Who’s Right?

There are many ways of understanding Andrew Boryga’s book, “Victim”. It is an eye-opening examination of minority life in America.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Victim” 

By: Andrew Boryga

Narrated by: Anthony Rey Perez

Andrew Boryga (Author, Bronx resident, Cornell graduate, freelance writer for the NYT, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.)

There are many ways of understanding Andrew Boryga’s book, “Victim”. It is an eye-opening examination of minority life in America. Being poor, whether a minority or a white American, is a struggle for identity. A white person in America has immense advantage, but Boryga’s story shows how much greater the challenge is for a person of color.

The main characters of Boryga’s story are Latinos named Javier Perez, Gio and Lena. Some may argue only Javier and Gio are the most relevant but Lena, Javier’s romantic partner, is at the heart of a question of who is right in lives of inequality.

There are many reasons to appreciate Boryga’s insightful story. It gives credit to committed teachers who struggle to raise the sights of students who are challenged by poverty and hardship. Javier is a character with ambition to be more than a street hustler trying to get by in a low-income neighborhood in the Bronx. It is with the help of a single mother and a dedicated teacher that Javier pursues a better life. His father was a drug dealer, murdered in Puerto Rico. Being raised in New York by his mother, Javier visits his father when he is murdered. That experience, the strict upbringing of his mother, and a teacher at his school offer lessons of life and opportunity to Javier. With the help of his teacher, Javier becomes a college-educated’ writer who struggles to become a literary and financial success.

It seems the window of opportunity for Javier depends on his intelligence, the help of his teacher, and retrospectively, his friend, Gio.

At first reading of “Victim”, Gio appears to offer an alternative life like that which Javier’s father followed. Obviously, what happened to Javier’s father influences Javier’s choices in life. Javier tries to influence Gio to abandon the drug-mule’ road he is following. Javier fails Gio, himself, Lena, and the Latino students he teaches in his neighborhood.

Javier meets Lena in college.

Lena is Latino but comes from a more financially secure family in the Bronx with a strict father and loving mother. In contrast, Javier is being raised by his widowed mother who is barely making enough money to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. Lena is a social activist for Latino rights. Javier and Lena become lovers but from quite different economic and family backgrounds. They move in together, but their place of cohabitation is the old neighborhood in which Javier is a teacher and struggling writer.

Lena pursues her activist career with little pay and a difficult adjustment in an unsafe neighborhood in the Bronx.

She grows to feel isolated and unfulfilled in her pursuit of equal rights, both as a Latino and woman. Javier understands the neighborhood in which they live but to Lena it is too dangerous, and her job does not offer enough personal satisfaction and income for her and Javier to improve their lives. Javier ignores her concern because he understands life in the neighborhood and feels comfortable in dealing with its risks.

Javier and Lena are at a crossroads in their lives. Javier decides their crossroad has a meaning that is worthy of a story that could be published in the paper for which he works part time while teaching at the local school.

His story disingenuously describes the conflict between Lena and himself. Javier believes and writes that he would be abandoning the fight for Latino rights by leaving his neighborhood for a safer community that Lena desires. Javier does not take into consideration their common goals or the difference between a woman and a man when living in a tough neighborhood. The story he writes about their relationship and its breakup makes him famous. He is offered a higher paying job as a full-time writer. He quits teaching but the break-up is irreversible. The reason for its irreversibility is substance of the story. His story distorts the truth of why Lena leaves Javier and the neighborhood.

While Javier strives for success as a writer, Gio is arrested for drug dealing and sentenced to prison. Javier loses touch with Gio because of their different life decisions.

Earlier, Javier tries to rescue his friend Gio from the gang life of the neighborhood. Ironically, Gio saves Javier from a false understanding of what happened in his life. The mistake Javier makes with Gio is similar to the mistake he makes with Lena. Gio’s and Lena’s lives are only their own. Javier fails to appreciate their personal experiences and how they made them who they became. Gio’s life is changed by his gang and later prison experience. Lena’s life is formed by the influence of her parents and life as a middleclass woman who wishes to help her race succeed in a prejudiced world. Javier sacrifices his relationship with both Gio and Lena by not understanding their personal identities and reasons for being who they become.

Javier makes the mistake of using Lena and Gio as subjects of his stories that do not represent who they are from their personal life experiences.

However, Javier’s stories are so well written that he becomes a coveted writer by his newspaper and a book agent who wishes to represent him. The problem is that his stories are made of facts that are not truthful representations of either Lena’s or Gio’s evolved lives.

