SOCIETY – Page 19 – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

UNIONIZATION

Nolan clearly illustrates how important political power is in balancing corporate owner/managers’ disproportionate incomes and privileges with labor.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Hammer” (Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor)

By: Hamilton Nolan

Narrated by: Franklin Pierson

Hamilton Nolan (Author and free-lance Journalist)

“The Hammer” is a paean to unionization. Unions lost much of their political power in the early 1970s. Political power of labor was diminished by State governments, poor labor union management, and a diminishing number of labor union members. Nolan’s argument is workers have to reestablish political power to change their unfair and inequitable relationship with business.

The widening gap between rich and poor is traced to the era of President Reagan when the first deep cuts in corporate taxes occur.

Reagan fought unionization by firing air traffic controllers that sought better wages. Reagan’s supporters believed government social programs were out of control and their cost diminished the power of free enterprise. Much of the American public either agreed or were apathetic. However, as the gap between rich and poor accelerated, Americans began to complain about inequality. With extraordinary income increases for business owners and CEOs, and repressed wages for workers, the need for unionized political power became self-evident. Nolan introduces his book about unionization with a brief biography of Sara Nelson.

Sara Nelson (AFA president of the Association of Flight Attendants.)

Nolan writes about Sara Nelson who became a union member when she worked for United Airlines as a stewardess. Nelson was born and lived in Corvallis, Oregon. She applies for a job with United Airlines in St. Louis. She gets the job but her first paycheck is late. She couldn’t pay her rent. A check is given to her by a union employee to tide her over until her first check is delivered. From that day forward, according to Nolan, Nelson became a supporter of unions. Eventually Nelson becomes the president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).

Liz Shuler (President of the AFL-CIO since 8/5/21.)

Ironically, the first woman President of the AFL-CIO is also from Oregon. Liz Shuler received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from U of O in Eugene, Oregon. She became a union activist after college and worked to organize clerical workers at Portland General Electric. She is elected as the President of the AFL-CIO in 2021 after serving as the first woman Secretary-Treasurer of the organization.

Nolan’s book addresses State conflicts with unionizers and family-income for low-income workers. The first states he addresses are South Carolina and California. Nolan notes South Carolina has become a haven for businesses wishing to avoid unions. South Carolina’ State laws discourage unionization which appeals to businesses wishing to relocate. Nolan notes South Carolina attracts businesses looking to improve profits by reducing labor costs. The consequence of business’s lower labor cost is to reduce South Carolina workers’ standard of living. South Carolina’s workers are among the lowest (19th out of 50 States) paid workers in the U.S. Nolan implies South Carolina’s income inequality is a consequence of the State’s policy of discouraging unionization.

California has the fourth largest income inequality in the U.S.

Nolan notes the cascading negative of unfair compensation for domestic labor. Though California now allows childcare servers to be unionized, their unionization efforts are discouraged by government regulation, as well as the fragmentation of its poorly compensated workers. The consequence of State government regulation keeps wages low and discourages entrepreneurs from starting childcare’ businesses. A compounding negative is created when users of childcare’ service, women in particular, are unable to work in regular work-day jobs. Workers are compelled to stay home to take care of their children, reducing family income and further impoverishing low-income childcare’ workers. It becomes a vicious cycle, hurting entrepreneurs trying to start a childcare service, employees wishing to increase family income, and employers needing more workers.

Nolan expands his argument by noting how service industries in Las Vegas, the State of Florida, New Orleans, and Mississippi are benefited by unionization.

Vacation and gambling meccas like Las Vegas, Florida, New Orleans and Mississippi need service industry employees. These vacation and gambling meccas depend on service quality for visiting tourists. Lack of representation for service employees diminishes employee’ standards of living which indirectly damages the reputation of the entertainment and vacation industry.

In Las Vegas, where Nolan lived for twenty years, the service industry is protected by the Culinary Union.

Nolan notes how strong the Culinary Union has become in Las Vegas and disparages casino owners like the Fertitta’s who have fought unionization. Numerous examples are given to show how union actions have improved the lives of Casino workers, many of which are immigrants from other countries.

Nolan’s argument for the value of unionization is compelling but his encomium for the union movement ignores America’s immigration crises.

The vast need for immigration reform is not being forcefully addressed by unions. Compensation inequity is a noble fight carried out by unionization, but it needs to broaden its role in immigration. Unions need to use their power and influence to change immigration policies to equitably treat a labor force that is sorely needed in America. Unions need to help educate and house legal immigrants, so they do not become a part of America’s growing homelessness. Additionally, unions could use their recruiting expertise to get Americans off the street by providing job training services and gainful employment.

**Public perception of unions could be monumentally improved with a program to recruit and indoctrinate the homeless with training for jobs in the 21st century.**

There is so much that unions could do to far exceed the minimalist goal noted in Liz Shuler’s plan to add a million union members over the next 10 years. Nolan pitches for Sara Nelson as a more dynamic leader for the union movement. Maybe Nelson would be better than Shuler, but growth, value, and public perception of union members could be monumentally improved with a program to recruit and indoctrinate the homeless with training and jobs for the 21st century.

