Free To Choose by Milton Friedman

From The Week of November 29, 2009

I doubt there will ever be a book that has a greater impact upon my way of thinking than Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. Capitalism and Freedom was sufficient as an introduction to basic economics and the relationship it has with public policy, but there was something overly dry and intellectual about that text which prevented it from coming to life in my hands, or my mind. Whom do I have to thank for the passion in Free to Choose, the passion that animates Mr. Friedman's philosophies, the passion which brings the full might of his libertarian guns to bear upon the inconsistencies of the modern mixed economy and its eagerness to grow at all costs? His wife? For she has co-authored this wonderful text with him. Or is it the 18 years that passed between the publication of his two most important books? Whoever's responsible, they have my gratitude.

Humans are motivated by self-interest. To pretend otherwise only leads to folly and disappointment. At root, Mr. Friedman's philosophy is just as simple. An economy which is open and unregulated, and which is not burdened by overly complicated rules, will inevitably be successful and more fair than any economy regulated by government. Why?

Because every attempt at regulation, every stab at reform, changes the rules of the game. It tries to right a perceived wrong and, in doing so, creates a new set of rules, with a new set of loopholes, which will have unintended consequences for the whole. Empower the Food and Drug Administration as a result of a scandal over bottled medicine? Watch as it is corrupted, inside and out, by special interests willing to pay for preferential treatment, willing to lobby for certain drugs, willing to work for any competitive advantage. Create the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railways and institute fair rates? Watch as its commissioners are consumed by money from the rail lobby until the Commission is a tool of the very corporations it was established to constrain. In example after example, Mr. Friedman points out how good intentions are perverted by the hunger of human self-interest which is all the proof anyone needs to conclude that regulation, at least in its current form, is irresponsible. Unless everyone is playing by the same rules, with the same advantages and disadvantages, the game will never be fair.

This is a powerful, compelling work. It has not convinced me that public policy has no role to play in a free market economy, but it has convinced me that the law of unintended consequences is rarely if ever considered by the governments who implement social programs they are ill-equipped to execute. Much more thought has to go into these programs if they are to be woven into the free market economy. (5/5 Stars)

Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

From The Week of November 29, 2009

Primarily, Kabul Beauty School is one woman's recounting of her trials and tribulations as, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent American invasion of Afghanistan, she attempts to establish a beauty school for women in that war-torn country. Though her decision is initially framed as an outgrowth of her experiences working for an aid group in Afghanistan, it becomes clear that Ms. Rodriguez is searching for something real, something true, to embrace, to hold onto. She is escaping the problems of her life by flying halfway round the world to live, for months at a time, in one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Who benefits from Ms. Rodriguez's odyssey? Many Afghan women who, as a result of the ultra-restrictive policies of the Taliban, are slowly emerging from a period in Afghanistan's history where women were little more than glorified slaves to men. Watching them flower through Ms. Rodriguez's eyes is both uplifting and sobering. This is the deeper message of Kabul Beauty School, a chronicle which captures the elation of their newfound freedom counterbalanced by the gloom of so much death and poverty.

During this rather remarkable journey, Ms. Rodriguez learns a few lessons about herself, mostly through trial and error, and seems to come out enlightened and emboldened. And it is with this timbre that her voice speaks, alternately dispassionate and heartbroken, of that tragic country. This memoir of Ms. Rodriguez years in Afghanistan is somehow both sappy and brutal managing to yoyo back and forth in a manner that entertains and informs far more than it annoys. (4/5 Stars)

Capitalism And Freedom by Milton Friedman

From The Week of November 29, 2009

Milton Friedman is one of the most decorated economists of the 20th century. This, his most famous book, first published in 1962, illustrates the framework of Mr. Friedman's economic philosophy, including but not limited to: how economic freedom propagates political freedom, how the intervention of government often leads to the restriction of economic freedom, and how deficit spending in the name of supporting a turn-down in the economy fails to bring about the results promised by Keynesian Economics. For those who are already familiar with economics 101, Mr. Friedman and his work won't offer many surprises. But for those of us who aren't familiar with classic liberalism, it will be an eye-opening experience only marginally diminished by the separation of decades between its publication and our consumption in the present day.