Javier is publicly exposed for his distorted stories about what it is like, and what it means to be a Latino American in a white-biased culture.

Javier’s wish to become a renowned writer is halted by a you-tube interview by an investigative reporter. He is fired by the paper who employs him. Gio tells Javier to quit feeling sorry for himself and tells him to get on with his life. Gio has overcome the trials of his imprisonment and is on the way to becoming a positive contribution to society even though it continues to be biased against his success. Javier begins to understand the importance of factual accuracy and understanding of others when writing a story purported to be the truth. One wonders if that is why the author chooses to identify “Victim” as a novel and not a report of his or anyone else’s life.

The story of “Victim” is that inequality is a fact of life but not an insurmountable obstacle to peace and prosperity for determined individuals.

WHAT’S TO BE DONE

America cannot pass essential legislation that fairly addresses the burden and potential benefit of immigration.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“A Map of Future Ruins” (On Borders and Belonging)

By: Lauren Markham

Narrated by: Gilli Messer

Lauren Markham (Author, reporter on issues about migration and human rights.)

Immigration is a hot subject around the world.

Lauren Markham writes a somewhat disjointed book about immigration to a Greek island between Turkey and Greece.

Lauren Markham offers a report of a fire in a Lesbos refugee camp in the small town of Moria on September 9, 2010. There were no deaths from the fire but the conditions of the encampment and the government’s response to the crises tell of unfair and inadequate treatment of refugees–reminiscent of other countries dealings with unwanted immigrants.

The camp was designed to hold 3,000 people but grew to nearly 13,000. Seventy percent of the migrants were from Afghanistan. A fire of unknown origin destroyed the immigrant’s shelter that gave notice to the world of the inadequate care offered refugees fleeing crime, poverty, and displacement in their home countries.

Turkey and Greece have a storied history of conflict that is reminiscent of the Afghanis flight from Afghanistan. Turkey’s most revered leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ordered Greeks to leave Turkey in a mass exodus during his reign. Ethnic and religious differences between the Ottoman Empire and Greece came to a boil in 1923. Those differences are reminiscent of the escape of Afghanis from the restrictive life of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Afghanis chose a route from Afghanistan through Iran to Turkey to the Greek Island of Lesbos to escape the Taliban.

Markham shows the initial response of the Greeks was to aid the Afghanis in their flight but as the number of refugees grew, the burden became too great. The conditions of the encampment deteriorated, and the anger of the Greek government escalated. A fire of unknown origin began in the camp. Six Afghanis, two of which were minors under 18 years of age, were arrested and found guilty of setting the fire. Markham shows the evidence for conviction had nothing to do with truth but was manufactured by the Greek Court to find a verdict of guilt.

“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.”

The inference from Markam’s report is that America’s border state conflicts will, and undoubtedly have, resulted in unjust treatment of emigrants. The irony is that America needs emigrants to meet the needs of its economic future. America seems to be doing as poor a job of addressing immigration as the story of the Afghanis in Moria. America cannot pass essential legislation that fairly addresses the burden and potential benefit of immigration.

THE COLOR LINE

Marie Arana clearly argues the color of one’s skin has given great advantage to white citizens of the world.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“LatinoLand” (A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority)

By: Marie Arana

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

Marie Arana (Author, graduate of Northwestern University of Hong Kong with a BA in Russian Language and Literature and an MA in Linguistics.)

“LatinoLand” begins shakily with what seems an exaggeration of international Latino cultural influence in the world. However, as Marie Arana continues her report a listener/reader appreciates her knowledge of American Latino history. Her argument is that Americans have little understanding of the largest and least understood minority in the continental United States. If one continues the book beyond the first chapters, her argument about Latino culture in America becomes clear and compelling.

Marie Arana was born in Peru.

Presuming from Arana’s education in Hong Kong, she speaks and understands several languages. From her book, it appears she was born into an upper-class Peruvian family who could afford a superior education for their children. Her father was a successful civil engineer who married an American from Kansas. She moved with her parents to Summit, New Jersey when she was nine years old. Arana earned two college degrees from the Northwestern University of Hong Kong.

In one sense, “LatinoLand” is about America’s greatest 21st century challenge, immigration.

More importantly, it is about human discrimination, ignorance, and inequality. Discrimination begins with perceived difference. The greatness visible marker of difference is the color of one’s skin. Arana argues discrimination begins with skin color. She explains how inequality grows from discrimination, and cultural ignorance. (Though not mentioned, human self-interest plays a role in the creation of inequality.) A mixture of ignorance and not caring for others creates fear and potential for violence.

