lewrockwell--2020-05-19--Comparing Lives to Lives

Comparing Lives to Lives

Sometimes I wonder what people will say 100 years from now about the unprecedented events of 2020—not just about the pandemic , but about the extraordinary legal and economic measures imposed by governments around the world , purportedly for the purpose of saving lives .
Will our great-great grandchildren placidly accept today ’ s official government story—that a lockdown of the economy was the only way to “ flatten the curve ” and save lives ?
Or will they wonder what on earth their forebears were thinking of to permit such a colossal blunder , when there was already abundant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social havoc such measures would wreak ?
Alarming information has already started rolling in about the financial cost of the pandemic-related shutdowns .
The April data from Statistics Canada shows a 15.7 percent decline in employment since February .
The Parliamentary Budget Office has forecast a possible decline in GDP of as much as 25 percent in the second quarter of this year .
This would be a worse decline than ever before , including during the Great Depression of the 1930s .
Vitamin D3 , Zinc and M ... Jeffers , Nancy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6.98 Many people argue that the lockdowns were—and still are—necessary , using an argument that goes something like this : you can ’ t weigh dollars lost against human lives lost .
Or they say every life is so precious that its value can ’ t be measured against money .
These people don ’ t seem to have noticed that our society routinely conducts precisely this weighing act in a variety of situations .
For instance , in civil litigation we compensate the families of people killed through negligence or malevolence in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ award of money .
Economists have used a concept called VSL ( “ value of statistical life ” ) for several decades when trying to determine the optimal level of safety regulations .
Essentially , it involves placing a limit on how much more to spend on safety by trying to determine what it would cost to save one additional life .
Currently , the value is placed at between US $ 6.7 million and US $ 10 million per life .
Nobody ever feels entirely comfortable with these concepts .
Everybody recognizes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or your spouse whose life were on the line , the amount of compensation you ’ d require might be virtually infinite .
However , the chaos of the pandemic should not make us lose sight of the fact that we do consistently make trade-offs like these in everyday life , and a new risk on the horizon is no reason to depart from established practices of risk/reward valuation .
But regardless of how distasteful it may be to weigh lives against money , there should be no question of the legitimacy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we can and should weigh the lives that the lockdowns will purportedly save from COVID-19 against the lives that the very same lockdowns will probably terminate prematurely .
How Not To Die With Tr ... Henriques , Tiago Best Price : $ 18.23 Buy New $ 17.97 Fortunately , the Fraser Institute ( “ FI ” ) has provided us with a tool that will allow us to make reasonable , evidence-based estimates of the number of deaths that will probably arise from the economic disaster that recent government edicts have triggered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ published an annual report entitled Economic Freedom of the World .
The most recent edition , published in September 2019 and dealing with statistics from the year 2017 , can be found here .
Researchers collect data annually from 162 countries , examining 42 items of economic policy in each country .
Each item is ranked on a scale from zero to ten , according to the degree of freedom the country allows to its citizens , with 10 being the maximum amount of freedom for that issue .
The 42 items are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a scale of 10 .
Canada , for instance , scored 8.07 out of 10 on the economic freedom score in 2017 , which placed it in eighth position among all of the countries ranked .
Figure 1 shows the countries of the world ranked according to their economic freedom score .
The 162 countries are divided into four quartiles , from the most free ( shown here in teal ) to the least free ( shown in red ) .
The report then shows the average per capita income by quartile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the quartile that has the most economic freedom also has the highest per capita income , and so on down the line .
The next graph ( Exhibit 1.7 in the FI report ) shows the correlation between economic freedom and life expectancy .
It shows that countries in the most free quartile ( such as Canada ) have an average life expectancy of 79.4 years .
Countries in the second-freest quartile have a life expectancy of only 74.08 years—5.32 years shorter than those in the freest quartile .
This makes sense because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , health is positively correlated with wealth .
The Ontario agency known as Health Quality Ontario has published this report analyzing the factors that appear to produce better health outcomes .
Figure 3.1 ( reproduced here ) shows the health status of Ontario ’ s population , divided into income quintiles .
In the richest quintile of the population , fully 72.9 percent of those surveyed reported that their health was excellent or very good .
In the poorest quintile , only 49.4 percent reported similar good health .
Therefore , if reducing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income , it is also statistically likely to result in a reduction of health , with a consequent reduction in life expectancy .
Organic Zinc Sulfate L ... Buy New $ 18.95 ( $ 4.74 / Fl Oz ) Here are the implications FI Exhibit 1.7 .
If Canada ’ s economic freedom remains impaired sufficiently to move it down to the same freedom rating as previously prevailed in the second-highest quartile , we can expect the average life expectancy of our citizens to decline by an average of 5.32 years , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were 37,590,000 people living in Canada .
If each of them loses 5.32 years of life due to constraints on economic freedom , the resulting number of person-years lost would be 199,978,800 .
That is the equivalent of 2,518,625 lifetimes at the old average rate of 79.4 years per person .
Did you get that ?
The decline in our economic freedom could be expected to produce a decline in human life equivalent to the deaths of 2.5 million people .
That ’ s far worse than anything ever projected for COVID-19 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a realistic comparison , because nobody actually dies due to economic regulation .
They just don ’ t live as long .
In other words , they die earlier .
But exactly the same thing could be said of COVID-19 victims .
Overwhelmingly , the people who have been dying of COVID-19 have been elderly .
More than 90 percent of the Canadians who have allegedly died of it have been over age 60 , and fully half of all victims have been residents of long-term care homes .
Statistics for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care homes seem to be a closely guarded secret , but here ’ s a website in South Carolina that says the average length of stay in assisted living is 28 or 29 months ( about 2.4 years ) .
Most don ’ t leave alive and go back to live at their former private homes .
Their residency in the care home almost always ends in their death .
The Vitamin D Revoluti ... Soram Khalsa Best Price : $ 1.25 Buy New $ 10.69 This study from Finland says that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care is a mere 2.07 years for men and 2.70 years for women .
Therefore , when COVID-19 claims the life of someone in a long-term care home , it ’ s shortening the life of someone whose life expectancy was already extremely short .
Keep in mind that the people in long-term care homes are individuals with chronic , severe illnesses .
Their quality of life is already very poor .
If they die in March when they would otherwise have died in September , does anyone really consider this a terrible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I practiced estate law and prepared wills and powers of attorney for hundreds of clients , I routinely received instructions from people that they did not want their lives to be prolonged when all hope of a normal , fully functional existence had disappeared .
People didn ’ t want to be the pathetic old man or woman languishing in pain or mental confusion , waiting for death to mercifully claim them .
Canada has allegedly had 5,679 deaths from COVID-19 at the time I wrote this .
( Incidentally , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figure because of several reports—especially from the U.S. and Italy—that doctors are being pressured to put COVID-19 as the cause of death on people ’ s death certificates when they actually died of some other chronic , long-term illness .
Here is one U.S. discussion of this issue , and here ’ s one from Italy . )
Nevertheless , if we accept the accuracy of the “ official ” death toll , and if half of those victims were in long-term care homes and lost the maximum 2.70 years of life they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would still be ( so far ) only 7,667 person-years .
Even if the other half of the victims lost 50 years of life each , that would add only 141,975 person-years to the total lost—only a tiny fraction of the almost 200 million person-years that we can expect to lose due to the adverse economic results .