Whomever the leaders of unionization may be in the future, Nolan clearly illustrates how important political power is in balancing corporate owner/managers’ disproportionate incomes and privileges with labor.

TIKTOK ENERGY

America and every nation must believe in themselves until, like all changes in society, the proof of an energy’s value becomes self-evident

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Energy” (A Human History)

By: Richard Rhodes

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Richard Rhodes (American journalist, historian, and author.)

Richard Rhodes explains the many forms of “Energy” that have changed the course of history. The one constant is human ingenuity. The source of energy evolves over centuries of civilization. The source of energy has changed from human hands to fuel burning machines to atomic fission to fusion to information. The back and forth of human thought and action have used sources of energy to remake the world. Rhodes’ history shows progress is not always forward. Change is often resisted until results outweigh failures.

Having just gone through the first chapters of Rhode’s excellent history of energy, this review was prematurely completed because of the TikTok controversy noted in the news.

It is important to complete Rhodes’ history to have some understanding of why information is the energy of modern times. Citizens of the world are facing many of the same obstacles Rhodes wrote about in his book. That energy is information may seem incongruous to some but, Rhodes’ history about wood, coal, oil, electricity, nuclear power, and the current state of renewables is like the energy crises of information today. Rhodes does not consider what some argue is tomorrow’s energy source. Tomorrow’s energy source is information. The many trials, the fits and starts, of the energy sources Rhodes explains are the same trials facing today’s world with information as the most current iteration of “Energy”.

Energy is fuel for doing work. Its early forms are those noted in Rhodes’ history. Earlier forms of energy are still relevant, but their utility is being challenged by the immense growth of information and how information drives the future.

There are lessons to be learned about the challenges of information as energy from the experiences noted in Rhodes’ history. This is a bumpy time that shares the trials and tribulations of wood, coal, oil, electricity, nuclear power, and renewable energy of the past. Each energy source has improved the lives of its users but not without trial and error. The world is in the midst of a transition from the industrial age just as the industrial age transitioned from the agricultural age. The world is entering the information age.

The energy change today is information, most recently multiplied by artificial intelligence.

The paranoia of today is that foreign governments will use information to disrupt the progress of nations that have their own forms of government. The controversy of TikTok is a case in point. On the one hand TikTok is being used by small entrepreneurs in America to conduct their businesses. On the other, TikTok’ popularity is spreading the equivalent of porn to the public, distorting the perception and education of children. There is the added threat of influencing the public to overthrow governments. The question is would TikTok be any less a threat if it were owned and restricted to one country or another? Facebook offers the same potential as TikTok. Facebook, Google, and Amazon are energy sources for distorting truth and influencing the public in the same way as TikTok. Domestic ownership does not cure the negative potential of information distortion or abhorrent political influence.

Is TikTok going to change democratic capitalism or is it going to change Chinese communism? One suspects, it will change both. The information highway cannot be blocked. Information energy, like water, will find its own way through cracks in its environment.

The fundamental point made in the last two chapters of Rhode’s excellent history is that the world, and America, need to increase the number of nuclear energy plants based on the need to curb environmental pollution. His argument is based on learning from the nuclear accidents that have occurred, and designing nuclear power plants to mitigate the consequence of failure. He notes no energy source in the world has succeeded without learning from producer’s mistakes. Our mistakes at Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island, and Fukushima are correctable. Environmental degradation is the crises of the 21st century that threatens human existence.

America and every nation must believe in themselves until, like all changes in society, the proof of an energy’s value becomes self-evident.

SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION

Rooney’s story is not a comforting tale but a reflection of social dysfunction that threatens humanity.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Normal People” (A Novel)

By: Sally Rooney

Narrated by: Aoife McMahon

Sally Rooney (Irish author and screenwriter.)

Sally Rooney infers high school is a testing ground for one’s conduct and place in society. High school is a highly formative period because of its social influences. It is a testing ground for leaders and followers. However, students do not arrive as blank slates. Every person has a genetic inheritance and family relationships, some come from wealth, some from poverty, some from close families, others from broken homes with emotionally close or distant parents. Rooney reveals how high school students bring learned experiences that test one’s social and intellectual abilities. Rooney’s main characters, Marianne and Connell come from different socioeconomic backgrounds who become intimately close but socially isolated.

Mariane comes from a wealthy Irish family, Connell from a poor Irish single parent family. Both are gifted with high intelligence and low self-esteem. Mariane’s self-esteem is largely caused by her mother’s and sibling’s ridicule. Connell’s low self-esteem seems to come from poverty while being raised by a single supportive mother. Mariane and Connell become lovers in high school. It is Mariane’s first sexual experience and Connell’s first meaningful relationship.

**That tragic event of a young friend’s suicide makes Mariane and Connell re-evaluate their lives. Despair over their non-committal lives reaches a crisis reflected in the statistics noted above.**

Rooney explores Mariane’s and Connell’s on and off again romance through their college years and later adult lives. Their relationship remains close, but both choose other lovers in their post HS’ years. Mariane’s hook-ups are with self-absorbed, abusive men, while Connell’s appear casual, not deep or lasting. Near the end of the story Mariane and Connell are brought together by the tragic loss of a friend who commits suicide. A listener realizes they are both on a path that could either be self-destructive or redemptive.