One may disagree with the Friedman model; One may find his advocacy for limited government unnecessarily harsh. The truth is, no one book will ever hold all the answers because no one man or woman has all the answers. There is no unified, accurate theory of economics because there's no pure economic data to draw a theory from. One instance exemplifying how one theory is true can be seemingly countered by another theory which proves the opposite to be true. Therefore, treat Capitalism and Freedom, an anti Keynesian text, as a springboard to other texts written by Keynesian admirers. Only by trial and error will one discover the truths that best explain ones own theories of the world.

For me, Mr. Friedman is near the mark, but something, some essential element of social fairness is missing. A deregulated world is a world where the powerful can take advantage of the weak in the same way they are able to do so in a society without the rule of law. And economics does not have the equivalent of the rule of law to impose morality upon its players. (3/5 Stars)

The Demon Under The Microscope by Thomas Hager

From The Week of November 29, 2009

If we could somehow measure the sum total of human suffering at any one time, it would surely be a frightening number. It would represent the amalgam of wars and murders, rapes and beatings, cruelties none of us would ever wish to experience. Therefore, is it not the noblest goal to, in some way, alleviate that suffering, to lessen that number? What could be more virtuous than the diminishment of sickness?

Demon Under The Microscope is a gripping history of early antibiotics: what motivated their discovery, how they were researched, and what the consequences were of their release. For 3,000 years, and perhaps for the length of human history, we have been searching for a universal curative, a drug to ensure our health against all manner of diseases, but it wasn't until the horrors of World War I that large-scale, scientific research was launched, in earnest, on this fabled drug. After all, the kings and emperors who had commanded so many of their young, male subjects to kill and die far from home needed those expensive soldiers to live through their wounds, to recover from their ailments, to fight on for their glory.

Enter Sulfa, the first of the antibiotic drugs. It's discovery is disputed, but there is no doubt that its development was spearheaded by a German pharmaceutical company in the 20 years between the two great wars, scientists doggedly working through day and night and day again to generate a salve for so many ills. All this in the shadow of the Nazis' rise to power... This is an amazing account of a remarkable time in human history, of an equally remarkable discovery, and of the men who sought to twist it to their own ends. This is a must read. (5/5 Stars)

Adams VS Jefferson by John Ferling

From The Week of November 22, 2009

Friends, allies, enemies and then friends once more, the 50 year relationship between Tomas Jefferson and John Adams, both American presidents, both founders of their country, both intellectual giants, is the focus of Mr. Ferling's quality work. Our setting is the contentious election of 1801 which changed the direction of American policy, politics and diplomacy for decades to come.

It was Adams, the federalist, against Jefferson, the anti-federalist; it was Adams, the unpopular presidential incumbent, against Jefferson, the popular libertarian challenger; it was Adams, the trampler of civil liberties (see the sedition act of 1798), versus Jefferson, the creator of many of those trampled liberties. It was an election that split a friendship just as it split a nation. For two men so inextricably linked, it is one of life's strangest ironies that they would later die on the exact same day in 1826.

This is a compelling tale told well and, like the best books of history, leaves the reader wondering what the future might have been had events played out differently. (4/5 Stars)

Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell

From The Week of November 22, 2009

On March 07, 1968, a submarine commanded by radical Soviets, armed with orders from, somewhere high up in the USSR's chain of command, came within moments of successfully launching a nuclear missile aimed at Hawaii. Instead, a catastrophe befell the submarine, Kenneth Sowell's Red Star Rogue, an explosion that tore It apart and sunk it far from the coast. We may never know who ordered this sneak attack, but, according to Mr. Sowell, there is no doubt that it was meant to be the the first provocative act of a Cold War gone radioactive. Why did the mission fail? Was expertise and experience with such weapons insufficient, or was there a mutiny aboard Red Star Rogue which lead to a sabotaging of its missile launch systems? It has been one of Mr. Sowell's passions to bring to the surface this Cold War near-miss, exposing in the process the extent to which governments on three different continents have worked to cover it up.