Mosaic of children from around the world, including, Kayapo, Indian, Native American, Inuit, Balinese, Polynesian, Yanomamo, Cuban, Tsaatan, Moroccan, Mongolian, Karo, Malagasy, and Pakistani.

Arana notes how the color of one’s skin is one of the most prominent features of difference among humans. Skin color differences, lack of caring, self-interest, and ignorance breed economic inequality. Arana implies the American Constitution ameliorates some human failings but does not achieve its ideals. She suggests American democratic ideals have been used by some political leaders as a Trojan horse for authoritarianism. She particularly points to the difference between what Fidel Castro said about creating a Cuban democracy when he overthrew Batista, i.e., he claimed to want a democratic haven for its people. However, under Castro, Arana notes Cuba became an authoritarian dictatorship that victimized its citizens by taking their assets and using their value to create and maintain a government-controlled economy.

Arana recounts the history of Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico as examples of countries that preached democratic ideals but became authoritarian dictatorships that eschewed freedom and impoverished its citizens.

Many Cubans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans fled to the U.S. to escape authoritarian victimization. What many found was American discrimination made it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the American ideal of freedom and independence. Immigrants could not escape poverty because of the color of their skin, their language difference, and a lack of caring by white Americans pursuing their own dreams.

She goes on to explain the first Latino becomes part of President Reagan’s cabinet as the Secretary of Education in 1988. Of course, Arana acknowledges many Latinos have succeeded in America. From sports stars to musicians to military heroes to Supreme Court justices, America has benefited from the Latino diaspora. But Arana suggests many more Latinos have not achieved the American dream because of the color of their skin.

Arana notes the Nixon Administration is the first President to recognize a separate and distinct ethnic group labeled Hispanic.

Arana suggests the labeling of ethnic groups is a chimera, a fabrication of the mind. People are a mixture of different ethnicities. She implies no one is a pure anything because of the nature of humankind. The inference is that all humans are just humans, and the only difference is in their respective cultures. Cultural differences are relevant but the color of one’s skin is the mark that bodes ill for societies’ future.

In her review of history, Arana notes how a Latino child was discriminated against by having to play in different playgrounds than white children. Only with the advance of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 did that wrong get righted.

The proximate and initial cause of discrimination always seems to be the color of one’s skin. Interestingly, Arana notes that white skin makes a difference in many cultures, including her native culture in Peru where white skin was highly coveted and sought through marriages with white skinned relations.

Arana points to the great contributions that have been made and continue to be made by Latinos to American growth and prosperity.

Discrimination has always been a struggle because of inherent human self-interest, regardless of the ideals of the American Constitution. Arana notes the hurdles that immigrants face in getting to America, let alone becoming free and independent. Many Americans, from Presidents to Congressman to individual American citizens fight newcomers who are struggling to find a better life, employment, security, and peace.

Arana notes more Latinos are coming to America, but from other countries than Mexico. It is surprising to find more Mexican citizens are choosing to leave than come to America. This is not changing the struggle, but it clarifies Arana’s many reasons for writing her book. The ideals of the American Constitution and America’s economic wealth offer hope to immigrants.

In the 21st century, Arana notes that today more Mexicans are returning to Mexico than emigrating to the U.S.

Marie Arana clearly argues the color of one’s skin has given great advantage to white citizens of the world.

LIFE’S CONSEQUENCES

Good and bad luck accompanies every life but what happens in the end comes from what we have done in the past.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley” (A Novel)

By: Hannah Tinti

Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley

Hannah Tinti (American author, magazine editor, won the Alex Award for “The Good Thief”.)

Hannah Tinti writes a story about the life of a 21st century American outlaw, Samuel Hawley. He lives a peripatetic life as a robber, former convict, and part time collector for fellow criminals. When acting as a robber, he has few scruples about acting outside the boundaries of civil society. Hawley is a meticulous and practiced gun owner who wanders through America carrying the scars of bullets and a life of violence.

Hawley’s life is dramatically changed when he meets and marries the mother of a daughter yet to be conceived.

The woman he marries is alleged to have drowned in an accident but is believed by a grandmother to have been murdered by Hawley.

Hawley’s daughter, Loo, doubts the truth of her maternal grandmother’s claim but is faced with reports of her mother being an excellent swimmer, unlikely to be drowned as an accident.

Tinti leads the listener/reader to a conclusion about the drowning that on the one hand seems possible but on the other inconsistent with the complicated history of an American outlaw. Hawley’s moral center is at an extreme end of societal norms but within the boundary of truth and rightness. That truth and rightness suggests he could not have drowned his wife.

