultimately reveal the truth of life and death but neither religion nor science have been historically infallible nor unerring.
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology
By: J.P. Moreland, Dan Egeler-Forward
Narrated by: Mathew McAuliffe
J. P. Moreland (Author, American philosopher, theologian and Christian apologist.)
“Scientism and Secularism” is a disappointing polemic on an important but highly biased assessment of religion and science. No one escapes the bias of belief because of their life experience. J. P. Moreland’s life experience leads him to believe God is the proven origin of life. For many that is not how they became believers or non-believers. Belief in God is an evolutionary belief just as truths of science have evolved with newer discoveries.
The horrible consequences of religious belief have murdered millions of human beings.
Moreland’s book is a tiring replication of faith not factual certainty or proof of God’s existence. Religion, like science, has evolved over centuries of human existence.
Maybe there is God, but Moreland’s God is only Moreland’s God, a God founded on faith not proof.
Who in their right mind would not want a God that is omniscient and omnipresent that ultimately ensures the fair treatment during life and after death?
As a discipline, philosophy addresses fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and existence. It plays an important role in science because it provides a framework for empirical evaluation, but categorization as a philosopher is not evidence of truth. At best, Philosophy is only a beginning of knowledge, not proof of knowledge.
Moreland denies evolution but history shows both religion and science have evolved over the centuries with immeasurable pain and gain for society. Moreland argues Darwin is wrong about the evolution of man. Moreland argues the randomness of genetic selection and time are not an experimentally proven explanation of the perfection and distinction of animal species. Really?
The only area of agreement one may have with Moreland is that great achievements in the world of ideas and things could not have been created without the existence of both religion and science. Evolution may ultimately reveal the truth of life and death but neither religion nor science have been historically infallible nor unerring.
The power of belief in science or religion both leads and misleads humanity. Humans may not forgive but they often forget.
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Hiding Place
By: Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill
Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
Corrie ten Boom (Dutch watchmaker, Christian writer and public speaker.)John Sherrill and Elizabeth Sherrill (Christian writers.)
This is the life story of Corrie ten Boom and her experience in WWII. It is an autobiography written with the help of the Sherrills who have written or co-authored over 30 books translated into more than 40 languages. Though Ms. ten Boom and the Sherrills have passed, “The Hiding Place” is a paean to religious belief that has sustained civilization.
The belief eulogized in “The Hiding Place” is Christian, but it could be any faith. Whether Islamism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Caodaism, humanism, naturalism, “…ism” is belief in something greater than oneself.
The rise of Nazism in Germany was a political ideology, secular in its origin, and loosely based on belief in science.
Science is a systematic method of gaining knowledge about nature, its causes and consequence. Like every belief system, science is based on human cognition which can lead or mislead humanity. Neither science nor religion have omniscient or omnipresent insight to the nature of the universe because of the human mind’s limitations and interpretations of facts and events. Religion, like science, can lead and mislead civilization because of human limitation and interpretation.
Thankfully, Corrie ten Boom’s family’s belief in the Bible led them to aid Jews when they were persecuted by the false science of German Naziism.
The relevance of “The Hiding Place” resonates today in the conflict between Palestinians and Jews in Israel and Palestine. One can see a conflict between religion and science in the tragedy that is unfolding in Gaza. Both Hamas and the Jews use their religious beliefs and the science of war to kill each other. As in all war, there is no winner. The death of 6,000,000 Jews in WWII and the slaughter of Jews at the festival in Israel are horrid and unforgivable, but can they or should they be used as justification for the horror of what is happening in Gaza?
She follows her religious belief to do what she could to save her Catholic family and Netherland’s Jews from Nazi’s societal and science ignorance. What forgiveness there is in Corrie ten Boom’s book is only in the acceptance of the Word in her Bible. The power of belief in science or religion both leads and misleads humanity. Humans may not forgive but they often forget.
In the 21st century, actions and policies of one nation are not local. Like a ripple in water, the world can be changed by one stone thrower.
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
By: Adam Tooze
Narrated by: Simon Vance, Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze (British Author, Historian, professor at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute.)
