Sunday, November 18, 2018

Ahsoka

Star Wars was not a huge part of my childhood.  I had some friends who knew more about it than I did, but it really wasn’t part of what I grew up with.  My biggest Star Wars memory from my early childhood is that we had a Play-Doh® set that included molds for various Star Wars characters.  Since mushing lots of different colors of Play-Doh® together results in kind of an olive green, I think we probably had a pretty realistic Yoda.  In high school, I had a friend whose car had a dome light that popped out of the ceiling and could pivot around.  He referred to his car as Vader and this light as his lightsaber.  That’s about as close as I got to Star Wars for a while since it was something the popular kids liked, meaning I avoided it.  In college, a roommate was a big fan and tried to show us the prequels.  I fell asleep.  One of my other roommates powered through, but only because he thought Natalie Portman was hot.  This distance from one of the world’s largest franchises changed a couple years ago when, during Christmas break, we checked out the original movies, watched them, and the kids went nuts about them.  That hasn’t really subsided.

Book cover.Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston (ISBN: 978-1-4847-8231-6) is the story of former Jedi Padawan, Ahsoka Tano (trained by no other than Darth Vader’s former self, Anakin Skywalker), no longer a Jedi, constantly on the run like others who had been Jedi or Jedi in training at the time of the infamous Order 66.  She has hopped from one outlandish Star Wars planet to another, always trying to steer clear of the Empire, but never really managing to do so.  Her background as a warrior and soldier is constantly catching up to her, too.  The book follows her adventures as she lands in another situation where her better nature and her military skills come in handy to help a few people fight against the oppression of the Empire.  She ends up, after overcoming an internal struggle between Ahsoka on the run and Ahsoka the Jedi, helping people from multiple planets, all the while fighting off evil Imperials, including the super creepy inquisitors, who care nothing for the people and planets they oppress.

This was my first-ever attempt at reading a Star Wars-related novel (although I had seen some of the original, now called the “Extended Universe,” when I was a kid on the shelves at others’ homes or in the library).  It was better than I expected, but, then again, I didn’t know what I expected.  I thought it was written just fine and included a couple decently memorable characters in addition to the eponymous heroine.  Her character was probably my favorite, though.  It was maybe a little obvious what was going to happen, but it didn’t detract from the story or make it boring.  Even when it’s fiction, it’s nice to see the good guys overcome the bad guys.  Like all things Star Wars, the book left plenty of open ends so people can come in and write sequels or make movies or produce cartoon series.  Fans of the Jedi will like the novel.

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Saturday, November 17, 2018

A P.O.W.’s Story

This policy of “communistic humanitarianism” was not invented for the POWs.  It was the standard policy of treatment toward their own people as well.  Play ball with the party or get your skull crushed in!  Here was a policy that held no promise for individual rights and freedom, the dream of all people, but instead threatened punishment for nonconformity to a dehumanizing system.  It was a dirty blanket thrown over the heads of the people, to extend absolute control over them, depriving them of their individuality and eliminating personal initiative to strive for a better life.

The Vietnam War is one I — probably to my detriment — know little about.  It is skipped over in American high school with little more than a few comments about just what the word “quagmire” means and how it was an example of American — sometimes described as “imperialist” — overreach.  I think that is the prevailing opinion of most people born since about 1970.  As I have watched events unfold in my lifetime, and especially since September 11th, I have come to question that well-established assessment a little more.  Couple that line of thought with a natural interest in history, and stuff about one of America’s forgotten wars has caught my eye a little.

