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| 1948226391
| 9781948226394
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| 3.61
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| Oct 17, 2023
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it was amazing
| What makes a person the same person over time? Is it our consciousness, the what-it’s-like to be us? Is consciousness like a light that’s either on What makes a person the same person over time? Is it our consciousness, the what-it’s-like to be us? Is consciousness like a light that’s either on or off?-------------------------------------- What remains of a person once they’ve died? It depends on what we choose to keep.Amy Kurzweil is a long-time cartoonist for The New Yorker. If the name sounds a bit familiar, but you aren’t a reader of that magazine, it may be because her father is Ray Kurzweil. He is a genius of wide renown. He invented a way for computers to process text in almost any font, a major advance in making optical character recognition (OCR) a useful, and ubiquitous tool. He also developed early electronic instruments. As a teenager he wrote software that wrote music in the style of classical greats. No gray cells left behind there. He happened to be very interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It helps to have a specific project in mind when trying to develop new applications and ideas. Ray had one. His father, Fred, had died when he was a young man. Ray wanted to make an AI father, a Fred ChatBot, or Fredbot, to regain at least some of the time he had never had with his dad. [image] Amy Kurzweil - Image from NPR - shot by Melissa Leshnov Fred was a concert pianist and conductor in Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s. A wealthy American woman was so impressed with him that she told him that if he ever wanted to come to the USA, she would help. The Nazification of Austria made the need to leave urgent in 1938, so Fred fled with his wife, Hannah. (He had actually been Fritz in Austria, becoming Fred in the states.) He eventually found work, teaching music. Artificial: A Love Story is a physically hefty art book, a tale told in drawings and text. Amy traces in pictures her father’s effort to reconstruct as much of his father’s patterns as possible. To aid in the effort there was a storage facility with vast amounts of material from his life both in Austria and in America. She joins into the enterprise of transcribing much of the handwritten material, then reading it into recordings which are used to teach/train the AI software. It is a years-long process, which is fascinating in its own right. She also draws copies of many of the documents she finds for use in the book. [image] Ray Kurzweil with a portrait of his father - image from The NPR interview - Shot by Melisssa Leshnov But there is much more going on in this book than interesting, personalized tech. First, there is the element of historical preservation. I always understood my father’s desire to resurrect his father’s identity as being connected to two different kinds of trauma. One is the loss of his father at a young age in a common but tragic scenario, with heart disease. The other trauma is this loss of a whole culture. Jewish life in Vienna was incredibly vibrant. Literally overnight it was lost. The suddenness of that loss was profound, and it took me a while to appreciate that. My great-aunt Dorit, who died this past year at 98, said they were following all the arbitrary protocols of the Nazis to save all this documentation. Saving documentation is an inheritance in my family that is a response to that traumatic circumstance. - from the PW interviewKurzweil looks at three generations of creativity, (Fritz was a top-tier musician. His wife, Hannah, was an artist. Ray was also a musician, but mostly a tech genius. Amy is a cartoonist and a writer.) using Ray’s Fredbot project as the central pillar around which to organize an ongoing discussion of concepts. In doing so, she offers up not merely the work of the project, but her personal experiences, showing clear commonalities between herself and her never-met grandfather. This makes for a very satisfying read. Are the similarities across generations, this stream of creativity, the impact not just of DNA, but of lived experience? Nature or nurture, maybe the realization of potential brought to flower by the influence of environment whether external (living in a place that values what one has to offer) or internal (families nurturing favored traits)? [image] Image from the book - posted on The American Academy in Berlin site One could ask, “what makes us what are?” The book opens with a conversation about the meaning of life. But life is surely less determinative, less hard-edge defined than that. A better question might be what were the historical factors and personal choices that contributed to the evolution of who we have become? [image] Image from the book - it was posted in the NPR interview Existential questions abound, which makes this a brain-candy read of the first order. Kurzweil looks at issues around AI consciousness. Can artificial consciousness approach humanity without a body? What if we give an AI a body, with sensations? Ray thinks that we are mostly comprised of patterns. What if those patterns could be preserved, maybe popped into a new carrier. It definitely gets us into Battlestar Galactica territory. How would people be any different from Cylons then? Is there really a difference? Would that signal eternal life? Would we be gods to our creations? If we make an AI consciousness will it be to know, love, and serve us? The rest of that catechistic dictat adds that it is also to be happy with him in heaven forever. I am not so certain we want our AIs remaining with us throughout eternity. As with beloved pets, sometimes we need a break. Are we robots for God? Ray thinks such endless replication is possible, BTW. Kurzweil uses the image of Pinocchio throughout to illustrate questions of personhood, with wanting to live, then wanting to live forever. [image] Every Battlestar Cylon model explained - image from ScreenRant Persistence of self is a thread here. As noted in the introductory quotes, Kurzweil thinks about whether a person is the same person before and after going through some change. How much change is needed before it crosses some line? Am I the same person I was before I read this book? My skin and bones are older. But they are the same skin and bones. However, I have new thoughts in my head. Does having different thoughts change who I fundamentally am? Where does learning leave off and transition take over? Where does that self go when we die? Can it be reconstructed, if only as a simulacrum? How about experiences? Once experienced, where do those experiences go? These sorts of mental gymnastics are certainly not everyone’s cuppa, but I found this element extremely stimulating. Kurzweil remains grounded in her personal experience, feelings, and concerns. The book has intellectual and philosophical heft, and concerns itself with far-end technological concerns, but it remains, at heart, a very human story. As one might expect from an established cartoon artist who has generated more smiles than the Joker’s makeup artist, there are plenty of moments of levity here. Artificial is not a yuck-fest, but a serious story with some comic relief. It is a book that will make you laugh, smile, and feel for the people depicted in its pages. Amy Kurzweil has written a powerful, smart, thought-provoking family tale. There is nothing artificial about that. I used to wonder if I could wake up into a different self. For all I knew, it could have happened every morning. A new self would have a new set of memories.Review posted - 01/12/23 Publication date – 10/17/23 I received a hard copy of Artificial: A Love Story from Catapult in return for a fair review. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages Profile – from Catapult AMY KURZWEIL is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir. She was a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow with the American Academy in Berlin, a 2019 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi, and elsewhere.Interviews -----NPR - Using AI, cartoonist Amy Kurzweil connects with deceased grandfather in 'Artificial' by Chloe Veltman -----Publishers Weekly - Reincarnation: PW Talks with Amy Kurzweil by Cheryl Klein -----PC Magazine - How Ray Kurzweil and His Daughter Brought A Relative Back From The Dead By Emily Dreibelbis ——LitHub - Amy Kurzweil on the Open Questions of the Future by Christopher Hermelin Songs/Music -----The Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit- referenced in Chapter 6 Items of Interest from the author -----Artificial: A Love Story promo vid -----The New Yorker - excerpt -----New Yorker - A List of Amy Kurzweil’s pieces for the magazine Items of Interest -----Ray Kurzweil on I’ve got a Secret -----A trailer for Transcendant Man, a documentary about Ray Kurzweil -----WeBlogTheWorld - Amy interviews Ray in a Fireside Chat at NASA – sound is poor. You will need to ramp up the volume to hear – video – 23:07 -----Wiki on Battlestar Galactica ...more |
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Jan 08, 2024
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| 1250624517
| 9781250624512
| 1250624517
| 4.12
| 7,673
| Feb 01, 2022
| Aug 15, 2023
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really liked it
| … a chemical is not intrinsically, good or bad, it’s just a chemical. What differs is the intent with which the chemical is used: either to preserv … a chemical is not intrinsically, good or bad, it’s just a chemical. What differs is the intent with which the chemical is used: either to preserve life – – or to take it.