“Crashed” is a book about the 2008 financial crash. Though it is old news, Adam Tooze offers historical perspective and a cautionary tale about America, the E.U., China, India, Russia, Spain, and other nations of the world. Interconnectedness is greater now than any time in history. The surprising realization in Tooze’s analysis of the financial crash is that America caught a fiscal infection like Covid19, and it spread across the world.
These securities were purchased and re-sold among big banks, wealthy investors, and investment houses. The lax oversight of the quality of the combined mortgages led to a cascade of bank and investment house failures that nearly collapsed the world financial system.
Though the western world was more directly affected by purchases of these mortgage packages, countries like China, Russia, South Korea, Ireland, Spain, and Greece were severely, if not equally, impacted.
Nations’ financial crises were not solely because of purchases of these mortgage packages but because of world economic interconnectedness. Nations of the world, as users of energy and product purchases, quit buying. At the same time, Tooze notes the American dollar was hoarded by some countries for protection from devaluation of local currencies. With America’s financial crises, the dollar became a source of devaluation rather than protection.
China chose to invest in domestic infrastructure projects like dams, high speed rail, and bridges. China chose to increase product production (at lower labor costs) for the worldwide market. In contrast, Russia reinforced kleptocracy, before, during, and after the 2008 crisis, by rewarding Russian oligarchs who became a wealthy and powerful cadre of supporters of the government. With favored treatment of the oligarchs, Vladimir Putin recognized he had the power to act as he wished whether it was in the best interest of Russian citizens or not. (This is similar to the repressive reign of Kim Jon-un who spreads the wealth of his nation on a relatively small cadre of North Korean protectors while many citizens live in poverty.)
Ben Bernanke (American economist, 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve.)
In America, Tooze deconstructed the complicated negotiation process between banking industry independence and federal government oversite by the Obama administration. The range of disagreement is from nationalization of the banking industry to a direct bailout of overextended banks. Though the government bluntly accused banking executives of overpaying themselves for the mistakes they made, Obama and Geitner recognized the importance of industry independence in making complicated decisions to get America out of its financial ditch. The decision is made to bailout the banks. The American government loaned enough money to banks and select companies to maintain American lenders’ and industries’ liquidity.
Timothy Geithner (Former central banker, 75th U.S Secretary of the Treasury under President Obama.)
In order to stabilize the economy, 320 billion euros were lent to Greece by the European Union and the IMF. As of 2019, only 41.6 billion had been paid back to reduce that debt. The E.U. and IMF imposed austerity measures that principally hurt the poor by reducing retirement pensions and employment opportunities. Greece fell into a recession that lasted until 2017. The poor became poorer because of pension reductions and loss of jobs. (Full repayment of the 320-billion-dollar loan is not expected until 2060.)
Tooze tells a similar story about Spain. The 2008 crises caused a 3.6% reduction in GDP in 2009. Spain’s response was similar to Greece’s in that the poor were more likely to have been hurt than the rich because of implemented austerity measures that reduced public spending, and job creation that impoverished a wide swarth of society.
The final chapters of Tooze’s history severely criticizes the rise of Trump and his extremist rhetoric about helping the working poor when in fact he is only interested in himself, his power, and his wealth. Tooze implies Trump uses American belief in free speech, and the power of public office to distort the truth of immigration, poverty, and equality to mislead the public. Historically, this is not a new American phenomenon but in this technological age, the damage political leaders can inflict on the public is multiplied.
In explaining the impact of the 2008 financial crises, Tooze shows how one nation’s actions and policies can roil the world. In the 21st century, actions and policies of one nation are not local. Like a ripple in water, the world can be changed by one stone thrower.
As Orson Welles noted: “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” The tragedy of that observation is that Welles infers love and friendship are only an ephemeral illusion.
Audio-book Review By Chet Yarbrough
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Something Wonderful (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution)
By: Todd S. Purdum
Narrated by: Todd Purdum
Todd Purdum (Author, former New York Times Journalist, writer for Politico.)