A P.O.W.’s Story: 2801 Days in Hanoi by Larry Guarino (ISBN: 0-449-00099-0) is one POW’s memories of his time as a prisoner during the Vietnam War.  The book, essentially a memoir, described Guarino’s memories of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.  He describes many aspects of the experience from the mundane everyday to the surreal to the explosive.  The reader learns about going to the bathroom as a POW, being used in a propaganda film, and the cruel torture sessions.  The majority of POWs lived true to the code of honor that the U.S. military asked them to live by, doing all that was in their power to stymie the Vietcong.  They thought up codes and other ways of communicating, they went on hunger strikes, they frustrated the Vietnamese attempts at using the POWs in propaganda, and they held out as long as they could under torture.  For some, the results were deathly or resulted in lifelong crippling.  For all, there were ghosts that lingered long after the war.  The story told chronologically and had a lot more detail in the beginning; toward the end it was just more of the same.  The detailed view into life as a POW included a view light moments, too.  Eventually, the war is over and repatriation becomes real, not just a dream.

A memoir may not be the most academically rigorous place to start one’s exploration of the Vietnam War, but the book was available for free, and, if nothing else, sparked a greater interest.  I was appreciative of Guarino’s openness about some aspects of the whole situation.  He noted that each POW could tell his own story and that, because everyone’s experiences are different and are interpreted in our own minds differently, each story would be unique.  He understood that not all men could hold out as he did and that he himself was not as strong as others.  He and the other POWs respected all who put forth their best efforts.  I found him to be open-minded and respectful of differing viewpoints.  He realized that America afforded all people the chance to think as we like, and he claimed (and I believe him) to have no problem with people who were against the war, only those who took steps to aid and abet the enemy.  It seemed a fair viewpoint.  I was struck by the dedication and commitment shown by many of the POWs.  Since there were hundreds of POWs, I can’t be certain, but my impression was that a majority came out and, sooner or later, carried on with life.  It seems that, as with most things, they just made them different back then.  Most of the men were simply doing what their country asked of them.  Most of them understood or came to understand that Communism was a mess and stood for everything that America didn’t.  War, of course, is a messy business, one better off left untouched, so before making too many judgements on this one, I’d like to learn more, and Guarino’s book helped stoke that interest, both because of the personal stories and because of the larger geopolitical issues at stake.

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Pros and Cons

I’ve never been a big NFL fan (for the most part, the games are played on the wrong day).  When I was a kid, Steve Young played for the 49ers, and since he had previously played for BYU, I was nominally a 49ers fan.  Steve Young, though, seems to have been a pretty decent guy and was (and is) a guy worthy of emulation by young boys tossing footballs around backyards and parks across America (if anyone still does that since that level of freedom requires unscheduled time and so-called free-range kids, both a rarity and both not really the subject of these couple paragraphs).  On the other side of Steve Young, there was the NBA’s Charles Barkley selling products by telling the world, “I am not a role model.”  Even as a young kid, I knew that was an out-and-out lie.  Whether professional athletes want to be or not, they are role models.  That is unfortunate, considering the standard behavior of most of them.

Book cover.Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL (ISBN: 0-446-60747-9) by Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger delves into the subject of the behavior of professional athletes (and, in a way, college and high school athletes since the authors not that professional athletes who get a pass on bad behavior have been getting similar passes for years).  The book relies heavily on statistics, which everyone knows are open to manipulation, but the authors go into detail about their methodology.  The bulk of the book is anecdotes regarding various players and their criminal undertakings, ranging from gambling (probably the least harmful thing discussed) to robbery, burglary, and assault, and then on up to murder.  It’s tough reading in some places as this raw, and real people are involved.  The authors’ position is that players, team management, NFL management, and fans are at fault, but the bulk of the fault lies with team and league management, since they are the ones that push for light punishments, involve their lawyers in an effort to get players off the hook, and stick up for guys who spend their days off skirting the law in myriad ways.  They do proffer some solutions, most of which center around harsh penalties for all encounters with the law, not just convictions and not just for what people normally think of as “serious crimes.”