The FI report gives us one more interesting graph to look at .
Exhibit 1.8 shows infant mortality by quartile : that is , the number of infants who die before reaching one year of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most free quartile where Canada has always dwelt , the average rate in 2016 was only 6.67 infants .
In the second-freest quartile , infant mortality jumped all the way up to 15.35 per 1,000 .
In other words , if Canada descends to the level of economic freedom prevailing at what was formerly the second-freest quartile , it can expect to see an additional 8.68 babies die in their first year for every 1,000 live births ( 15.35-6.67=8.68 ) .
Healing With Iodine : Y ... Sircus , Mark Best Price @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There were 382,533 children born in Canada in 2019 .
If an additional 8.68 babies were to die per 1,000 live births , that means that 3,320 additional infants would be expected to die ( 382.533 x 8.68 = 3,320 ) .
They would lose their entire lives , not merely the last 2.7 years that would otherwise be spent in a nursing home .
This would be a loss of 263,608 person-years .
This is more than three times the number that COVID-19 is expected to claim .
Many commentators have now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the lockdowns has been excessive .
These figures corroborate their opinion , stated in terms that no-one should be able to argue with : the lives lost if lockdowns continue will far exceed the lives saved .
What ’ s especially galling to me is that all government efforts at saving lives has been directed towards keeping people from coming into contact with the coronavirus .
We ’ re told to stay away from other people , wash our hands frequently , wear gloves and masks , don ’ t touch our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is another completely different strategy which governments around the world , including Canada ’ s , have ignored entirely : namely , inform people about how to optimize the functioning of their immune systems by ensuring that they have the nutrients crucial to this purpose .
Curing the Incurable : ... Best Price : $ 12.95 Buy New $ 44.02 Most people who get COVID-19 infections manage to recover quickly , without any lasting problems .
Their innate immune systems are able to defeat the infection .
There is abundant research on what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immune system : specifically , vitamins C and D , iodine , and zinc .
Canadians are well known to be chronically deficient in vitamin D , and have been told by Health Canada for years to stay out of the sun , thereby foregoing the benefit of getting vitamin D for free .
The government could save far more lives if it would divert some of its advertising budget away from telling people to wash their hands and tell them instead to take adequate vitamins and minerals .

Sometimes I wonder what people will say 100 years from now about the unprecedented events of 2020—not just about the pandemic, but about the extraordinary legal and economic measures imposed by governments around the world, purportedly for the purpose of saving lives. Will our great-great grandchildren placidly accept today’s official government story—that a lockdown of the economy was the only way to “flatten the curve” and save lives? Or will they wonder what on earth their forebears were thinking of to permit such a colossal blunder, when there was already abundant knowledge about the kind of economic and social havoc such measures would wreak?
Alarming information has already started rolling in about the financial cost of the pandemic-related shutdowns. The April data from Statistics Canada shows a 15.7 percent decline in employment since February. The Parliamentary Budget Office has forecast a possible decline in GDP of as much as 25 percent in the second quarter of this year. This would be a worse decline than ever before, including during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Vitamin D3, Zinc and M... Jeffers, Nancy Buy New $6.98 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details) Many people argue that the lockdowns were—and still are—necessary, using an argument that goes something like this: you can’t weigh dollars lost against human lives lost. Or they say every life is so precious that its value can’t be measured against money. These people don’t seem to have noticed that our society routinely conducts precisely this weighing act in a variety of situations.
For instance, in civil litigation we compensate the families of people killed through negligence or malevolence in the only way possible: by an award of money. Economists have used a concept called VSL (“value of statistical life”) for several decades when trying to determine the optimal level of safety regulations. Essentially, it involves placing a limit on how much more to spend on safety by trying to determine what it would cost to save one additional life. Currently, the value is placed at between US$6.7 million and US$10 million per life.
Nobody ever feels entirely comfortable with these concepts. Everybody recognizes that if it were your child, or your spouse whose life were on the line, the amount of compensation you’d require might be virtually infinite. However, the chaos of the pandemic should not make us lose sight of the fact that we do consistently make trade-offs like these in everyday life, and a new risk on the horizon is no reason to depart from established practices of risk/reward valuation.
But regardless of how distasteful it may be to weigh lives against money, there should be no question of the legitimacy of weighing lives against lives. More specifically, we can and should weigh the lives that the lockdowns will purportedly save from COVID-19 against the lives that the very same lockdowns will probably terminate prematurely. How Not To Die With Tr... Henriques, Tiago Best Price: $18.23 Buy New $17.97 (as of 08:00 UTC - Details)
Fortunately, the Fraser Institute (“FI”) has provided us with a tool that will allow us to make reasonable, evidence-based estimates of the number of deaths that will probably arise from the economic disaster that recent government edicts have triggered.
Ever since 1996, FI has published an annual report entitled Economic Freedom of the World. The most recent edition, published in September 2019 and dealing with statistics from the year 2017, can be found here. Researchers collect data annually from 162 countries, examining 42 items of economic policy in each country. Each item is ranked on a scale from zero to ten, according to the degree of freedom the country allows to its citizens, with 10 being the maximum amount of freedom for that issue. The 42 items are then averaged into a single score on a scale of 10. Canada, for instance, scored 8.07 out of 10 on the economic freedom score in 2017, which placed it in eighth position among all of the countries ranked.
Figure 1 shows the countries of the world ranked according to their economic freedom score. The 162 countries are divided into four quartiles, from the most free (shown here in teal) to the least free (shown in red).
The report then shows the average per capita income by quartile, in its Exhibit 1.6. Unsurprisingly, the quartile that has the most economic freedom also has the highest per capita income, and so on down the line.
The next graph (Exhibit 1.7 in the FI report) shows the correlation between economic freedom and life expectancy. It shows that countries in the most free quartile (such as Canada) have an average life expectancy of 79.4 years. Countries in the second-freest quartile have a life expectancy of only 74.08 years—5.32 years shorter than those in the freest quartile.
This makes sense because we know that even within a country, health is positively correlated with wealth. The Ontario agency known as Health Quality Ontario has published this report analyzing the factors that appear to produce better health outcomes. Figure 3.1 (reproduced here) shows the health status of Ontario’s population, divided into income quintiles. In the richest quintile of the population, fully 72.9 percent of those surveyed reported that their health was excellent or very good. In the poorest quintile, only 49.4 percent reported similar good health.
Therefore, if reducing economic freedom results in a reduction of income, it is also statistically likely to result in a reduction of health, with a consequent reduction in life expectancy. Organic Zinc Sulfate L... Buy New $18.95 ($4.74 / Fl Oz) (as of 02:28 UTC - Details)
Here are the implications FI Exhibit 1.7. If Canada’s economic freedom remains impaired sufficiently to move it down to the same freedom rating as previously prevailed in the second-highest quartile, we can expect the average life expectancy of our citizens to decline by an average of 5.32 years, to 74.08. As of 2019, there were 37,590,000 people living in Canada. If each of them loses 5.32 years of life due to constraints on economic freedom, the resulting number of person-years lost would be 199,978,800. That is the equivalent of 2,518,625 lifetimes at the old average rate of 79.4 years per person.