In some ways Tinti’s story is about broken American families with children that have either a missing mother or father.

The dynamics of childhood are broken when either a father or mother are missing. Each parent contributes something to a child that is different when either are absent. Single parents become both bread winner and nurturer of a child when there is an absent parent. Hawley is a criminal who loves his daughter, idolizes his lost wife, and carries on with a life into which he was born. The peripatetic life of Hawley continues after the death of his wife. Now he is faced with raising a daughter on his own. They travel across the country, never truly becoming a part of one place or another.

The daughter becomes like her father in knowledge and love of guns and their use in America.

She emulates her father’s character by choosing to be in control of what she sees as a transactional world. It is the world her father has experienced and passes on to his daughter. Tinti shows Hawley deeply loves his daughter, grieves and idolizes his lost wife, but only views life as a societal transaction.

There is meaning in Tinti’s story, but that meaning is made with too many bullets.

What we do in our lives have consequences. Good and bad luck accompanies every life but what happens in the end comes from what we have done in the past. Maybe life is just a transaction.

NOWHERE PLACE

Gareth Brown envisions the power of books and those who read or listen to them. Brown infers books are the source of the world’s joys and troubles.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Book of Doors” (A Novel)

By: Gareth Brown

Narrated by: Miranda Raison

Gareth Brown (Scottish author, his first published novel.)

Gareth Brown envisions the power of books and those who read or listen to them. Brown infers books are the source of the world’s joys and troubles. The heroine of his story is Cassie Andrews. She is introduced as an employee of a bookstore. The book begins with a conversation between her and a customer. The customer is old but treated with curtesy and interest by Cassie. They talk about books they have read and enjoyed. Their last conversation is about “The Count of Monte Christo” and their mutual appreciation of its story.

The old man slumps and dies in the bookstore after his conversation with Cassie. He leaves a book on a table near him. It is titled “The Book of Doors”. After the police arrive and the body is removed from the store, Cassie sees the book and picks it up.

“The Book of Doors” is a metaphor for the power of books to transport one’s mind to the past, present, and future–particularly when it is well written.

A note in the book is to Cassie telling her it is a gift to her. Gareth Brown’s imaginative story begins. Brown creates a story about a book that gives the power of time travel to the one who possesses it. Nearly as significant, Brown reports there are a series of books like “The Book of Doors” that have the power to control all the good and bad things that happen in the world.

As with all popular books classified as fantasy, Brown tells a story that has basis in truth. Reading books influences human thought and action in the world.

Brown takes a giant step beyond influence by suggesting books control human thought and action. He tells a story of a secret library with a series of books with titles like “The Book of Pain”, “The Book of Joy”, “The Book of Matter” and others that are the source of human experience. The owner of that library in Brown’s story is Drummond Fox, a Scottish aristocrat and librarian.

Cassie chooses to briefly escape the world because of what she thinks is the loss of her close friend. She travels to a “nowhere” place to think and do nothing.

The cleverly written adventures of Cassie in Brown’s story are the attraction of the book. However, there are unresolved puzzles in “The Book of Doors”, even though the adventures are thrilling. Cassie believes earlier travel to the “nowhere place” was the original source of the book’s creation. She thinks she may have been the source of their writing. As she decides to return to the world, she reasons she may have created the books in this “nowhere” reality.

Questions never answered are whether the books should be destroyed, how or why Cassie may have been the books’ creator, and whether Cassie is immortal or destined to die.

THE MARSHALL PLAN

NATO is not an American Marshall Plan but a bulwark for nation-state self-determination.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Marshall Plan” (Dawn of the Cold War)

By: Benn Steil

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Benn Steil (Author, American economist, senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.)

Along with an excellent history of America’s “…Marshall Plan”, there is an underlying message about two fundamental forms of government, i.e., one is democratic, and the other is authoritarian. By democratic, the point is not to suggest an idyllic understanding of American Democracy or Russian Authoritarianism. America and Russia have experienced government leadership that has been both authoritarian and democratic in the last 248 years.

One can justifiably argue America’s authoritarianism was experienced during the four years of the Trump administration (2017-2021).

In contrast Russia’s democratic experience was with Mikhail Gorbachev between 1985 and 1991. Before and after Gorbachev, democratic experience in Russia has been limited and largely authoritarian. What history of “The Marshall Plan” shows is the superior value of American democracy’s checks and balances that limit the power of authoritarian leadership by preserving deliberations of the many as opposed to the one. Trump is not the first U.S. President that was an authoritarian.