In the last chapters, Rooney leaves listeners wondering whether Mariane and Connell will have a life together or revert to their former desperate lives.

Their relationship mends and the potential for self-destruction seems ameliorated but separation looms over their lives. Apart, they may revert to the damaged personalities of their earlier lives. Rooney’s story is not a comforting tale but a reflection of social dysfunction that threatens humanity.

WHO’S LAUGHING

Appelbaum infers no American President has found the magic formula for balancing the needs of its citizens with the concept of Adam Smith’s free enterprise.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society“

By: Binyamin Appelbaum

Narrated by: Dan Bittner

Binyamin Appelbaum (Author, winner of a George Polk Award and a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, lead writer on economics and business for The New York Times Editorial Board)

Binyamin Appelbaum has written an interesting summary of a difficult but immensely important subject. Economic policy and theory are boring, but they touch every aspect of life. Appelbaum shows economic policy magnifies or diminishes the welfare of every American, let alone every economy in the world.

Adam Smith’s foundational theory of economics.

Though only briefly mentioned by Appelbaum, American economic policy begins with Adam Smith (1723-1790), the Scottish philosopher who wrote “The Wealth of Nations”. Smith advocated free trade and argued against parochial maximization of exports and imports that is manipulated by strict governmental regulation meant only to accumulate gold and silver.

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946, CONSIDERED FOR NOBEL 3 TIMES FOR DIPLOMACY BUT NEVER AWARDED.)

Appelbaum illustrates how American policy violated the entrepreneurial freedom that Adam Smith advocated. In contrast to Smith, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) advocates government intervention whenever there is an economic downturn. Equally interventionist is Milton Freidman’s (1912-2006) belief that government should increase or decrease the money supply for national economic stability. The point seems to be that every economist thinks they have a magic bullet that will cure the ills of a faltering economy.

To be fair, Friedman did believe in free enterprise in regard to nation-state currencies. He argued for a floating currency rate that ultimately led to President Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard. However, the nature of human beings led to speculation and manipulation of nation-state’ currencies that exacerbated trade tariffs and defeated the policy’s free-enterprise objective.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT (32ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, INTHE DEPRESSION, BANKS FAILED, UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY SKYROCKEDTED.

One concludes from “The Economists’ Hour…”, there is no magic solution for an economy in crises. Neither Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or any American President cured what ails an American economy that succumbs to economic crises. Adam Smith would argue an economic crisis is caused by a governments’ interference with free enterprise.

Applebaum explains how every 20th and 21st century President of the United States placed their faith in economists’ economic assessments of their day. All Presidents have found intervention by the government has unintended consequences.

President Nixon adopted Freidman’s monetary policy by imposing a freeze on prices and wages that squeezed the life out of the business economy and beggared the wage-earning public with job loss.

A decade of stagflation (high inflation and slow growth) followed Nixon’s administration. Stagflation is attacked by the Reagan administration with mixed results. A myth from economists like Arthur Laffer grew in 1974. Laffer believes taxation is either too high or too low for any benefit to society. Laffer argued zero tax and maximum taxation are equally harmful and produce economic stagnation and/or collapse.

ARTHUR LAFFER (American economist and author, served on President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board 1981-1989, Here illustrating the “Laffer Curve”.)

Laffer argued every government that reduces tax revenue decreases the stimulative effect of government spending. On the other hand, he suggested every tax cut increases income for taxpayers that will stimulate business and increase employment while encouraging higher production. He laughably created the “Laffer curve” to imply there is an optimum balance of tax reduction that would stimulate economic growth with proportionate increases in government revenue to provide for better government services. That balance has never been found. President Ronald Reagan experimented with Laffer’s idea, but it fails from unintended consequences. The principal consequence is to increase the gap between rich and poor.

BENEFIT OF TAX REDUCTION

Reagan accelerated a movement for government tax reduction that ultimately reduced income taxes from 70% to 28%. The result of government tax reduction during the Reagan years increased the U.S. budget deficit from $78.9 billion to $1.412 trillion. The benefit of that tax reduction went to the wealthy while school lunches were cut, subsidized housing declined by 8%, and poor families lost $64 a month in welfare payments. In 2023, the budget deficit stood at $1.70 trillion, an imbalance that shows why the “Laffer curve” is sardonically laughable.

President Reagan’s administration (1981-1989) was influenced by Laffer’s curve.

The joke is “There is no perfect balance on the curve because of the nature of human beings.”

Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Obama choose to follow Keynesian policy. Roosevelt bloated government employment. All three increased the government deficit.

Some suggest the idea of
“Cost benefit analysis” (CBA) is recommended to the federal government by two law professors, Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz during the George H. Bush administration but Reagan initiated it with an Executive Order in 1981.

Appelbaum notes that “cost benefit analysis” for government is first used during the administration of Ronald Reagan. However, Bill Clinton reifies its use with an Executive Order in 1993 that required covered agencies to do a CBA on “economically significant” government regulations. Ironically, Clinton was the first President in the post 19th century to balance the budget. Andrew Jackson manages to do it in his term between 1829 and 1837.

