Genres
We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. Kilgore Trout -Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Ch 1.
The hill we climb if only we dare it, because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. -Amanda Gorman, The Hill We ClimbOur Way Forward
Amanda Gorman read her poem The Hill We Climb at the inauguration of President Biden, providing an aspirational glimpse of our way forward, together."Even as we grieved, we grew, even as we hurt, we hoped, that even as we tired, we tried, that we’ll forever be tied together victorious, not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division."
Book review, Title American Harvest, Author Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Rating 5.0,
American Harvest
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Book review
Cross the Great Divide
'Cross the Great Divide, side by side we'll ride,' a line from the Oregon Trail song, articulates this book's theme: Bridging differences in culture and place, particularly that of city and country.
Book review, Title The Double Helix: Norton Critical Edition, Author James D. Watson, Gunther Stent, Rating 5.0,
The Double Helix: Norton Critical Edition
James D. Watson, Gunther Stent
Book review
Honest Jim
Watson's superb account of his and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA. It is the rarest of books: a scientific page-turner, with suspense, strong personalities and a child-like narrator.
Book review, Title Darwin On Trial, Author Phillip E. Johnson, Rating 3.0,
Darwin On Trial
Phillip E. Johnson
Book review
Wide of the Mark
Johnson's book provides a perspective on creationist thinking and argumentation. It demonstrates that attorneys are trained to advocate, to argue, not to look hard for the best understanding.
Book review, Title Gravity, Author George Gamow, Rating 4.5,
Gravity
George Gamow
Book review
Gamow on Gravity
Those genuinely curious about the intellectual story of gravity will find Gamow a superb teacher, one adept at explaining physics to the uninitiated,and to the newly initiated, high school and college students, most effectively to an audience comfortable with algebra and geometry.
Book review, Title Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Author Brenda Maddox, Rating 4.5,
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA
Brenda Maddox
Book review
The Dark Lady of DNA
Rosalind Franklin made critical contributions to the discovery of DNA's structure, yet was not awarded the Nobel. Why not? Rank villainy? Maddox's masterful recounting lays out the complex tale.
Book review, Title From Harvard to Hell And Back, Author Eric H. Sigward, Rating 3.0,
From Harvard to Hell And Back
Eric H. Sigward
Book review
Augustine redux
The autobiography of a young phenom of the 60's and 70's who attended Horace Mann, Harvard, where he rowed on the crew and joined the Porcellian Club, then Cambridge, Stanford, and several divinity schools. It is book of hubris and wild youth, of drugs, sex, and the occult, and finally, Jesus.
The End of Faith?
My nephew Jean-Michel has found Sam Harris stimulating, and recommended his End of Faith for me to read. Harris comes up in the atheism v. religion shouting matches, revered by atheists, dismissed by the faithful. I find there is much to moderate on both sides of the divide.
Book review, Title A History of Germany, Author Bayard Taylor, Rating 4.0,
A History of Germany
Bayard Taylor
Book review
fin de siècle German optimism
This is the first history of Germany I have read since the mid-1970's. It is nearly a complete history, stopping in 1883, ten years after it's author died. (his wife extended the history 14 more years in a subsequent edition.) An American writer, Bayard Taylor was most well-known for his travel writing, but was also a poet and a historian. His history reads easily, as might be expected from a writer of popular travel accounts, and is reasonably complete.
Book review, Title A Brief History Of Time, Author Stephen W. Hawking, Rating 4.5,
A Brief History Of Time
Stephen W. Hawking
Book review
Short and sweet
A Brief History of Time is the single best popularized science book I have read to date on the subject of modern physics. It has been held that kind of regard since it has been published in 1988, but I resisted reading it, because I had formed the opinion that modern physics, buried so deeply in mathematical models divorced from everyday experience, was simply too difficult to convey to the non-practitioner, that vast group including myself.
Book review, Title The Daughter Of Time, Author Josephine Tey, Rating 3.5,
The Daughter Of Time
Josephine Tey
Book review
Getting Over the Hump
My mother read Josephine Tey novels when I was growing up, but I was not tempted to follow in her stead. Her mystery novels held little interest, but recently I noted that one of them, The Daughter of Time, was an historical novel probing the old accusation that Richard III had murdered his young nephews, and so, curiosity piqued, I determined to read it. I found the tone a little too arch, but her historiographical approach was both edifiying and revealing.
Book review, Title The Emerald Mile, Author Kevin Fedarko, Rating 4.0,
The Emerald Mile
Kevin Fedarko
Book review
Sprinting down the Colorado
This is the epic story of the fastest boat ride in history (at the time) through the heart of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado river. With a gigantic release of water from the Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River was closed. So Kenton Grua evaded park rangers and launched his wooden dory, the Emerald Mile and barely completed his historical run. The story is very well told, and includes a solid history of the formation of the Grand Canyon, and the first efforts to navigate the river by John Wesley Powell.