Coupled with an argument against the culture of national security secrecy which keeps so many of these vital, historical incidents out of sight of the public, Mr. Sowell recounts this, the journey of K129, from stem to stern, leaving us with a well-researched and throughly disturbing account of an incident which, had it succeeded, would have changed the world forever. A deeply chilling read that leaves one wondering how we haven't already annihilated ourselves. What silent acts of absolute bravery stand between us and oblivion? (4/5 Stars)

Joe's Law by Joe Arpaio

From The Week of November 22, 2009

Joe Arpaio is one of the most divisive figures in American law-enforcement. A one-time federal agent who, here, boasts at some length of his early, all-conquering career of hindering the drug supply overseas, Mr. Arpaio has, for nearly 20 years now, been the controversial sheriff of Maricopa county, Arizona, a highly conservative region of the southwest particularly populated by undocumented workers up from Mexico and other Central and South American countries. Prone to flamboyant stunts like setting up tent cities in lieu of expensive jails, subjecting his prisoners to sweltering conditions he considers no worse than what American troops suffer when they fight overseas, Mr. Arpaio is a throwback to another time in which people paid for their crimes by learning from their folly through suffering and hard work. He is far from ashamed of his successes at slashing his prison budget to the bare minimum; he's proud, arguing that the only reason other sheriffs haven't followed his lead is political in nature.

It's hard to know if Mr. Arpaio's methods have been successful at driving crime down on his patch, but we know this much. A great deal can be learned about the morality of a society by looking at how it treats its underprivileged and its criminals. Poverty is the root of crime, not an inherent desire to be selfish and obstinate. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine how extending the suffering of the marginalized in the name of slashing budgets and returning to the 1950s American values of personal responsibility and personal culpability will help do much more than alleviate the symptoms of a grave disease.

Mr. Arpaio may not have a plan to cure the patient, but give the man this much. He has the courage of his convictions, acting in spite of ridicule from many corners, which is much more courage than his critics possess.

This is a decent, down-homy read, but it spends too much time on self-congratulations and not enough time on the problems that Mr. Arpaio boasts of attacking so strenuously. (3/5 Stars)

Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel by Julia Keller

From The Week of November 22, 2009

This is a devastating piece of historical nonfiction which covers the invention of the Gatling gun, the world's first widely used machine gun. If Ms. Keller had simply covered Mr. Gatling's life story and the extent to which his weapon revolutionized war, this would have been a satisfying account of a time (the latter half of the 1800s) in which wars were just beginning to take the first steps towards the all-annihilating attritions common of the 20th century.

But Ms. Keller's account casts a wider net, chronicling the distrust with which military men of this time were distrustful of mechanized war, the long-suffering onlookers of many an inventors boastings to transform the face of war with a single weapon. When the gun was finally adopted, it was seemingly Mr. Gatling's earnest hope that his weapon be the end of all war. After all, faced with a device that could fire virtually any caliber of bullet far more rapidly than any single soldier, why, wouldn't belligerent nations see just how futile war would be? Wouldn't they see the high cost in human capital and necessary for victory and choose, instead, a more peaceable option? If this legend is true, it's perhaps a blessing Mr. Gatling died before he would witness much of the 20th century and realize just how wrong he was, this first in a series of inventors who gave into the hands of infantile governments the power of mass-slaughter on a scale never seen in human history.

This is an excellent and sobering work as much about intellectual arrogance as firearms. (5/5 Stars)

Armor by John Steakley

From The Week of November 22, 2009

Of all the genres of fiction, none is more prone to disasters than sci-fi. After all, the vast majority of its tales require the reader to suspend disbelief while stopping short of completely ruling out the notion that these largely futuristic worlds have, do, and will exist. It is not an easy thing to strike the balance of being not real, but real enough to be possibly real. Unsurprising, then, that so many fall so flat. In this regard, Armor occupies rare ground, for, it is somehow both new and old, genius and hackneyed.

Our two protagonists are both anti-heroes. Felix, a man clearly suffering some sort of emotional trauma, volunteers to be sent on countless missions to the surface of a world hostile to Earth. As a member of an infantry platoon reminiscent of Starship Troopers, his odds of survival are absurdly low, shrinking with each successful jump. But Felix somehow avoids the death the odds have proscribed for him. Meanwhile, on one of many planets colonized by humans, Jack, a space pirate, sells out a research station for his own gain. But in doing so, he comes into possession of a suit of armor suspiciously similar to the one worn by Felix.