Did you get that? The decline in our economic freedom could be expected to produce a decline in human life equivalent to the deaths of 2.5 million people. That’s far worse than anything ever projected for COVID-19.
But maybe you think that’s not a realistic comparison, because nobody actually dies due to economic regulation. They just don’t live as long. In other words, they die earlier.
But exactly the same thing could be said of COVID-19 victims. Overwhelmingly, the people who have been dying of COVID-19 have been elderly. More than 90 percent of the Canadians who have allegedly died of it have been over age 60, and fully half of all victims have been residents of long-term care homes. Statistics for the life expectancy of individuals in Canadian long-term care homes seem to be a closely guarded secret, but here’s a website in South Carolina that says the average length of stay in assisted living is 28 or 29 months (about 2.4 years). Most don’t leave alive and go back to live at their former private homes. Their residency in the care home almost always ends in their death. The Vitamin D Revoluti... Soram Khalsa Best Price: $1.25 Buy New $10.69 (as of 08:00 UTC - Details)
This study from Finland says that the average life expectancy of individuals in long-term care is a mere 2.07 years for men and 2.70 years for women.
Therefore, when COVID-19 claims the life of someone in a long-term care home, it’s shortening the life of someone whose life expectancy was already extremely short. Keep in mind that the people in long-term care homes are individuals with chronic, severe illnesses. Their quality of life is already very poor. If they die in March when they would otherwise have died in September, does anyone really consider this a terrible tragedy?
During the 24 years when I practiced estate law and prepared wills and powers of attorney for hundreds of clients, I routinely received instructions from people that they did not want their lives to be prolonged when all hope of a normal, fully functional existence had disappeared. People didn’t want to be the pathetic old man or woman languishing in pain or mental confusion, waiting for death to mercifully claim them.
Canada has allegedly had 5,679 deaths from COVID-19 at the time I wrote this. (Incidentally, there is some doubt about the accuracy of this figure because of several reports—especially from the U.S. and Italy—that doctors are being pressured to put COVID-19 as the cause of death on people’s death certificates when they actually died of some other chronic, long-term illness. Here is one U.S. discussion of this issue, and here’s one from Italy.)
Nevertheless, if we accept the accuracy of the “official” death toll, and if half of those victims were in long-term care homes and lost the maximum 2.70 years of life they might have expected there, the loss would still be (so far) only 7,667 person-years. Even if the other half of the victims lost 50 years of life each, that would add only 141,975 person-years to the total lost—only a tiny fraction of the almost 200 million person-years that we can expect to lose due to the adverse economic results.
The FI report gives us one more interesting graph to look at. Exhibit 1.8 shows infant mortality by quartile: that is, the number of infants who die before reaching one year of age per 1,000 live births. In the most free quartile where Canada has always dwelt, the average rate in 2016 was only 6.67 infants. In the second-freest quartile, infant mortality jumped all the way up to 15.35 per 1,000.
In other words, if Canada descends to the level of economic freedom prevailing at what was formerly the second-freest quartile, it can expect to see an additional 8.68 babies die in their first year for every 1,000 live births (15.35-6.67=8.68). Healing With Iodine: Y... Sircus, Mark Best Price: $14.87 Buy New $11.89 (as of 09:06 UTC - Details)
There were 382,533 children born in Canada in 2019. If an additional 8.68 babies were to die per 1,000 live births, that means that 3,320 additional infants would be expected to die (382.533 x 8.68 = 3,320). They would lose their entire lives, not merely the last 2.7 years that would otherwise be spent in a nursing home. This would be a loss of 263,608 person-years. This is more than three times the number that COVID-19 is expected to claim.
Many commentators have now begun to remark that the economic cost of the lockdowns has been excessive. These figures corroborate their opinion, stated in terms that no-one should be able to argue with: the lives lost if lockdowns continue will far exceed the lives saved.
What’s especially galling to me is that all government efforts at saving lives has been directed towards keeping people from coming into contact with the coronavirus. We’re told to stay away from other people, wash our hands frequently, wear gloves and masks, don’t touch our faces, and so on. There is another completely different strategy which governments around the world, including Canada’s, have ignored entirely: namely, inform people about how to optimize the functioning of their immune systems by ensuring that they have the nutrients crucial to this purpose. Curing the Incurable: ... Best Price: $12.95 Buy New $44.02 (as of 03:06 UTC - Details)
Most people who get COVID-19 infections manage to recover quickly, without any lasting problems. Their innate immune systems are able to defeat the infection. There is abundant research on what nutrients are essential to a properly functioning immune system: specifically, vitamins C and D, iodine, and zinc. Canadians are well known to be chronically deficient in vitamin D, and have been told by Health Canada for years to stay out of the sun, thereby foregoing the benefit of getting vitamin D for free.
The government could save far more lives if it would divert some of its advertising budget away from telling people to wash their hands and tell them instead to take adequate vitamins and minerals.
The Best of Karen Selick


lewrockwell--2020-05-19--Head of the Vaccine Hydra: The Rise of Robert Kadlec

A POWERFUL NETWORK OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES , A GLOBAL VACCINE MAFIA AND THEIR MAN IN WASHINGTON .
Last Friday , a group of Democratic Senators “ demanded ” that the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response ( ASPR ) Robert Kadlec , “ accurately disclose all his personal , financial and political ties in light of new reporting that he had failed to do so previously ” after it was revealed that he had failed to note all “ potential conflicts of interest ” on his nomination paperwork .
The report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Washington Post , detailed the ties of Kadlec to a man named Fuad El-Hibri , the founder of a “ life sciences ” company first known as BioPort and now called Emergent Biosolutions .
Kadlec had previously disclosed his ties to El-Hibri and Emergent Biosolutions for a separate nomination years prior , but had failed to do so when nominated to head ASPR .
Plague of Corruption : ... Mikovits , Judy Buy New $ 16.51 Though The Post does note Kadlec ’ s recent failure to disclose these connections , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet crucial history and even obfuscates the full extent of his ties to the BioPort founder , among other glaring omissions .
In reality , Kadlec has much more than his ties to El-Hibri looming large as “ potential conflict of interests , ” as his decades-long career in shaping U.S. “ biodefense ” policy was directly enabled by his deep ties to intelligence , Big Pharma , the Pentagon and a host of corrupt yet powerful characters .
Thanks to a long and deliberate process to introduce biodefense policy , driven by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 7 billion dollars-worth of federally-owned vaccines , antidotes and medicines – held in strategically arranged repositories across the country in case of a health emergency – are now in the hands of one single individual .
Those repositories , which compose the Strategic National Stockpile ( SNS ) , are the exclusive domain of HHS ’ ASPR , a post created under Kadlec ’ s watchful eye and tailored over the years to meet his very specific requirements .
From this perch , Robert Kadlec has final say on where the stockpile ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as how , when and where they are deployed .
He is the sole source procurer of medical material and pharmaceuticals , making him the best friend of Big Pharma and other healthcare industry giants who have been in his ear every step of the way .
Kadlec assures us , however , that the fact that he now holds the very office he worked so long to create is merely a coincidence .
“ My participation in the ASPR project began at that time when I was working for the chairman of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Preparedness…The bill was made law and the ASPR was created .
It just was a coincidence that , 12 or 14 years later , I was asked to become the ASPR , ” Kadlec stated in 2018 .