While the book is over ten years old, it seems things haven’t changed much.  Athletes still get away with murder, sometimes literally, while average people get the book thrown at them.  As long as big money is involved, things are unlikely to change unless the ultimate source of that money, the fans, become too disgusted with the behavior of their idols, and stop going to games, turning on TVs, and buying merchandise.  I tend to agree with the authors in their assessment that the statistics for professional athletes (while this book was about football players, the authors subsequently wrote a book about basketball players) skew high for athletes, meaning the percentage of the population that is criminal is higher among athletes than among the rest of us, and I agree with them that the punishments need to be much more severe from the teams and the leagues, as well as the criminal justice system.  Personally, I don’t see that happening any time soon, and behavior that is rightfully condemned in all other areas of life will continue to be quietly and quickly dismissed when the one doing it can effectively move balls across goal lines.

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Tuesday, May 01, 2018

Eurasian Disunion

Soon after I returned from my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to St. Petersburg, Russia, I remember looking through an issue of National Geographic and seeing some pictures from Central Asia.  The pictures were mostly from some of the bigger cities there, so there was a heavy Russian influence visible thanks to Russia’s imperial and then Soviet colonization efforts.  The pictures made me wax nostalgic for my time in Russia.  As it is now closing in on almost twenty years since my time in Russia, it has been interesting to see, although rarely up close and personal, the changes in those countries, as well as the other countries that were formerly part of Russia or under a great deal of Russian influence, like a lot of Eastern Europe was.  To differing degrees, they have moved away from Russia and worked to chart their own path, often to Russia’s consternation.

Book cover.Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks by Janusz Bugajski and Margarita Assenova (ISBN: 978-0-9855045-5-7) takes a look, region by region, those parts of the world that used to be part of the Soviet bloc and explores their struggles, their ties to Russia, and possible scenarios regarding their futures.  Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia are all examined.  Russia is of the opinion that it has and should maintain strategic interest in all these regions and works to maintain a certain level of influence in those areas.  It does this through diplomacy, through international organizations, through intelligence operations, through propaganda, through its involvement and control of energy markets, and through supporting general conditions of uncertainty and unrest.  (To be fair, other countries and international organizations are involved in the same or similar activities, although motivations may be different.)  The authors examine the responses and defenses of the various countries and regions to Russia’s many efforts (the authors identify what they determine to be sixty-eight unique methods Russia tries to project its will on the former Soviet bloc) to protect its influence in those same regions.  As noted above, the past twenty or so years have shown that, to varying degrees, the former Soviet countries want to distance themselves from that past and from Russia being their only powerful partner.  Most would be happy with engaging with Russia, but not at the expense of other opportunities in the West and in Asia.  The authors examine responses to Russia’s efforts and give some brief thoughts on how things might play out given varying scenarios, largely calling for a cross-Atlantic approach that builds on multi-lateral international relations to provide Russia’s flanks with viable alternatives until Russia decides to play by the rules of the game.

The book is heavy on current events with a hearty serving of realist-style political science.  Given the subject matter, I found it interesting, but those who are interested in other parts of the world may not be quiet as keen on it.  However, it seems that Russia really never goes out of style.  I found the overview of Russia’s influence efforts in the various countries and regions to be interesting.  Even for someone who enjoys reading the news, there’s too much to keep up with, so this was a nice survey of that.  Hacking and spying make the headlines, so it was nice to move away from that and read about diplomatic efforts, the energy field, propaganda, and even criminal tie-ins.  As with many publications more academic in nature, I thought the conclusion section was maybe a little hasty and probably not specific enough even though they were likely solid proposals.

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Behind the Drive

As a kid, Larry Miller was a guy I didn’t really get.  I think I didn’t get a lot of people as a kid.  I was probably a lot more quick to judge people than I should’ve been.  I’m not really sure what it was that made me think he was not up to my standards.  Likely it was a picture in the newspaper of him at a Jazz game on a Sunday (which rarely happened) or a quote in the newspaper in which he used some inappropriate language.  As I have got older and come to learn more about him and come to recognize my own struggles, it’s been very easy to forgive him for those shortcomings.  In fact, it’s probably just the opposite situation now as I tend to see Larry Miller as someone who had many positive characteristics and someone from whom we can learn.