Though the story's conclusion is ultimately satisfying, I can't help but feel that, with a few tweaks, Armor could have been in the top 25 Science Fiction novels of all time. The concept is inventive, the twist is poetic, and its conclusion is poignant, but it too often succumbs to its own silliness, particularly the sections with Jack. Eminently enjoyable, but lacking that last measure of brilliance. (3/5 Stars)

Children Of Jihad by Jared Cohen

From The Week of November 15, 2009

Much of what we know of the Middle East is fed to us in the West through television and newspapers. These are generalized reports which are not only subject to the biases of their authors, they suffer from a kind of informational farsightedness, competent at viewing events from half a world away but poor at interpreting details on the ground. This is what makes accounts like the one written by Mr. Cohen so valuable. These are well-written travel logs of one American's experiences journeying through some of the most anti-Western countries in the world. And though he finds much to be bemused by, his fear seems far outweighed by his fondness for the brave people he meets and befriends. This is an open-minded, on-the-ground depiction of the extraordinary lives of normal Middle Easterners in Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq and it is compelling from its first page to its last.

I hope this is not the last literary effort we see from Mr. Cohen. It is clear that he has an abundance of courage and intellectual curiosity. Couple these virtues with a gift for translating his experiences into readable and meaningful text and you have the ingredients for a thoughtful and fascinating writer. (4/5 Stars)

Ballad Of The Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein

From The Week of November 15, 2009

Both adorable and tragic, funny and futile, this is the true story of Attila Ambrus, a Romanian man born in 1967, in the midst of the Soviet Eastern Block. In the 1980s, searching for work, Mr. Ambrus escaped across the border into Hungary and eventually landed several jobs, but none so lucrative as his bank heists which eventually earned him nearly half a million US dollars. His flair, combined with his seemingly miraculous ability to avoid the fumbling, newly post-Communist police, made him a Hungarian sensation. And all this while he was the rather ineffectual third-string goaltender on one of Hungary's more moribund professional ice hockey teams.

An escape artist who could only rob while drunk, Mr. Ambrus is, often, a source of astonishment and hilarity, but there's an underlying cord of sadness here which sometimes surfaces through Mr. Rubinstein's account. Why would a true thief require seemingly the consumption of whole bottles of whiskey to enable him to execute his crimes? Does this not smack rather of desperation? A starving man provoked by poverty to better himself in a world that makes the common man's success exceedingly difficult...

It is this fundamental humanity which makes Ambrus so as sympathetic to us as he clearly is to his Hungarian fans. His is a tragedy of Communism, told with a wink and a grin. (4/5 Stars)

Web Of Hate by Warren Kinsella

From The Week of November 15, 2009

What drives hate groups to hate? What seeds, when planted, causes their ranks to swell? Why do they flourish in otherwise peaceful countries where their fears are so obviously groundless?

These are questions which lie at the heart of Warren Kinsella's book, a worthy expose of hate groups in Canada and the United States. His efforts here are thorough and convincing despite the fact that Mr. Kinsella's sympathies are declared throughout. He does not rail at the perfidy or the injustice of these groups; he discusses their origins, their methods and their seduction which cruels so many lives. Perhaps the most surprising truth here is just how pathetically little provocation is necessary for hate groups to take root, much less how attractive they are to disaffected youth.

At times heartbreaking, sickening, and bewildering, Web of Hate is always fascinating. (3/5 Stars)

The Education Of A Coach by David Halberstam

From The Week of November 15, 2009

Though the NFL's Spygate Scandal casts some doubt on the genius of Ernie Adams and Bill Belichick, Education Of A Coach, which is David Halberstam's portrait of two football lifers and the friendship that built the New England Patriots into a dynastic powerhouse, in the National Football League, is no less potent for it. This was always a story about the men and not the achievements which inspired its writing. Thus, it succeeds in giving us glossed portrayals of difficult men who seem to have generally refused to grant Mr. Halberstam much by way of full and honest disclosure.