Touring with Ted
I just read today that my old Army buddy Ted Withycombe died last November in 2017. Ted and I had not kept in touch after our Army service, so it was a spur-of-the-moment Internet search that found his obituary. It brought back some old memories of my friendship with Ted, particularly the bicycle trips in Europe we made together. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.
The moons of Jupiter
The fascination of astronomy for me, beyond the beauty of the night sky, beyond the immense imponderables of a vast and ancient universe, is that our understanding of the universe has been gleaned by observing a few points of light in the sky. One illustration of this can be found in the history of our knowledge of the moons of Jupiter.Book review, Title Relativity: A Graphic Guide, Author Bruce Bassett, Rating 3.0,
Relativity: A Graphic Guide
Bruce Bassett
Book review
Visualizing Relativity
This book summarizes Einstein's special and general theory of relativity using cartoon drawings to illustrate every concept. It does not shy away from physical formulae, neither does it provide in depth discussion of same.
Book review, Title The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction, Author Peter Atkins, Rating 3.0,
The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction
Peter Atkins
Book review
Entropy is so simple
Peter Atkins, a bona fide chemistry professor, takes a shot at summarizing the Laws of Thermodynamics, particularly the 2nd Law, for the million. He claims that when he is done explaining, you will understand how all change of any kind occurs, why death itself must come, even how the unfolding of the very thoughts you are employing to read his book is a consequence of the 2nd Law. Alas his explanations fall short of such a lofty goal.
Pandora has many boxes
The ability to directly and much more easily modify the genome of any living organism, via somatic or germline modification, has become a reality via CRISPR-Cas9 techniques. Chinese scientist He Jiankui recently claimed to have opened yet another of Pandora's seemingly endless set of boxes: Germline gene editing. Jennifer Doudna's recent book A Crack in Creation, a must-read, warns about premature application of CRISPR-Cas9.Book review, Title Inhabited, Author Charlie Quimby, Rating 4.0,
Inhabited
Charlie Quimby
Book review
Persistent kindness
Inhabited, Charlie Quimby's follow-up novel to his excellent Monument Road, focuses on life as a homeless person in a small city in western Colorado. This story is both edifying and compelling because he draws sympathetic and realistic characters, not just of those who migrate uncertainly from one temporary abode to another, but of those inhabitants who try to help the homeless and those who oppose such help, which can even be the same person under differing circumstances.
Celebrating reading
Reading has been in my own life a regular feature, even an addiction. So much beyond the immediate and the local becomes accessible. Reading has been in some ways for me a trusted companion. Recently the PBS series The Great American Read came to my attention. My wife Cindy and I followed with it with great eagerness.Book review, Title Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Author Joan Didion, Rating 3.0,
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Joan Didion
Book review
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun
Joan Didion's set of personal essays from the mid-60's, an exercise in the emerging New Journalism and most in the first person, are episodically brilliant, but just as often facile and self-indulgent.
Book review, Title The Beak Of The Finch, Author Jonathan Weiner, Rating 4.0,
The Beak Of The Finch
Jonathan Weiner
Book review
A Finch in Time
The Beak of the Finch follows a husband and wife scientific team, Peter and Rosemary Grant, in their studies of Darwin's finches on Daphne Major island in the Galapagos archipelago, looking for evidence of natural selection. They have spent twenty years observing the finch population for direct evidence of natural selection. They concluded from these observations that natural selection is occurring daily.
Book review, Title Ordinary Geniuses, Author Gino Segrè, Rating 3.0,
Ordinary Geniuses
Gino Segrè
Book review
Ordinary Overuse of Genius
This is a good but not great biography of two lesser-known 20th century scientists, George Gamow and Max Delbrück, both of whom show up in many historical accounts of the history of molecular biology, hence my interest. I was particularly interested in the author's depiction of Delbrück, a Nobel Prize winner late in his life for work done thirty years prior. Delbrück, who is routinely depicted as a great thought leader and a fiercely intelligent scientist, is elusive in other historical accounts, begging the question: What did he contribute, and why was his input so prized?
Oregon Scribbler.
Supporting Law Enforcement
I have always supported law enforcement - it is a basic need in a country governed by laws, and our police put themselves at risk to enforce the laws on our behalf. For this the police deserve our appreciation and our full support. Yet full support is not unconditional support. Police wield a great deal of power, and they sometimes abuse that power; when they do, they, like anyone else who is in a position of public trust, must be held accountable.
The Peaceable Kingdom, 1833-34, Edward Hicks. Attrib: Wikipedia Loves Art, shootingbrooklyn, CC BY-SA 2.5.
Dominion or co-existence?
Whose view of animals has more appeal? The ancient Jews or Henry Beston's?
Book review, Title What Men Live By, Author Leo Tolstoy, Rating 4.0,
What Men Live By
Leo Tolstoy
Book review
The Heart of Tolstoy
Tolstoy remains one of my favorite writers. His War and Peace and Anna Karenina were reading investments that still pay dividends. These four short stories, in particular What Men Live By, represent some aspects of Tolstoy's later turn to a simpler and more universal religious outlook, when he eschewed organized religion, and embraced a code based on Christ's teaching alone, centering on the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount.