It was all a random twist of fate , Kadlec asserts , that saw him occupy ASPR at this crucial moment in U.S. history .
Indeed , with the country now in the middle of a WHO-declared coronavirus pandemic , Kadlec now has full control over the far-reaching “ emergency ” powers of that very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very law that he had written .
Mad Medical Mafia : Exp ... Doory , Laith Buy New $ 3.45 The story of how a former USAF flight surgeon came to have the exclusive dealer license over the single biggest stash of drugs in the history of the world is as disturbing as it is significant in light of current events , particularly given that Kadlec now leads the coronavirus response for all of HHS .
Yet , Kadlec ’ s rise to power is not a case of an evil mastermind conquering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s resources .
Instead , it is a case of a man deeply enmeshed in the world of intelligence , military intelligence and corporate corruption dutifully fulfilling the vision of his friends in high places and behind closed doors .
In this third installment of “ Engineering Contagion : Amerithrax , Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech-Industrial Complex , ” Kadlec is shown to hail from a tight-knit group of “ bioterror alarmists ” in government and the private sector who gained prominence thanks to their penchant for imagining the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fear among Presidents , top politicians and the American public .
Among those fictitious scenarios was the “ Dark Winter ” exercise discussed in Part I .
Some of these alarmists , among them “ cold warriors ” from Fort Detrick ’ s days of openly developing offensive weapons , would engage in unsettling anthrax experiments and studies while developing suspect ties in 2000 to a company called BioPort .
As noted in Part II of this series , BioPort stood to lose everything in early September 2001 due to controversy over its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2001 anthrax attacks that followed shortly thereafter would change everything , not just for BioPort , but U.S. biodefense policy .
With the stage set , Kadlec would quickly spring into action , guiding major policy changes on the heels of subsequent major events and disasters , culminating in his crowning as King of the stockpile .
Biowarfare and Terrorism Boyle , Francis Anthony Buy New $ 12.95 Robert Kadlec describes himself as having been an “ accidental tourist ” regarding his introduction to biological warfare .
An Air Force physician who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later say his interest in the field began when he was assigned to be a special assistant for Chemical and Biological Warfare to the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC ) , advising then-head of Special Operations Command Maj. Gen. Wayne Downing , on the eve of the first Gulf War .
Kadlec would later state that he had witnessed firsthand how the military , immediately prior to the Gulf War , had “ lacked the necessary protective equipment , detectors , and medical countermeasures including vaccines and antibiotics against the immediate threats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him to want to better U.S. biodefense efforts .
While holding this post at JSOC , Kadlec was privy to the advice of William C. Patrick III , a veteran of the U.S. ’ bioweapons program who had developed the U.S. ’ method for weaponizing anthrax and held no less than five classified patents related to the toxin ’ s use in warfare .
Patrick , who had left government service in 1986 to become a consultant , advised the Pentagon — then headed by Dick Cheney — that the risk of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anthrax , was high .
Patrick ’ s warning prompted the U.S. military to vaccinate tens of thousands of its troops using the controversial anthrax vaccine “ anthrax vaccine adsorbed ( AVA ) .
” Kadlec would personally inject AVA into around 800 members of the U.S. Armed Forces .
Kadlec would later note in Congressional testimony that no definitive proof of an alleged Iraqi biological weapons program was found during the war or afterwards , but nevertheless claimed elsewhere that “ the Iraqis later admitted they had procured large quantities of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggesting that Patrick ’ s warnings had had some basis in reality .
However , Kadlec failed to point out that these anthrax and botulism samples had been sold , with the U.S. government ’ s full approval , to Iraq ’ s Ministry of Education by a U.S. private non-profit called the American Type Culture Collection .
Donald Rumsfeld , who was then an envoy for the Reagan administration and running a pharmaceutical company later sold to Monsanto , would also be involved in the shipment of these samples to Iraq .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stephen Best Price : $ 1.28 Buy New $ 15.00 Following the war , American microbiologist Joshua Lederberg was tasked by the Pentagon to head the investigation into “ Gulf War Syndrome , ” a phenomenon that studies later linked to the adverse effects of the anthrax vaccine .
Lederberg ’ s task force argued that evidence regarding an association between the symptomology and the anthrax vaccine was insufficient .
However , he would later come under fire after it was reported that he sat on the board of the American Type Culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shipped anthrax to Iraq ’ s government between 1985 and 1989 with the U.S. government ’ s blessing .
Lederberg later admitted that the investigation he led had not spent enough “ time and effort digging out the details ” .
The taskforce ’ s findings were later harshly criticized by the Government Accountability Office .
Dr. Lederberg would prove to be an early , if not seminal , influence on Robert Kadlec ’ s outlook regarding the subject of biowarfare .
The Nobel Laureate and long-time president of Rockefeller University was one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States , alongside William C. Patrick III and other members of a tight-knit group of “ cold warrior ” microbiologists .
Kadlec and Lederberg would go on to collaborate on several books and policy studies throughout the late 1990s and into 2001 .
Years later , at a Congressional hearing , Kadlec would say that Lederberg ’ s words “ resonate constantly with me and serve as a practical warning.
” Aside from Lederberg , Kadlec was also writing numerous books and articles with Randall Larsen , who would later hire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy and operations ” at the National War College , where Larsen ’ s close friend – William C. Patrick III – also taught .
Many of Kadlec ’ s bioterror ravings have been preserved in 25-year old textbooks , like a U.S. Air War College textbook entitled “ Battlefield of the Future ” where Kadlec calls on the government to create a massive stockpile of drugs and vaccines to protect the population from a biological weapons attack , particularly anthrax or smallpox .
In one chapter , Kadlec argued that stockpiles of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to be procured , maintained , and be readily available to administer within hours.
” The Vaccine Race : Scie ... Wadman , Meredith Best Price : $ 11.17 Buy New $ 16.32 Kadlec ’ s views on the matter at the time of writing were greatly influenced by his first tour as a UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq in 1994 , where he was accompanied by William Patrick , among others .
Kadlec would later return to Iraq in the same capacity in 1996 and 1998 in search of Iraq ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Patrick had been so sure were there , but had never materialized .
After three visits , Kadlec would later confess that , despite what Kadlec called “ the most intrusive inspection and monitoring regime ever conceived and implemented ” by the UN , the UNSCOM weapons inspectors , including himself and William Patrick , “ failed to uncover any irrefutable evidence of an offensive BW program.
” Kadlec would later return to Iraq on two separate occasions following the 2003 U.S. invasion of country , again finding no proof of the program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kadlec was already imbued with the bioweapons alarmism that had been championed by Lederberg and Patrick .
That year , he fleshed out several “ illustrative scenarios ” regarding the use of “ biological economic warfare ” against the United States .
One of these fictional scenarios , titled “ Corn Terrorism , ” involves China planning “ an act of agricultural terrorism ” by clandestinely spraying corn seed blight over the Midwest using commercial airliners .
The result of the “ Corn Terrorism ” scenario is that “ China gains significant corn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ] dollars of additional profits from their crop , ” while the U.S. sees its corn crop obliterated , causing food prices to rise and the U.S. to import corn .
Another scenario , entitled “ That ’ s a ‘ Lousy ’ Wine , ” involves “ disgruntled European winemakers ” covertly releasing grape lice they have hidden in cans of paté to target California wine producers .