No matter how reluctant the participants may have been, there is a lot here for fans of coaching, fans of the Patriots, and fans of excellence in sport. We will never know Bill Belichick, but we will know his father who coached at Navy for longer than some lifespans. We'll never know Ernie Adams, but we'll see how the theory of innovation brought his football team into the 21st century and forced a league to catch up to it. Perhaps that's enough. I know I was satisfied in this tale which is as much about the history of second chances as it is about football. (3/5 Stars)

Children Of God: The Sparrow 02 by Mary Doria Russell

From The Week of November 15, 2009

Children of God completes the story begun in The Sparrow and, in doing so, brings us to the end of an inventive tale that discussed issues of freedom versus slavery, capitalism versus socialism, faith versus agnosticism, and hatred versus forgiveness. Though Children of God naturally lacks its progenitor's punch -- it is the sequel to a story whose most significant virtue was its unusualness --, I did not come away unsatisfied by how it brought to an end a rather fascinating adventure. Rarely have I enjoyed a view of a future Earth more than this one. Ms. Doria Russell's take on intercultural relations and how fraught they are with the perils of misunderstanding have the ring of truth about them. Though I missed the emphasis the Sparrow placed on non-linear storytelling, this concluding work is worthy if a bit overwrought. (3/5 Stars)

The Sparrow: The Sparrow 01 by Mary Doria Russell

From The Week of November 15, 2009

There's something fundamentally unconventional about Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, the first instalment of what is, as of 2009, a science fiction duology concerning Earth's first encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence. Most fiction of this type follows the fairly predictable pattern of introducing danger, enduring it, and then solving for it in the end. And though Ms. Doria Russell doesn't completely throw off the whole of narrative tradition, the nuanced structure of the Sparrow is enough of a departure from the norm to consider it significant. For one thing, Ms. Doria Russell is short on sci-fi tropes. Instead, she draws upon the history of Christianity to envision a possible first contact scenario with aliens where we discover them and we investigate them by sending missionaries to their world.

One would expect pox-tainted blankets and brutal, righteous massacres to follow, but Ms. Doria Russell chooses a different road, one in which an honest effort on the part of our eccentric, missionary explorers to understand, to communicate, to reach out and bond across the gulf of time and space, brings only amazement, misunderstanding, and horror. No, there is nothing particular about this tale that elevates it to masterwork, but the Sparrow has a cumulative power: great characters, new take on an old story, and even some history to impart to its readers. This is quality work. (4/5 Stars)

Dies The Fire: The Emberverse 01 by S. M. Stirling

From The Week of November 08, 2009

Mr. Stirling has begun in Dies The Fire a bold project, to imagine what life would be like tomorrow if, suddenly, nothing worked. Guns, cars, planes... What if some event changed the essence of our reality, the rules of our physics, and in doing so took away all of our technology? How would humanity cope with that changed world? Would they band together? Would they survive?

Dies The Fire is an entertaining romp through an alternate universe in which just such a change occurs. We follow a group of protagonists, all of whom wind up in Oregon's Willamette valley, attempting to make a new life for themselves while creating new factions, new bases of power, new histories. This is a charming blend of science fiction premise with fantasy-realm execution and it works rather well in almost every sense but for the rather two-dimensional characters who populate our story. Of them, only Mike, the main protagonist feels truly alive. The others are little more than stereotyped caricatures which is why I've docked Dies a star from the four it might otherwise have received. (3/5 Stars)

The Housing Boom And Bust by Thomas Sowell

From The Week of November 08, 2009

This is a short but powerfully argued case from
Thomas Sowell, an American economist and member of Stanford's Hoover Institute, concerning the origins of the housing boom and bust, experienced in the United States during the 2000s. Mr. Sowell points out the extent to which government interference distorted the free market, how by
backing risky loans to its citizens by, the government was incentivizing risky behavior by the country's banks and its financial institutions. Though Mr. Sowell is often difficult to swallow -- I make him a rather poor man's Milton Friedman when it comes to his attempts to speak on matters outside economics --, this is a tight, coherent case against government regulation and government interference in systems that work far better without it. As such, it has value to anyone who wishes to learn a bit about the extent to which governments interfere with their economies and the likelihood of their policies causing that economy to, at some point, fail rather spectacularly. (4/5 Stars)

