Presto Agitato: Recoil

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Currently Reading

Judith Miller: God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East
I swear I've read this one before, too, but maybe it requires a second read to get it all.
Robert Sobel: Dangerous Dreamers: The Financial Innovators from Charles Merrill to Michael Milken
Iraj Pezeshkzad: My Uncle Napoleon: A Novel
Just delivered. I haven't actually seen the book yet....

Recent Reading

Jeffrey M. Schwartz: The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force
(10/18/2009) Now I know why I didn't remember finishing the book, despite the coffee stains: Because I didn't. Didn't this time, either. The nonsense about the quantum mind/brain interface is pure blather, and Schwartz never gets around to explaining what the mind is to have all this power. But surely, according to Schwartz, it isn't a mere function of the brain!

Until the last three chapters + epilogue (all of which rely heavily on the reader's gullibility), I'd give the book a solid four stars out of five. But when he gets on to the soft-focus bits about quantum effects, he undercuts the credibility (and delightfulness, if true) of some of his earlier claims. Alas.

Oh, and Roger Penrose thought of that quantum-brain nonsense first. The idea hasn't improved in the mean time. Or maybe it was Isaac Asimov, who called it what it was: Science fiction. (***)
Barbara W. Tuchman: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
(10/5/2009) The Trojans had ample reason for suspicion, and indeed they were warned; the Renaissance popes simply ignored evidence that their policies and behavior were alienating the faithful and risking war; the Brits were blind to the counterproductive nature of their behavior toward the American colonies; and America, through five presidents, ignored history and good advice to persist in obvious folly in Viet Nam.

But Tuchman commits some serious errors of fact and logic, particularly visible in the chapters on Viet Nam. Perhaps this book should serve as warning against the folly of writing a history of a terrible, passion-stirring event only ten years after its conclusion. (3.5 out of five stars) (***)
John S. Farnam: The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning, Second Edition
(9/25/2009) I'd assign this (and Jeff Cooper's Principles of Personal Defense) as pre-class reading for any 'concealed carry' course. But for absolute newbies to the subject, I'd probably recommend skipping a few chapters; Farnam has some quirky techniques.
Joyce Lee Malcolm: Guns and Violence: The English Experience
(9/5/2009) This is excellent and useful reading about English experiments with gun control, its ineffectiveness, and the almost-entirely imaginary reasons for the passage of these laws. Author Malcolm is very thorough, with the result that the reading does become occasionaly tedious. (Four of five stars) (****)
H. R. McMaster: Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
(8/21/2009) The picture on the cover is of Johnson and McNamara, who conspired to keep the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of the loop and to lie (yes, outright) to Congress and the American people, while controlling the war, including strategy and tactics, from the White House and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I could never read more than one chapter at a time because I would become (apparently visibly) angry.

McMaster does an excellent and thorough job weaving together a horrifying narrative of hubris, fraud, and, as the title says, utter dereliction of duty. (****)
Edward R. Annis: Code Blue: Health Care In Crisis
(7/30/2009) I read this back in 1993, but it seemed due again. (****)
Simon Conway Morris: Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe
Morris displays a bit of silliness here, but the basic point — the recurrent characteristics, independently-evolved, of quite disparate creatures — is impressive. While 'contingency' is a factor in evolution, what ultimately develops is far more the result of environment and time than of chance. (And Stephen Jay Gould can go suck eggs.) (****)
Bruce Gamble: Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington
(7/5/2009) Independence Day reading. (****)
Aristotle: The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)
(7/1/2009) (*****)
Christopher Hitchens: The Trial of Henry Kissinger
(6/14/2009) I was, as I predicted after two chapters, unable to finish without skipping forward. My patience finally ran out on page 115 at which point Hitchens provides the evidence that devastates his own charge, on page 110, re: the murder of reporter and Greek anti-Junta activist Elias Demetracopoulos. (An NSC memo, in Dec. 1970, didn't presage the murder of Mr. Demetracopoulos as Hitchens claims but rather reported the death of Demetracopoulos's father.) But alas, this is an inquisition, so such obvious facts are simply unwelcome, never mind an even barely decent respect for context.

I give this book two stars because I did learn a few things, although not always what Hitchens intended. The many shortcomings of Hitchens' case notwithstanding, Kissinger was and is indeed an amoral and despicable toad. 'Toad' is Hitchens' term, which seems to sum the matter. (**)
Bernard-Henri Lévy: American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville
(6/10/2009) Well, he did try to understand. With limited success, unfortunately. (***)
Natan Sharansky: Fear No Evil
(6/4/2009) (*****)
Bob Hoover: Forever Flying
(5/30/2009) (****)
Charles Murray: In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State
(5/25/2009) The current welfare system is destructive, Medicare has perverse effects, and Social Security will be unable to meet its obligations within only a few years. Yet, the political will to kill them, even in favor of a more effective plan, is nonexistent. Charles Murray tries to do an end run around the political resistance. If I were President, I'd fight for low, flat taxes first, let that situation settle down, and then try some (but certainly not all!) of Murray's ideas. Otherwise, there would be too many issues on the table at once. (****)
Richard P. Feynman & Steven Weinberg: Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics: The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures
(5/4/2009) Yes, I do have some very strange addictions. (****)