Bitten : The Secret His ... Newby , Kris Buy New $ 17.99 Around this same time , in 1994 , the relatively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ OTA , which informed policy decisions around questions of technological and scientific complexity on matters of national security , was cut by the new Republican majority that took both houses in the pivotal 1994 midterms elections .
At the time of its defunding , Lederberg sat on the OTA ’ s Technology Assessment Advisory Council ( OTA-TAAC ) , along with pharma industry insiders from Bristol-Myers Squibb , Lilly Research Labs and pre-merger Smith-Kline , and chaired one of its last study panels .
In OTA ’ s place , an independent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Policy Studies ( PIPS ) was co-founded by Special Consultant to President H.W .
Bush ’ s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board ( PFIAB ) and a former CIA program monitor , Michael S. Swetnam , who was reportedly “ tasked with profiling Osama Bin Laden before the September 11th attacks were enacted.
” The defunding of the OTA and subsequent creation of PIPS transferred policy-making on what are , perhaps , the most sensitive issues of national security away from Congress and into a private foundation teeming with operators from the vast underbelly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Former military officers , DARPA scientists , NASA policy experts , FBI agents , CIA operatives and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman can all be found on their member rolls and in their boardrooms .
PIPS and its sponsors would shadow Robert Kadlec ’ s career in government from the very beginning and remain in close proximity to him today .
One PIPS-linked individual would work particularly closely with Kadlec , Tevi Troy – a senior fellow at PIPS and an adjunct fellow at the much more polished Hudson Institute , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Troy has long been integral in shaping Kadlec ’ s biodefense policy agenda , which would remain conspicuously static and unchanging throughout the career he was just beginning .

A POWERFUL NETWORK OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES, A GLOBAL VACCINE MAFIA AND THEIR MAN IN WASHINGTON.
Last Friday, a group of Democratic Senators “demanded” that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Robert Kadlec, “accurately disclose all his personal, financial and political ties in light of new reporting that he had failed to do so previously” after it was revealed that he had failed to note all “potential conflicts of interest” on his nomination paperwork.
The report in question, published last Monday by The Washington Post, detailed the ties of Kadlec to a man named Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of a “life sciences” company first known as BioPort and now called Emergent Biosolutions. Kadlec had previously disclosed his ties to El-Hibri and Emergent Biosolutions for a separate nomination years prior, but had failed to do so when nominated to head ASPR.
Plague of Corruption: ... Mikovits, Judy Buy New $16.51 (as of 02:59 UTC - Details) Though The Post does note Kadlec’s recent failure to disclose these connections, the article largely sanitizes Kadlec’s earlier yet crucial history and even obfuscates the full extent of his ties to the BioPort founder, among other glaring omissions. In reality, Kadlec has much more than his ties to El-Hibri looming large as “potential conflict of interests,” as his decades-long career in shaping U.S. “biodefense” policy was directly enabled by his deep ties to intelligence, Big Pharma, the Pentagon and a host of corrupt yet powerful characters.
Thanks to a long and deliberate process to introduce biodefense policy, driven by Robert Kadlec and his sponsors, $7 billion dollars-worth of federally-owned vaccines, antidotes and medicines – held in strategically arranged repositories across the country in case of a health emergency – are now in the hands of one single individual. Those repositories, which compose the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), are the exclusive domain of HHS’ ASPR, a post created under Kadlec’s watchful eye and tailored over the years to meet his very specific requirements.
From this perch, Robert Kadlec has final say on where the stockpile’s contents are sourced, as well as how, when and where they are deployed. He is the sole source procurer of medical material and pharmaceuticals, making him the best friend of Big Pharma and other healthcare industry giants who have been in his ear every step of the way.
Kadlec assures us, however, that the fact that he now holds the very office he worked so long to create is merely a coincidence. “My participation in the ASPR project began at that time when I was working for the chairman of the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness…The bill was made law and the ASPR was created. It just was a coincidence that, 12 or 14 years later, I was asked to become the ASPR,” Kadlec stated in 2018.
It was all a random twist of fate, Kadlec asserts, that saw him occupy ASPR at this crucial moment in U.S. history. Indeed, with the country now in the middle of a WHO-declared coronavirus pandemic, Kadlec now has full control over the far-reaching “emergency” powers of that very office, bestowed upon him by the very law that he had written. Mad Medical Mafia: Exp... Doory, Laith Buy New $3.45 (as of 03:06 UTC - Details)
The story of how a former USAF flight surgeon came to have the exclusive dealer license over the single biggest stash of drugs in the history of the world is as disturbing as it is significant in light of current events, particularly given that Kadlec now leads the coronavirus response for all of HHS. Yet, Kadlec’s rise to power is not a case of an evil mastermind conquering a uniquely vulnerable point of the nation’s resources. Instead, it is a case of a man deeply enmeshed in the world of intelligence, military intelligence and corporate corruption dutifully fulfilling the vision of his friends in high places and behind closed doors.
In this third installment of “Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech-Industrial Complex,” Kadlec is shown to hail from a tight-knit group of “bioterror alarmists” in government and the private sector who gained prominence thanks to their penchant for imagining the most horrific, yet fictitious scenarios that inspired fear among Presidents, top politicians and the American public. Among those fictitious scenarios was the “Dark Winter” exercise discussed in Part I.
Some of these alarmists, among them “cold warriors” from Fort Detrick’s days of openly developing offensive weapons, would engage in unsettling anthrax experiments and studies while developing suspect ties in 2000 to a company called BioPort. As noted in Part II of this series, BioPort stood to lose everything in early September 2001 due to controversy over its anthrax vaccine. Of course, the 2001 anthrax attacks that followed shortly thereafter would change everything, not just for BioPort, but U.S. biodefense policy. With the stage set, Kadlec would quickly spring into action, guiding major policy changes on the heels of subsequent major events and disasters, culminating in his crowning as King of the stockpile.
THE ACCIDENTAL MADMAN
Biowarfare and Terrorism Boyle, Francis Anthony Buy New $12.95 (as of 04:59 UTC - Details) Robert Kadlec describes himself as having been an “accidental tourist” regarding his introduction to biological warfare. An Air Force physician who had specialized in tropical diseases, Kadlec would later say his interest in the field began when he was assigned to be a special assistant for Chemical and Biological Warfare to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), advising then-head of Special Operations Command Maj. Gen. Wayne Downing, on the eve of the first Gulf War.
Kadlec would later state that he had witnessed firsthand how the military, immediately prior to the Gulf War, had “lacked the necessary protective equipment, detectors, and medical countermeasures including vaccines and antibiotics against the immediate threats posed by Iraq,” allegedly prompting him to want to better U.S. biodefense efforts.
While holding this post at JSOC, Kadlec was privy to the advice of William C. Patrick III, a veteran of the U.S.’ bioweapons program who had developed the U.S.’ method for weaponizing anthrax and held no less than five classified patents related to the toxin’s use in warfare. Patrick, who had left government service in 1986 to become a consultant, advised the Pentagon — then headed by Dick Cheney — that the risk of a biological weapons attack by Iraq, particularly anthrax, was high. Patrick’s warning prompted the U.S. military to vaccinate tens of thousands of its troops using the controversial anthrax vaccine “anthrax vaccine adsorbed (AVA).” Kadlec would personally inject AVA into around 800 members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Kadlec would later note in Congressional testimony that no definitive proof of an alleged Iraqi biological weapons program was found during the war or afterwards, but nevertheless claimed elsewhere that “the Iraqis later admitted they had procured large quantities of a biological agents-anthrax and botulism toxin,” suggesting that Patrick’s warnings had had some basis in reality.