George Catlett Marshall Jr. (1880-1959, American army officer and statesman, became Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense during the Truman administration.)

History of “The Marshall Plan” shows the resilience of democratic versus authoritarian governance. Steil shows “The Marshall Plan” is created in a boiling cauldron of disagreement among branches of the American government. The conflicts between American political parties and departments of government hammered out a plan that improved the economies of both America and Europe after the war. America became the economic hegemon of the world as Russia’s economy collapsed in the early 60s.

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976, FOUNDING FATHER OF PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)
Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping

One might argue the success of China came as a result of the more inclusive economic decision-making policies of Deng Xiaoping after Mao Zedong’s death. With Deng’s opening the economy to market-oriented reforms in 1978, worker efficiency and productivity created an economic boom in China. China’s danger today is the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping. His one-man rule nearly collapsed the economy during Covid 19. America certainly suffered from Covid, but Trump’s authoritarian character was mitigated by political resistance to unilateral Presidential decision-making.

Steil explains how Molotov delayed negotiations on “The Marshall Plan” with a clear understanding that only one person, Joseph Stalin, made decisions in Russia.

Steil notes “The Marshall Plan” is singularly disparaged and reviled by the Russian government. That disparagement is directed by one person, Joseph Stalin. There is no one to oppose the autocratic rule of Stalin’s leadership. Stalin’s opposition was either sent to the Gulag or murdered. A more balanced power structure in Russia could have taken advantage of “The Marshall Plan” but by singular fiat of one person (Stalin) implementation was impeded after WWII. The errors inherent in communism and authoritarian rule are being recreated by Putin in the 21st century.

What Steil shows is that many elected officials in America fought the principles of “The Marshall Plan”. However, the constant back and forth of government policy arguments in Congress aided European recovery after the war in a way that stabilized Europe and monumentally improved the economic growth of America.

Autocracies can certainly improve their economic growth at a pace that is superior to governments ruled by democratic ideals. However, autocracies have a much greater risk of following the wrong path because of their singular focus on one person’s decisions.

With an autocrat’s decision-making process, economic growth is either stultified or accelerated by one person’s decision. The give and take of democracies offer the benefit of different policy maker’s perspectives that may slow policy decisions but ultimately improve the odds of forward economic growth.

This argument is somewhat disingenuous in the sense that American natural resources were still to be tapped in the 20th century.

However, it is more than the availability of natural resources that made America economically successful. It is the give and take of a democratic process that protects America from the giant missteps that can come from autocratic rule. America has had some good to great rulers, but it has also had some ignorant, bigoted autocrats that offered minimal support for the ideals of freedom and equality. Checks and balances are the strength of American democracy. Presidents can make a difference, but they cannot destroy America’s future.

Ben Steil’s history of “The Marshall Plan” is not limited to an explanation of how important and difficult it is for America to pass important and consequential legislation.

The last chapters of Steil’s history of the Marshall Plan explains why Russia, China, and North Korea resent American encroachment on their spheres of influence. From the era of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Jong II, there has been a growing concern over the expansion of America’s sphere of influence. Steil explains how the Marshall Plan has morphed into a deepening concern about NATO expansion in Europe. As noted in an earlier, the Marshall Plan is created to aid recovery of countries that were impacted by WWII’s destruction. In reality it aided America to become the hegemon of the world. Because of the economic stimulus that revived the countries damaged by WWII, America created new markets for their industrial growth and international trade.

NATO is viewed as another vehicle for America’s economic growth and ideological threat to Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un’s control of their countries.

NATO is viewed as another invidious way for America to expand their influence and power. That seems an unfair evaluation of NATO. NATO is a military defense plan saying one country within NATO that is attacked by another country is an attack on all NATO countries. Every nation that has managed to become an independent country should be able to pursue there own interests.

The iron curtain is rusting but its characteristic strength remains a barrier to international cooperation.

The rusting of the iron curtain comes from the tears of societies ruled by authoritarians. The authoritarians are leaders who believe their way of life is threatened. NATO is viewed as a trojan horse at the front gates of non-aligned countries.

One decries Putin’s slaughter of Ukrainians in an unjust war. Life of innocents have no value to today’s Russian leadership that believes their power and way of life is threatened.

The real-politic of authoritarian’s desire for stability and power outweigh the value of human life. The same is seen in the plight of Palestinians who are not part of the October 7th’ terrorists’ killings and kidnappings but are in the way of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.

