America's great debate

Bordewich, Fergus M. (2012). America's great debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the compromise that preserved the Union. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Happened up on this book. Fascinating piece of American history. Far too detailed and long of a book, descending into a miasma of minutiae. Nonetheless, in places the narrative crackles, enlivened by giants from the 19th century: Clay, Houston, Benton.

Definitely, maybe (2008)

An old favorite that holds up nicely.

Great opening sequence. Kevin Kline shines in a small role ("be a man; drink." "Are you comfortable?" a nurse asks him as he lies in a hospital bed after a heart attack. "I make a living," he answers, continuing, "give us a smile, sweetheart, I've been waiting all my ife to use that line."). And Maya ("What's the boy word for 'slut'?"). The five main characters are good. Quite enjoyable. Still.

An unfinished life

Dallek, Robert. (2003). An unfinished life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Co.

After reading Jack 1939, I picked this one up: I know the name of Robert Dallek, a historian. I realized that I have, perhaps, probably, never read a biography of JFK. Read to p.222, the mid-1950s. My overall impressions are that the Kennedys were dirty, rotten scoundrels; that JFK was an opportunist, a right-winger out of convenience and some conviction; that he could never have gotten away with all the lying about his health that he engaged in; that he reluctantly embraced liberal ideas; and that he was one very lucky man, to have become the idol and liberal icon that he did become. Well written book, though a little too favorable, I thought.

Iron Lady

I approached the film skeptical about objections voiced by some admirers of Mrs. Thatcher, to the effect that the former PM was shown disrespect by the film's treatment of her. Part of that was an abiding respect to Meryl Streep's talent and career. Part of it, as well, was my contempt for her admirers; I was never a fan of her politics or policies.

After watching the film, I have two distinct impressions: Streep, as always, nails the role in a way that, perhaps, no one else could have: she becomes Margaret Thatcher, not just with her hair and her accent and her manner, but in the very essence of her.

Secondly, I think the film was indeed disrespectful of Thatcher. The former PM is reduced to a demented former PM haunted by the ghost of her husband. Everything about her revolves around that haunting, to the point that her political career seems secondary. Margaret Thatcher was a far more important political figure, both in British and world politics, than that.

Rogert Ebert begins his review: You have to be very talented to work with Meryl Streep. It also helps to know how to use her. "The Iron Lady" fails in both of these categories. Streep creates an uncanny impersonation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but in this film she's all dressed up with nowhere to go.

 In RottenTomatoes, the film gets 53% - 51% ratings. A reviewer in the Guardian UK site does like it. Eventually, the film-makers suggest, Thatcher's increasing isolation, brought about by her rigidity, singlemindedness, inability to accept advice and contempt for most of her colleagues, brings about a form of madness that foreshadows the Lear-like dementia ("I will not go mad") that infects her dotage. He does criticize it, certainly praises Streep, but, in the end, does like the film (Breathtaking in its detail and nuance, its subtle gestures and inflections, this multifaceted jewel of a portrait is altogether grander than the commonplace setting of the film.)

One review I thought well captured the film was by AO Scott in the NY Times: As for “The Iron Lady” itself, beyond the challenge it poses for Ms. Streep, its own reason for being is a bit obscure. It is likely to be the definitive screen treatment of Mrs. Thatcher, at least for a while, and yet it does not really define her in any surprising or trenchant way. You are left with the impression of an old woman who can’t quite remember who she used to be and of a movie that is not so sure either.

Love or hate her, Margaret Thatcher is a grand historical figure who can not be reduced to a tottering old woman who once used to be Prime Minister.

3 books returned

The checklist manifesto: how to get things right, Atul Gawande.
Explores the use of checklists, originating in aviation, in medicine. Gawande logically moves through how lists were developed, and refined, his acceptance and adoption of lists in his medical practice, and in the WHO in a study and project on reducing the number of surgeries performed. In his usually meticulous manner, the good doctor lays out the case for using checklists: conscientiously used, well written (concise and comprehensive), they can help in any field. I quite agree. I have begun to develop a checklist for investing.

