Yesterday I had a great time by spending the day with my son, Richard.
We had a quick lunch at Boston Market. The Market Pair is $5.99 (and I had a coupon for $2 off) which includes half a (large) salad and half a sandwich. Richard had a meatloaf sandwich and a salad; I had a chicken sandwich and gave him my side of macaroni & cheese in exchange for half of his salad. BM now serves their food on real plates with real (metal) flatware. They bring the food to your table and clean up after.
After lunch we went to the nearby ice rink to watch his high school varsity hockey team play. It was an exciting game that was decided with less than one minute remaining. Unfortunately, our team was not the winner but since both teams were from West Hartford, it was good.
Several on the team were also on the community league ice hockey team Richard played with a couple of years ago. I enjoyed seeing several of those parents. They were amazed at how much Richard has grown (a smidge taller than me).
In between periods, we enjoyed a few delicious sugar cookies they sell at the snack stand. Richard also was drawn to a newer NHL edition of Monopoly. Ironically, a woman saw that Richard was wearing a Loomis Chaffee jacket and it turned out she knew Grandma Judy. It's hard to believe that she has been gone almost a year.
When we returned to Lynn's apartment, we worked a couple of hours on Richard's school work. Later this month, he will be selecting his classes for next year (Junior) and talked a bit about college and summer plans. Next week, they start mid-term exams so we went over the study guides for English and American History. I was also impressed with his knowledge in Biology.
I really enjoyed spending the day with him.
The next two weekends will be dominated by his roller hockey schedule. He has games on both Saturday and Sunday so they can finish the Fall season. The Winter season starts in February.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
On to (the) War!
This morning I (finally) finished the second volume of three on the history of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power (1933-1939) by Richard J.Evans (see my previous post on January 1, 2011). Tomorrow I will return it to the library and hopefully sign out the third (and final) volume of the trilogy. The third volume covers the war years.
Reading this work has been an immense challenge. Despite the author's intention to make this history more "people oriented," it is a rather dry, academic work. It definitely is not as engaging as Ken Burns's PBS documentary on WWII: The War.
A few statistics about volume 2:
After all this effort on reading about this period in history, I feel kind of numb. The brutality of the Nazis and their control of the population is shocking and frightening. It would be a mistake, I think, to merely chalk up the Nazis as an abberation of evil. After reading these two volumes, I think (hope) I have a better appreciation for the susceptibility of a population to slide into totalitarianism. In this current "war on terror", we need to be very careful if we want to avoid sliding down a similar slope.
Reading this work has been an immense challenge. Despite the author's intention to make this history more "people oriented," it is a rather dry, academic work. It definitely is not as engaging as Ken Burns's PBS documentary on WWII: The War.
A few statistics about volume 2:
- 941 pages.
- 113 pages of "Notes."
- Bibliography is 73 pages long. Many of the works cited are in German.
- 41 pictures on 16 pages(not numbered) divided into 2 sections. Pictures were not cross referenced with the text.
- 22 maps, also not cross referenced with text. Many of these seemed pointless to me because they seemed to be a way to display statistics rather than clarify geographical issues.
- Published 2005 by The Penguin Press (NYC).
- Initially signed the book out on August 9, 2010.
- Renewed book at least 7 times.
- Finished (today) January 16, 2011 (i.e., about 5 months).
After all this effort on reading about this period in history, I feel kind of numb. The brutality of the Nazis and their control of the population is shocking and frightening. It would be a mistake, I think, to merely chalk up the Nazis as an abberation of evil. After reading these two volumes, I think (hope) I have a better appreciation for the susceptibility of a population to slide into totalitarianism. In this current "war on terror", we need to be very careful if we want to avoid sliding down a similar slope.
Positive Spin
Yesterday, on the way home from West Hartford, I finished the audio version of George Bush's book (memoirs): Decision Points (see my previous posting on January 9th). Although I would rather not use this blog space to discuss political philosphy, I have a couple of observations after listening to this book.
First, I am glad that the author was the narrator. Many times, I am disappointed to listen to a book written by a person who is capable of doing the audio version but instead defers to an actor. I think it shows a commitment on the part of the author to do the audio version.
One of the reasons Bush SR. (GHWB) lost his reelection bid was due to a perception that he had lost touch with the average person. There was an incident where he visited a grocery store and was amazed to encounter price scanners at the cash registers. Because many had been dealing with the scanners for a couple years, people concluded that GHWB was out of touch with the average american.
Listening to GWB's book got me to wonder if the President of the United States (POTUS) is inherently separated from the people due to all the security and global issues that are on the table. While GWB seems to have good intentions about what he wanted to do, I wonder if he was able to grasp the reality of the ramifications on the average person on the actions that he took. This arrangement (of the POTUS) may be a supreme example of the application of the "law of unintended consequences."
Bush talks about his intentions in confronting problems and his reasoning behind his solutions. He even admits to making some mistakes and has some regrets about some of his priorities (e.g., social security). It seems apparent to me that one of his objectives for this book is to lay the groundwork for a positive interpretation of his presidency in the future.
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| Actual cover of book. |
First, I am glad that the author was the narrator. Many times, I am disappointed to listen to a book written by a person who is capable of doing the audio version but instead defers to an actor. I think it shows a commitment on the part of the author to do the audio version.
One of the reasons Bush SR. (GHWB) lost his reelection bid was due to a perception that he had lost touch with the average person. There was an incident where he visited a grocery store and was amazed to encounter price scanners at the cash registers. Because many had been dealing with the scanners for a couple years, people concluded that GHWB was out of touch with the average american.
Listening to GWB's book got me to wonder if the President of the United States (POTUS) is inherently separated from the people due to all the security and global issues that are on the table. While GWB seems to have good intentions about what he wanted to do, I wonder if he was able to grasp the reality of the ramifications on the average person on the actions that he took. This arrangement (of the POTUS) may be a supreme example of the application of the "law of unintended consequences."
Bush talks about his intentions in confronting problems and his reasoning behind his solutions. He even admits to making some mistakes and has some regrets about some of his priorities (e.g., social security). It seems apparent to me that one of his objectives for this book is to lay the groundwork for a positive interpretation of his presidency in the future.
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