-------------------------------------- Within the annals of crime, murder holds a particularly heinous position. And among the means of killing, fewer methods generate such a peculiar morbid fascination as poison. Compared with hot blooded spur of the moment, murderers, the planned and cold calculations involved in murder by poison, perfectly fit the legal term malice aforethought. Poisoning requires planning and knowledge of the victim’s habits. It requires consideration of how the poison will be administered. Some poisons can kill within minutes; others can be given slowly, over time, gradually accumulating in the body, but still leading inexorably to the victim’s death.If you are a fan of True Crime, if you are a fan of TV procedurals, if you are a fan of murder mysteries, A Taste for Poison is a must read. You will be much better prepared to keep up with the medical examiners in all venues when you can recognize the victims’ symptoms, at least if the book or show gives you a chance to try figuring it out for yourself before the truth is revealed. Neil Bradbury grew up fascinated by murder mysteries and poisons. He is a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and the University of Wales School of Medicine, with degrees in Biochemistry and Medical Biochemistry. Although he grew up in the UK, he now lives and works in Illinois, USA, where he’s a scientist, teacher and writer. He also gets to play with nasty chemicals every day (during scientific experiments of course). - from his site[image] Dr. Neil Bradbury - image from his site He has carefully mixed his interests and profession to produce a fun, informative look at poisons through the ages. One might wonder if he wrote the book using a poison pen. I wouldn’t, but some might. He includes looks at the following: Aconite, Arsenic, Atropine, Chlorine, Cyanide, Digoxin, Insulin, Potassium, Polonium, Ricin, and Strychnine. None would qualify as pretty, although cyanide does gift its victims with a lovely ruddy complexion. One of the primary themes of the book is that poisoning is the misapplication of healing pharma to dark purpose. Think water. Necessary for human survival, comes in many forms. These days it forms a base layer for a surface layer of every imaginable flavor, nifty literary tool too, right? But water-boarding, or tsunami? Not so much. Bradbury goes through the medically helpful aspects of multiple poisons, then shows how they have been used to kill, who used them, on whom they were used, how the crimes were figured out and prosecuted, and what happened to the poisoners. In doing this he provides us with a history of when it became possible to diagnose (detect) each poison as a murder weapon, (of particular interest in historical mystery dramas) and details the biology of how each works its dark arts inside the human body. Sadly, for those with a poison-based homicidal urge, the subjects of Bradbury’s reporting, for the most part, were tried and convicted. And today, in the absence of governments protecting state-sponsored poisoners, very few such crimes go unpunished. You are unlikely to recognize the names here, at least the names of the killers, attempted killers, and victims, but as with many in the history of medicine, that is not unusual. Nevertheless, the details are here, as many crimes are examined. Bradbury offers a fun collection of historical odds and ends, like how the telegraph, newly in service, foiled the escape of one poisoner. Or how one particular poison may have been at the root of vampire mythology, or how strychnine was used as a pick-me-up in the early 20th century, or the surprising cost of manufacturing polonium, and even a new take on some Van Goh masterpieces. The only downside for me was that I tended to get a bit lost in the sections detailing the biological and chemical workings of these substances inside the body. I would not say they are extremely technical. I would say that I was always complete garbage at chemistry, and not a whole lot better at biology, so may have nurtured a disaffection that is unlikely to affect you the same way. There is some humor in the book, but not a whole lot. Still, As a consumer of a considerable amount of crime-based entertainment, I was particularly drawn to this book. The how-dun-it often is as important as the who, and by detailing victim symptomology as well as poisoner and investigator methodologies, we can all get a greater appreciation for the challenges entailed. I may not have had the right chemical receptors for the scientific details, but there is plenty of intel in here that will enhance your engagement in crime shows, and teach you a bit about the history of these substances, many of which exist in common parlance. So, it may or may not be for you. I guess you will just have to pick your poison. …in France in the late 1600s, the effectiveness of arsenic and disposing of wealthy relatives who had the temerity to remain alive, was so widespread that it gained the name Poudre de succession, or “inheritance powder.” Review posted - 11/17/23 Publication dates ----------Hardcover - 2/1/22 ----------Trade paperback – 8/15/23 I received a paperback of A Taste for Poison from Griffin in return for a fair review. I am happy to report that the tingling feeling in my hands, which began after I first began to read the book, soon abated. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal and Goodreads author pages Alas, as far as I was able to find, Bradbury’s on-line presence is slender, limited to his personal site and GR author page. Maybe laying low after having taken care of some personal rivals? Interview -----Murder & MayhemTalking Poisons with Dr. Neil Bradbury Items of Interest -----Listverse - Top 10 Remorseless Poisoners That History Almost Forgot by Radu Alexander -----Philadelphia Inquirer -A Pennsylvania nurse is accused of killing 4 patients, injuring others with high doses of insulin by Bruce Shipkowski and Brooke Schultz, Associated Press -----Wikipedia - List of Poisonings through history – from 399 BC to 2021 – a nifty list ...more |
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Nov 15, 2023
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Nov 13, 2023
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| 1250272416
| 9781250272416
| 1250272416
| 3.71
| 83
| unknown
| Aug 08, 2023
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really liked it
| I had no idea my experience was so different from other people’s. Now I’m convinced that everybody has their own unique holographic experience of t I had no idea my experience was so different from other people’s. Now I’m convinced that everybody has their own unique holographic experience of the sensory world.”-------------------------------------- Synesthesia has been incorrectly defined, in my humble opinion, as “crossed wires in the brain” or “mixed-up senses.” In fact, synesthetes have the same primary response to a stimulus as neurotypical people do. If the numeral 5 appears in newsprint, I know that it is black on a white (well, somewhat beige) background. However, simultaneously, I see navy blue around that number and above that number it, like an aura. Therefore, I’ve created what I believe is a much better definition: Synesthesias are traits in which a sensory stimulus yields the expected sensory response plus one or more additional sensory responses.For myself, I have always been on the lower end of the taste/smell sensitivity bell curve, presuming there to be such a thing. I have always attributed this to the DNA luck of the draw. Some of it, though, might be a product of my homemaker mother’s abilities as a cook. There were a few things she made that were mouth-watering, but for the most part, it was said of Mom that she had a close relationship with Chef-Boyardee. Thus, it is no shock that my appreciation for cuisine exists in a narrow range. As smell is closely associated with taste, the two have traveled this low experiential road together. But maybe there is some hope for me and for folks with limitations like mine Maybe there are ways to expand the range of flavors and aromas we can detect and enjoy. (Make real friends with our taste buds?) That possibility is one of the points that Maureen Seaberg makes in her new book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. There are several others. [image] Maureen Seaberg - image from Amazon Seaberg is a synesthete, gifted with abilities beyond the average. Even within that, she is a tetrachromat, proud possessor of four sets of visual cones to our usual kit of three. She has used this extra-sightedness to help a cosmetics firm produce more pleasing hues. She is also a mirror-touch synesthete, which means that she can feel your pain, really. Patricia Lynne Duffy, a member of the United Nations Staff 1 Percent for Development Fund committee, was safely ensconced in her Manhattan office, but when she read the proposals before her, she felt the pain of the world’s most fragile people.She is the author of multiple books on her personal experience as a sensory anomaly, and others looking into the science of what makes us different. Among these are Tasting the Universe, Struck by Genius, and The Synesthesia Experience. While highlighting the differences in human capacity, Seaberg argues that we are all potentially synesthetes, but that our acculturation has defined limits to what our senses regard as the human range. She says we are capable of much more, and cites sundry studies to show our surprising range. One shows that we can detect light down to a single photon. Is it that we are all, or most of us, or many of us, capable of experiencing, sensing much more of our world that we have to date? Are these tools in our toolbox that we have merely never been trained to use? Seaberg uses the examples of many people who are either synesthetes, or who have naturally enhanced capabilities to argue that we could be experiencing much, much more than we do. She also notes people who, through traumatic events, (a mugging in one case) have subsequently displayed enhanced capacities, supporting the notion that we all may have considerable untapped potential. One surprising element here is her reporting on the benefits of the Montessori teaching method, which encourages multi-sensate learning. She suggests we incorporate into our psychological and medical frameworks the notion of a Perception Quotient, or PQ. Just as we have for our rational processing with the intelligence Quotient, or IQ, and EQ for Emotional abilities. Seaberg spends some time with the question of transhumanism, the notion that people can evolve beyond our current biological constraints by incorporating connections (merging?) with technology. She argues against such, contending that our realized and latent capacities can take us a lot further than we have gone, without the need for electronic enhancement. There’s plenty of evidence that humans are adapting to, even passing, machines by using their senses. Just look at the mind-meld young people have with their personal devices and the manual deftness with which they use them compared to older generations. Maybe the singularity moves in two directions, and we meet somewhere along the way. There’s a human-based component not yet considered. And since we’ve recently learned that human sensory potentials are far greater than we knew, perhaps we have a little more time to think about the value of being Homo sapiens.In a related vein, she notes that there are mirror-touch synesthetes who blur those lines. A very small subset of the neurological outliers known as mirror-touch synesthetes have extreme empathy for machines. They are sometimes able to feel the mechanisms in their own sensitive bodies. I call them machine synesthetes or machine empaths.She touches on some even more esoteric subjects, like the remote viewing program sponsored by the USA military from the 1970s into the 1990s, and the possibility of consciousness permeating more of our biosphere than we may have realized. If you are looking for a how-to re expanding your sensate horizons I would look elsewhere. The prompts offered for that here are introductory at best. Seaberg does offer some other places to go for that. This is more a treatise on the possibility of capacity expansion, not a manual for expanding ourselves. If we are indeed the architects of our own reality, it is clear that some of us have been gifted with a superior toolkit for interpreting what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, in that construction process. Maybe for the rest of us there are some tools in the basement or shed that have been gathering dust all our lives, tools that can be cleaned off, greased up, and maybe even powered up. It may or may not be a widespread opportunity, but it is certainly a hopeful and very interesting one. In trying to make sense of senses, Maureen Seaberg has written a fascinating, accessible work on human possibility that should stimulate your curiosity, whether or not you experience collateral sounds, colors, scents or other incomings. Checking this book out would definitely be sensible. “We genuinely experience scent as the emotion we have attached to it,” one sensory educator said. “Our hearts lift at the aroma that reminds us of a happy day at the beach, or our hearts break a little when we smell the aroma of a long-dead relative’s soap.” Review posted - 10/20/23 Publication date – 8/8/23 I received an ARE of Fearfully and Wonderfully Made from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages Interviews -----Audacy - The Science of Synesthesia and Super Sensors - audio - 30 min -----PSIfest 2023 – Curious Realm - Maureen Seaberg @PSIFest 2023 - Video – 27:01 Songs/Music -----Rollingstones - She’s a Rainbow - maybe another form of synesthesia Items of Interest -----Untapped Cities - THE SECRET COLORS OF NYC: HOW MAC’S NEW COLOR TALENT SEES THE CITY DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU by Owen Shapiro -----Charlotte McConaghy’s wonderful novel, Once There Were Wolves, offers a fictional look at someone with mirror-touch synesthesia -----Wiki - Montessori Method -----Wiki - The Stargate Project - remote viewing by the military -----Wiki - Transhumanism -----Optimax - Tetrachromacy: Do you have superhuman vision? ...more |