However, Kadlec failed to point out that these anthrax and botulism samples had been sold, with the U.S. government’s full approval, to Iraq’s Ministry of Education by a U.S. private non-profit called the American Type Culture Collection. Donald Rumsfeld, who was then an envoy for the Reagan administration and running a pharmaceutical company later sold to Monsanto, would also be involved in the shipment of these samples to Iraq. Germs: Biological Weap... Engelberg, Stephen Best Price: $1.28 Buy New $15.00 (as of 11:40 UTC - Details)
Following the war, American microbiologist Joshua Lederberg was tasked by the Pentagon to head the investigation into “Gulf War Syndrome,” a phenomenon that studies later linked to the adverse effects of the anthrax vaccine. Lederberg’s task force argued that evidence regarding an association between the symptomology and the anthrax vaccine was insufficient. However, he would later come under fire after it was reported that he sat on the board of the American Type Culture Collection, the very company that had shipped anthrax to Iraq’s government between 1985 and 1989 with the U.S. government’s blessing. Lederberg later admitted that the investigation he led had not spent enough “time and effort digging out the details”. The taskforce’s findings were later harshly criticized by the Government Accountability Office.
Dr. Lederberg would prove to be an early, if not seminal, influence on Robert Kadlec’s outlook regarding the subject of biowarfare. The Nobel Laureate and long-time president of Rockefeller University was one of the fathers of bioterror alarmism in the United States, alongside William C. Patrick III and other members of a tight-knit group of “cold warrior” microbiologists. Kadlec and Lederberg would go on to collaborate on several books and policy studies throughout the late 1990s and into 2001.
Years later, at a Congressional hearing, Kadlec would say that Lederberg’s words “resonate constantly with me and serve as a practical warning.” Aside from Lederberg, Kadlec was also writing numerous books and articles with Randall Larsen, who would later hire the Medical doctor to teach “military strategy and operations” at the National War College, where Larsen’s close friend – William C. Patrick III – also taught.
A POISONED OASIS
Many of Kadlec’s bioterror ravings have been preserved in 25-year old textbooks, like a U.S. Air War College textbook entitled “Battlefield of the Future” where Kadlec calls on the government to create a massive stockpile of drugs and vaccines to protect the population from a biological weapons attack, particularly anthrax or smallpox. In one chapter, Kadlec argued that stockpiles of necessary antibiotics, immunoglobulins and vaccines would have to be procured, maintained, and be readily available to administer within hours.” The Vaccine Race: Scie... Wadman, Meredith Best Price: $11.17 Buy New $16.32 (as of 03:02 UTC - Details)
Kadlec’s views on the matter at the time of writing were greatly influenced by his first tour as a UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq in 1994, where he was accompanied by William Patrick, among others. Kadlec would later return to Iraq in the same capacity in 1996 and 1998 in search of Iraq’s alleged stores of weaponized anthrax that Patrick had been so sure were there, but had never materialized.
After three visits, Kadlec would later confess that, despite what Kadlec called “the most intrusive inspection and monitoring regime ever conceived and implemented” by the UN, the UNSCOM weapons inspectors, including himself and William Patrick, “failed to uncover any irrefutable evidence of an offensive BW program.” Kadlec would later return to Iraq on two separate occasions following the 2003 U.S. invasion of country, again finding no proof of the program’s existence.
By 1995, Kadlec was already imbued with the bioweapons alarmism that had been championed by Lederberg and Patrick. That year, he fleshed out several “illustrative scenarios” regarding the use of “biological economic warfare” against the United States. One of these fictional scenarios, titled “Corn Terrorism,” involves China planning “an act of agricultural terrorism” by clandestinely spraying corn seed blight over the Midwest using commercial airliners. The result of the “Corn Terrorism” scenario is that “China gains significant corn market share and tens of billions [of] dollars of additional profits from their crop,” while the U.S. sees its corn crop obliterated, causing food prices to rise and the U.S. to import corn. Another scenario, entitled “That’s a ‘Lousy’ Wine,” involves “disgruntled European winemakers” covertly releasing grape lice they have hidden in cans of paté to target California wine producers. Bitten: The Secret His... Newby, Kris Buy New $17.99 (as of 04:41 UTC - Details)
Around this same time, in 1994, the relatively young Congressional Office of Technology Assessment or OTA, which informed policy decisions around questions of technological and scientific complexity on matters of national security, was cut by the new Republican majority that took both houses in the pivotal 1994 midterms elections. At the time of its defunding, Lederberg sat on the OTA’s Technology Assessment Advisory Council (OTA-TAAC), along with pharma industry insiders from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly Research Labs and pre-merger Smith-Kline, and chaired one of its last study panels.
In OTA’s place, an independent, non-profit entity called The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (PIPS) was co-founded by Special Consultant to President H.W. Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) and a former CIA program monitor, Michael S. Swetnam, who was reportedly “tasked with profiling Osama Bin Laden before the September 11th attacks were enacted.”
The defunding of the OTA and subsequent creation of PIPS transferred policy-making on what are, perhaps, the most sensitive issues of national security away from Congress and into a private foundation teeming with operators from the vast underbelly of the military industrial complex (MIC). Former military officers, DARPA scientists, NASA policy experts, FBI agents, CIA operatives and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman can all be found on their member rolls and in their boardrooms.
PIPS and its sponsors would shadow Robert Kadlec’s career in government from the very beginning and remain in close proximity to him today. One PIPS-linked individual would work particularly closely with Kadlec, Tevi Troy – a senior fellow at PIPS and an adjunct fellow at the much more polished Hudson Institute, itself a major funder of PIPS. Troy has long been integral in shaping Kadlec’s biodefense policy agenda, which would remain conspicuously static and unchanging throughout the career he was just beginning.
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Panic Reading

One positive activity possible during the Covid-19 panic induced confinement is more time available for reading .
It is good to have something different to do and think about besides this debacle .
Here is the list of books I have been reading with brief descriptions .
Jacques Semelin : The Survival of Jews in France ( 1940-1944 ) I read this book in French ( La survie des Juifs en France 1940-1944 ) before the confinement , but it was very much on my mind during this period because of its resemblance of the Covid-19 confinement to the occupation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see your papers please ” ) .
The key statistic that is the basis of Semelin ’ s study is that 75 % of the Jews in France somehow survived the occupation without being deported .
In contrast , in occupied Belgium only 25 % survived .
There is no single reason why , but the stories are as varied as the landscapes and peoples of France ( see Braudel below ) .
One ironic and humorous reason to any person who must deal with the French administration was the complaint by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the French bureaucracy did not meet their quotas in rounding up Jews .
The Survival of the Je ... Semelin , Jacques Buy New $ 31.72 My interest is deepened by the fact that my wife is working with Semelin on a documentary covering this topic .
Charles Williams : The Figure of Beatrice : A Study in Dante ( free ) Williams was a less known member of the Inklings .