Book review, Title Mink River , Author Brian Doyle, Rating 4.5,
Mink River
Brian Doyle
Book review
The Department of Public Works
The Department of Public Works in the coastal village of Neawanaka on the Mink River, besides performing the ordinary public works of cleaning streets and repairing sidewalks, slowly expands over time to 'preserve history, collect stories, repair marriages, prevent crime, augment economic status, promote chess, manage insect populations, run sports leagues, isn't that a bit much? We even give haircuts.' ( page 15) Worried Man and Cedar are its two aging employees, idealists who doggedly work to carry out their mission statement: 'Brains against Pains.' ( page 45)
Book review, Title The Hunters: A Novel, Author James Salter, Rating 4.0,
The Hunters: A Novel
James Salter
Book review
The lonely warrior
Salter, a former fighter pilot, writes directly from experience in this novel of U.S. fighter pilots in the Korean War. He draws an internal picture of the psychology of the single combat warrior, and it feels genuine. His portrayal of heroism in the cloistered world of aerial combat does not always translate into obvious laudable accomplishment.
Book review, Title The English And Their History, Author Tombs Robert, Rating 4.0,
The English And Their History
Tombs Robert
Book review
Ever England
My initial interest in this book was to read a good summary of the history of the English Civil War, from James I to William and Mary. I found Tombs' account to be brisk, clear and reasonably complete, which propelled me to continue reading. I particularly enjoyed his judicious mix of historiographical review while attempting to pick that elusive clean line in historical narrative. The book proved to be an reasonably short yet comprehensive account of England's history.
Christmas 1958 - Steve, Tom, and Grandpa Wiebe. Family.
So Long, Steve
My brother Steve, Stephen Alton Wiebe, died recently of heart failure; he was 66 years old. Steve's wife, family and friends were around him at the end of his life, a life whose last years were painful and difficult. Steve, my older brother, is no longer suffering. I will miss him.
Book review, Title Monument Road, Author Charlie Quimby, Rating 4.5,
Monument Road
Charlie Quimby
Book review
Laconic Love
It was a pleasure to soak in the deep water that is this novel. Charlie Quimby brought back alive a world I have had only episodic contact with in my life: small towns in the far country, where as a teenager, I spent successive summers, first in a small ranching and farming town in central Oregon, second in an oil and fishing town on the Kenai peninsula in Alaska. It was not as much the characters in this novel, but their sensibility, their rhythms of speech and actions that were recognizable from my past forays beyond the city. After the pleasure of remembrance past is the pleasure of a deceptively simple love story.
Book review, Title Perfect Rigor, Author Masha Gessen, Rating 3.5,
Perfect Rigor
Masha Gessen
Book review
Too simply pure
The Poincaré conjecture, one of the great unsolved topological problems, was finally proven at the end of the 20th century by Grigoriy Perelman, a Russian mathematician of genius. Topology might be described as distilled geometry. The historian Masha Gessen, who grew up herself in the Russian mathematical culture, invites us into the Aspergian milieu of world-class geometers to tease out the tale.
Pocket Review, Title Diner, Studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rating 4.5,
Diner (1982)
Director: Barry Levinson
Pocket Review
Diner: A movie that never gets old
Diner immediately draws you into a group and a world as if you had always belonged there. After high school, a group of guys continue to meet regularly at their favorite Diner to shoot the shit. They are more comfortable in each other's company than they are with their girlfriends.
What is enlightenment?
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. ... Sapere Aude! (Dare to know!) Have courage to use your own understanding!" Kant's famous 1784 essay about Enlightenment still has something of value for us today. He argues that the courage to think for ones self provides the impetus for a progressive society. To act maturely means to resist blind conformity and to respectfully question authority.Reforming progress
Calvinist philosophy professor Theodore Plantinga suggests that 'post-Enlightenment' Protestants, so as to act progressively or correctly in support of individual liberties, should embrace the Protestant faith, building their responses to the world on the foundation of Calvin and Luther, rather than embrace 'short-sighted' Enlightenment ideas. How does Plantinga justify his view that the societal direction of Western civilization can be improved by eschewing the Enlightenment influence and replacing it with the Reformational Christian outlook of the 16th century?
Pocket Review, Title Band Of Brothers, Studio HBO, Rating 5.0,
Band Of Brothers (2001)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Pocket Review
Band of Brothers: A movie that never gets old
Band of Brothers is intimate, sobering, and gives some sense of the bonds formed in war by soldiers facing death together. It is an account of a cohort of U.S. airborne troops, beginning with their training through their World War II combat experiences in Normandy, Holland, the Ardennes Forest, Alsace and Bavaria, culminating in the post-war occupation of Bavaria and central Austria. This is the best war movie ever made.
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