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| 1250276578
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| 1250276578
| 4.31
| 340
| Jul 11, 2023
| Jul 11, 2023
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it was amazing
| On Sunday February 18, [1945] the lieutenant in charge of Navy press at the On Sunday February 18, [1945] the lieutenant in charge of Navy press at the-------------------------------------- …good intentions have rarely paved such a direct route to hell.Back in World War II there was a small bit of graffiti that appeared in many places across the world. It showed a nose, the fingers of two hands and eyes peeking over a wall, or a fence, along with the words “Kilroy was here.” It was meant to show that American soldiers had been in a particular place, and that they had been everywhere. If Dickey Chapelle had wanted to, she could have left her graffiti across the world as well, not just to show that she had been there, but that she had been the first woman, the first reporter, the first woman reporter who had done the job in many, many dangerous places. She slept in Bedouin tents in the Algerian desert, and in the foxholes she dug herself in the hills overlooking Beirut. She rode in picket boats between battleships off the coast of Iwo Jima and flew in a nuclear-armed jet stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Aegean sea. On New Year’s Eve 1958, she patrolled the Soviet border with the Turkish infantry. On New Year’s Day 1959, she photographed Fidel Castro’s army as they entered Havana. She jumped out of planes over America, the Dominican Republic, South Korea, Laos, and Vietnam. She heard bullets flying over her head in Asia, North America, Europe, and Africa, and knew that they all sounded the same.[image] Engraving of Kilroy on the National World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. - image and descriptive text from Wikipedia It is likely you have heard of Margaret Bourke-White, famed for her coverage of World War II. You may have heard of Marguerite Higgins, noted for reporting on the Korean War. It is very unlikely you have heard of the subject of this book. Go on Wikipedia, or most other places that aggregate such information, and look up World War II correspondents. Chapelle, whose full name was Georgette Louise Marie Meyer Chapelle, is unlikely to appear. Yet, she did seminal work covering diverse elements of the war, including battles on the front lines. She even trained as a paratrooper, so she could jump into battle zones with American military units, which she did. Lorissa Rinehart seeks to correct that oversight. [image] Lorissa Rinehart - Image from Macmillan She tracks Dickey from her brief stint as a student of aeronautical engineering at MIT. Soon after, she was a journalist in Florida, covering a tragic air show in Cuba. It was her first real reporting “at the front” of a deadly event. And the way ahead was set. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, she saw that war was coming with United States. Although Congress did not agree to declare war, it did ramp up production of airplanes and other war materials to support the effort against Nazism. [image] Dickey Chapelle - Image from Narratively, courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society She learned that she would have to become a photographer if she wanted to cover the war. So she took photography classes. Among her teachers was the man she would marry, Anthony “Tony” Chapelle. Their relationship was never a natural. He was much older, controlling, with a temper, described by some as a consummate con man. He would be jealous of her successes, and seemingly always eager to undermine her confidence. But he was a very successful war photographer and taught her the skills that would enhance her natural eye, helping make her the great photojournalist she would become. [image] Dickey Chapelle photographs marines in 1955 - image From Wall Street Journal – from Wisconsin Historical Society Rinehart tracks not only Chapelle’s adventures on the front lines of many military conflicts, but the skirmishes in which she was forced to engage to gain permission to be there at all. Sexism, as one would expect, forms a major portion of those struggles, but some had to do with her being a journalist at all, regardless of her gender. There is a string of firsts next to her name in the history of journalism, and the word “female” does not appear in all of them. Sadly, she was the first female correspondent killed in Viet Nam. [image] Chapelle with Pilots - image from the Wisconsin Historical Society Dickey was tough as nails, enduring some of the same training as the GIs she was covering. In addition to her considerable coverage of World War II, she was on the front lines of the major hot spots in the Cold War. Not only embedded with marines, Chapelle spent considerable time with troops from Turkey, Castro’s rebels in Cuba, anti-Castro plotters in Florida, secret American forces in Laos, Laotian anti-communist fighters, Algerian revolutionaries, Hungarian rebels, and more. The list is substantial. She would keep diving in, wanting to get the immediate experience of the fighters, the civilians caught in the crossfire, the human impact of war. No Five o’clock Follies for Dickey. She was not interested in being a stenographer for brass talking points, seeing that approach as the enemy of truthful reporting. [image] Dickey Chapelle sits and drinks coffee with the FLN Scorpion Battalion Rebels in the Atlas Mountains in Algeria - image and descriptive text from the Wisconsin Historical Society – shot by Dickey Chapelle Chapelle was captured, imprisoned, and tortured in Hungary by Soviet forces. It gave her a particularly pointed perspective on the treatment of prisoners by Western militaries, and the greater implications of the USA not holding to the highest international standards. One of her greatest gifts was a respect for local cultures and particularly local fighters. She was quite aware of how hard they trained, how hard and far they pushed themselves, how much deprivation they willingly endured. Yet she encountered attitudes from American officers and leaders that regarded non-white fighters through a self-defeating racist lens. Chapelle tried to get the message across to those in command how wrong they were in their regard for the locals the USA was supposedly there to support. Despite occasionally breaking through the brain-truth barrier, that engagement proved a demoralizing, losing battle. [image] Iwo Jima Medical Facilities - image from the Wisconsin Historical Society – shot by Dickey Chapelle Another example of her analytical capability was fed by her time with a community in Laos, led by a cleric, possessed of superior tactical and political approaches. She tried to bring her knowledge of this to American military leaders. It was not a total failure. Although her ideas were not implemented to a meaningful extent, she was eventually brought in by the military to teach what she knew to new officers. Through much of her work, which included extensive coverage of the on-the-ground Marshall Plan in Europe, her marriage to Tony was seemingly in constant crisis. It was an ongoing war, with dustups aplenty, advances and retreats, damage incurred, but resulted, ultimately, in a separation of forces, which freed Chapelle to pursue her front-line compulsion unimpeded by contrary wishes. [image] Fidel Castro with cigar, and five other men - image from the Wisconsin Historical Society – shot by Dickey Chapelle Her employers were not always news outlets. She was employed by the Red Cross to document the need for blood in the war zone. She covered a hospital ship, and medical units on the battlefield. It was hoped that her coverage would give a boost to a national blood drive encouraging Americans to give blood for wounded soldiers. It was a huge success. She worked for the American Friends Service Committee covering military behavior in the Dominican Republic. Other non-profits paid for her to report from other parts of the world. And sundry magazines provided enough employment to keep her working almost constantly. [image] A woman in a headscarf crosses an improvised bridge in the vicinity of the village of Tamsweg, escaping from Hungary to Austria - image from the Wisconsin Historical Society – shot by Dickey Chapelle This is an amazing book about an amazing woman.The story of Dickey Chapelle reads like fiction. Even though we know this is a biography, and that what is on the page has already occurred, Rinehart makes the story sing. Her story-telling skill brings us into the scenes of conflict, sometimes terror, so we tremble or gird along with her subject. She taps into the adventure of Dickey’s life, as well as the peril. This is the life that Dickey had sought, and which would be her undoing. The book reads like a novel, fast, exciting, eye-opening, frustrating, enraging, sad, but ultimately satisfying. Dickey Chapelle’s was a life that was as rich with stumbling blocks as it was with jobs well done, but ultimately it was a life well lived, offering concrete benefits to those who were exposed to her work, and an inspiration for many who have followed in her bootsteps. I side with prisoners against guards, enlisted men against officers, weakness against power. Review posted - 10/6/23 Publication date – 7/11/23 I received a copy of First to the Front from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to Lorissa Rinehart’s personal, FB, and Instagram pages Profile - from Women Also Know History Lorissa Rinehart writes about art, war, and their points of intersection.Interviews -----Writers Talking – Season 2 Episode 7 - Talking to Lorissa Rinehart - podcast – 50:30 -----Hidden History Podcast - A Conversation with Lorissa Rinehart with John Rodriguez - video – 40:18 – begin at 1:43 – there is a transcript on the side -----Cold War Conversations - Dickey Chapelle – Trailblazing Female Cold War Journalist - audio – 1:01:50 Items of Interest from the author -----The War Horse - excerpt -----Facebook reel - Rinehart on Dickey Chapelle showing incredible guts -----FB - The Top 10 Books She Read to Prepare -----The History Reader - Escaping Algeria - excerpt -----Narratively - The Parachuting Female Photojournalist Who Dove Into War Headfirst Item of Interest -----Milwaukee PBS - Behind the Pearl Earrings: The Story of Dickey Chapelle, Combat Photojournalist - video documentary- 56:05 -----Political Dictionary - Five o’clock Follies ...more |