Book cover.Larry H. Miller: Behind the Drive: 99 Inspiring Stories from the Life of an American Entrepreneur, edited by Bryan Miller (ISBN: 978-1-62972-094-4), is a collection of short anecdotes from the lives of those people on whom Larry Miller had a positive impact.  Some of the people who contributed were well known, both inside and out of Utah.  Others were people I’d never heard of.  All had been helped in one way or another by the man that most knew only as the owner of the Utah Jazz (while his car dealership empire was well known, the Jazz were front and center in the minds of everyone that I knew).  There was story after story of Larry Miller giving of his time and money to help someone out, including competitors.  There were a couple stories from his immediate family indicating that he had a great appreciation and love for his family and wished, as he got to the end of this life, that he had made better decisions about how much time he spent with his family.  He was a passionate, hard-working man, driven by love for his family, his community, and his God, and it showed in the way he helped out in so many different people’s lives.  He paid off cars, he bought people appliances, he endowed scholarships for poor kids, he worked to keep the Jazz in Utah, seeing them as something the community could gel around, and he supported his family, friends, and community through service in the Church.

I enjoyed reading Miller’s autobiography, Driven, so it’s not too surprising that I enjoyed this book, too.  This provided a differing viewpoint, but included some of the same conclusions.  I was amazed at how many people he helped, often without asking a question.  He had no second thoughts about paying off a struggling woman’s car loan.  Employees, friends, and even strangers (when the wife of a Ukrainian he barely knew needed cancer treatment she could only get in America, he moved them to America and paid for her cancer treatments) benefited from his generosity with his hard-earned money.  He was a personable person, taking time to get to know the little people, regularly spending his lunches with mechanics at dealerships or construction workers on building sites, not the managers or foremen.  I’ve heard from other sources that Miller was a poor tipper, and that was addressed by a restaurant owner in the book, who said Miller usually gave 15% (standard at the time of the story), but his staff felt that simply because he was rich, he should’ve tipped more.  Judging by the rest of the stories, I believe Larry Miller’s tips added up to well over 15% in his life.  I found his children’s thoughts on family time fascinating and realized I could learn from that, too, even though he probably fell short in that area.  Both the effective and less-effective examples are something we can, if we are smart, learn from.

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Monday, March 26, 2018

Wonder

Bullying, as the word is used today, wasn’t a thing when I was a kid.  Kids got made fun of or teased, but bullying, as we knew it, was when some kids, usually physically larger and more developed, used their unusual size to threaten smaller or younger kids into doing their will, usually involving lunch money, milk money, or desserts.  They were also to be feared in gym, which seemed to involve a lot of dodgeball, where bullies could unleash their physical prowess by slamming balls into the heads of other kids.  Nowadays, a lot that would’ve been overlooked in my day or engendered a lesson about ignoring or walking away gets put into the category of bullying.  The one area where things are the same is the area of kids who look different or who are mentally handicapped.  That was a problem before and is a problem now.

Book cover.Wonder by R. J. Palacio (ISBN: 978-0-375-86902-0), explores this latter form of bullying, but also the ability of some people to rise above it, in a short novel about a kid born with a number of physical birth defects who has decided it’s time to go to school with other kids.  He chooses to go to a private school, where he is confronted with all the problems one might expect for a kid facing the trouble of being both the new kid and the kid with some unusual facial features.  There are a few kids who are genuine in their interactions with him from day one, but for others, it takes some time.  Everything in the book is narrated from a first-person point of view, although the first person sometimes changes, as the reader hears from Auggie’s sister and friends on occasion.  They have their own unique takes on the situation and show that there is some internal struggle involved in doing the right thing.  By the end of the book, most of kids have come around to accepting Auggie, and even come to his defense when some kids from another school decide to pick on him at an overnight outing (a very real phenomenon, as most people feel free to pick on their own friends, families, hometowns, schools, etc., but won’t put up with a single negative word by an outsider).  The main character himself has also done some maturing, learning that despite his differences and the hardship they have caused him, there is much he can and even should do on his own.

