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[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

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.[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: A Faith Undefeated, about Corrie ten Boom: I learned about Corrie ten Boom from Edith Eger’s The Choice. Eger only mentioned ten Boom’s name. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman who lived with her family in Haarlem, Holland. The family ran a watchmaking and repair store that had operated over a century. They were devout Christians and when the Nazis took over, they helped Jews[…] Keep reading →

The paragraph and three questions below appeared in a recent post about learning from people whose ideas and views I don’t know enough to agree or disagree with. After writing them, I thought they deserved their own post. Part of why I’m posting and practicing these things is how clear disagreements become when one seeks to understand everyone independently of taking a side. Have you heard of the trend to[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, by Jon Meacham: I’d been seeing lately how much the pattern today of repeats how Thomas Jefferson lived. Today, people recognize his flaws. We wish that on slavery he had acted differently. We wish he had, as a politician, acted more to end slavery. We wish he had freed his slaves. We recognize that his personal actions caused internal conflict[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: The Choice: Embrace the Possible, by Dr. Edith Eger: At one point listening to this book, I started feeling choked up. Tears started welling up in my eyes. I asked myself, “When has a book made me cry?” “Has a book ever led me to cry?” I continued to ask myself. As the book continued, I started full-on bawling at the experience of the author, how[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, by Adam Galinsky: Adam teaches leadership at Columbia Business School, where I learned there were classes in leadership and took them. In them, I learned that I could learn social and emotional skills. I eventually wrote a book on leadership, Leadership Step by Step, with a chapter called Inspire. I also recently met Adam in person at[…] Keep reading →