He had a significant influence on among others C. S. Lewis and Dorthey Sayers , especially with this interpretation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago that I read the Divine Comedy and The New Life .
If you are a lover of Dante , you will appreciate this book .
If not , but you are interested you might start with Mark Vernon ’ s canto-by-canto description .
Here I will just provide a morsel about what Dante ’ s poetry and Williams book is about .
Love then , however he speaks of it , is a quality—a quality of himself towards Beatrice .
It is this quality , once he has become aware of it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analyse , by ‘ a passion and a miracle of words ’ .
‘ Dante ’ , wrote Coleridge , ‘ does not so much elevate your thoughts as send them down deeper ’ ; that is , make them more profound .
The distinction was well made ; it is not a rarefying but a deepening and enlargement of this quality and relation which is in question , until it becomes the universal relationship , in its most intense quality , of the close of the Paradiso .
The Figure of Beatrice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Virgil has a kind of tender loftiness in his answer .
‘ You—all of you—are always thinking of those things which are diminished by sharing .
But above , the more there are to say ours , the more of good and the more of love each has and knows.
’ ‘ How can the good itself be greater for each when many share it ?
how greater than if few ?
’ ‘ Because the more the love , the greater the good ; the larger the number of those who comprehend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ e come specchio l ’ uno all ’ altro rende—and each like a mirror renders it back to the other.
’ Fernand Braudel : The Identity of France : Volume One : History and Environment This book will be a great treat for anyone who has , or would like to , travel around France .
Braudel provides a history from the bottom up , with geology , geography , climate , etc .
playing the key roles .
Politics and war when considered still follow the lay of the land , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exemplar of economic description , the real economics of how people live in a particular region , move over the surface of the Earth to produce the things necessary for life .
The figures in my edition are not of very good quality , but wonderful nonetheless .
Consider this one , the distribution of roofing materials of all things !
The arrow points to the region where I have a house in the south of Burgundy .
Note the roofing material is the same as for the Mediterranean coast .
As Braudel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ valleys made the connection economically practical .
My neighbor there , Marc Jambon , is a retired wine maker .
His son Pierre-Antoine is I think the eighth generation in the family to make wine on this property ( since 1752 ) .
It is truly wonderful wine .
Mr. Jambon has unlimited patience in explaining wine making to a novice like me .
He first told me about the Mediterranean roof tiles and how the river affects the local climate .
Take a look at the beautiful landscape and the very reasonable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Butler was certainly an amazing person who lived an amazing life ( winner of two Congressional Medals of Honor ) .
He also had some very excellent things to say that are compiled in the free downloaded version I read .
But this was not a very good book in the sense of making an organized case .
A few examples of his excellent insights are provided .
The Identity of France ... Fernand Braudel Best Price : $ 3.77 Buy New $ 24.73 A racket is best described , I believe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems to the majority of people .
Only a small “ inside ” group knows what it is about .
It is conducted for the benefit of the very few , at the expense of the very many .
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes .
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it .
With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill , kill , kill .
To kill the Germans .
God is on our side .
.
.
it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed .
There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters .
One is the defense of our homes .
The other is the defense of the Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit .
Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket , pure and simple .
The third group of militarists in this country represents honest and sincere patriotic citizens of the type who believe all they are told—without stopping to analyze the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordinary citizens whose homes are their most cherished possessions .
Clever propaganda has convinced these misguided people that the lack of a huge national defense program is a direct threat to their individual homes .
These people are convinced an enemy army in apt to swoop down on them any moment , set fire to their homes , murder their children and rape their women if Uncle Sam is unable to send a powerful fleet of battleships to the harbor of Timbuctoo , on the other side of the world .
Robert Pirsig @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maintenance : An Inquiry into Values ( free ) War is a Racket Butler , Smedley Buy New $ 0.99 I was spurred to read ZAMM through my habitation of the little corner of the internet that followed Jordan Peterson to investigate the Meaning Crisis ( see my description here ) .
In particular , the YouTube channel A Quality Existence created by Sevilla King , who has read and commented on ZAMM .
But I became aware of this book many years ago when I was a mechanical engineering grad student at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engineering design course where the students were required to read ZAMM .
I didn ’ t understand this choice at the time , and as I was not a zen kind of guy ( sports and engineering ) I took no interest .
My advisor recently wrote to me that the students really enjoyed reading it .
It is a very different kind of book ; a travel story , a family story , very much a philosophical treatise , but perhaps most interesting to me was the tension of a man describing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book below ) .
Pirsig had undergone electric shock therapy .
He is the narrator who describes Phaedrus , his former self before the therapy .
Perhaps the most famous line from the book is “ Sometimes it ’ s a little better to travel than to arrive.
” This and many other fundamental truths are presented in the building of his philosophy of quality .
This condemnation of technology is ingratitude , that ’ s what it is ( see my recent article ) .
The application of this knife , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the building of this structure , is something everybody does .
All The time we are aware of millions of things around us…these changing shapes , these burning hills , the sound of the engine , the feel of the throttle , each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road…aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see .
We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so full of useless details we would be unable to think .
From all this awareness we must select , and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it .
We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world .
This structure of concepts is formally called a hierarchy and since ancient times has been a basic structure for all Western knowledge.Kingdoms , empires , churches , armies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Modern businesses are so structured .
Tables of contents of reference material are so structured , mechanical assemblies , computer software , all scientific and technical knowledge is so structured…so much so that in some fields such as biology , the hierarchy of kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species is almost an icon .
An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results .
An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question , when the data it produces don ’ t prove anything one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Art of Mot ... Pirsig , Robert M Best Price : $ 6.02 Buy New $ 10.29 The purpose of the scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths .
That , more than anything else , is what science is all about .
But historically science has done exactly the opposite .
Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts , information , theories and hypotheses , it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple , indeterminate , relative ones .
The major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indeterminacy of thought and values that rational knowledge is supposed to eliminate , is none other than science itself .
And what Phaedrus saw in the isolation of his own laboratory work years ago is now seen everywhere in the technological world today.Scientifically produced antiscience…chaos .
He felt that institutions such as schools , churches , governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth , for the perpetuation of their own functions , and for the control of individuals in the service of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our time .
The range of human knowledge today is so great that we ’ re all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him .
Scientific materialism , which is commoner among lay followers of science than among scientists themselves , holds that what is composed of matter or energy and is measurable by the instruments of science is real .
Anything else is unreal , or at least of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” is unmeasurable , and therefore unreal .
“ What you like ” can be a fact or it can be a hallucination .
Liking does not distinguish between the two .
The whole purpose of [ the ] scientific method is to make valid distinctions between the false and the true in nature , to eliminate the subjective , unreal , imaginary elements from one ’ s work so as to obtain an objective , true , picture of reality .
It is not uncommon , he said , for Indian villagers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a terrible time seeing the law of gravity .
Dominion : The Making o ... Holland , Tom Best Price : $ 25.62 Buy New $ 29.63 Which facts are you going to observe ?
he asked .
There is an infinity of them .
Traditional Scientific method has always been at the very best , 20-20 hindsight .
It ’ s good for seeing where you ’ ve been .
It ’ s good for testing the truth of what you think you know , but it can ’ t tell you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past .
Creativity , originality , inventiveness , intuition , imagination… ” unstuckness , ” in other words…are completely outside its domain .
