The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War

On February 2, 2013January 31, 2013 By Rick McIn books, governmentLeave a comment

I heard a terrific interview with this author on NPR.

The smartest commentary on modern war I’ve yet heard.

In a new book, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, journalist and author Fred Kaplan tackles the career of David H. Petraeus and follows the four-star general from Bosnia to his commands in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Central to the story are ideas of counterinsurgency. Kaplan says that while counterinsurgency is not a new kind of warfare, it’s a kind of war that Americans do not like to fight. …

book

Richard Glaubman, Author and Public Speaker

On January 28, 2013 By Rick McIn books, happiness, philosophy, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I spent 2 days with Richard at his school in Port Townsend, WA. Tumbl Trak and the town’s Parks & Rec department provided gymnastics instruction for all Middle School classes.

After reading an article about George Dawson, a 98-year-old man just learning to read and write, Glaubman began making regular visits to Mr. Dawson. The resulting collaboration led to the book, Life Is So Good, published by Random House.

Richard Glaubman has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, The Discovery Health Channel, and numerous regional television and radio stations. His book has been reviewed by the New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer and The Dallas Morning News, as well as many other publications. It has been a selection of both the Book of the Month Club and the Literary Guild.

By the Charter of the University of the State of New York, the New School University awarded him a doctorate of Human Letters “for outstanding achievement in the service of humankind.” And, Life Is So Good won the Christopher Award for writers whose work “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.”

bio

Life Is So Good:

In this remarkable book, George Dawson, a 103-year-old slave’s grandson who learned to read at age 98, reflects on his life and offers valuable lessons in living and a fresh, firsthand view of America during the twentieth century. Richard Glaubman captures Dawson’s irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history, hardships and happiness. From segregation and civil rights, to the wars and the presidents, to defining moments in history, George Dawson’s description and assessment of the last century inspires readers with the message that has always sustained him: “Life is so good. I do believe it’s getting better.”

Richard is happy to make appearances. Contract him if you’d like an inspirational talk at your school, college or book festival.

RichardGlaubman.com

Audible.com scam

On January 24, 2013February 5, 2013 By Rick McIn books, product complaints1 Comment

Here’s the scam:

Dear Rick McCharles,

We have some unfortunate news. We’ve tried several times to renew your AudibleListener Gold membership plan and have been unable to process the charge with the credit card information we have on file. As a result, we’ve had to cancel your membership.

We find that these automatic cancellations are often unintentional, so we’d like to help you restore your membership. In fact, if you call within the next 14 days we can also restore up to four unused credits.

Please contact us and we’ll gladly assist you:

Sincerely,

The Audible Team

_____

So …, I neglected to update my credit card. NOW they’re taking away my PAID book credits.

Here’s my response:

What?

Why are you taking away my credits?

My Audible account has been inactive since I’ve not gotten around to updating my credit card. But my Amazon account is active.

I thought they were now one and the same.

This seems a SCAM to keep credits I’ve paid for. … Am I wrong on that?

I want to keep my credits. And will update my credit card information to do so.

But I’m too busy right now to listen to new books. That’s why I was quite happy to take a break from keeping my credits.

How can I update credit card without starting up monthly payments?

Hey. I’m quite comfortable with Bittorrent.

If you’re going to take away credits from paying customers, no problem. There are less expensive alternatives.

Let me know.

Rick

_____ After some delay in email response, I got this very friendly message:

There seems to have been a misunderstanding here, and we want to make it right. We value your business tremendously and appreciate your loyalty as an Audible Listener.

We’d like to restore your membership and the credits on your account. Please email us at social-support@audible.com so that we can update the billing information on your account.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Have a great day.

Andrew R, Customer Care Specialist
Audible.com

Rebus – Tooth and Nail

On January 7, 2013January 6, 2013 By Rick McIn books1 Comment

I listened to 3 more of the Inspector Rebus series.

Death Is Not the End (1998) – novella

Hide and Seek (1991)

Tooth and Nail (original title Wolfman) (1992)

Tooth and Nail is the one I’ve enjoyed most, so far. It’s nice to see the curmudgeon so far outside his comfort zone.

Tooth and Nail … is the third of the Inspector Rebus novels.

Rebus is drafted in by Scotland Yard to help track down a cannibalistic serial killer called the Wolfman, whose first victim was found in the East End of London’s lonely Wolf Street.

… Rankin says he was living in London at the time of writing and didn’t enjoy it, so “I brought Rebus to London so he could suffer, too”. …

Evolution of Life on Earth

On December 1, 2012December 1, 2012 By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

What would it look like if we took Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, and stuffed it into a normal day’s 24 hour time-frame?