“Something Wonderful” is a refreshing break from recent book reviews about war. Todd Purdum writes and narrates an informative biography of two Broadway legends, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein and their contribution to New York theatre. Purdum explains their music, comedy, and drama changed the rules of Broadway musicals.
Richard Rogers (L) and Oscar Hammerstein (R).
Coincidentally, Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s partnership is in the early years of America’s entry into WWII. Their first collaboration was “Green Grow the Lilacs” which was originally a 1931 one act play, rewritten by Rogers and Hammerstein. It became their first successful collaboration known as “Oklahoma”.
Audiences of today probably remember the movie version starring Gordon MacRae, and Shirley Jones.
However, in the St James Theatre in New York, it ran for five years with 2,212 performances culminating in a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Not bad, for Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s first collaboration. It was the beginning of a long and storied career for these artists. Purdum notes Hammerstein would write the poetic words (the lyrics) of a song that would be put to music by the genius of Richard Rogers. Purdum explains, though they worked independently, they collaborated in a magical way that changed and broadened the appeal of musicals. The magic came from their work as two independent thinkers within their lanes of expertise. Hammerstein would write the lyrics and Rogers would create the music to fit the words.
The two embarked on a series of hits from 1942 to 1960 with famous works like “Carousel”, “South Pacific”, “The King and I”, and “The Sound of Music”, all of which became successful and entertaining movies for a public that could not afford live productions on “The Great White Way” (the Theater District between 41st and 53rd street in New York). Those of a certain age remember great songs like “If I Loved You”, “Some Enchanted Evening”, “Getting to Know You”, and “My Favorite Things”.
Purdum explains how Rogers and Hammerstein broke many records by changing the rules of musicals. They created memorable melodies by experimenting with different musical styles and performers from opera to folk to jazz. They integrated plot and character to create entertaining, sometimes controversial social commentary, ranging from the comic to dramatic to tragic stories of life.
Rogers and Hammerstein won 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, and two Grammy Awards.
After their great run on Broadway, Roger’s and Hammerstein’s attentions turn to the movies and the early beginnings of television. Their theatre productions become films that reach a much wider audience. However, translations from stage to film had a host of drawbacks ranging from casting to censorship that affected audiences’ reactions to what were great and successful Broadway musicals.
As a movie, who can forget “The King and I” and the brilliant performances of Yul Brenner and Deborah Kerr?
Nearing the end of Purdum’s fine story, these scions of entertainment are nearing the end of their productivity. In 1957, they produced Cinderella for television. An estimated 107 million viewers watched Julie Andrews play the part of Cinderella. The only other Broadway collaboration of note was “Flower Drum Song” that was well received but a commercial flop.
Oscar Hammerstein died in 1960 at the age of 65. The cause of death was stomach cancer.
Purdum notes Rogers’ alcoholism, womanizing and often-suffered bouts of depression greatly affected his last years. In 1957 he was hospitalized. He recovered and lived for another 22 years. He died in 1979 after what was called a long (undisclosed) illness.
After Hammerstein’s death, Purdum notes Rodgers could not reproduce the lyrical success of Hammerstein’s poetic alliteration.
Rodgers greatest success after the death of Hammerstein seems to have been oversight of the movie production of “The Sound of Music”.
The sad thing revealed by Purdum is that Rogers and Hammerstein never seemed to develop a close personal relationship. Each lived in their own worlds and only met in their musical collaborations, not as friends but as ambitious business associates. Purdum wrote of Rogers’ comment about regretting never really getting to know Hammerstein.
As Orson Welles noted: “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” The tragedy of that observation is that Welles infers love and friendship are only an ephemeral illusion.
The story of la Drang shows how all wars are crimes against humanity. There are no winners, only losers and grief.
Audio-book Review By Chet Yarbrough
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
We Were Soldiers Once…and Young (la Drang-The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam)
By:Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
Harold Gregory Moore Jr. (1922-2017)Nov. 17, 1965Joseph Lee Galloway (1941-2021)
Today, on Veterans’ Day, after starting and stopping this book several years ago, it is finally completed and being reviewed. This is a harsh story for soldiers enlisted or drafted during Vietnam. It is harder for families that lost their sons (over 58,000) and daughters (8 women) in the war.