The book was an enjoyable and easy read that seemed very realistic.  I like to think that my elementary and junior high classmates would not have voted me most likely to shoot up the school, but I was also at the butt end of a lot of jokes and usually picked near the end when it came time to make teams on the playground.  That’s not to say I was friendless, though, and so much of the storyline seemed very realistic to me, based on what I saw and what I experienced during my early school years.  I thought the lessons learned by the hero, his family, his friends, and maybe even his enemies, were positive ones that were general, universal values that people of all persuasions could get behind.  The kids, who were cast as fifth-graders, seemed a little mature for their supposed years, and I thought that distracted slightly from the overall reading experience, as did the sadly standard profane language (this might just be me, but I have a lot less of a problem with vulgar language than with profane language, which is an automatic downer every time).  Overall, the book presented a good message and had some fun along the way, and has been enjoyed by friends and family of all different ages, so there’s a wide appeal.

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Saturday, March 17, 2018

Band of Brothers

Defeat must be brought into Germany itself before this mess can come to a proper end; a quick victory now, a sudden collapse, will leave the countryside relatively intact and the people thirsty for revenge. I want the war to end as quickly as anybody wishes, but I don’t want the nucleus of another war left whole.
— David Webster

. . . Americans as conquerors . . . They took what they wanted, but by no means did
they rape, loot, pillage, and burn their way through Germany.
. . . Of course there were some rapes, some mistreatment of individual Germans,
and some looting, but it is simple fact to state that other conquering armies in WWII,
perhaps most of all the Russian, but including the Japanese and German, acted differently.
— Stephen E. Ambrose

World War II has always been fascinating to me.  As a kid it was because of the aircraft.  I loved looking at pictures of the famous bombers and fighters that plied the skies over Europe.  I loved drawing (or, probably more accurately, trying to draw) those same airplanes.  One of my favorite books as a kid was one that had also been a favorite of my dad’s, The Winged Watchman, about a Dutch family and their experiences in the war, including some resistance activity.  I read it multiple times and often had the vivid pictures it brought to mind in my head.  Later in life, I came to appreciate the amazing lives of so many ordinary Americans who answered the call of their country during the war.  Later, they would come to be known as the “greatest generation” because of their amazing accomplishments, usually from very humble beginnings.

Book cover.Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose (ISBN: 978-1-5011-7940-2) tells the story of a few of the soldiers from that greatest generation.  It traces the story of one company from the company’s formation through their intense training, through their roles in some of the most decisive battles of World War II, and then through their march across Europe right to Hitler’s famed headquarters, where they secured and watched over the allied territory.  Like the based-on-a-true-story movies that always have a few words about the movie’s heroes before the credits roll, the book had a final chapter about how America’s heroes went through life after the war; with very few exceptions, they lived up to their well-deserved moniker as America ’s greatest.  The stories detailed training and then the adrenaline rush of first combat as part of the invasion of Normandy.  The men had little use for the French, but a much higher respect for the Dutch.  After the initial surges and excitement, they spent months in trenches on the front, and more than a few lost their lives.  There was a lot of pain and suffering, but a few light moments were had, too.  Throughout it all, the stories weave together a solid narrative of unity and support for each other that comes only through bearing great tribulation together.  That unity was one of the men’s greatest assets as they faced their enemy on the battlefields of Europe.