An irony of using “cost benefit analysis” is that it required a determination of of a human life’s value. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and future Presidents use value per statistical life during their administrations. High-income earners were worth $10 million to $15 million, middle-income earners $1 million to $2 million, and low-income earners $100,00 to $200,000. Of course, these values were always litigable. The point is that CBA became a tool for government to regulate the costs of government policies, ranging from military expense to the health, safety, and welfare of American citizens.

The remainder of Appelbaum’s book reflects on the experience of America, Chile, and Taiwan in the 20th century. The implication of his review of economic policy is that those countries that align with the free enterprise beliefs of Adam Smith have made mistakes. However, America’s, Chile’s, and Taiwan’s economic policies seem to have had more economic success when following Smith’s beliefs.

**No American President has found the magic formula for balancing the needs of its citizens with the concept of Adam Smith’s free enterprise.**

Along with CBA, Appelbaum notes the ongoing controversy is about regulation by government when it tries to balance American health, education, and welfare with Adam Smith’s concept of free enterprise. Appelbaum infers no American President has found the magic formula for balancing the needs of its citizens with the concept of Adam Smith’s free enterprise.

DEATH ROW

The question raised by “The Sun Does Shine”–is death row a necessary function of society? Anthony Ray Hinton’s life story challenges its efficacy.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Sun Does Shine“

By: Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin

Narrated by: Kevine R. Free

Anthony Ray Hinton’s life experience argues the death penalty for any crime should be abolished. Hinton states 1 in 10 people on death row have been wrongfully convicted. He spent 28 years on death row for crimes he could not have committed. His legal representation is poorly executed, in part, because he did not have enough money to pay for his defense.

Anthony Ray Hinton

Hinton’s 1 in 10 ratio of wrongful conviction is questioned but not denied by:

The “Death Penalty Information Center”
DNA evidence that has exonerated sentenced death row prisoners, and
statistical studies that show 1 in 25 criminal defendants sentenced to death have been found innocent.

Hinton’s “The Sun Does Shine” tells of his conviction by an Alabama court for robbery and murder of two fast-food restaurant managers in Birmingham, Alabama.

Appointment of a defense attorney is required by law, but their compensation and the accused’s poverty deny an adequate defense. Hinton’s story shows how the State of Alabama’s law enforcement and judicial system manufactured false evidence to convict and put him on death row.

Hinton’s mother, childhood friend, and religious belief support him through his false imprisonment and pending death by electrocution. His electrocution is postponed because of repeated challenges, but he remains on death row for 28 years. Hinton’s imagination and good will sustain him through his ordeal. He imagines traveling the world, marrying and divorcing beautiful women, and meeting the Queen of England.

**Hinton gains the respect of his jailers and fellow death row prisoners. He mentally catalogues the many executions that occur in his 30 years of incarceration.**

He remembers the blinking electric lights and smell of burning human flesh when each prisoner is electrocuted. He recalls the first woman to be electrocuted. He acknowledges many of the death-row’ prisoners committed horrible crimes but suggests they are victims of society because of their upbringing, and/or untreated or incurable mental dysfunctions. Hinton does not believe the guilty deserve execution for what he believes are societies’ failures.

It is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, attorney Bryan Stevenson, who comes to Hinton’s aid and eventually gets his case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014. Stevenson works on Hinton’s case for over 20 years with numerous blocks thrown up by the Alabama legal system. The original judge in the case insists throughout his life that Hinton was guilty even though falsified evidence convicted him of the crime.

After release, Hinton becomes a world-wide celebrity, acquainted with famous people like President Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, Nelson Mandela, and Oprah Winfrey.

His book suggests he was entertained by some famous actors and billionaires who wished to have his story told to audiences that presumably might affect a change in the American judicial system.

The question raised by “The Sun Does Shine”–is death row a necessary function of society? Anthony Ray Hinton’s life story challenges its efficacy.

EQUALITY

The Craft’s story is an inspiration for the anti-slavery movement before and after the civil war. Their story reinforces the principle of equality of opportunity for all.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Master, Slave, Husband, Wife“

By: Ilyon Woo

Narrated by: Janina Edwards & Leon Nixon

Ilyon Woo (American author, Received BA in Humanities from Yale College and has a PhD in English from Columbia University.)

“Master, Slave, Husband, Wife” will disabuse any listener who may think the American Civil War was not about slavery. Ilyon Woo’s detailed research of Ellen and William Craft reveals the many reasons why no one can deny the fundamental cause of the Civil War in America, i.e. it was slavery.

Ellen and William Craft

Ellen and William Craft were slaves until escape from their slave master in 1848. William was enslaved by a white land holder named Robert Collins who held a half interest in Craft’s ownership with another southerner. Ellen was the child of a white owner and black slave that gave her a fair-skinned white racial appearance. However, Ellen was classified as a slave because of her mixed racial parentage. Her mother was a slave to a white slaveholder who was her putative father. At the age of eleven, Ellen was gifted as a valued piece of property to a sister who later became Collin’s wife.