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

From The Week of November 08, 2009

The Looming Tower is the best book I've read to date on
Al Qaeda, its origins, its structure, and the execution of its purpose.
Mr. Wright traces radicalized Islam back to the 1940s when a
young Egyptian scholar visited the United States, staying long enough to take education in some of its schools before returning, disgusted by American sinfulness, to Egypt where he became active in the Muslim Brotherhood before being executed for attempting to overthrow the
Nasser Regime. His martyrdom and his writings went on to inspire the future leaders of terrorist organizations, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both familiar names to those who've followed the pushback against Islamic terror. Though the book spends most of its time on painting fulsome portraits of these men, it also covers the American officials who have, over the years, attempted to track and thwart Al Qaeda and groups like it, laying out in all the gritty detail the numerous occasions where American intelligence failed to put two and two together and get four.

There are those who always question the authenticity of the mainstream portrayal of great events. The bigger the event, the bigger the fringe agitating for their own conspiratorial truths in an attempt to explain what they cannot grasp. And though I am not one of these who believes in any 9/11 conspiracies, that the Pennsylvania plane was shot down, or that the towers were felled by controlled demolitions, The Looming Tower inadvertently offers the most realistic case for a conspiracy. Mr. Wright points out that American intelligence knew, for months, that members of Al Qaeda were operating inside the United States. Agents knew that they were training in airplanes. They knew that there had been meetings, plans. And yet still the attacks on 9/11 went ahead with no one the wiser. Surely that is sufficient grist for the conspiracy mill. How does intelligence fail that badly? And if intelligence can fail that badly, is it right to even call it intelligence?

This is a sobering read, one many people will find emotionally challenging, but its importance surpasses its challenge. This is the world we live in. To refuse to understand it, to refuse to understand the people who hate this much in the name of religion... The world is a difficult place; and we will get nowhere in it unless we understand its workings. (5/5 Stars)

Legacy Of Ashes by Tim Weiner

From The Week of November 08, 2009

A devastating dismantling of the
CIA and all its crimes,
Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes manages to confirm many existing fears about the meddlesome CIA while exposing it as an aimless and ineffective cabal of special interests and secret missions. How can an organization with a billion-plus dollar budget be both ineffective and worthy of fear? Because it never has to answer for its crimes; because its intelligence and its opinions often shape foreign policy for the United States; and because it has built up for itself enough of a profile, enough of a purpose, to convince its political masters that it should continue its work flailing about in the already troubled nations of the world. Mr. Weiner exhaustively recites the dozens of regimes the CIA has illegally overthrown, pointing out how little a difference was made in these countries even when the CIA got its way.

There are many outside the United States who speak uneasily of our world's most powerful nation. They generate conspiracy theories to explain why the United States is dominant in the world. Legacy of Ashes inflames those fears, throwing a forest's worth of fuel onto that already burning fire. But to blame this book would be only a distraction from the real problem, that the CIA, in the name of the necessity of intelligence, is able to exist and carry out its schemes in spite of its incalculable crimes. Mr. Weiner may have emphasized the bad and minimized the good in his history of the CIA, but I do not blame him. It is an agency whose sins should be brought into the light of truth and exposed for what they are, dirty deeds that cause real damage to real people, the blame for which never seems to fall on the ones who instigate. (4.4/5 Stars)

Lamentation: Psalms Of Isaak 01 by Ken Scholes

From The Week of November 08, 2009

Lamentation, Ken Scholes first full length effort, is without question one of the most inventive books of fantasy I've encountered. Likely set on an Earth thousands of years into the future, we are introduced to a world which has endured many destructive wars, convulsions that have buried the last remnants of high technological society. What's left are a few communities, eking out their lives in a far more arid land than our own. Nonetheless, there are still centers of learning in the world, mirrors of ancient Alexandria; however, they do not last the first few pages as Mr. Scholes immediately sets about destroying his world and declaring his talent one to remember.

For as nihilistic as the world of Lamentation seems, the societies Mr. Scholes has generated are as fascinating as they are necessarily brutal. Knowledge must be preserved, knowledge and the light, and at all costs. But how? Who? When schemes within schemes must be unwoven simply to discover the name of the enemy? This is a work as political as it is bloody, as witty as it is tragic. It cannot come with a higher recommendation. (5/5 Stars)