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it was amazing
| The arc of every human life is measured out by the ceaseless accumulation of knowledge. Requiring only awareness and yet always welcoming curiosity The arc of every human life is measured out by the ceaseless accumulation of knowledge. Requiring only awareness and yet always welcoming curiosity, the transmission of knowledge into the sentient mind is an uninterruptible process of ebbings and flowings. There are times—in infancy, or when at school in youth—during which the rate at which knowledge is gathered becomes intense and urgent, a welling tsunami of information ever ready for the mind to process. At other times, maybe later in life, the inbound knowledge drifts in more slowly, set to adhere and thicken like moss, or a patina.-------------------------------------- Digital amnesia, for example, is now widely agreed to be a phenomenon, a thing. It is a condition that posits that words looked up online are often forgotten almost as quickly as they are acquired. Information that we know can easily be Googled needs never be known, or if it is known, needs never to be retained. Telephone numbers, for example, once so often known and the more cherished ones remembered, need not even be known at all now. The name of the person to be called is all that is required. The name is hyperlinked to the phone’s dialing system and merely touching the name gets the distant phone to ring.Epistemology is one of those ten-dollar words that make my brain hurt, particularly as its meaning is not made obvious through common Latin roots. Speaking it aloud could certainly lead one astray. It is neither the study of urine, excessive alcohol consumption, nor anger, but the study of knowledge. Winchester spends some time trying to define just what knowledge is. If you think it is something consisting of 100% verified, tested, water-tight, bullet-proof factoids, you will be disappointed. Simon traces human thought on this back to the ancients and adopts, as the world has, the definition of knowledge as “justified true belief.” (JTB) So, not the same thing as facts, information, or truth. Squishier. But still fascinating. He tracks advances in the Theory of Knowledge (TOK), (sadly, nothing to do with the media platform) including the latest thinking. [image] Simon Winchester - image from Kepler’s Literary Foundation The sub-title of the book bears noting, The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic. Once having established what knowledge actually is, Winchester goes on to write about the means by which that knowledge was dispersed. He goes back to the development of the earliest known languages, marking the bridge where pictographic symbols were succeeded by letters representing sounds. It is fascinating to note that the use of written language arose more or less at the same time across the planet, across cultures that had had no contact with each other. Once languages existed, schools would be needed, to sustain cultures and communities. The earliest known examples sprang up in Iraq and China. So, the means of transmission, beyond the family, was teachers. Some things never change. Winchester notes the considerable similarities between ancient and modern education. And some modern differences. A Chinese school final exam is to the American SAT as Go is to Go Fish.He touches on the greatest hits of educational advancement. Gutenberg democratized, to a considerable degree, the acquisition of knowledge, or at least access to books, with his seminal press. A huge, big deal, as regular folks could now read materials that previously been reserved for the clergy and educated classes. Another advancement earning considerable attention is the library, humanity’s storehouse of knowledge. Winchester goes into some detail on different sorts of libraries and how they spread. There are many fun bits of intel here, such as on the shift from scrolls to folded paper for books, and on an eccentric indexing system used in one notable private English library. …knowledge has long been seen as far too precious to treat with casual disregard. It needs to not just be kept, but kept safe and secure. For almost as long as language, especially written language, has existed, we have sought ways of collecting, storing, and safeguarding this endlessly swelling body of what is known, of what has been learned, and of all that can then be taught, discussed, challenged, debated, and decided. The most widely recognized and most ancient means of storage is the institution that derives its English name from the Latin word for the inner bark of a tree, on which early works were said to have been written. The Latin word for this bark is liber; by way of centuries of etymological convolution, the English word, used since Chaucer’s time, is, of course, the library.Each revolution in how knowledge was transmitted was revolutionary well beyond the specific hardware upgrade. It was not just readily printable books that revolutionized the world. Printing presses were used to print newspapers as well, ushering in a world of regular information delivery to great numbers of people. Of course, newspapers have always been used as a source of propaganda and misinformation in addition to true reporting of actual events. So the capacity for mayhem grew with the capacity for a growth in awareness. Why…did the transmission of knowledges that seem so potentially beneficial to us all get to be so drowned out by the noise of commerce and nationalism and war?Encyclopedias come in for a close look. They were seen as the informational bible for large numbers of people, as they sought to offer buyers all the information currently known. He covers several of the major such products, including those beyond the Encyclopedia Britannica. (I remember when I was a child in the 1950s Bronx, our local supermarket, an A&P, sold the Frunk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia volume by volume. Hardcover, very thin paper, occasional illustrations. I remember looking forward to the arrival of every single one of the twenty-five volumes. There would always be something of interest.) Such publications continued the work of Gutenberg, making potentially vast amounts of information available to regular people. Further advances in info transmission were to come. The telegraph shrunk the world of the 19th century the way the internet has done today. Radio broadcasting had a great impact. We learn much about the early days of the BBC, and its Japanese counterpart, including the impact those institutions had on the education, and attitudes toward education, of their respective populations. This was particularly eye-opening. The middle of the 20th century saw major advances. Computer chips revolutionized everything. Now we can access information on most things instantly, or close enough to it, using a hand-held device. And in place of bookshelf-filling volumes we can check with Wikipedia for information on almost anything. But knowledge is a feeder to a larger question. Whither wisdom? What can and may and will happen next to our mental development if and when we have no further need to know, perhaps no need to think? What if we are then unable to gain true knowledge, enlightenment, or insight—that most precious of human commodities, true wisdom? What then will become of us?This is not a new concern. Socrates was worried that the development of writing would impair people’s ability to understand things. He thought that if people could access written material, they would no longer have a need to memorize said material, by which means they supposedly incorporated it into their personal long-term storage, and had it available at the speed of thought. It is no big stretch to be concerned that the outsourcing of so much intellectual heavy lifting, which has been a product of the computer revolution, might leave our minds flabby and diminished. Winchester offers a look at the greatest thinkers of all time, polymaths ancient and modern. In addition to the usual suspects, there are some names here that will be unfamiliar. Really? I never even heard of that guy. is a reaction I had more than once to some of the personages in his all-time, intellectual all-star roster. If there is one thing that I found lacking in the book, well, lacking is not the right word, more like something I would have liked to have seen there. Is a look at how knowledge is lost or destroyed, whether by misfortune of evil intent. For just as knowledge can advance civilization, denial of access to it can help bring about a dark age. Winchester’s aim here is to wonder how we will fare going forward when so much of our learning is housed outside our brains. Knowledge is a crucial element in the development of wisdom. Will our brains, uncluttered of vast amounts of information, be freed to contemplate deeper truths? Or will the neurons that gather information be too softened to address heavier thinking? Given what I have heard of so many younger people in the work force, I am leaning toward the dark side on this one. But I sure hope I am wrong. Encountering a passel of bright young minds in the last few years keeps alive hopes for better. Simon Winchester is a national treasure. (probably for two countries, as he is an English-born American citizen) He repeatedly produces amazingly interesting books that open our eyes to parts of the world, contemporary and historical, that might otherwise remain unknown. Considering how much he has taught us through his writings, there is no question but that the world is a much richer place for how much knowledge and wisdom he has imparted to us all through his ongoing production of fascinating material. You may or may not become wise as a result of reading this book, but I guarantee you will become more knowledgeable. How, in sum, do we value the knowledge that, thanks to the magic of electronics, is now cast before us in so vast and ceaseless and unstoppable a cascade? Amid the torrent and its fury, what is to become of thought—care and calm and quiet thoughtfulness? What of our own chance of ever gaining wisdom? Do we need it? Does anybody? How does a world function if no one within it is wise? Review first posted - 9/15/23 Publication dates ----------Hardcover – 4/23/23 ----------Trade paperback - 4/23/24 I received an ARE of Knowing What We Know from Harper in return for a fair review. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the Winchester’s personal, Twitter and FB pages A nice overview of Winchester’s professional life can be found here Interviews -----The Michael Schermer Show - Are We Risking Our Ability to Think? There is a wonderful story re material in the Encyclopedia Britannica about how a relied-upon source can foment truly awful errors. -----Free Library of Philadelphia - Simon Winchester | Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge -----Live Talks Los Angeles - Simon Winchester in conversation with Ted Habte-Gabr at Live Talks Los Angeles Reviews of other Simon Winchester books we have read: -----2021 - Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World -----2018 - The Perfectionists -----2015 - Pacific -----2010 - Atlantic -----2008 - The Man Who Loved China -----2005 - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded -----2001 - The Map That Changed the World -----1998 - The Professor and the Madman ...more |
