Tips

This week there wasn't much sun, so I read and listened more than usual since they take little to no power. I finished: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, by Bill McKibben: I've met Bill and support his environmental work. Bill writes in this book that he doesn't believe people will change their levels of consumption so concludes that only by producing more clean, green, renewable energy can we avoid catastrophe. For the rest of the book he relays his optimism that solar and wind can replace fossil fuels and save us. We only need big government support for renewables, he conveys, and to stop supporting fossil fuels. I've written many times in this blog…

This week I finished: "Some People Can’t See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound," by Larissa MacFarquhar in the New Yorker: A few years ago I learned that most people, when they imagine something visual, actually visual something, as if they were seeing it. By contrast, when I imagine seeing something, I don't see anything. I just imagine it. Apparently nobody knew of this distinction until recent decades and only recently has it become well known, studied, or verified through methods like brain scans. It also acquired a name: aphantasia. For my part, it's relieving to know I'm not alone. It explains a few things that didn't make sense, like how counting sheep wasn't a complicated exercise. When people told me to visualize things like…

This week I finished: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, directed by Marc Rothemund, starring Julia Jentsch: This movie was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language movie in 2005. I confess I only learned of the White Rose movement, and two of its key members, Hans and Sophie Scholl, this year. I recommend learning more about them, especially if you're interested in learning what leads people to oppose a culture acting against your values. You are almost certainly acting against your values, induced by our culture. Hans and Sophie Scholl were siblings raised in Germany in the wake of World War I. The movement was mainly students who organized against the Nazis in and around Munich. This movie focused on Sophie, in the events…

This week I finished: The SCUM Manifesto, by Valerie Solanas: I'd heard about this book, or manifesto, by the woman who shot Andy Warhol. I listened to a podcast or two about it first. They couldn't tell if the author was serious and crazy or sarcasm or what. Seeing as how she shot an innocent person, I'm inclined to think she's crazy. The diatribe is bizarre. I kept wondering what would happen if a man wrote it with the sexes reversed, would he be locked up. Mostly I thought of the pattern I can't prove but seems to apply every time I check: when someone insults someone, they're describing themselves more than the other person. Next mostly I thought of the society that could lead…

This week I finished: The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by Gordon Wood: Wow, what a book. I'd never read a history like it. It didn't just present dates and events. It talked about how people lived, how their lives changed, how culture changed. I found it fascinating. I learned plenty, including areas I thought I knew well before. His perspective put me more in the moment, understanding changes from their perspective. The book contrasts with Howard Zinn's history of America. Wood's coverage seems as comprehensive and he seems as thoughtful, but he paints a very different picture. Wood loves America, though not blindly. His description of life in the colonies and how things worked before the revolution reveals how it differed from any other.…

This week I finished: Tokyo Story, directed by Yasujiro Ozu: Someone in my meditation group recommended this movie after I spoke about how much Yi Yi and A Brighter Summer Day affected me. I didn't know what to expect. I'd never heard of the director or even the movie. I'm sure I'd seen the title since so many best-movie-ever lists include it. Many reviewers write how it is about a family but so universal that it's about all families. It seemed to me to be so universal as to be about life in general. Yes, it's about an old couple, their children, their children's families, and their grandchildren. It's also about times changing faster than people are prepared for, therefore about war and peace (it…

This week I finished: Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, by Gordon Wood: I've been reading, watching, and listening to Akhil Reed Amar's work. He praises Gordon Wood so I borrowed this book from the library and watched a bunch of videos of his talks. This book covers the history around the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It covers the events prompting the colonists developing new views on liberty versus monarchical rule, developing principles like separation of powers and the people being sovereign, voting for representatives, checks and balances, and other developments, some new in history. This book led me to realize how easy it's been to consider declaring independence and writing a constitution obvious steps. The parallel processes of creating thirteen state…

This week I finished: The Devil's Climb, starring Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell: I got tickets to watch this movie followed by a talk including Honnold and Caldwell. My nephew is a rock climber, so I invited him, who invited a climbing partner friend, plus a coaching client is a climber, so the four of us attended. The movie was engaging, heartwarming, and thrilling. It touches on climate but not other issues of polluting and depleting. On the other hand it shows their camaraderie. My nephew's friend said he thought it skimped on the climbing details, but I lacked the background to tell. Plus we met the two stars and members of their team after, in person. It was part of "Climate Week," where something…

This week I finished: The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of our Ira, by Akhil Reed Amar: I have been studying the Constitution like never before. The path to it was realizing sustainability meant changing culture, which forced me to ask if it was possible, which pointed me to abolitionism, which pointed me to Lincoln and abolitionists, which led me to the Thirteenth Amendment, which led me to the Constitution. Another path branched off to learning about Robert Carter III, which led went through learning the flaws of founders like Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and Franklin, which led to the Constitution. Amar is a constitutional law professor like podcast guest Michael Herz. I first found Amar looking up James Madison. There are dozens, maybe…

This week I finished: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine: I read this book because the more I read about it, the more my book seemed to be following its legacy, though I want to be careful about flattering myself, given its sales and influence. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of this book made common sense though the language was hard to understand. I didn't realize a book had affected American history so much. I understand about 500,000 copies sold at a time when the number of colonists was about 2,500,000, meaning 20 percent of them bought it, the equivalent of 60 million copies of a book today. Paine railed on monarchy, especially hereditary, how England was helping itself, not the colonies, and was…