Bing Crosby: a pocketful of dreams : the early years, 1903-1940, Gary Giddins.
The only biography that seemed worth reading turned out not to be. Giddins is a music wroter with a long record; I have read some pf his work. But, in this case, he seemed to be (too) enamored of his subject matter. I put it down rather quickly. I'll have to look for another biography. My desire to read about Crosby came from reading Seabuiscuit; Crosby was a racehorse owner who was in friendly, and not-so friendly competition with the Biscuit's owner, Charles Howard. Of course, crosby also has a connection to Bix Beiderbecke. I was hoping to read all about both, but, alas, this was not to be the book for me.

The fountainhead, Ayn Rand ; with special introduction by the author. After Paul Ryan was nominated for the Republican VP nomination, I thought I would take a look at this work that he lauds as being very important in his life. I read two pages and put it down; it was very poorly written, for my taste.




One out of three is good: a .333 batting average is baseball is very good.

Ides of March

I first saw note of this film in the 26 Sept 2011 "Movies - Fall Preview" column in the New Yorker. IMDb has the plot summary as "An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail." Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 85%, the public a lesser 73%. Its summary: The Ides of March takes place during the frantic last days before a heavily contested Ohio presidential primary, when an up-and-coming campaign press secretary (Ryan Gosling) finds himself involved in a political scandal that threatens to upend his candidate's shot at the presidency.

With heartthrobs George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, one might expect that the movie did well at the box office, but its $41 million take is not, in relative terms, very good. Why? The subject matter? Perhaps.

Ironically, one ends up feeling both skeptical and cynical about this movie that wants to have it both ways but, instead, ends up just as deeply cynical and flawed as its characters and the system it seeks to expose.
January 13, 2012 Full Review
This critis has it about right. Anthony Lane in the New Yorker also demurs from singing its praises: The result, slimy with unfeasible plotting, will gratify those who sniff out all politics as a conspiratorial murk. On the other hand, viewers who treasure Clooney, both as actor and director, for the deftness of his comic touch, or who remain alert to the grinding farce of the electoral machine, may prove harder to woo.

I agree. It seemed too cynical, too pat, and lacked spark.

How old is she?

In this article, the books written by the candidates for the presidency of Mexico are discussed: Andrés Manuel López Obrador has written two (“Nuevo proyecto de nación: por el renacimiento de México” and "La mafia que se adueñó de México... y el 2012”. In the latter he decrees that 30 people control the country: “… esta minoría rapaz es la principal responsable de la actual tragedia nacional: la pobreza y el desempleo, la inseguridad y la violencia, la falta de democracia y la violación cotidiana de los derechos de los mexicanos”.); Enrique Peña Nieto has (allegedly) written one, “México, la gran esperanza: un estado eficaz para una democracia de resultados” (this from the man who during the recent Guadalajara Book Fair was asked to name three books that had influenced him, and could only name the Bible (maybe he went to the same school as Governor Rick "Oops" Perry, of Texas); Gabriel Quadri de la Torre is said to have written "distintos libros y publicaciones en materia de medio ambiente y desarrollo sustentable" but it is his running under the banner of the party led by Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, presidenta vitalicia del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), a sort of lefty teachers union; Josefina Vazquez Mota, 51, in 1999 wrote "Dios Mío, hazme viuda por favor” (My God, make me a widow, a still-controversial book; Nuestra oportunidad: un México para todos” is her campaign book.

Only the woman has her age given. Huh?

Will Rogers: a political life

How can someone so interesting be made so uninteresting?

A war on punctuation

America’s next president, Newt Gingrich, is also a prolific author of poorly reviewed historical fiction. As it is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems as good a time as any to remember Newt’s own book about the subject—a novel that The New York Times called a “war on punctuation.” The first 23 pages are available online

US President? Whoa there, Nellie! if he gets nominated by the Republicans, and that is still a big if, he does an election to contest (and I can only begin to imagine how much Bill Clinton looks forward to that –sparing all the obvious metaphors,too).

TR

Originally broadcast on PBS television series, the American Experience. One incongruity: David McCollough is a talking head in the program, not its narrator. Yet nothing can take away from Theodore Roosevelt. In turn maddening and inspiring, he is truly bigger than life. Some of his views are appalling, yet he is the president who started to conserve the national resources of this nation: in a day when developers were planning to "improve" the Grand Canyon, he declared it a national treasure. He busted trusts, yet was an unrepentant capitalist.

Fair game

Didn't like it. Stopped watching. Lots of mumbling.

American history

Three books about different facets of U.S. history: Whiskey rebellion in the 1790s; Founding Fathers as gardeners; Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at end of XIXth century.