Ellen missed her birth mother but only after years of being on the run, did she manage to re-unite with her mother, Maria Smith.

In 1846, Ellen reached the age of 20 and agreed to marry William who was a skilled cabinet maker.

William was allowed to work for a portion of his wages in return for a cut of his income to be paid to his owners. In 1848, with the money William saved from his outside work, the married slaves planned an escape from Collin’s household. The plan was for Ellen to dress herself as a white man with William as her slave on a journey to Philadelphia, Boston, and possibly Canada.

Ellen Craft dressed as a white man with an accompanying slave who is actually her husband.

The fugitives succeed in their escape, but their success is challenged. The challenge came from the morally misguided attempt by the American government to avoid a war between the North and South by passing the “Fugitive Slave Act of 1850”.

That act would allow capture and return of runaway slaves to their putative owners. The Act was a compromise between the north and south, supported by President Millard Fillmore, who was willing to sacrifice black Americans to slavery in order to preserve the Union. Storied and respected leaders of America like Daniel Webster, who had freed his slaves, supported the “Fugitive Slave Act”. Webster believed, like the majority of a white Congress, that union was more important than human equality.

Woo’s detailed research reveals how Ellen and William had both black and white supporters who recognized the iniquity of slavery and helped them escape bounty hunters hired by Robert Collins to return the Crafts to slavery. Ellen and William were in Boston. They were helped to escape by Boston’s anti-slavery Americans of conscience.

The anti-slavery movement extended into some of the city of Boston’s government officials. Some local government officials refused to cooperate with bounty hunters trying to fulfill the legal requirements for recovery of escaped slaves. Woo infers Boston boiled with demonstrations against the “Fugitive Slave Act”.

The danger of recapture remained palpable because some officials were concerned more about preservation of the union than the iniquity of slavery. Ellen and William chose to flee to England. Their escape is aided by Quakers and the support of famous black Americans like Fredrick Douglass and William Wells Brown. Douglas publicized the story of the Crafts. William Wells Brown, an equally famous slave escapee, supported the Crafts by using them in traveling presentations that spoke of the iniquity of slavery and how they escaped its clutches. Ellen and William remained in England for 18 years. With the support of Lady Byron and Harriet Martineau, the Crafts learned how to read and write.

The Crafts spent three years at Ockham School in Surrey, England where they taught handicrafts and carpentry.

The Crafts respected each other in ways that defy simple explanation. Though they strongly supported each other, they were often separated for long periods of time. William and Ellen became self-educated writers and teachers who started schools. William traveled to Africa on his own and started a school without his wife. He was gone for months at a time but never broke with his wife who stayed in England.

After 18 years, Ellen and William return to the U.S. The civil war was over. They had five children together with two who remained in England. The Crafts started Woodville Cooperative Farm School in Bryan County, Georgia. The school failed but they continued to farm and wrote a book about their lives titled “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom…” which became popular in both England and the U.S.

The Craft family’s story of their flight to freedom.

Ellen Craft died in 1891. She was buried in Bryan County, Georgia. William Craft died in 1900 but was denied burial in Bryan County next to his wife. William was buried in Charleston, South Carolina. Though separated in death, they seem as tied to each other as they were in life. The Craft’s story is an inspiration for the anti-slavery movement before and after the civil war. Their story reinforces the principle of equality of opportunity for all.

SCHIZOPHRENIA

Being one of “The Best Minds” is of little help in coping with schizophrenia’s symptoms.

Blog: awalkingdelight

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Best Minds” A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

By: Jonathan Rosen

Narrated by: Jonathan Rosen

Jonathan Rosen (Author, Yale graduate–Accepted but dropped out of a PhD English program at Berkeley.)

Jonathan Rosen tells the story of his boyhood and adult friendship with Michael, a boy of his age who excels academically and professionally as a young graduate of Yale. Michael has a mental breakdown in his early twenties. He is diagnosed as schizophrenic. Rosen compares his years of adolescence with Michael’s.

Rosen’s stricken friend excels in every academic and business pursuit he undertakes before his slip into schizophrenia. In reflecting on the boy’s relationship, Rosen explains his perception of himself is as a grade school and high school plodder who prefers literature to math and the sciences. In contrast, Rosen suggests Michael’s academic qualities give him the ability to read, understand, and recite literary and science subjects with the ease of a savant. Michael reads everything with speed and understanding while Rosen labors over his studies.

The irony of Rosen’s perception of himself is that despite their differences, both he and Michael are accepted at Yale.

Rosen becomes an editor of the University’ newspaper, and later, a published author. Michael aspires to the editorship of the Yale paper, tries to become a published author, but is unsuccessful. Before graduation, Michael is recruited by a prestigious publicly held investment firm and seems on his way to great wealth and success. Instead, Rosen explains Michael leaves the investment company and begins to lose his way in life. Michael slips into a schizophrenic state that diminishes his eidetic memory and gives him a combination of debilitating psychological symptoms. At the height of Michael’s illness, he threatens his mother with a knife. With the persuasion of his father, Michael agrees to admit himself to a psychological ward which finally diagnosis his schizophrenia.