Moore, a graduate of West Point, was the lieutenant colonel in command of the 1st Battalion at la Drang in what is considered by some as “The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam”.
Joseph Galloway, the co-author, was a civilian journalist and correspondent that accompanied the Battalion at la Drang.
Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway recount the battle of the 7th Calvary Regiment at the Battle of la Drang in 1965. Moore was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor and Galloway was the only civilian ever awarded a Bronze Star for combat valor for carrying a wounded soldier back to safety during the la Drang battle in Vietnam.
Fellowship of war.Medics in war.Notice of war death.
Three things stand out to this reviewer of Moore’s and Galloway’s explanation of America’s war in Vietnam. One is the fellowship of soldiers that comes from a common threat to their lives. Two is Moore’s observation that there were not enough medics in Vietnam in 1965, and three, the mishandling of family notification of lost soldiers in the early years of the war. Two and three were presumably corrected in later years.
The story of la Drang shows how all wars are crimes against humanity.
Use of napalm in Vietnam.
There are many inferences one may draw from “We Were Soldiers Once…” but Moore and Galloway write about one battle in the early years of Vietnam’s escalation that foretells that war’s futility. What about today’s battles in Ukraine and Palestine. What do those early battles foretell?
It is disturbing to look back on what happened in the early years of America’s Vietnam war. There are too many mistakes and battle tragedies to be clearly understood. Yesterday it was Vietnam. Today it is the Ukraine-Russian and Palestine-Israel wars. At their ends, one doubts there will be winners but is assured there will be losers.
Mandela’s biography and today’s conflict between Hamas and Israel makes one ask oneself–Is a tenuous and ephemeral peace worth the death of innocents?
Audio-book Review By Chet Yarbrough
Blog: awalkingdelight Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Long Walk to Freedom
By:Nelson Mandela
Narrated by: Michael Boatman
Nelson Mandela, (1918-2013, Died at age 95, South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, President of South Africa 1994-1999)
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography details the life of a remarkable and important leader of South Africa’s revolt against apartheid. Mandela began as a pacifist resister of white repression. However, his autobiography shows a change in belief from passive resistance to violence. (Mandela’s evolution from pacifist to belief in violence for social change is a reminder of the evolution of Malcolm X , the rise of the Black Panthers in America, and the Hamas and Israeli conflict in Palestine and Israel.)
Factions of the world today, like Mandela’s thought and action in the mid-20th century, believe in the utility of violence and terror for social change. The state of Israel, the territory of Gaza, and many countries of the world, like India, Lebanon, Iran, Hong Kong, Sudan, Libya, America, and others have political factions that believe they can change their societies with violence and terror. The conundrum of violence and terror is whether they proffer social gain or loss. The truth of gain or loss from violence and terror is being tested by the Hamas faction of Palestine and the conservative followers of Netanyahu in Israel.
The likelihood of a young African boy raised in a small village becoming President of South Africa beggars the imagination.
Mandela’s autobiography explains how it happened. There are 11 officially recognized tribes in South Africa. Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family, a subgroup of the Xhosa people. He explains his father, though not literate or formally educated, is a leader in his village. Mandela notes that his father had four wives and travelled between villages to spend time with each wife. When his father was away, his birth mother took care of him, but his father, as well as his mother, seem to have had great influence on his life. Mandela tells of walks with his father and the conversations his father has with other village members that mold Mandela’s beliefs and ambition in life.
Mandela notes his mother guides him to an important change in his life. When his father dies, his mother moves to a bigger village where he comes under the care of a regent of the Thembu tribe.
Mandela is effectively adopted into the royal Thembu family and moves into their palace. His ambition seems stimulated by that association and inspires him to become a formally educated South African.