In my amateur opinion, China, Russia, North Korean, or other authoritarian governments have a right to rule their countries as they wish. Their citizens are the key to every leader’s longevity. NATO is an effort to offer freedom of choice to established independent countries but if the citizens of a country support their leaders, there is little NATO, or any alliance can do, except to support the sovereignty of all nations.

NATO is not an American Marshall Plan but a bulwark for nation-state self-determination.

Steil argues George Kennan is right in suggesting NATO expansion would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era”. Kennan believed it would inflame nationalist beliefs and reinvigorate the Cold War. And so, it has–as evidenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s expressed intention and action toward Taiwan, and North Korea’s armaments support of Russia.

CYCLE OF ABUSE

“The Beauty in Breaking” is about life as an eternal recurrence that offers some peace of mind in a world troubled by its inhumanity.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Beauty in Breaking” (A Memoir)

By: Michele Harper

Narrated by: Nicole Lewis

Michele Harper (Physician, Author, Public Speaker.)

Leaves fall from the tree to expose the bark and bite of life. Michele Harper’s memoir shakes the tree of American life. Relying on the veracity of Harper’s story, she is raised in a family with a physically abusive father who divorces her mother, an art dealer.

Harper notes her paternal father was physically abusive.

After Harper’s paternal father leaves Harper’s mother, Harper notes he offers some financial assistance to Harper in college. Harper explains she passes some of that assistance on to her mother while attending Harvard. Harper earns a BA in psychology. She goes on to acquire a medical degree from a New York university to become an emergency room physician.

Harper’s story touches on the complexity of life as a Black American. She marries a white man while at Harvard, but they divorce at his choice. The failure of their marriage is shown to be hard for Harper, but she is driven to succeed and moves on to educate herself in her chosen field of work.

Harper’s experience of childhood abuse, her personal marriage break-up, and work as a physician in three different emergency room positions, are lessons for life and living.

Her focus is on overcoming her trials to be good at her job even though much is beyond her control. The notion of not knowing what crises you will face in a medical emergency room, let alone a doctor’s experience as a Black American, offers a unique perspective to Harper’s memoir.

Abuse comes in many forms.

There is child abuse that occurs in many homes throughout the world. There is being a minority in a culture controlled by a majority that discriminates against those who are different. There is inequality of opportunity that creates an underclass that is trapped in an eternal cycle of poverty. Harper is denied promotion to Administrator in her first hospital job because she is a woman. Her supervisor notes a woman, let alone a Black woman, has never had the Administrator’ job in that hospital. Misogyny triumphs once again.

Harper chooses to leave the hospital that denied her the promotion.

As an administrator in another hospital Harper sees the consequence of poverty. Poverty seeps into nearly every culture in the world with its accompanying violence, compounded by weak to non-existent gun control laws in the United States. Harper writes about her encounter with a young boy who has his sneakers stolen by a bully at school.

Harper interviews the young Black grade school child who is thinking about getting his shoes back with a gun.

Harper calls a child services employee to explain her concern about the child’s access to a gun at his home. The child service’s person explains she sees this in many children’s homes where poverty is one lost job away from a family being on the street. This young boy’s parents both work to keep the family housed and fed. The social services person explains gun accessibility and violence are common in poor black neighborhoods. Where poverty is a fact of life, child services can only go so far to change what is toxic in a child’s environment. Gun availability is beyond the control of Harper or child service’s employees. The extent of Harper’s intervention is limited to raising the issue with the young boy’s parents–with the hope that they will act to be sure no gun becomes available.

Harper finds a third job as a VA hospital administrator. She interviews a female patient seeking psychological help. In the interview, Harper is told by the patient she had been raped by her supervising sergeant and another soldier in Afghanistan.

She became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. That experience continues to traumatize her life. She seeks help to overcome its affects. Harper becomes the patient’s lifeline for the counseling she needs to overcome her abuse.

There seems no “…Beauty in Breaking” as one nears the end of Harper’s memoir but one begins to realize the “Beauty…” is “…in Breaking” the cycle of abuse.

The cycle can be broken with exposure, rehabilitation, caring, and acting to remove the causes of abuse. Harper’s memoir shows how it is done. Breaking the cycle of abuse is a long, laborious process that begins with people focusing on incidents of abuse and acting to mitigate its causes and consequences. “The Beauty in Breaking” is Harper’s way of exposing abuse and illustrating what can be done about it.