Michael, Rosen’s brilliant childhood friend, is admitted to a psychiatric ward for treatment designed to isolate and medicate its patients into a fog of confusion that is designed to lessen paranoid depression.

Rosen’s long introduction of himself and Michael seems prelude to an explanation of the ineptitude of the American psychiatric industry. Michael’s journey is an indictment of the American system of treatment for mental dysfunction. Michael is eventually discharged but is placed in a group home with other patients suffering from mental dysfunction. They share bedrooms with medications designed to isolate and offer palliative care that deadens their psychological symptoms.

Michael continues his treatment with the aid of minimal income from a government disability program that helps pay for his accommodation and psychoanalytic therapy.

He is directed to reengage life by his therapist with work as a clerk at a Macy’s Department Store. Michael’s father is incensed by the therapist’s diminishment of his son’s accomplishments and begins a campaign to have Yale reengage his son in pursuit of a law degree. With the help of Yale’s faculty, Michael is readmitted to the University.

Ironically, the Yale faculty and students become a caring haven that helps Michael cope with his medical condition.

However, Yale’s help is only palliative, not curative. Michael remains schizophrenic, only ameliorated by drugs and the calming influence of Yale students and faculty. His paranoia continues and becomes more severe when his father dies.

Schizophrenia affects only 1% of the population but has a higher risk of contraction from first degree relatives. (Michael’s grandmother was diagnosed with the disease.)

Michael seems on a road toward managed recovery with a detailed intellectual explanation of what schizophrenia is to him and how it creates delusional images that threaten his existence. His intellectual ability to explain his illness to the public attracts book publishers and the film industry to offer him over a million dollars for a book and film about his life. As this financial windfall becomes real, Michael and his fiancé plan to marry.

On June 17, 1998 Michael B. Laudor stabs his pregnant fiancé, Caroline Costello.

In a schizophrenic episode, Michael grabs his fiancé from behind, stabs her several times, and cuts her throat. Michael leaves her to die on their kitchen floor. Rosen notes that Michael quit taking his medication. He lost control in an episode of paranoia that viewed his fiancé as a maleficent alien presence. It seems a recurrence of what happened with his mother when he was thankfully convinced by his father to voluntarily commit himself to a hospital ward.

What becomes increasingly clear in Rosen’s biographical story is that there is no cure for schizophrenia.

Schizophrenic treatment is a life-long process that requires medication and a support system from caring caregivers, both professional and familial. Being one of “The Best Minds” is of little help in coping with schizophrenia’s symptoms. It requires lifelong assistance because it affects a person’s thinking, emotions, and interactions with the world.

Michael is charged with second-degree murder but is found not guilty by reason of mental defect. He is eventually committed to the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychotherapy Center in New Hampton, New York in which he remains as of 2023.

(This is a terrible and tragic story. Rosen’s detailed research shows Caroline Costello was a good person, willing to help others, intending to adopt her husband’s faith, and trying to care for Michael in his struggle with an incurable brain dysfunction.)

RICH AND POOR

Contrary to Leonhardt’s optimism, whether the American power structure continues to shift toward a more equitable treatment of the poor remains to be seen.

Blog: awalkingdelight

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Ours Was the Shining Future”

By: David Leonhardt

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

David Leonhardt (Author, journalist and columnist, writes “The Morning” newsletter for the “New York Times”, received a BS from Yale in applied mathematics in 1994.)

David Leonhardt writes an encomium to Democratic Capitalism in “Ours Was the Shining Future”. Some of what Leonhardt writes will make conservative Americans gag while liberals will tend to praise his view of American history. The hot button issues of 21st century America are immigration and the rising gap between rich and poor.

“Dallas, Texas, United States – May 1, 2010 a large group of demonstrators carry banners and wave flags during a pro-immigration march on May Day.”

Leonhardt’s selected historical facts argue that immigration has a cost to America that is mitigated by its contribution to the economy by second and later generation immigrants. He resurrects John F. Kennedy’s oft quoted phase about America as “A Nation of Immigrants”. Leonhardt argues the rising gap between rich and poor accelerated with the election of Ronald Reagan and subsequent tax and spend decisions made by later government administrations.

The difficulty one may have with Leonhardt’s reporting is that historical facts do not speak for themselves.

It is the power of Leonhardt’s persuasion rather than the facts of history (and one’s own prejudices) that make a credible argument for

(1) the benefit of unionization in America,

(2) the benefit of intervention by the Franklin Roosevelt administration during the depression,

(3) the aggressive tax reduction for high income earners with government overspending (beginning with Ronald Reagan) that negatively affected the American economy and disproportionately increased the gap between the rich and poor, and

(4) the monumental economic benefits from second generation immigrants like Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), Indra Nooyi (former CEO of PepsiCo), Elaine Chao (the U.S. Secretary of Transportation under Trump), and Lin-Manuel Miranda (the creator of the Broadway musicals “Hamilton” and “In the Heights”), and others.

Leonhardt recounts the history of the union movement in America that evolved into a political power that improved the income and lives of the working poor.