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| May 30, 2023
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liked it
| Tribalism is governed by a force so motivationally powerful that it predicts more of your behavior than your race, class, nationality, or religion Tribalism is governed by a force so motivationally powerful that it predicts more of your behavior than your race, class, nationality, or religion. The formal analysis of this incredible phenomenon has only just begun, but the emerging science reveals that these factors are mere subjugates to our primal instinct to be a member of a tribe. This “Tribe Drive” is an ancient adaptation that has been a prerequisite for survival for 99.9 percent of our species’ evolutionary history. It is a critical piece of cognitive machinery—honed by millions of years of evolution—that gave us the ability to navigate, both cooperatively and competitively, increasingly complex social landscapes. But now that our species spans billions across the globe, does this adaptation continue to serve us, or is it mismatched to its environment? In other words, what happens when humans become either tribeless or destructively consumed by tribalism?-------------------------------------- So next time you hear a raving demagogue counseling hatred for other, slightly different groups of humans, for a moment at least see if you can understand his problem: He is heeding an ancient call that—however dangerous, obsolete, and maladaptive it may be today—once benefited our species. — CARL SAGAN AND ANN DRUYAN, 1993There is a reason birds of a feather stick together, that fish swim in schools, and that gnus migrate in large herds. It increases the survival chances for the group, if not necessarily the individuals within it. So it is with people. We do not have the canines of the saber-tooth, the bulk and muscle of the bear, the speed of the leopard, the poison of the snake or many of the other tools available to creatures eager to dine on the special meat. Even our relatively advanced gray cells were not enough to consistently keep us off the dinner menu. But getting together helped, big-time. E pluribus unum, baby. And grouping together allowed us to hunt in packs, which was much more effective than hunting individually. So, how did we shift from independent contractors to company people? [image] David R. Samson - image from his Facebook pages It is obvious to any observer that we are a tribal species today. Samson looks at the elements that make up this trait. He wrestles with the lion of the issue, why are we the way we are? And how what he calls our innate tribal drive, which may have served us well on the savannah, serves us less well in the modern world. The core of the mismatch is that modern society has made us more physically isolated by decreasing our social support; all the while it has made us more mentally unstable by increasing social pressure, tricking us into thinking that low grade online and institutional social interaction is good enough to live a healthy and fulfilling life. In this sense, the people who dwelled in the first tribes were not challenged as much as we are today. Their units were glued together in a common struggle for survival, not the weak ideological grounds many use as the foundation to their tribal social identities today.Samson begins by looking at how our tribal drive causes more trouble than it solves. Then heads off into the history of how human organization evolved. For example, before there could be tribes there had to be camps. (The People’s Front of Judea?) This material is fascinating, as he builds up the structure of prehistoric human grouping. There are organizational layers that needed to develop and join together in order to make up early human tribes. He goes into what early human needs were, the reason for being of groups, the need for food, shelter, and avoidance of incest. And beyond that, there was a need to cope with ill fortune. Stuff happens, and your group can survive such stuff more robustly if it is larger. Thus tribes, which still carry within them the need for assurance about who is trustworthy. This leads to a need for some sort of recognition mechanism. When a group gets beyond the magical Dunbar number, how do we know if someone is safe? If they are one of us and not one of a potentially threatening them. The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship. . . . Putting it another way, it’s the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar. — ROBIN DUNBAR, 1996Well, you can see how this might be endlessly fascinating. And it is. Tribalism is what allowed us to survive as a species. When the going got tough, the tough formed tribes. He traces the steps that were needed to achieve tribe-dom, and looks at how they functioned once established. He offers considerable intel on how tribalism changed over time, how it developed diverse forms, how we developed ways to tell tribal friend from foe without knowing them personally. Great stuff. I worked my poor mouse and keyboard down to bare metal copying passages from this book. Part 2 (of two) refocuses on the contemporary. How our need for tribal connection impacts our lives. He talks about how increasing class separation has resulted in the well-to-do being able to buy the social support they need, while us plebes have had to scramble to make do with our declining slices of the national pie. He offers sundry ways in which we can mitigate the impact the world has had on us, how it has deprived us of our tribal needs, primarily of personal contact with a trusted bunch. Samson looks at ways in which we can find a better balance, offering some real-world examples. There were several times, I was pulled up short by Samson’s social analysis. He quotes Robert Putnam on a decline in family togetherness over the ten year period between 1985 and 1994. Yet he does not seem to consider it worth noting that this corresponds roughly with the Age of Reagan, and a turn away from community and toward the individual. He also does not include any significant discussion on the general decline in religious affiliation, which surely would be relevant to stresses on tribal identification. A particularly egregious example of both-siderism entails looking at the different responses to a handwriting expert’s analysis of Donald Trump’s signature. The entirety of that can be found under a spoiler tag in EXTRA STUFF, so you can see for yourself. In focusing on how different groups reacted to the analysis, he does zero follow-up to look at whether one group or another turned out, based on observable real-world facts, to have had a better handle on things. That did not kill the book for me, but it was a red flag. It is often the case that social scientists do a decent job of examining society, ferreting out specific elements that might be causing this or that bad result. But it is just as often the case that the solutions that are proposed fail the political sniff test. Not political as in party affiliation, but political in the sense that any social change has to be applied in a medium that is comprised of human beings. On the other hand, there are myriad nuggets of information in Our Tribal Future that enrich the reading experience, like his look at the basis of ethics, and a dive on how The Dunbar Number came to be. For many, these days, much of our political discourse appears to be driven more by tribal identity than by rational consideration of policy merits or disbenefits. I was able to glean some significant bits of wisdom to apply to this from Samson’s discussion of tribal psychology, but I had hoped he would have done more with it. Where he does go is to examine some ways of social organization that offer opportunities for improving our lot. He is wise in noting that community-level engagement is the best way to not only effect direct change, but to gain links to other nearby people, creating or reinforcing social cohesion, and mental health. But then he ignores what might be done for national issues like abortion, national tax policy, national defense and health care coverage and availability. It is a narrower focus, which is certainly Samson’s right, but there seems to be a pretense that local arrangements exist in a bubble, unimpacted by the larger world. You may have heard of the uncanny valley. The expression refers to the creeped-out feeling one gets when seeing/interacting with an animation or robot that is intended to be very human-like, but is not quite there. (Ron DeSantis?) Likewise, David Samson’s Our Tribal Future tries to be an accessible, pop-science look at a very significant element of contemporary life, particularly in the political sphere. He mostly succeeds when writing about our deep history. But there is some drift into a more academic presentation that shifts towards the science and a bit too far away from the pop. It is when he tries to look past what is to what could be, that the Philistines of reality swarm him. So, if you are academically inclined, by all means, dive in. There is much of value here. But if the hint of textbook makes your blood run cold, you may want to explore elsewhere. A compromise might be to take in Samson’s wonderful presentation on human historical self-organization, then see how you feel moving forward. But if you are looking for a fully accessible pop-science read, you may find yourself in an uncanny valley. When we grow, develop, and live in a world where everything is geared toward the individual, how can we help but view the world with a more narcissistic lens? When we live with other people, share resources within the environment, and work through problems together, the outcome is an individual that is less self-centered and more psychologically flexible. Review posted - 08/18/23 Publication date – 05/30/23 I received an ARE of Our Trtibal Future from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review, and becoming a member of their group. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the Samson’s personal, Instagram, and Twitter pages Interviews -----Toronto Star - Creating a better future: How to take our instinct to belong to a group and turn it into a force for good By Brian Bethune’ -----The Power of Us - INTERVIEW: David Samson on OUR TRIBAL FUTURE by Dominic Packer and Jay van Bavel -----The Gray Area - The Future of Tribalism with Sean Illing – podcast – 51:08 Item of Interest from the author -----Excerpt -----CBC Radio - Political tribalism is 'the greatest threat of our species in the 21st century': evolutionary biologist Items of Interest -----The People’s Front of Judea? -----Wikipedia - Uncanny Valley -----Handwriting Analysis(view spoiler)[… example of mirror game psychology. Michelle Dresbold, a handwriting expert who has been trained and worked with the Secret Service, analyzed Donald Trump’s signature. In her analysis, she described his handwriting as “bold, condensed, angular signature shows someone who is rough, tough, aggressive, competitive, can never relax and is not nurturing.”490 She further expounds that his angular writing style with minimal curves shows up in the signatures of some sharp-minded and competitive workaholics that are prone to anger, hostility, and fear. Whether there is truth to her analysis is beside the point. The insight is how people interpreted her observation about Trump’s signature. Dresbold was shocked by the public response, as conservative audiences (corporations, business groups, and entrepreneurs) reacted positively to her analysis of what she considered mostly negative attributes. However, liberals in the academy, at universities, and other progressive hot spots had mirror opposite responses, using the identical data as proof of Trump’s corruption. Dresbold recalls: “When I say something like ‘his check-mark-like stroke, called a tick-mark [in the bottom left-hand corner of the D in Donald], it indicates that Trump has explosive anger and a very bad temper,’ the conservative interpretation is, ‘Of course, he’s angry about what’s happened to America.’ The liberal interpretation is, ‘Yes, he’s a very angry man with childlike temper tantrums.’” Continuing on theme, if Dresbold remarks that his signature is unreadable which indicates that he keeps his feelings hidden from the public, the liberals’ interpretation is that he’s sneaky and untrustworthy, whereas the conservative interpretation is that it he is intelligent because he doesn’t want our enemies to know what is in his mind. Same data, same analysis, two different universes of interpretation. (hide spoiler)] ...more |
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it was amazing
| ”Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” - Chico Marx in Duck Soup-------------------------------------- The truth isn’t enough. Most people are ”Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” - Chico Marx in Duck Soup-------------------------------------- The truth isn’t enough. Most people aren’t even listening for it.Agent Mulder knew that the truth was out there. But what can one do about those who are incapable or unwilling to see it, or worse, those who have a vested interest in disbelief? And how much responsibility to persuade the unpersuadable must be carried by those whose truth is in question? Aliens do figure large in this book, but not in the Mulder/Scully mode. [image] Dina Nayeri - image from LitHub Dina Nayeri has been writing about the truth since at least 2012, with a particular emphasis on immigrant issues, more specifically, on refugees, asylum seekers. Her previous book, The Waiting Place, released in 2022, documented life in Katsikas, a Greek refugee camp, mixing tales from the lives of some of the children there with her own experiences as a refugee from Iran. In The Ungrateful Refugee, 2019, she writes of adult refugees she has met, looking at what being a refugee is like for them. She has also written novels and short fiction, centered on the refugee experience. And that is her primary focus here as well. The aim of that book [The Ungrateful Refugee] was to really look back on my own experience, and what people go through now to make some sense of the modern displacement experience. One of the sections of the book is about asylum storytelling, and I had so many stories of people getting disbelieved for the stupidest reasons, and the way that the asylum officers listen to the stories. It was very shocking. I wanted to write a lot more about that and, with this book, I wanted to expand that out to just how the vulnerable are listened to, versus people who are very privileged. - from the Ms Magazine interviewIn Who Gets Believed, Nayeri takes on a broader perspective. She looks at the challenges people face in trying to get their truths believed not only in refugee situations but in many other walks of life. There are two factual threads that bind the book together, weaving in and out over the course of three hundred or so pages. First is the tale of K, a Tamil torture victim whose evidence includes a back full of scars. Somehow the system tries to persuade itself that K did that to himself in order to gain entry to the UK. If this sounds Kafkaesque to you, it does to Nayeri, as well. She frequently cites that patron saint of bureaucratic horror as she takes us through the nightmare world of mindlessness, and barely disguised racism, sexism, and xenophobia that is the West’s immigration system. It makes a powerful metaphor for how the system treats those whose rights are supposedly guaranteed by international treaty, but who are more typically treated as rightless, and suspect supplicants. For most migrants [asylum attorney Maleha Haq] explained, credibility isn’t the reason for rejection. In fact, the issue of credibility is cleverly avoided by using the claimant’s own lack of knowledge about the definition of a word. What is a refugee? Before he is believed, an asylum seeker must choose the right story out of many, the relevant part of a complicated life. It’s like being asked to cut a circular disk from a cylinder. You have many stacked circles, but if you cut at the wrong angle, you have an oval. You’ve failed to present the desired thing.Another thread is her brother-in-law, someone with a lifetime of mental health issues. Making the credibility tale personal, she writes about not believing he was really incapable of providing for himself in the world, seeing him as a leech on his family, a con-artist working the system. This is a powerful approach, bringing in real-world issues, but with names and faces, and humanizing the core questions even more by weaving in how disbelief, even her own, has impacted her life. One of the many strengths of the book is Nayeri’s commentary on communication. She tells how language is used as a tool of obfuscation and exclusion. Refugees must learn the nuances of the immigration system in order to gain entrance. They must learn to play the game, memorize the exact right words to use, be ready to offer the right presentation. The unpolished truth is typically fraught with openings that officials, whose default is rejection, (UK Home Office workers are given target numbers for rejecting asylum seekers.) can seize on to deny asylum. It is disheartening to learn that the prospects of a refugee gaining asylum correspond very closely with whether they have legal counsel or not, which bodes ill for most. Again Nayeri offers a personal element, reporting on her experiences with having to learn not just what, but how to present, in order to get what she wanted, whether acceptance to a college of her choice, or a job, post college. Despite all the talk of leadership and change-making, what you actually learn at Harvard Business School is how to be believed—how to be the ones people want to believe, feel safe believing, given their heuristic shortcuts.The cost to refugees is clearly higher but the parallels in how one must approach large systems with language resonates like Big Ben at the top of the hour. …belonging is a performance with a scriptNayeri looks as well at a bit of the world of medicine. She notes that many caregivers disparage sufferers of Sickle Cell Disease, who must repeatedly seek help with pain issues, as “Sicklers,” refusing to take seriously the very real pain experienced by those afflicted. And she notes caregiver disparagement of different ways of grieving in different cultures. She has a tale of her own about her doctors refusing to treat her the way she wanted, as a reflection of how many doctors do not take seriously the wishes and pain reports of many women patients. This one resonated personally. In late 2021, my own sister experienced this, as, for months, she had complained of pain, but was sent home from each medical visit (when she could even get one. Sometimes this entailed months of waiting.) with little or no relief, and no real examination, certainly no effective one, of underlying causation. After all, she was just an old lady, and old people have pain all the time. No big whoop. The pain finally became too much and she was rushed to the ER. Subsequent surgery revealed a return of a stomach cancer after a ten-year-remission, nicely metastasized. She was dead within weeks. The risk entailed in medical professionals ignoring claims of pain is very real. She takes on The Reid Technique, a widely used interrogation regimen routinely abused by police, with a chargeable outcome being a much higher priority than truth-seeking. She looks at how the methodology is used to generate inconsistencies, which are then portrayed as evidence of dishonesty. The obverse of this is firefighters being granted exceptional credibility when testifying as expert witnesses, despite there sometimes being little scientific merit to what is claimed on the stand. The Reid Technique begins with an assumption of guilt. It was originally intended to be used only when the interrogator is absolutely certain of guilt. Even then, it was intended not to extract a confession that might condemn the suspect on its own (the technique is, after all, so torturous that even its creators didn’t believe it would cause an innocent person to confess, they seemed aware of that risk), but to uncover new, unknown details—intimate ones about the why and the how—that could then be corroborated. It was that supporting physical evidence that would convict the guilty—a body, a weapon, some real proof.It might be easy to intone a general rule of Trust No One, but refugees do not have that luxury. Unless an asylum-seeker can somehow get legal representation, they are forced to trust people who are in a position to help or harm their cases. There is plenty more in here, dives on how we persuade ourselves to believe thing that are not true, how politics creates truths, even alters our bodies, on how we only see what we are looking for, how having stories told publicly makes them more real, how consultants befuddle their clients. You will learn a lot. You will also feel a lot. Nayeri’s stories are moving, upsetting, and hopefully, motivating. They will force you to think, and, hopefully, engage in some introspection. Her willingness to own her own biases shows that she is not looking for justice solely in the world outside, but within herself. Red Smith famously said that writing was easy, All you do is sit down at a typewriter, cut open a vein, and bleed. I imagine there was a lot of cleaning up necessary in Nayeri’s writing places while she worked on this book. Also, she is not trying to get you to like her. This is an honest portrayal of a complicated person, one who struggled