Harper’s ultimate theory for the resolution of human abuse is belief in Lifes’ recurrence. Her theory is that every life is eternal. When one dies, they will be reborn into another life. Harper comes to grips with her life as it is and makes it better through meditation. Her belief about life as an eternal recurrence offers her peace of mind about the people she saves or loses in a hospital emergency room.

IMPERIAL ELITE

Kaplan’s last chapters make a powerful statement about what America should do to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Earning the Rockies” (How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World)

By: Robert D. Kaplan

Narrated by: William Dufris

Robert Kaplan (American Author, freelance journalist and foreign correspondent.)

The first chapters of Robert Kaplan’s “Earning the Rockies” are a travel memoir about America’s growth from 13 colonies to 50 states, but the last two chapters are a considered view of America’s turbulent history and what its role should be in the world.

Kaplan explains he comes from a working-class family born in New York City.

Kaplan was raised on the East Coast. His father was a local truck driver. However, his son became a world traveler who served in the Israeli Army and worked as a freelance writer for major publications. His travels and professional reporting experience undoubtedly influence his opinions about America’s role in the world.

Kaplan’s book begins with memories of his beloved father who talked to him about many things, one of which is a belief that “Earning the Rockies” requires one to work to make a living before traveling across the country.

Kaplan writes an apocryphal story of traveling from the east to west coast of America. In reflecting on his journey, he recalls the history of America’s growth as a nation state. He writes of white settler’s displacement of Indian tribes, a journey to the northwest by leaders of the Mormon church, and America’s growth and assembly of 50 states.

In his travels, Kaplan recalls:

1) America’s territorial growth with the Louisiana purchase,

2) confrontation with Mexico to expand America’s southwestern border,

3) Civil War for union rather than separation, and

4) Mormon and other pioneer travels on the Oregon Trail to see and settle the Northwest.

America becomes an economic giant, protected from foreign interference by two oceans.

In the creation of this American geographic giant, many territorial, political, and economic conflicts were resolved. Kaplan’s suggests America’s economic growth is based on force and compromise, the keys to America’s future in the world.

Kaplan’s American heroes are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and George H.W. Bush. He adds the extraordinary insight of Ambassador George Kennan in his analysis of Russia. Kaplan notes other great leaders, but these four Presidents and one diplomat are examples of how American leaders use force and compromise to enhance the power and prestige of democracy in the world.

Kaplan explains prudent use of force and compromise is how the west was won and how America became an economic hegemon, a power and influence in the world.

Union of America’s States was perpetuated with force, while compromise continues to ameliorate the wrongs done to Indians and Blacks in America. Those wrongs will never be removed but compromise inures to the benefit of future generations.

Kaplan argues there is an imperial elite in America, similar to what were the elite and influential intellectuals of ancient Greece.

Many of these elites graduated from Harvard or other ivy league schools. (There is an “echo chamber” risk when too many leaders are educated in the same ivy league school.) Along with this imperial elite, he suggests America’s sea power is as important today as it was for the Greeks in antiquity. Sea power widened the influence of Greece just as it widens the influence of America today.

China is working toward a similar goal with its expansion of aircraft carrier and warship production.

Prudent use of power and compromise will expand the influence of every country that has hegemonic ambition. The operative word is “prudent”, i.e., navigating life with a thoughtful eye toward the future. Of course, there is a difference between China’s and America’s political prudence, but each is able to draw on resources that can change the course of history. The question becomes which has a system of government that can prudently use force and compromise to achieve peace and prosperity?

China’s and Russia’s education system leans toward communism which has not had the same level of success as capitalism.

America’s imperial elite is largely educated in American’ ivy league schools. Kaplan suggests, to the extent that these elitists grasp the importance of using force and compromise through democratic capitalism, the world has a chance for peace and prosperity.

Kaplan notes there is less geographic advantage for America today because of technological interconnectedness.

However, interconnectedness cuts both ways. Force and compromise have wider influence with technological interconnectedness. Whether today’s imperial elitists are prudent in their use of force and compromise is most important. Kaplan strongly suggests America should build the Navy to be a symbol of force and presence around the world. However, leadership of the many as opposed to the one as in in China, Russia, or any autocracy seems equally important.

Kaplan’s last chapters make a powerful statement about what America should do to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

TWITTER FAILURE

One suspects Musk is at a crossroad. He will either sell X at a loss or figure out how the forum can provide a service to the public for which it is willing to pay.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Extremely Hardcore” (Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter)

By: Zoë Schiffer

Narrated by: Jame Lamchick

Zoë Schiffer (Author, senior reporter at “The Verge”, freelance journalist, experience as a tech content manager.)