He touches on the corruption of the union movement but on balance suggests more good than bad came from its representation of labor. Leonhardt argues the decline of unionization and tax policy changes in the late 20th century increased the gap between rich and poor.

Leonhardt argues immigration needs reform and infers it should begin with acceptance of an estimated 340,000 children (dreamers) born in the U.S. to unauthorized immigrants.

He suggests new immigration should be limited to immediate relatives of legal immigrants that presently live in the U.S. He reiterates the value of second-generation immigrants while acknowledging the burden borne by the economy with first generation immigrants. New immigrants generally have a language deficiency, greater education needs, and a willingness to work at jobs for lower pay than non-immigrant workers who also need jobs.

Leonhardt suggests the gap between rich and poor is a function of an unequal distribution of political power.

Leonhard believes improvement is coming from a resurgent union movement and an evolving recognition by both conservatives and liberals of the consequence of inequitable tax treatment that favors the rich.

There is some evidence to support Leonhardt’s belief in a power shift with the recent union actions in automobile, teacher. and nursing services strikes that increased their income. Minimum wages have risen in 22 states that have affected an estimated 10 million workers. The highest are in California ($16), Massachusetts ($15.75), and Washington ($15.50).

However, one is inclined to be skeptical about income gap reduction with Trump’s Presidency that further reduced taxes on the rich and Biden’s reluctance to act on tax inequality.

Leonhardt receives a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, the Gerald Loeb Award for excellence in reporting on business, finance, and the economy, a New York Time Book Review Editors’ Choice award, and The Atlantic’s Ten Best Books of the Year for the most notable and influential book of the year. These are nice academic rewards but whether Leonhardt’s arguments are anything more than a finger in a dike, near a breaking point, is yet to be revealed.

Contrary to Leonhardt’s optimism, whether the American power structure continues to shift toward a more equitable treatment of the poor remains to be seen. The continued popularity of Trump among conservatives is disheartening and suggests otherwise.

RESPECT

Every human being has a life story. A few human beings like those in Verghese’s book show that respect for every life carries the hope of civilization.

Blog: awalkingdelight

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Covenant of Water”

By: Abraham Verghese

Narrated by: Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese (Author, American physician, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine @ Stanford University Medical School.)

As an immigrant, Abraham Verghese began working in America as a hospital orderly. His hospital experience led him to pursue a medical degree. His experience as a world traveler and physician gives weight to his writing about medical diagnosis, brutal loss of life, societal norms, the importance of belief, and human vulnerability. Verghese tells a story from the beginning of the twentieth century through two world wars. Its story is of two physicians (one from Sweden another from Scotland), and a resolute lower caste family in India.

**Water surrounds the world like an agreement that ties all people together, for better or worse.**

The author of “The Covenant of Water” emigrated to America when Haile Selassie was replaced by a Marxist military government in Ethiopia. One wonders if cultural conflict of interest may be more pernicious when land masses are separated by bodies of water. “The Covenant of Water” implies otherwise. Like any lasting covenant between parties, respective self-interests must be addressed and respected. When they are not, all parties suffer. At one point, Verghese suggests “The Covenant of Water” washes away life’s troubles. The tragedies he recounts suggest the real truth is that life’s troubles never wash away. Troubles remain within us in memory and only truly disappear in death.

India’s Saint Thomas Christians date back to the 3rd century. An estimated 4,000,000 St. Thomas Christians live in 21st century India.

Verghese’s story holds together through the generations of an Indian Christian family from the early 1900s through two world wars and the beginning of the 70s. Part of the story’s interest is in Great Britain’s colonization of India and its historical perspective. At the forefront of the story, there is the inevitable cultural conflict in any countries’ colonialization of another. Verghese shows no clear line can be drawn between exploitation and improvement of a colonized society whether its native American in North America, Aboriginal in Australia or of a lower caste family of a minority religion in India. Verghese interweaves an insightful story that magnifies reasons why cultural difference is only overcome on a person-to-person basis. India will always be India to its native citizens. Today, a similar truth is being played out in Gaza and Israel. Palestine will always be Palestinian just as Israel will always be Israeli.

Verghese’s story begins with an India wedding betrothal of a 12-year-old girl to a 40 something widow who has lost his wife to illness.

The betrothal is made at the recommendation of the husband’s relative who as a matchmaker researches the background of the betrothed’s family. The chosen bride is naturally afraid to leave her family and the groom is unsure of what he wishes to do. The matchmaker assures the groom the betrothal is a good one for him, and the marriage is consummated. The young girl travels from her home to her new husband’s property many miles away. Her greatest unhappiness is in leaving her mother but she is greeted by her new household by a helpful older woman. The young girl is comforted by her Christian beliefs and receives an omen of welcome by a massive bull elephant that had been saved by her new husband.

The incongruity of ages in this marriage is disconcerting to many listener/readers. Verghese non-judgmentally explains the culture of India in the early 1900s.