trying to fit in with American society as a child, and who maneuvered the ivy halls of Harvard and Princeton, and a premier spot in the consultoverse, in her drive for success. Who Gets Believed is a powerful look not just at the terrifying refugee experience, but at the wider problems of disbelief that are grounded in biased or unsupported notions. I Want To Believe that the issues raised in this book are being addressed, but while I expect that there are awareness programs being run by some healthcare provider institutions, I seriously doubt there is anything being done by police departments to cope with abuse of the Reid Technique. And I would bet that immigration services, swamped as they are with applicants, and chronically understaffed, are unlikely to have done much about basing asylum denials on firmer reasons than what appears the case today. The truth of what is happening in these parts of our world is definitely out there. Dina Nayeri has brought some of that truth to the rest of us. Belief is only needed if there is no proof. Nayeri offers evidence. These are truths you need to know. this variability in judicial standards is one of the greatest flaws of the American asylum system. Why should the weight of any kind of evidence vary by judge? Should one’s fate depend on the compassion or politics of the judge assigned? Should it vary by administration?...asylum grant rates go up and down based on who the attorney general is. That’s not just at the judge level but at the screening stage. The number of people found to have credible fear and entitled to be seen by a judge depends on political pressure. Review posted - 06/02/23 Publication dates ----------Hardcover – 03/07/23 ----------Trade paperback - 03/5/24 I received a copy of Who Gets Believed? from Catapult in return for a fair review. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Profile - from Wikipedia Nayeri was born in Isfahan, Iran. Her mother was a doctor and her father a dentist. She spent the first 8 years of her life in Isfahan but fled Iran with her mother and brother Daniel in 1988 because her mother had converted to Christianity and the moral police of the Islamic Republic had threatened her with execution.[1]Nayeri, her mother and brother spent two years in Dubai and Rome as asylum seekers and eventually settled in Oklahoma, in the United States.[2] Her father remained in Iran, where he still lives. She has written several works of non-fiction, novels for adult and children, and numerous articles. Links to the Nayeri’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages Interviews -----NPR - Dina Nayeri wants you to question 'Who Gets Believed' | Book of the Day - with Juana summers – audio - 8:44 -----Ms Magazine - Telling the ‘Right’ Story: Dina Nayeri on Refugee Credibility - by Jera Brown -----LitHub - Manufacturing Lies: DinaNayeri on How Our Cultural and Bureaucratic Norms Often Betray the Truth with Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan Songs/Music -----Weeknd - High for This- mentioned in Chapter 5 Items of Interest from the author -----PBS - Is the distinction between migrant and refugee meaningful? - Video – 3:02 -----Muck Rack - Articles by Dina Nayeri - links to pieces in diverse publications Items of Interest -----NY Times - Many Women Have an Intense Fear of Childbirth, Survey Suggests by Roni Caryn Rabin -----AP - Why do so many Black women die in pregnancy? One reason: Doctors don't take them seriously by Kat Stafford -----Wisconsin Criminal Defense - Understanding the Reid Technique in Police Interrogations - The Law Offices of Christopher J. Cherella -----Project Gutenberg - The Trial by Franz Kafka – full text for free ...more |
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it was amazing
| The real Poe considered himself first and foremost a poet. The real Poe was best known in his lifetime as first a tremendously tough critic, secon The real Poe considered himself first and foremost a poet. The real Poe was best known in his lifetime as first a tremendously tough critic, second a poet, and third as the author of tales of mystery and horror. Our perception of Poe has reversed that order.-------------------------------------- “Poe was no saint, and he wasn’t always easy to be around,” novelist Matthew Pearl said. “He had difficulty with friendships. He could push people away who were genuinely fond of him and wanted to help him. He could be charming, courtly, witty, and gracious, but he also could be sensitive, petty, suspicious, jealous, and resentful. He wanted to be noticed and appreciated, but he had a difficult time with processing appreciation.”Edgar Allan Poe sure had plenty of challenges in his life. First came the death of both professional actor parents by the time he was three years old, then being raised in a home where the wife was eager to have him, but the husband resented his presence and overtly disliked him. His adult love life featured a string of romances that did not come to fruition, and others that left him mate-less after far too short a time. In addition, even the mother-figures in his life were short-lived. Is it any wonder that so much of his work centered on death, particularly the early demise of young women? But you probably knew that, or had an inkling. What you may not have known was that Poe was also a writer of comedies, of high-seas adventures, a balloon ride, pirates and treasure. [image] Mark Dawidziak - image from CityBeat In A Mystery of Mysteries, Mark Dawidziak takes on the unenviable task of ferreting out how exactly Edgar Allan Poe died. It is, in fact, a double-barreled mystery. What was the cause of Poe’s death, and what happened to him during those missing days before he was found “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own? Why did he look so disheveled, his hair unkempt, his face unwashed, and his eyes “lusterless and vacant”? Pale and alternately described as both cold to the touch and burning up with fever, Poe in his delirium held conversations with what resident physician Moran said were “spectral and imaginary objects on the wall.” Sound like the description of a character in one of his stories? It also sounds like a mystery worthy of Poe’s master detective (and the model for so many super sleuths to follow), C. Auguste Dupin.How Poe came to die where and how he did is a long-standing mystery, well, the specifics of it, anyway. Theories abound, of course. There is little in the way of physical evidence. But the author works with what evidence there is and gives many of the extant theories a good going-over. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7th, 1849. The doctor labeled his cause of death as “phrenitis” (inflammation of the brain) which was commonly used when the true cause of death was unknown. Because of these mysterious circumstances, and the persona of Poe, there is much speculation about the true manner of his death. There are over 26 published theories on his demise, so far. - from The Poe MuseumIt is clear that he was in poor health in his final days, that he frequently drank to excess, that he suffered greatly from the loss of his beloved, and that his body was failing. He had struggled with alcohol since he was in school, and the behavior that is attributed to him in his final days fits well with a liver failing because of alcoholism or liver disease of another sort. But that is not the only suspect. He rarely had extended spells in which he was not struggling to get by, so add to his health-challenges the ongoing stress of poverty, with a not infrequent scarcity of sufficient food. He was also afflicted with his share of the widespread diseases of his time. The specifics of where he was on this day or that strikes me as uninteresting, in the absence of concrete evidence of murder most foul, or interference by aliens or time travelers, And even were there such a dark undertaking underway, a bit of patience would have seen to that task unaided. [image] Young Poe - image from the Poe Museum I confess that while I have read a reasonable portion of the better-known Poe works, I have little exposure to his lesser-known works, (there are links to some of these in EXTRA STUFF) and little knowledge of his biography. I suspect that most folks reading this are either in a similar situation, or can empathize with those of us who are. This is a book, rich as it is with details of the great writer’s life, that welcomes the phrase “you may not have known.” It does not delve into literary analysis of Poe’s oeuvre, beyond the obvious links between his lived experience and the subjects he included in his writing. It follows his struggles from when he was an unloved orphan, then a difficult, if brilliant student. You may not have known that he was a hale, athletic specimen in his youth, and even well into adulthood. Or that the moustache which we always see in images of him was an addition that did not take place until late in his all-too-brief life. He is seen as the inventor of the modern mystery. You probably knew that. But you may not have known that even the Ur detective, Sherlock Holmes, was inspired by a character written by Poe, and is credited as such by Arthur Conan Doyle. You may not have known that Poe is seen as the inventor of criminal profiling by none other than the originator of the FBI’s profiling division. You may not have known that he made a national name for himself as a literary critic, a perceptive and harsh one, working for magazines. [image] Virginia - image from the Poe Museum Poe was not just a superstar of a writer, but a legend in his own mind, which made him a particularly high-maintenance employee, leaving him constantly struggling to keep body and soul together, constantly pleading for work and assistance. He perceived himself as an outsider, which he was, denied the material comforts and the social access granted his peers. Poe scholar Steve Medeiros puts it more vividly: “If you could look through the peephole and see who was knocking, and could see that it was Poe, you wouldn’t answer the door, because he would want something. As much of a genius as he is and as charming as he could be, he could also be a real pain in the ass.”Dawidziak does an outstanding job of detailing for us the trials and tribulations of Poe’s endless quest for for some sort of familial bliss, whether primarily familial or romantic. It seems clear that he spent his life trying to gain the support and affection of the family life that was denied him as a child. His loneliness was a lifelong condition, even though interrupted by periods of happiness. [image] Poe as you have probably not seen him - image from Poestories.com Poe married Virginia Liza Clemm when she was thirteen. (He had first met her when she was six) He was twenty-seven. But he called her “Sissy” and it is not known if their relationship was conjugal or exclusively familial. He referred to Virginia’s mother as “Muddy” and related to her as if she were his mother, as well as Virginia’s. Denied the comfort of an actual, warm, supportive domestic upbringing as a child, constructing one may have been his primary motivation for the marriage. You may not have known that Poe was hardly a dour figure. In fact he could be very charming, coming across as