I enjoyed the book.  It was a pretty good read that told an overall story, but had some individual focus in many places that often gave it a personal feel.  I found myself overwhelmed at times by the constant use of so many organizational names and numbers, but realize that such a layout serves the true military history fans out there well.  There was a lot of that at times, which I tended to just gloss over because it meant so little to me.  I found the stories, both the personal ones and the larger overviews of battles and operations, to be well done and very interesting to read.  It was easy to picture oneself hiding behind a hedge in rural France or slogging through the mud of western Germany.  The vivid experiences also included commentary from the author’s extensive interviews with the men from the band of brothers, a lot of which struck me because of its wisdom and because of it’s tone, which was often, as evidenced by the two quotations at the top of this post, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the world today.  While universally declared to be the greatest generation, their ideas are roundly criticized today, and I wonder if there isn’t something to be learned that could be applied today, a time when no one will be accused of being part of a great generation.  The men that went and fought for America saw America as exceptional, and it was — in part because of them.  They also knew that war, waged properly, could be a deterrent to future war.  Not just those quotes can be learned from, though.  The book was full of examples of hard work, dedication, patriotism, unity, solidarity, and unity that would serve us well if we would choose to imitate them.  Maybe, just maybe, in that case, we would have a chance of becoming at least part of the brave people who were members of the resistance in Europe or members of that greatest generation.

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Sunday, February 18, 2018

Unbroken

World War II has always fascinated me.  This is likely related to two things.  One is familial involvement.  One grandpa was a soldier in the war.  The other set of grandparents were children in Germany.  The other thing is that I loved drawing aircraft as a kid, and the bombers of World War II figured prominently in my usual repertoire.  What I didn’t necessarily understand as a kid is the large part that prison camps played in the war.  From the little reading that I have done and the little that I know, there are atrocious things that happened in the war’s prison camps, but I have heard more than a few stories of people rising above the horror and rising above the temptation to give up or to forever hate those who have treated them so evilly.  These stories are an interesting and often inspiring piece of history.

Book cover.Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (ISBN: 978-0-679-60375-7) is just such a story about overcoming trials.  Like so many stories of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, the story starts with humble origins.  Louis Zamperini was the son of Italian immigrants struggling to make ends meet along with most other Depression-era Americans.  A caring older brother discovered the track and invited Louie along, later serving as an unofficial coach, and Louie became as star, eventually qualifying for the Olympics, running a race (5,000 meters) he didn’t usually do.  He competed admirably in Berlin, finishing eighth against some of the world’s greatest runners.  His running career, though, was cut short by the onset of war, and he served as a bombardier.  That, too, was cut short because his plane went down during a rescue mission, and he was captured by the Japanese after some time floating in a raft at sea.  Floating around for weeks was already an amazing act of survival and resilience, but the worst was yet to come.  Zamperini then spent more than two years in various Japanese prison camps undergoing brutal treatment.  He and others kept their wits about them by resolving to beat the system and not give in to their captors and abusers.  Some made it, some did not.  There were some funny stories along the way, but most of it was monotony, drudgery, and pain.  Eventually, Zamperini and the others that survived were done with the horrors of the camps because the war ended.  Unfortunately, for many, that was not the concrete ending they would’ve preferred.  The horrors lived on in many of the former POWs’ minds, causing more than one to turn to alcohol, destructive behaviors, and even suicide to end the pain.  Zamperini’s story included a lot of post-war alcoholism, but he eventually quit that thanks to a conversion to evangelical Christianity, in part because of him remembering some promises he made to God while floating aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean in the first few days after his plane went down.  Zamperini used this redeeming experience in his life to later inspire and help others as well as come to terms with and even forgive his war-time tormentors.

I thought the book was good.  It was an inspiring story and it included some interesting information on the war.  It is best classified as a biography of Zamperini, not a history book.  There are many aspects of the book that were worth remembering, including the hard work and dedication the subject put into his running, his service in the military, and then his life after the war.  There were so many times he could’ve given up and probably justifiably so, but he didn’t.  He used the overwhelmingly negative experiences to make himself better, which is something worth emulation.  As noted above, this was a trait that was fairly common in his generation and one that is definitely missing in many today.  I was intrigued to read that faith and religion played such a large role in his post-war healing.  Such an aspect to story was not surprising, though, since a trust in the atonement of Christ is the surest way to redemption.  Finally, I would be lying if I didn’t note that I liked the stories about the running, which included some thoughts about Zamperini being one of the contenders for breaking the 4-minute mile barrier, and the Olympics in pre-war Germany, which are a subject of interest in and of themselves.

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