Zoë Schiffer’s “Extremely Hardcore” is a send-up of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Elon Musk believes in freedom of speech with a commitment that results in the dismantling of Twitter. What Schiffer makes clear to some who listen to her book is that the failure of Twitter is not because of Musk but because of the ideal of free speech.

Musk made an error in trying to shift Twitters’ income source from advertising to users. Only with advertiser revenues could Twitter pursue the ideal of free speech.

Musk’s task should not have been to do what has not been possible because of the nature of human beings. Free speech is a laudable but unachievable goal because human beings are influenced by the way they are raised and the experience of living. Advertisers want to know that the media on which they advertise is not going to offend its customers. Musk is unquestionably a genius and a credit to human progress but creating a forum for free speech is an unachievable goal.

Jack Dorsey (American internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and programmer.)

The co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, was no better at creating a free-speech forum than Elon Musk. Dorsey was liberated from the struggle to achieve the unachievable by Musk when Twitter was sold. The only chance for X’s survival is for Musk to offer a service that goes beyond the ideal of free speech to a forum that acknowledges some free speech is harmful and that X’s media forum can serve the public in some other way.

Schiffer’s book is tiresome when it continues to report Musk’s errors in managing employees.

Twitter appeared to be a bloated organization that was organized to do the impossible. Monitoring and regulating free speech bureaucratized Twitter in ways that made profitability difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, Twitter offered a free service to a public that craves attention and recognition. X cannot survive as a free speech forum because it cannot survive its debt service based on people who are only seeking attention and recognition.

Musk’s choice to change Twitter to an organization called X is only going to succeed if he manages to either return it to a monitored public forum or a service beyond the unachievable principle of free speech.

The history of Reddit and its successful public stock offer earlier this week shows that a monitored public forum can be successful. One wonders if Musk will take the hint and emulate Reddit’s success. His mistaken belief about freedom of speech suggests he will not invest in re-bureaucratization of what is now called X.

One suspects Musk is at a crossroad. He will either sell X at a loss or figure out how the forum can provide a service to the public for which it is willing to pay.

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

“Drucker” is an interesting book about an important 20th century professor and storied business consultant.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Drucker” (The Man who Invented the Corporate Society)

By: John J. Tarrant

Published in 1980–No picture available of the author, John J. Tarrant.

Peter Drucker was a world-renowned business and government management consultant in the mid-twentieth century. John J. Tarrant’s personal memoir is about Peter Drucker’s business and government management beliefs. A lack of approval or acknowledgement of Tarrant’s book by Drucker reinforces one’s belief in Tarrant’s objectivity.

With my personal experience as a neophyte business manager in the 1970s, Peter Drucker was a business consultant we studied in management development classes.

There were several group meetings with other managers in the company for which I worked. In those meetings we discussed Drucker’s views on business management and practice. Drucker had a profound effect on me and how I managed my part of the business.

A fundamental point made by Drucker is that a business’ manager must focus on strengths, not weaknesses of people reporting to him or her.

The principle of that focus is that every manager is charged with setting goals while recognizing he/she needs to build around personal weaknesses with direct report’ employee’s strengths. The point is that a manager and/or employee in an organization is unlikely to know all there is to know to achieve a company’s goals. Drucker argues the purpose of business is to sustain itself by achieving determined objectives. It is not about profit but about sustaining a business’s future. That principle applies to government departments as long as they continue to serve the needs of the public. When businesses or government departments fail to preserve their future or purpose, they deserve dissolution.

What Tarrant notes in his memoir is that Drucker believes government departments do not have the same incentives as businesses and tend to become self-perpetuating when their original purpose is achieved. Businesses disappear or go bankrupt because they do not generate enough revenue to sustain their future. Drucker suggests government departments rarely disappear. They become self-perpetuating. They are protected by public taxes, not the principle of free market revenue. Tarrant infers Drucker believes government departments should be dissolved when their goals are achieved.

Tarrant categorizes Drucker as a conservative but not in a 21st century Republican sense but in a belief that government tends to waste public taxes because their goals tend to evolve from service to the public to employment-preservation. Government departments should not exist as an employment haven without public purpose.

Tarrant notes Drucker voted as a Democrat. As an Austrian born American, Tarrant notes, he only voted for a Republican President twice in his lifetime. Drucker is alleged to regret having voted Republican the two times he did. One was for Nixon and the second I can’t remember. This is not to suggest Drucker was partisan because his focus was on management, not politics. “Drucker” is an interesting book about an important 20th century professor and storied business consultant.