(World travelers will recognize remnants of that betrothal culture exist in India today.) The husband has a two-year-old son from his former marriage. He is a landowner as a result of personal ambition and hard work. He is not rich but is well respected by the people that know him. The husband treats his new bride with respect, and she begins to care for the household and her new stepson. They first have intimate relations when she turns 17. Their first child is a daughter who has a developmental problem that limits her intellectual growth. After two miscarriages, she has a boy who is a binding connection for the story. She grows to love her husband who dies when his child wife reaches her thirties. She becomes the matriarch of the clan.

This sets the tenor of Verghese’s story. It is a long, long, some might say too long story that repeatedly reminds one of how important it is to respect other people’s cultural beliefs while all life is filled with hardship and change.

Listener/readers will get a glimpse of India’s, as well as Great Britain’s, and Sweden’s cultures with the introduction of a Scottish and Swedish surgeon. What the main characters hold in common is that they have underlying respect for the life of others in any culture, whether rich, poor, educated, or unschooled. The two doctors, the child bride and her son are heroes and victims of their times.

Each of the main characters in Verghese’s book have unique life stories but a common thread of belief is respect for the life of all, cultural acceptance and understanding, and life-long pursuit of education.

The Swedish doctor travels the world to settle in a remote part of India to recreate a refuge for victims of leprosy. The Scottish doctor, after a life-threatening injury, becomes a patient of the Swedish doctor to be figuratively reborn by his experience after the Swede’s death. As true of the India family, the Scottish doctor’s life is dramatically changed by tragedy. The Swede dies at the refuge after having rehabilitated the Scottish physician’s burned hands. The Scott has been introduced to supporters of the Swede’s practice at the Leper colony and he evolves into a business owner/manager that makes him wealthy.

The son of the India child-bride saves a young child from drowning in a flood that whisks him and a nearly dead victim to the Swedish doctor’s clinic where the physically unable Scottish surgeon directs the boy in how to incise the babies throat to save the baby from asphyxiation. The young boy saved the babies life and overcame a hearing deficiency to become a social leader of his village in India during and after WWII.

The young boy, now a man, falls in love with a woman of his age that he had met when he saved the nearly drowned baby. They marry and have a child of their own. The child dies in a tragic accident. The loss of the child is felt to be the fault of each parent which tears their relationship apart. It never mends as the tragedy of their relationship continues to unfold. Their marriage falls apart. At this point the Scottish doctor re-enters the story with an unexpected revelation about the wife who leaves and returns because of the loss of their child. What is meant by “…loss of their child” is an added chapter to this tragedy that extends the story beyond one’s imagination.

Verghese shows himself to be an excellent writer but to some listener/readers the denouement of his story is a step too far for one’s imagination.

Every human being has a life story. A few human beings in Verghese’s book show that respect for every life carries the hope of civilization. Without respect between those who are different, Verghese shows why human dysfunction and tragedy will remain a condition of human society.

NATURE’S BALANCE

Do humans upset nature or are they another victim of nature’s balance?

Blog: awalkingdelight

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead”

By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Narrated by: Beata Pozniak

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” is well narrated, but its appeal seems lost in translation. The book is written with financial support from the Czech Republic. It makes a fundamental point about the animal world, but its story is diminished by its main character’s representation.

The heroine of the story believes in astrology. Those who are non-believers are distracted by the heroine’s constant reference to what many, if not most, consider a pseudo-science. Janina is an older woman who lives in a small settlement in the Czech Republic. She is a schoolteacher who has responsibility for the caring of second homes in a wilderness settlement when not in use by their owners. There are only a handful of residents that stay in the settlement during harsh winters.

The story begins with the death of a year-round resident. It appears the death is an accident from choking on a deer bone, but several mysterious deaths occur in that winter that make the local police realize a murderer is in the area.

The schoolteacher argues the deaths are a result of a rebellion against hunters by deer and wolves that have been indiscriminately hunted and killed for sport. She supports her argument with evidence of deer and wolf tracks near the death scenes. She reinforces her unwavering belief with astrological observations of the planets, human’ dates of birth, and the solar system’s orbital interference with each other.

The schoolteacher argues to all who would listen that indiscriminate human predation is causing an animal rebellion in their remote location.

She has mysteriously lost two pet dogs in this winter of death. The truth of her theory of rebellion becomes less believable and more mundane with the discovery of more human deaths and her characterization of her pets as lost daughters. Her dogs may have just run away or been eaten by wolves. With more human deaths, the police are convinced there is a human murderer in their midst. The story becomes a murder mystery, not a conspiracy foretold by the heavens.

What actually happened to her dogs is the clue that solves the case.

One surmises the underlying meaning of the story is that human beings are indiscriminate murderers of nature.

How many buffalo, elephants, lions, wildebeests, rhinos, tigers, boar, elk, and deer have been hunted and killed by humans for their ivory or trophies with carcasses left to rot?

In one sense, all predation is simply a way of keeping nature in balance. In another, human predation upsets the balance of nature by volitional choice. To the author, it is the second sense that tells listeners–humans do not preserve but arbitrarily upset the balance of nature.

The murder mystery is solved in the end, but the question lingers. Do humans upset nature or are they just another victim of nature’s balance? Time, not religion, science, or fiction, will tell.

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