The Whiskey Rebellion : George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the frontier rebels who challenged America's newfound sovereignty by William Hogeland. Very detailed, painstakingly so. Did not read easily. Alas, Alexander Hamilton comes off looking none too well: ruthless, ambitious, power hungry, he was not beyond manipulation and using even his benefactor, George Washington. His great nemesis (one of many), Thomas Jefferson (himself no angel), seems to have disliked him intensely and opposed him at every possible turn. James Madison emerges as an enigma. GW himself looks fine; another instance of how lucky the young nation to have him, and not anyone else, in a position of power. Stopped at page 197.

Founding gardeners : the revolutionary generation, nature, and the shaping of the American nation . by Andrea Wulf. What a wonderful and unique idea. Indeed, Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Adams were devoted gardeners. The first three, Virginians all, were plantation owners, slave owners; Adams owned and worked his own small farm. Yet all shared a passion for trees and plants and shrubs. and all wanted to make gardens uniquely American, different than the English gardens popular in their day. The book drags. Wuld gives a historical narrative, to put in context the efforts and wonts of the Gardeners, yet the narrative sputters and stalls. Stopped at page 142.

Mr. Speaker! : the life and times of Thomas B. Reed, the man who broke the filibuster.by James Grant. Reed is one of the obscure figures in US history that actually played a significant role therein, during his time. Teddy Roosevelt was, at one point, his ardent supporter and admirer, before catapulting above Grant (and most everyone else) to become the accidental president. The book is far too detailed, reads stiff, and was a challenge to finish. As I was reading all three concurrently, I decided to finish the one that I was the furthest along, and had most interest, and, by default this was it.

Silver City

Cooper fairly well executes a W. Bush satire; he excels at such roles. His character's name is Pilager (as in pillage). Ebert (who gave the film 3½ stars): The movie centers on the campaign of Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper), who is running for governor of Colorado with the backing of his father (Michael Murphy), the state's senior senator. Dickie is the creature of industrial interests who want to roll back pollution controls and penalties, but as the movie opens, he's dressed like an L.L. Bean model as he stands in front of a lake and repeats, or tries to repeat, platitudes about the environment. Cooper deliberately makes him sound as much like George II as possible.

George the 2nd; cute. Anyway ... Pillager's campaign manager is Chuck Raven (get it? Raven)  (Richard Dreyfuss), a Karl Rove type who tells him what to say and how to say it. There's not always time to explain why to say it. 

The best of the supporting characters is Madeleine Pilager, Dickie's renegade sister, played by Daryl Hannah with audacious boldness. She likes to shock, she likes to upset people, she detests Dickie, and she provides an unexpected connection between the private eye and the campaign manager. Those connections beneath the surface, between people whose lives in theory should not cross, is the organizing principle of Sayles' screenplay; one of the reasons his film is more sad than indignant is that it recognizes how people may be ideologically opposed and yet share unworthy common interests.

I didn't much care for the character; thought her superfluous.

Sayles' wisdom of linking a murder mystery to a political satire seems questionable at first, until we see how Sayles uses it, and why. One of his strengths as a writer-director is his willingness to allow uncertainties into his plots. A Sayles movie is not a well-oiled machine rolling inexorably toward its conclusion, but a series of dashes in various directions, as if the plot is trying to find a way to escape a preordained conclusion.

Precisely so: the movie seems to meander, to make parenthetical remarks, to take turns where a straightaway is expected.


The movie's strength, then, is not in its outrage, but in its cynicism and resignation. There is something honest and a little brave about the way Sayles refuses to provide closure at the end of his movie. Virtue is not rewarded, crime is not punished, morality lies outside the rules of the game, and because the system is rotten, no one who plays in it can be entirely untouched. Some characters are better than others, some are not positively bad, but their options are limited, and their will is fading. Thackeray described Vanity Fair as "a novel without a hero." Sayles has made this film in the same spirit -- so much so, that I'm reminded of the title of another Victorian novel, The Way We Live Now.

It is not a typical Hollywood film, for sure, which is a strength, and, concurrently, a weakness. Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it 48%, and its audience 33%, reminding me of H.L. Mencken aphorism.

Justice for all

Newton, Jim. (2006). Justice for all : Earl Warren and the nation he made. New York: Riverhead Books.

