Krugman: Follow the Money

Citing Paul Krugman may seem like a broken record, but I find that he hits the nail on the head most often. In his column today, he notes how right-wing populism, which I believe represents a lot of wind generated by a relative few, gets used again by corporate interests. This is What's the Matter With Kansas? all over again. Regulation of markets and taxes sufficient to pay our bills are necessary for a strong, healthy economy and democracy. The Bush Administration lived on the free lunch doctrine too often by cutting taxes and throwing regulation out the window. It left us with markets wrecked, and a fiscal crisis that threatens our future because of a huge deficit that we accumulated before we came to the point that we needed to run a deficit to prime the pump.

Pink on Effective Signs

Dan Pink posts a couple of examples of very effective signs. Nothing like a good graphic to get a message across!

Words from Marcus Aurelius

"Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses…This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours."

"Your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again."

"Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature."

Wills on the Church Scandal & Ferguson on History

In an article in TNR, Garry Wills publishes an important assessment of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

Niall Ferguson speaks about history. A print version of the interview can also be found at that site. In these brief monologues, Ferguson discusses the value of history as a topic of study; his "hero", Dr. Who, and the allure of time travel to Ferguson as a youth; and a discussion of the "six killer apps" that gave the West the predominant place in world history for the last 500 years or so, but which have now been "downloaded" by other parts of the world that now allow them to challenge Western predominance.

Imaginative Literature

I posted my Classics Edition of favorite reading back on April 16 (3^rd post down). Now I post imaginative literature, which I will define as any work of literature, poetry, drama, or novel written after Shakespeare. I will list them in the order that they came to me when I jotted them down. No particular pattern here, I don't think.

1. John Donne, "Love Poems of John Donne". I don't know how, but I came upon a recording of Richard Burton reading these, and it is magnificent. I believe that Donne was a minister, but he certainly could write a poem to the glories of love.
   
2. George Herbert, Poems. Some of these were set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams, and I love them; but spoken or sung, they are beautiful. They sing of grace and redemption with a singular beauty.
   
3. William Blake, shorter poems, such as "Songs of Innocence", "Songs of Experience", and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". The longer poems get a bit too complex, but some of these shorter poems are pure beauty within simplicity.
   
4. Jane Austen, Persuasion. Perhaps the novel that I didn't see on the big screen first (although I think that there is a fine film production). It captures the intricate Austen world that I don't think that I'd enjoy reading her more famous works now.
   
5. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and Benito Cereno. I'm a late comer to Melville (as the nation under-appreciated him until the 1920s). But, oh my, the wait proved worthwhile. John Patrick Diggins sings praises to Melville in his work, and this prompted me to try Moby
   Dick by audio book. Wow, a great performance of a great work. In addition, Hannah Arendt in On Revolution provides an intriguing discussion of Billy Budd that led me into that haunting work.
   
6. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I read this in high school. Twain's sharp tongue and ironic humor tickles the fancy of a high school kid, and I found it delightful.
   
7. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent. I went through a Conrad phase. He captures characters in extreme and difficult situations.
   
8. Willa Cather, My Antonia & Death Comes for the Archbishop. C & I read My Antonia together on her recommendation, and it proved a treat, a story that we could identify with, set as it is on the Nebraska prairie. I read Death for our trip to Santa Fe, and it, too, provided a glimpse of an American life, albeit a very different life than the young woman of the prairie.
   
9. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman. I've enjoyed a number of Shaw's plays, but this is a favorite, perhaps because I saw a portion of it performed in Cedar Falls the first your we were married, with Myrna Loy and Ricardo Montalban. (I did not know that I would later fall for the young Myrna Loy in the The Thin Man films.) Also, my parents had a copy of this play that I took a bit early. It's Nietzsche rendered with the Anglo-Irish wit of Shaw, delightful and thoughtful at the same time.
   
10. T. S. Elliot, The Four Quartets and "The Journey of the Magi." I don't know that I knew of Elliot's Four Quartets until I heard a portion of it read in a film version of John Fowles's "The Magus" (with Michael Caine). It struck me then, and it's never let go. Other than portions of Shakespeare, it's a work of literature that I've found worth memorizing (in part). As for the "Journey of the Magi", I first heard it performed by Alec Guinness on a recording when we lived in Champaign. Guinness's voice with Elliot's unique vision of a traditional Christmas tableau made for a lasting impression on me that makes it my Advent poem of choice.
    
11. Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter, The Power and the Glory, and The End of the Affair. It's hard to pick a favorite Greene work; indeed, for literary travel, I have wandered in Greeneland quite a bit (his work also translates very well to film). Like Conrad before him, Greene places his characters in extremis, dealing with the very difficult in a way that captures emotional poignancy with almost clinical precision.
    
12. G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday. Of course, Father Brown is great fun, as are Chesterton's essays and biographies, but The Man Who Was Friday is such great fun, like a great metaphysical riddle built on the Book of Job.
    
13. Albert Camus, The Plague. While I read The Stranger in both high school and college as assigned, only just a few years ago did I take up the recommendation of both daughters to read The Plague. I should have done so sooner, as I enjoyed this book in a way that one simply cannot enjoy The Stranger (too much metaphysical anxiety). The Plague, no walk in the park, mind you, provides a variety of characters and considerations that give it more depth and roundness, and a compelling story.
    
14. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, This, too, came relatively late to me via the joy of recorded books. Fitzgerald lives up to his hype in this novel. He captures time, place, and person in a perfect and unique manner. Thanks to C for this one.
    
15. Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men. To my mind: the best "political" novel. Warren captures a slice of American life and politics—a la Huey Long—in a magnificent work.
    
16. George Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm. 1984 is simply the hallmark of dystopian novels, while Animal Farm instructs in a way that only imaginative parody can do.
    
17. Walter Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960). This may be the least well-known book on my eclectic list, but this SF work mixed my apocalyptic side (and my Boomer fear and fascination with the Bomb) and my latent medievalist side. A fun read, yet thought provoking.
    
18. Ursula LeGuin. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. These are two outstanding works by the queen of SF/Fantasy. LeGuin doesn't just make some fun assumptions and then play with them, she creates whole worlds, whole universes, and then she watches them unfold. Both of these books have a political side to them, but both also have deeply personal characterizations inside of these complex worlds. A great writer created great reading with these books.
    
19. William Golding, The Lord of the Flies. A high school read, but one that sticks with you (actually, a number of books from that era stuck with me). However, this book, which combines an apocalyptic setting with a world of boys—just boys—perhaps resonates most deeply with a teenage boy who will have had glances of how a world of just boys could go so astray.
    
20. John LeCarre. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. I read somewhere that LeCarre couldn't write about Smiley for some time after Alec Guinness brought him to life on the screen in the brilliant BBC productions of these two works. If you've seen these productions, you understand why. I read these two novels only after seeing the television productions. However, LeCarre brings you so completely into this world that your knowledge of plot doesn't distract you because you're so thoroughly engrossed in the world that he creates. If I had to choose, I'd go with the television productions (each several hours long) over the novels, but if you don't read these two novels because you've seen the television productions, then some LeCarre should go on your list. LeCarre is not a "spy novelist", not an Ian Fleming; Smiley is not James Bond. Oh, my, no.
    
21. Ward Just, The Ambassador's Son. Perhaps one should be older the read this book about a man whose son turns violently against him. A frightening book about a man, his wife, and their son caught in world that seems wrong, yet for no strong reason. This, and other Just books that I've read, catch contemporary dramas of American lives, which, however, may be played out anywhere around the globe.
    
22. Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (Grace Flick, translator). My oldest daughter recommended this to me when we were perusing Kramer's Book Store near DuPont Circle in Washington, and I'm very glad I took her recommendation. I'm generally skeptical of historical novels, as a well-written history or biography sticks to the facts (sort of) and avoids wild conjecture. Yet, when I read this book, I felt as if she'd taken me inside this man via true memoires to register his feelings, his world, so perfectly, one cannot imagine that it is not the most accurate, as well as beautiful, portrait we could ever find.
    

I end my list here. No doubt, I'll think of something that I should have mentioned. I welcome suggestions for further readings; perhaps someone can find a pattern here. I don't know that I can.

Chalk One Up for the Rule of Law

This post that I found from the Progressive Realist provides the strong, brief case in favor the rule of law as illustrated by the case of the wanna-bomber of Times Square. As this article (or perhaps another one that I read) points out, giving a person in custody a statement of his rights doesn't mean that he'll stop talking or that he ever would have talked. Failure to provide those rights could, however, make a confession inadmissible. Three cheers for the rule of law! Sound police work, too.

Tyler Cowen and Kindle Highlights

Economist Tyler Cowen, economist @ George Mason U, blogs frequently at Marginal Revolution with often interesting, off-beat topics, including books. In this post, he takes note of the most frequently marked passages in non-fiction Kindle books. Very interesting. Read some of the passages that others are highlighting. I think the first cite, to Gladwell's Outliers, rings very true. The book that follows—completely new to me—also has some thought-provoking passages. Read the link there as well.

Lewis Mumford

In speaking a couple of weeks ago with 1HP, she related her terrific buys from the Seattle Public Library sale. Besides a haul of cookbooks (books the mom likes to hear about), she related her extensive buys in history, politics, and philosophy. One of the books that she mentioned was Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization (1934). When she mentioned Mumford's name, I realized that my earlier list of important books contained a serious omission—Lewis Mumford. The baker's dozen is now . . . fourteen (I can't think of a fancier term).

As I intended to write some about each author, I'll start with Mumford. Mumford (1895-1979) was an American humanist. I can't easily classify Mumford because of the breath of his work: literary critic, historian of civilization, historian of technology, urbanist, and philosopher (in the broadest sense of the term). Mumford surveyed human history and summarized what he learned about how our material conditions and ideas have changed. Mumford, more than any other 20^th century thinker that I can call to mind, provides a sense the possibilities of the human project.

Bibliographies from a couple of political theory classes first brought Mumford to my attention. His later work, especially The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power (1970), details a critique of contemporary life. However, Mumford would quickly note that his aim was not that of a Luddite, but machines, cities, laws— the whole human enterprise—should serve persons. Earlier Mumford addressed the American Renaissance of Emerson and Melville (he helped resurrect Melville from obscurity), the growth and development of cities, and the need for America to lead the fight—yes, fight when it came to that—for a better world. (Mumford lost his son Gettys in combat during WWII).

Works I'd recommend:

The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power for Mumford the prophet.

The City in History
(1961) for Mumford as a guide to civilization. (I read it during our family trip to Europe many years ago, and it provided a guide to some of the interesting sites we enjoyed.)