… Inspired by the book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Even Pat Robertson believes in Dinosaurs. How about that?

Ender’s Shadow

On November 12, 2012November 12, 2012 By Rick McIn books, movies1 Comment

Like near everyone who’s read it, I loved Ender’s Game. (1985)

Orson Scott Card’s follow-up — Speaker for the Dead (1986) — was good, but different. As a result, I gave up on the Ender’s Game (series), eleven novels, twelve short stories, and 47 comic issues.

But Warren recommend I try Book #5 — Ender’s Shadow — a retelling of the original story, from the perspective of another character — Bean.

… In fact, the two books tell an almost identical story of brilliant children being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity’s fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers. The most brilliant of these young recruits is Ender Wiggin, an unparalleled commander and tactician who can surely defeat the Buggers if only he can overcome his own inner turmoil.

Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender’s lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students.

Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his story when he is just a 2-year-old starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on earth.

Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escape–though not unscathed–the streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, however, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more famous and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not understand, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know. …

Amazon

It is excellent, almost as good as the original.

Recommended. But not for kids. This is an adult book.

Ender’s Game — the film — is finally scheduled for release Nov. 2013.

… an ensemble cast that includes Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Aramis Knight, Hailee Steinfeld, Jimmy Pinchak, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. In November 2010, Card stated that the film’s storyline would be a fusion of Ender’s Game and its parallel novel, Ender’s Shadow, focusing on the important elements of both.

The actor is agee-15, too old to play the part of Ender, actually. I hope Hollywood manages NOT to ruin the story.

I fear they’ll add a LOVE STORY to the plot.

Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

On November 10, 2012November 10, 2012 By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

I loved Peter Hessler’s first China book, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.

And was super keen to get to this, his follow-up.

Publishers Weekly:

Having lived in China for a decade now, fluent in Mandarin and working as a correspondent in Beijing, Hessler displays impressive knowledge, research and personal encounters as he brings the country’s people’s, foibles and history into sharp focus.

He frames his narrative with short chapters about Chinese artifacts: the underground city being excavated at Anyang; the oracle bones of the title (“inscriptions on shell and bone” considered the earliest known writing in East Asia); and he pays particular attention to how language affects culture, often using Chinese characters and symbols to make a point.

A talented writer and journalist, Hessler has courage—he’s undercover at the Falun Gong demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and in the middle of anti-American protests in Nanjing after the Chinese embassy bombings in Belgrade—and a sense of humor (the Nanjing rioters attack a statue of Ronald McDonald since Nanjing has no embassies).

The tales of his Fuling students’ adventures in the new China’s boom towns; the Uighur trader, an ethnic minority from China’s western border, who gets asylum after entering the U.S. with jiade (false) documents; the oracle bones scholar Chen Mengjia, who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution—all add a seductive element of human interest.

… Hessler gets the stories that no one talks about and delivers them in a personal study that informs, entertains and mesmerizes.

Amazon

It’s good. But didn’t captivate.

The best story is that of the minority Uyghur community in Beijing. Hessler befriends one of the dodgy street money traders and recounts the method by which he makes his way illegally to the USA. ($50,000)

I won’t read Hessler’s third China book, Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip. Not until I next travel to China.

If YOU are going to mainland China, these 3 books would be ideal prep.

understanding China …

On October 13, 2012 By Rick McIn books, education, travel1 Comment

I’ve spent at least 6 months in China, Hong Kong and Macao … bewildered much of the time.

But after reading this book, I’m finally starting to understand the culture.

In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China’s Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local teacher’s college. The first foreigner to live there in 50yrs.

… Hessler’s writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant–and just as often, funny. It’s a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures. …

Amazon

This was the era when Hong Kong was returned. When the Three Gorges Dam controversy was in the western media.

China itself, I visited Aug-Oct 1998. (travelogues)

Hessler debunks many of the stereotypes we have of modern China. He couldn’t find anyone on the Yangtze strongly opposed to the dams. Even those who were to be relocated.

Despite what we assume about “arranged marriages” being successful, most were not in Hessler’s small rural town.

If you’re planning a trip to China, these are MUST READING:

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001) is a Kiriyama Prize-winning book about his experiences in two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in China.

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present (2006) features a series of parallel episodes featuring his former students, a Uighur dissident who fled to the U.S., and the archaeologist Chen Mengjia who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

His third book, Country Driving: A Journey from Farm to Factory (2010), is a record of Hessler’s journeys driving a rented car from rural northern Chinese counties to the factory towns of southern China, and the significant economic and industrial growth taking place there.