Mandela receives a BA degree from Fort Hare in Alice, South Africa in 1943. He studied law at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. At that time, Mandela did not receive a law degree but was able to practice law because of a two-year diploma in law as an add-on to his BA. (When imprisoned, he studies, passes his University of South Africa’ law classes, and receives an LLB in 1989.) Mandela chooses to use his two-year diploma in law to become an advocate for Black liberation in South Africa. After graduation and his beginning practice of law, he is counseled by some to abandon politics to avoid arrest and intimidation by the government. However, Mandela chooses to join the African National Congress (ANC) in 1943. He becomes the co-founder of the youth league of ANC in 1944.
FORT HARE COLLEGEUNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND
In his early ANC years, Mandela emphasized passive resistance like that practiced by Mahatma Gandhi in India. ANC had been formed in 1912 as a South African native congress but grew to become a multi-racial organization including all races and ethnic groups in South Africa. Mandela notes that the communist party was interested in being part of ANC’s role in liberating South Africans from apartheid. Mandela expresses reservation about the CPSA (the Communist Party of South Africa) but acknowledges its help in raising funds for an ANC army that was to be organized by Mandela as a militant resistance force to overcome apartheid. CPSA influence and ANC association became a part of the movement.
As a politician, Mandela had no experience in armed resistance. It is interesting that he is chosen to form the first ANC terrorist cell.
Mandela grows to believe political recognition requires violent resistance but also a personal ability to persuade others to join the ANC’ movement either financially or physically. Mandela is trained in Ethiopia by Col Fekadu Wakene on how to plant explosives and manage a volunteer army.
Col Fekadu Wakene taught South African political activist Nelson Mandela the tricks of guerrilla warfare – including how to plant explosives before slipping quietly away into the night. (BBC Africa by Penny Dale)
Ironically, Mandela is arrested in 1961 after only one action by his gathered volunteer army in December 1961. Whether the action is at the order of Mandela is not revealed but the resistance blows up an electricity sub-station. Mandela is arrested and serves 27+ years in prison for organizing the volunteer army which became known as Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). Three years of trial led to a guilty verdict.
Mandela was arrested and charged with high treason along with his collaborators. The Rivonia Trial turned Mandela into a symbol of the struggle against apartheid.
The last chapters of Mandela’s autobiography is about his incarceration on Robben Island and Pollsmoor Prison and the conditions of his imprisonment. While in prison, Mandela continues his education to become a licensed attorney.
In the first two years at Robben Island, Mandela and his co-conspirators are restricted to their cells. Methodist religious services were eventually allowed but sermonizing about reconciliation offended Mandela and his fellow prisoners. Though much of what some ministers preached were offensive to the imprisoned, Mandela approves of one minister who looks at his religion through the lens of science as well as faith.
ROBBEN ISLANDPOLLSMOOR PRISON
Mandela and his co-conspirators remain at Robben Island for 18 years before being transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. This is a significant improvement in their incarceration because of cell accommodations and food quality. However, his co-conspirators are separated from Mandela. Mandela is released in 1990, over 29 years after arrest.
Mandela explains a door is opened to the government of South Africa by Kobie Coetsee (1931-2000, died at age 69), the South African minister of justice and prisons.
In 1985, Botha was President of South Africa. Botha offered release to Mandela if he would unconditionally renounce violence against the government. Mandela refused and Botha denied Mandela’s release.
When F. W. de-Klerk became President of South Africa, after being Minister of National Education, a possibility for Mandela’s release was reopened.
Later, Mandela negotiated with de-Klerk to have his co-conspirators released from Robben Island and Pollsmoor. Further, Mandela negotiated with de-Klerk to have South Africa’s apartheid policies eliminated. President de-Klerk agreed, and Mandela was released in 1990. Both de-Klerk and Mandela receive the Nobel Peace prize for their negotiated peace agreement.
The last three-hour section of Mandela’s autobiography is about freedom and Mandela’s election as President of South Africa. The price of peace is high because violence seems a requirement for good-faith negotiation between opposing parties. Mandela’s biography and today’s conflict between Hamas and Israel makes one ask oneself–Is a tenuous and ephemeral peace worth the death of innocents?
(There is a brief interview with the author who aided Mandela in completion of his autobiography. It took two years of interviews and research to complete Mandela’s story.)
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 