A superb book about a superb American. Earl Warren was California personified: born in LA, he grew up in Bakersfield, his father a union man who suffered at the hands of capital. EW grew up wanting to go to law school, and did, attending Berkeley's law school after graduating from it. Inspired by Hiram Johnson, he entered politics, and rose from Alameda County assistant DA to California DA, then California governor.

EW supported Japanese internment, and could never bring himself to admit it a mistake. Otherwise, he carved a middle-of-the-road stance in most, almost all, political issues. He supported education, imposed a gasoline tax to help develop a top-tier road system, and fought entrenched interests.

Deweys' VP candidate in 1948, he was California's favorite son in the 1952 convention (which Taft entered as a favorite; Taft opposed aid to Britain during WW II, and voted against NATO). Whether Eisenhower made a deal with Warren for California's votes at the convention is unclear; what is clear is the bad blood between Warren and Nixon.

“We have a traitor in our delegation. It’s Nixon.” (248)

Warren accepted Eisenhower's offer to become Solicitor General, contingent on his getting the first Supreme Court vacancy. When Chief Justice Vinson died, Warren pressed for the spot; Eisenhower resisted, but gave in to Warren. He would long after say his two worst mistakes were to appoint Warren and Brennan. As is so often the case, I utterly disagree: those were two of the best acts he ever undertook as President.

Newton's narrative flows easily, and for a reader who enjoys history, this is a superb book.

Politics And Prose

Two reviews of the new book,Daniel Patrick Moynihan: a portrait in letters of an American visionary / edited by Steven R. Weisman. , one by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, and by David Brooks in the Times begin differently, and that is quite telling:

Despite the well-established American loathing of politicians as a class, everything seems to get named after them, begins Hertzberg in his 3,969 word essay, not using the first-person pronoun until the 1,109th word. Brooks, juxtaposed, uses it as his 6th (of 1,881) word: Sometime in the late 1980s, I had lunch...

Book reviews

The lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story From Buchenwald to New Orleans. 940.5318 J
Mark Jacobson. Illustrated. 357 pages. Simon & Schuster. $26.

Poisoning the press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture. 973.924 F
Mark Feldstein. Illustrated. 461 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $30.

Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, said that Anderson and the columnist Drew Pearson, his employer at the time, “shouldn’t be using a typewriter” but “a pencil on outbuilding walls.” (Pearson and Anderson had reported that some of Reagan’s staff members were gay.) J. Edgar Hoover called Anderson “a flea-ridden dog” who was “lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures.” Nearly everything Richard Nixon said about Anderson — the pair were bitter 25-year antagonists — is unprintable here. But Anderson’s exposés about Nixon’s wrongdoing reduced the president’s special counsel, Charles Colson, to sputtering, as if someone had stuck a fork into his forehead, “Oh! Ach! Oh!” 

And Britt Hume, Anderson's protegé, is now a Fox News (news used ruefully) pit bull. Anderson died in 2004.

Hot Time in the Old Town

Kohn, Edward P. (2010). Hot time in the old town: the great heat wave of 1896 and the making of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Basic Books.

Byron Collection/Museum of the City of New York
COOLING OFF At Coney Island in the summer of 1896.

Radical

In a nation that abhors the word liberal, what a refreshing look at an old-style activist.

When Barack Obama came to prominence as a presidential candidate, his Chicago background—in particular, his efforts as a "community organizer"—reignited an interest in Saul Alinsky (1909-72), the hard-charging activist whose 1971 book, "Rules for Radicals," was said to have had a formative influence on Mr. Obama's thinking. Some critics worry that Alinsky's ideas guide Mr. Obama even today, in the White House. About such matters Nicholas von Hoffman cares little. But about Alinsky himself Mr. von Hoffman cares a great deal. He knew Alinsky, worked with him for 10 years in Chicago community groups and now offers a portrait of him in "Radical."

Von Hoffman, Nicholas. (2010). Radical: a portrait of Saul Alinsky. New York : Nation Books.

Alinsky's activism began when he left his studies and joined in labor-union agitation on Chicago's South and West sides. Before long he was organizing community groups in rent strikes and store boycotts, arranging safe passage for blacks on their way to jobs in bigoted neighborhoods, and conducting negotiations among feuding ethnic groups. He could be daring with his tactics, but he drew the line at jail: "Saul had an absolute prohibition," says Mr. von Hoffman. "He would explain that a staff person cannot operate behind bars." In this respect Alinsky's methods differed from those of his contemporaries in the civil-rights movement.