His wife, Leslie T. Chang, is an American journalist and the author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (2008). A former China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal …

The couple has recently moved to Cairo. And are learning Arabic.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

On October 2, 2012September 28, 2012 By Rick McIn books, movies2 Comments

The Millennium series consists of three bestselling novels, originally written in Swedish, by the late Stieg Larsson (1954–2004). The two primary characters in the saga are Lisbeth Salander, a woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and poor social skills, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and editor of a magazine called Millennium. …

The movies are better.

Swedish film production company Yellow Bird released 3 films on November 24, 2010. With Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, released on February 25, 2009.
The Girl Who Played with Fire, released on September 18, 2009.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, released on November 27, 2009.

Warren, Sandy and I watched them in series. Recommended.

We also watched the American version of Dragon Tattoo with Daniel Craig as Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Salander.

Also excellent.

Click PLAY or watch the Swedish trailer on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch the American trailer on YouTube.

If forced to choose between, I’d say the American movie was slightly more memorable. Rooney Mara even more shocking than Noomi Rapace.

Lisbeth Salander is the main reason to watch.

We’re looking forward to the next two American films.

A. McCharles – Bemocked of Destiny – REVIEW

On September 25, 2012September 21, 2012 By Rick McIn books, McCharles family3 Comments

First published 1908.

One hundred years after it’s original publication, Martin (Marty) McAllister took it upon himself to republish this fascinating memoir from one of my ancestors. It was his pet project in retirement.

Sadly, Marty died of cancer just a few weeks before the book was released.

_____

A terrific read.

It’s very entertaining. Very informative.

He never liked his name, Aeneas, and preferred Angus.

Angus was born in Middle River, Cape Breton, N.S.

They had 5 girls, 3 boys in the family.

The memoir is mostly a recollection of his best friends & acquaintances. He was proud to have saved several potential suicides.

And stories. Angus had stories.

He spent time in 1901 with Thomas Edison.

He was much traveled for that age. Across Canada and back through the northern U.S., visiting Montana to see the world’s largest Copper mine, Anaconda near Butte. Also California, Mexico and all the way down to Panama. And Jamaica.

He was a skilled outdoorsman:

… I have lived a great deal in the open air and sunshine; I have roamed at will in the bush among the trees I love, and also on the beautiful plains ; I have had soft water to wash with every day of the year; I have been away from the sick noise of life in cities and towns ; I did not have to dress to please others, mainly fools; and, above all, I have been a free man, and not a slave. …

He survived stepping into a steel bear trap.

Scrambling up a slope, a big fallen log started rolling down hill, taking Angus with it. He escaped with only one bad cut.

He had many skills. And worked hard.

The best cabin I ever had in the bush I built in three days, with an axe, a saw and an auger, and one man to help me. The total outlay in cash was only thirty-eight cents, for two pounds of wire nails and hinges,latch and padlock for the door. I got a small window out of an old abandoned hut on the trail, and carried it four miles through the woods without breaking any of the glass in it. I made the bunks, table and other furnishings of the cabin from split cedar on wet days. A couple of French scientists from Paris had dinner in it with me once, and were greatly astonished when I told them that “dis leetle house,” as they called it, had only cost two francs. …

Angus was racist, as were men of his age. But not cursing the native peoples of the new world. Angus disparages the Irish. The French Canadians. Jews.

The Scotts were the superior race, in his opinion. All porridge eaters. A real man eats porridge every day.

Though Angus admired entrepreneurial Americans, he generally referred to them as “bands of colossal thieves”. “Unscrupulous grabbers”.

Angus had a very loving marriage, short-lived as his wife died young.

Emily Anne Muma, died March 23rd, 1875 (?).

Of their two sons, one died young. The other — Harry A — Angus hardly knew and only mentioned once in the book. (Though he did leave Harry a good part of his estate.)

The new edition published 2008 includes a bonus section covering Harry’s reported “suicide”, concluding it was a covered-up hunting accident. Harry died Nov 1st, 1924. For some odd reason his headstone says Henri McCharles.

_____

The fates were unkind to Angus, hence the title. Yet he struck it rich in mining shortly before he died.

Inspired by the Nobel Prize, he donated an amount worth about $260,000 in today’s dollars to education.

The McCharles Prize

Created from an endowment to the University of Toronto as a condition of Aeneas McCharles’s estate, the $25,000 McCharles Prize for Early Career Research Distinction is awarded every three years in recognition of exceptional performance and distinction in early career research on the part of a pre-tenure member of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at University of Toronto. …

My family once drove past McCharles Lake east of Whitefish, Ontario, close to Sudbury. Angus on his death donated land there originally as a Park.