well bred, if not necessarily well-dressed. He displayed excellent licks at readings of his own materials, and had great appeal and success as a lecturer. Maybe having two actors for parents had something to do with that. Even athletic as a young man, despite his privations. [image] A more usual portrait – image from American Masters He published only fifty poems or so. Of the forms he worked in, this was the one he loved most. You may not have known that he tried his hand at the novel as well, but was advised not to quit his day job after finally managing one. Try a shorter form, he was told, and he managed that transition quite nicely, writing some of the most famous short stories in literary history. What killed Poe? Not gonna give anything away here, but really, what difference does it make? What is worth caring about here is the insight one can get into Poe’s work from Mark Dawidziak’s fascinating detailing of his life, his deep dive into a troubled, but ultimately artistically triumphant, life. If you were ever curious about Edgar Allan Poe, about what his life was like, about what drove him, you can check out A Mystery of Mysteries and redirect that gap in your knowledge into the bin marked Nevermore. "Most people think of Poe as a gloomy pessimist, but, in reality, he was the eternal optimist. No matter what life threw at Poe, he always was kind of like Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield, sure that something was going to turn up. He always believed that. He never gives up.” Review posted – March 10, 2023 Publication dates ----------Hardcover - February 14, 2023 ----------Trade paperback - April 9, 2024 I received an ARE of A Mystery of Mysteries from St Martin’s Press in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal and FB, pages Profile - from Dawidziak’s siteHe is also a professor, and frequent lecturer, and an actor, known for his portrayals of Mark Twain. A Mystery of Mysteries is his 25th book. Interview -----Publishers Weekly - How Did Poe Die?: PW Talks with Mark Dawidziak Items of Interest -----PBS – American Masters - Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive- there are many informative clips on this page. -----The Poe Museum ——The Poetry Foundation - Poems by Poe Item of Interest from the author -----Crimereads.com - excerpt Some lesser-read tales by Poe -----Poe Museum - Metzengerstein - Poe’s first published short story, in The Saturday Courier ----------The Duc de L’Omelette - published by The Saturday Courier on March 3, 1832 ----------Lionizing - a comedy -----The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bon Bon - a comedy ----------Hans Pfall - early sci-fi ----------How to Write a Blackwood Article - after the success of Ligea he returns to write a comedy -----Poe Stories - Berenice -----University of Virginia- A Tale of Jerusalem - a humorous piece about Roman soldiers attempting to play a joke on the Pharisee and Gizbarim of Jerusalem ...more |
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really liked it
| …it feels today that we are in the middle of a profound transformation of humanity.-------------------------------------- We don’t live in a cos …it feels today that we are in the middle of a profound transformation of humanity.-------------------------------------- We don’t live in a cosmos. We live in a cosmogenesis, a universe that is becoming, a universe that established its order in each era and then transcends that order to establish a new order.Cosmos - The universe seen as a well-ordered whole; from the Greek word kosmos ‘order, ornament, world, or universe’, so called by Pythagoras or his disciples from their view of its perfect order and arrangement. – from Oxford reference Genesis - Hebrew Bereshit (“In the Beginning”), the first book of the Bible. Its name derives from the opening words: “In the beginning….” Genesis narrates the primeval history of the world - from the Encyclopedia Britannica [image] Brian Thomas Swimme - image from Journey of the Universe So, Cosmogenesis means, at its root, the beginning of everything. Diverse cultures have come up with diverse understandings of how everything came to be. Where Swimme differs is in seeing the genesis, the beginning, the creation of everything as an ongoing process, not a one-off in deep history. Cosmogenesis tracks Swimme’s journey from math professor to spokesman for a movement that seeks to rejoin science and spirituality. The stations along this route, which runs from 1968 to 1983, consist of people he considers great minds. He gushes like a Swiftie with closeup tickets to an Eras Tour show over several of these genius-level individuals, while relying on his analytical capacity to note shortcomings in some of the theories some others propose. Swimme mixes his approach a bit. It is in large measure a memoir, with a focus on his intellectual (and spiritual) growth, along with descripti0ns of the places where he lived, taught, and studied, and the people who inspired him, providing some background to the theories and ovbservations to which he is exposed. A mathematics PhD, with a long and diverse teaching history, he grounds his work in the scientific. But he does not separate the scientific from the spiritual, from the human. In his view, we are all a part of the ongoing evolution of everything, noting that every subatomic part that make up every atom in our bodies, in our world, was present at the Biggest Bang, then was further refined by the lesser bangs of supernovas manufacturing what became our constituent parts. Even today, we bathe, wallow, bask, and breathe in radiation from that original event. It may have occurred fourteen billion years ago, but in a measurable way it is happening still. And we all remain a part of it. There is a piece of Swimme’s material-cum-spiritual notion that I found very appealing. I have experienced an ecstatic state while perceiving beauty in the world. On telling my son about one such, I remarked that it was like a religious experience. He answered, “why like?” Swimme recruits like experiences to bolster the connection between the humanly internal and the eternal of the cosmos. Bear in mind that Swimme grew up in a Catholic tradition, which clearly impressed him. There is a strong incense scent of religiosity to his work. Not saying that Cosmogenesis is a religion, but I am not entirely certain it is not. As a child I had learned that the Mass was where the sacred lived.I had a very different response to the religious world to which I was exposed as a child through twelve years of Catholic education. There was no connection for me between the Mass and the sacred, whatever that was. Mass represented mostly a burden, a mandatory exercise, communicating nothing about layers of experience beyond the material, while offering hard evidence of the power of institutions to control how I spent my time. I did not, at the time, understand the community building and reinforcing aspect to this weekly tribal ritual, separate from the religious content. I believe that what we think of as spiritual or spectral is the reality that lies beyond our perceptual bandwidth. The ancients did not understand lightning, so imagined a god hurling bolts. With scientific understanding of lightning, Zeus is cast from an imagined home on Mount Olympus to the confines of cultural history. Science expands our effective, if not necessarily our physical, biological bandwidth, and thus captures, making understandable, realities once thought the domain of imagined gods. But what of feeling? The ecstatic state I experience when witnessing the beauty of the world, is that a purely biological state, comprised of hormones and DNA? Or do we assign to that feeling, which can be difficult to explain, a higher meaning because of our inability to define it precisely enough? And, in doing so, are we not following in the path of the ancient Greeks who assigned to extra-human beings responsibility for natural events? So, I am not sure I am buying in to Swimme’s views. It is, though, something, to pique the interest of people like myself who have rejected most forms of organized religion, particularly those that focus on a human-like all-powerful being, (see George Carlin’s routine re this. I’m with George.) but who hold open a lane for a greater, a different understanding of all reality. Where is the line between the material and the spiritual? How did we come to be here? Evolution provides plenty to explain that. But we still get back to a linear understanding of time as an impasse. If the (our) universe began with the big bang, then what came before? Einstein showed with his special theory of relativity that time is not so fixed a concept as we’d thought. Things operate at different speeds, relative to each other, depending on distance and speed. Who is to say that there might not be more fungability to our understanding of time, maybe even radically so? In a way, this is what Swimme is on about, ways of looking at our broader reality, at our origins and ongoing evolution, (not just the evolution of our species, but of the universe itself) through other, more experiential perspectives, (a new Gnosticism?) while still including science. Humans have expressed their faith in a great variety of symbols, many of which have inspired me at one time or another. But today, if you ask for the foundation of my faith, I would say the stone cliffs of the Hudson River Palisades.Overall I found this book brain candy of the first order. Take it as a survey-course primer for the theory he propounds. There are many videos available on-line for those interested in going beyond Cosmo 101. So, Is cosmogenesis one of the ten greatest ideas in human history as is claimed here? That is above my pay grade. Some of the notions presented here seemed a bit much, but there was enough that was worth considering that made this a satisfying, intriguing read. Suffice it to say that it is a fascinating take on, well, everything, and can be counted on to give your gray cells, comprised of materials that have been around for 14 billion years, a hearty jiggle at the very least. Everything is up in the air. We are living in a deranged world where nihilism dominates every major state. The contest today is for the next world philosophy. Review posted – January 13, 2023 Publication dates ----------Hardcover - November 15, 2022 ----------Trade paperback - December 12, 2023 I received a hardcover of Cosmogenesis from Counterpoint in return for a fair review. [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, and Twitter pages Twitter and Facebook do not appear to have ever been used you might also try Interviews -----Deeptime Network - Brian Swimme -- What's Next? Planetary Mind and the Future - video – 1:12:41 – from 6:50 -----Sue Speaks - SUE Speaks Podcast: Searching for Unity in Everything - podcast - 31:27 Items of Interest from the author ----- The Third Story of the Universe -----A Great Leap in Being - 28:56 -----Human Energy - Introduction to the Noosphere: The Planetary Minds -----Journey of the Universe Items of Interest -----San Francisco Chronicle - Science doesn’t cover it all, author Brian Thomas Swimme explains ----- George Carlin on religion ...more |
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