Emphasis added, for these are important points. Nincompoops on the right, even on the left, dismiss radicals far too easy with cartoonish looks and superficial characterizations.

5 moguls

T.J. Stiles says these mogul biographies offer rich rewards

1. Andrew Carnegie. Joseph Frazier Wall. Oxford, 1970

In the past few decades we have seen a sweeping reassessment of the so-called robber barons of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The trend began in 1970 with Joseph Frazier Wall's "Andrew Carnegie"—a groundbreaking work that remains a pleasure to read. By turns a thoughtful sifter of the evidence, a sharp and amusing portraitist, and a storyteller with real panache, Wall brings a gift for clarity to both historical context and the blow-by-blow of business battles. His tales of intrigue among Carnegie's partners are particularly vivid. Carnegie wore many guises—he got his start as an entrepreneur through sweetheart deals, proved a ruthlessly efficient steelmaker and aspired to influence world affairs—and this book artfully integrates them all.

2. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. Maury Klein. Johns Hopkins, 1986

Jay Gould's "reputation for being cold and aloof," writes Maury Klein, "owed much to the fact that he was a shy, reserved man whose emotions registered on so small a scale, such as tearing bits of paper or tapping a pencil, that only initiates recognized them." Such insight and literary grace explain why Klein's "The Life and Legend of Jay Gould" remains the definitive work on this controversial tycoon. The author narrates with wry humor and verve such episodes as the corruption-riddled battle among financiers for control of the Erie Railroad in 1868 and Gould's attempt to corner the gold market in 1869. But Klein's greatest contribution may be in describing Gould's later years, when he proved a master corporate strategist, building an empire around the Missouri Pacific railroad.

3. Morgan  Jean Strouse. Random House, 1999

As America's leading banker, J.P. Morgan played a role unlike any other business titan of his age, influencing one industry after another. He reorganized the chaotic railroads and forged U.S. Steel and General Electric—in other words, he was the father of the trusts that others set out to bust. "When the federal government ran out of gold in 1895, Morgan raised $65 million and made sure it stayed in the Treasury's coffers," writes Jean Strouse in this elegant biography. "When a panic started in New York in 1907, he led teams of bankers to stop it." Strouse is masterly, whether addressing finance, family, art or the human condition. Her portrait of Morgan's first rare-book librarian, Belle da Costa Greene—the daughter of Harvard's first black graduate, she passed as Portuguese—is but one example of Strouse's literary gifts and appreciation for the importance of secondary characters in a good biography.

4. Fallen Founder. Nancy Isenberg. Viking, 2007

It is not easy to get a fair hearing when you have killed the man on the $10 bill. But Aaron Burr is treated with scholarly care and writerly sympathy by Nancy Isenberg in "Fallen Founder." A hero in the American Revolution and the country's third vice president, Burr founded the forerunner of J.P. Morgan Chase: the Manhattan Co., a water company and bank. He pioneered modern political methods by systematically identifying and organizing voters, contributors and activists. Isenberg offers evidence that Burr was no villain in the 1804 duel that killed Alexander Hamilton. Three years later, Burr was arrested for what his enemies called a conspiracy to set up an independent state in the west; he was tried for treason and exonerated, then went on to become an influential New York lawyer. An astonishing life.

5. Pulitzer. James McGrath Morris. Harper, 2010

Today's reporters and media tycoons would do well to study James McGrath Morris's life of Joseph Pulitzer, the journalist, editor and entrepreneur. A proverbial penniless immigrant (a German-speaking Hungarian Jew), Pulitzer fought for the Union in the Civil War, then moved to St. Louis. There he learned English and the news business. His rapid rise in journalism was interwoven with politics, a natural twist, since newspapers were overtly partisan. He briefly held elected office but found greatness as a newspaper owner. Morris is fascinating on Pulitzer as a working (make that hard-working) reporter and editor who understood how to grab his readers—and saw where his industry was going (or could go).

—Mr. Stiles is the author of "The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt," winner of the 2009 National Book Award and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, now available in paperback from Vintage.Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W8
22 May 2010

A liberal

Found an article in TheDailyBeast website by Eric Alterman, at the foot of which he was described as  the author, most recently, of Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Important Ideals. He is also the author of this Springsteen book (1999), among his other books.