This week I finished: Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho: I had heard people and critics liked this movie. I hadn't heard much detail about it. The title didn't sound appealing. While watching it, I didn't find it credible. Too many suspensions of disbelief caused me to pop out of being lost in the story to saying, "Okay, that part wasn't believable, but let's imagine it was and go with it" or "Is the movie trying to be believable or maybe commenting on other movies, because it's too far removed from life." At the end, I felt I understood what it was about, but didn't think much of it. It reminded me of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies the second times I watched them. The first…

This week I finished: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton: I'm sure I've written about this book before. I first read it when I was CEO of Submedia, so over twenty years ago. I've given away more copies of this book than any other that I didn't write. I reread it now because it's the choice for the book club of the alumni community of my workshop. I credit this book for transforming the concept of business in my mind from something mechanical where the goal is to win and if results like the Exxon Valdez happen then so be it to a relationship-based project that when done skillfully mutually benefits all. I took classes…

This week I finished: The Problem of Social Cost, by R. H. Coase: I heard about this paper months ago, or maybe years. I read it because it came up in the Cato Institute podcast I wrote about in Libertarians confused on pollution, sacrificing their core values. At the root: lack of hands-on practical experience. I believe I see Coase's starting point that conflicts don't necessarily mean one person harming the other so the person harming is wrong. Conflicts can go in both directions. The two or more sides can negotiate resolving the conflict. Still, I read the paper for seeing how it applies to pollution. I think this paper misunderstands pollution, maybe because it's from 1960 and people didn't have the experience with pollution…

This week I finished: Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, by Janna Levin: Somehow I started receiving Janna Levin's Substack (that Is, Substack spammed me, though I doubt Levin caused it). I looked her up. She teaches physics at Barnard. I got my PhD at Columbia and worked with a professor at Barnard, who was one of my main reasons for returning there after starting graduate school at Penn. This book describes the path in the physics and to a degree astronomy communities to detect gravitational radiation. Its descriptions of developing and building detectors at the frontiers of science reminded me of my time at Fermilab and helping build XMM, the x-ray observational satellite I worked on. On the experimental side, though,…

This week I finished: The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation, by Joel Salatin: I spoke with a pastor last month. When I shared about my disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid and leadership work on the environment, he recommended this book. I hadn't heard about Joel Salatin. I found many videos by and about him online. He seemed a mix of passionate, kooky, and craving attention. I didn't put a high priority on the book, but having finished it, I'm more than glad to have finished it. Salatin is gung-ho Christian and mentions Jesus, quotes the Bible, etc nearly every page, which I guess I've gotten used to after listening to every word in the Bible, hosting many…

This week I finished: Propaganda, by Edward Bernays: Bernays wrote this book before WWII and shared views on propaganda with Hitler, whose Mein Kampf, volume 1 I just finished. Both share views on influencing public views with modern practice. Bernays points out that the world works this way. You can deny it and still be swayed by it but be helpless to act on it, or accept it, embrace it, and use it. It's hard to imagine what it would feel like to read it when it came out, not having lived my whole life in its wake. People freak out about it, implying he's one of the most influential people of the 20th century, which he may have been, but also that he's a…

This week I finished: Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time, by Robert Downey Jr. and Thomas Kostigen: I listened to this book for a book club. I found it painful to listen to. It's nice to eat foods that pollute less so I won't argue with it, but it distracts from the problem: our culture lost values that kept humanity safe, secure, healthy, and living long lives in favor of one that tricks us into believing those things require polluting and depleting. Digging in, it misses that there are two carbon cycles and only looks at the distracting one. Know the 2 carbon cycles and don’t confuse them. And, Only specify fixing climate and carbon if you want to wreck…

This week I finished: Manufactured Landscapes, by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky: I hadn't heard of Burtynsky before reading a review of an exhibit in Manhattan of decades of his photography, which included several images. He creates images that are compositionally beautiful of scenes that are scary and horrific but resulting from our culture and lifestyles. They show mines, factories, dying landscapes and ecosystems, and apocalyptic scenes. I plan to go to the exhibit. I recommend looking at his images online, but since he takes wide format original photographs, I anticipate online images pale in comparison to the originals. This video is the first of three of his work and how he works. I recommend his images and this movie. It's beautiful and horrific. Still,…

This week I finished: Mein Kampf, volume 1, by Adolph Hitler: I'm partly nervous about posting about finishing it or even reading it. The First Amendment may make it legal, but just associating with it can blemish, but I oppose that thinking. I finished other works this week but put them in a separate post since who wants to be on a page with Mein Kampf? When I teach the skill of empathy in my leadership classes, I talk about the importance of empathizing with people you disagree with most. My extreme example is that if you were a general during WWII, it would be supremely important to empathize with Hitler. It could make the difference between winning and losing. To understand doesn't mean to…

This week I finished: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt: I heard about this book a long time ago. I wondered if I'd ever read it. I took it on now while learning how people came to do things so contrary to what seems human we can't believe they happened, in particular after The Lucifer Effect. For a book about one of the greatest atrocities ever, it was remarkably accessible. Arendt seemed almost breezy at times and wrote about hundreds of thousands of people being killed in an intervention as you might talk about a typical workday. I didn't know about how much Nazis worked with Jewish Councils. For Nazis to work with Jews wouldn't make sense from…

This week I finished: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo: Many of us know something of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It was a psychology experiment in 1971 where a Stanford psychologist led a team that turned the basement of a building into a temporary prison-like space. They recruited two dozen local people whom they randomly assigned to play guards and prisoners for twelve days. All were tested psychologically and found healthy and in normal ranges on all psychological traits they tested. They had to stop the experiment on the sixth day. The participants lost themselves in the roles. The guards became authoritarian and sadistic. The prisoners became learned-helpless and compliant. Some had to leave even earlier for their traumatic…