My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done : by individuals making Quality decisions and that ’ s all .
God .
I don ’ t want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dominion : The Making of the Western Mind In the same corner of the internet where Sevilla King discusses Pirsig , the Calvinist pastor Paul VanderKlay has been promoting this book on his YouTube channel for several months .
Holland makes a convincing argument that Christianity has forged the world view of the West to such an extent it is , though invisible to many such as diehard atheists , fundamental to how we understand reality .
And because the West came to dominate the globe , this observation applies to virtually everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this world view is the concept of the secular versus religious that Holland explains is a purely Christian concept .
This is an important book .
Adrian Bejan : Freedom and Evolution : Hierarchy in Nature , Society and Science Freedom and Evolution : ... Bejan , Adrian Best Price : $ 16.90 Buy New $ 12.14 Dr. Adrian Bejan was another one of my graduate school professors in mechanical engineering at Duke .
He was immediately an impressive guy to us students , in part due to his size as a former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Bejan has made major contributions to the practical engineering fields of thermodynamics and heat transfer .
He has also made a mark as an educator through his books and his approach to analyzing and explaining complex phenomena governed by systems of partial differential equations using scale analysis .
I can attest to this as I was a student in the first class he taught at Duke more than 30 years ago .
This graduate level course on convection heat transfer was a revelation as I will explain .
In those days , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there was an emphasis on the difficult mathematics associated with finding solutions to the Navier-Stokes equation and the coupled conservation equations of heat and mass .
But by using scale analysis Bejan , in a seemingly simple fashion , was able to quickly pass the mathematical difficulties to illuminate the core physical phenomena under investigation .
Certainly in the end the rigor of the math was present in the course as it has been in the whole body of his work .
Over the intervening years he has developed the Constructal Law that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in another sense living systems ; living because there is movement .
The law is thus formulated that , “ for a finite-size flow system to persist in time ( to survive ) its configuration must evolve ( morph ) in time in such a way that it provides easier flow access.
” On this single basis he is able to show precisely how and why the complex geometric patterns occur in nature .
“ The Constructal Law is predictive : It teaches us how to discover the drawing and how to predict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time.
” His latest book is almost a stream of consciousness ( pun of flow intended ) as he treats such a wide array of subjects , but at the core is his Constructal Law .
I think this book is an opportunity to observe a great mind at work .
It is a very rare academic to author over 600 papers and more than 30 books .
But it is unheard of , literally unknown to me , of anyone to amass this productivity without an army of postdocs .
You see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with an emphasis on thinking .
He would walk 3 miles from his home to campus in those days .
I can imagine him observing the trees in Duke Forest while conceiving of the Constructal Law .
Furthermore , he made fundamental contributions to topics in fluid mechanics and thermodynamic analysis ( therefore applicable to heat and mass transfer ) .
In fact , in Wikipedia there are two entries for the Bejan number .
Yet it is amazing that the Bejan number I recalled was different , related to a critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dynamic turbulence .
I will give one example from the new book regarding the distribution of a flow into a surface made up of equal nodes , distributed uniformly .
But he then explains why a hierarchy still develops .
handling MR. HYDE : que ... Katz , Ira Best Price : $ 17.20 Buy New $ 12.98 I would add this also describes the physics basis of the Federal Reserve that explains the oligarchy in all but name ruling the United States .
Those closest to the big stream money spigot : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managers , universities , and of course the government itself have gorged on the wealth of the country .
I agree with Bejan in that… But again , the current hierarchy resulting from the actions of the Federal Reserve is not natural and I think is dangerously unstable like the Ancien Régime in France before the revolution .
Paul Bauer : The Coldest Winter in a Century : Book 1 Deeds Not Words and Book 2 The Hurt Men Forest Paul Bauer is another friend from my Duke years .
Arriving from St.Louis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in New York , Bauer received his PhD from the notorious Duke English Department chaired by Stanley Fish .
He was a very smart guy and did get a non-tenure track teaching position at Marquette University .
However , he is at the bottom of the intersectionality totem pole so a tenure track position was a one in a million shot .
Thus he made a sensible decision to take a law degree from Marquette after he had met his future wife there .
In the intervening years he has built a wonderful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career based in Milwaukee .
But he never gave up his love of literature .
As well as writing this novel , he has left his legal practice to teach literature in a local high school .
This is an old fashioned book .
And I seriously mean that as a high compliment .
With his Midwestern sensibility , Bauer treats men as men and women as women , and the human response to the age-old themes of love and war .
The story begins in a previous volume called Saint Ed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other side of the tracks with a very well defined moral character ( hence “ saint ” ) .
But he ends up in a poor marriage and in the infantry during WWII .
His 22nd Regiment ( which has the motto “ Deeds Not Words ” ) lands at Utah beach on D-Day and fights all the way to the Siegfried Line and the meat grinder debacle of a battle in the Hürtgen Forest ( called by the soldiers The Hurt Men Forest ) .
The book ends ( abruptly to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ German town of Grosshau at the end of the battle ; so I am eagerly waiting for the next volume .
I would call this novel Trollopian , that is in the style of Anthony Trollope ; having the microscopic complexity of human relationships set within the macroscopic expanse of world events ( e.g.
, Trollope ’ s Palliser novels and The Way We Live Now ) .
Bauer tells the historical aspects of the story with the precision of a well researched and written legal brief along with the literary nuggets of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a pleasure to read this good story about interesting people .
The book indicates the author is not only a very smart guy but also a wise and learned man .
Stanley Katz and Ira Katz : Handling Mr. Hyde : Questions and Answers about Manic Depression Like a traveller to a foreign land that has returned to describe what we otherwise could not imagine , my late brother Stan has described what it was like to be psychotic ( like Pirsig ) under the influence of manic depression .
I read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time in almost twenty-years to prepare it for a new printing .
While there may have been some changes in psychiatric approach since first published , the key points about the role of family , work colleagues , law enforcement , the justice system , commercial establishments and of course the medical community in dealing with mental illness , I think , are as cogent as ever .
I miss my brother very much so I am happy I have this monument to his courage and intellect to return to .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at The Meaning Code YouTube channel with Karen Wong .
The Best of Ira Katz

One positive activity possible during the Covid-19 panic induced confinement is more time available for reading. It is good to have something different to do and think about besides this debacle. Here is the list of books I have been reading with brief descriptions.
Jacques Semelin: The Survival of Jews in France (1940-1944)
I read this book in French (La survie des Juifs en France 1940-1944) before the confinement, but it was very much on my mind during this period because of its resemblance of the Covid-19 confinement to the occupation (i.e., “I want to see your papers please”). The key statistic that is the basis of Semelin’s study is that 75% of the Jews in France somehow survived the occupation without being deported. In contrast, in occupied Belgium only 25% survived. There is no single reason why, but the stories are as varied as the landscapes and peoples of France (see Braudel below). One ironic and humorous reason to any person who must deal with the French administration was the complaint by the Germans that the slow, impenetrable performance of the French bureaucracy did not meet their quotas in rounding up Jews. The Survival of the Je... Semelin, Jacques Buy New $31.72 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details)
My interest is deepened by the fact that my wife is working with Semelin on a documentary covering this topic.
Charles Williams: The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante (free)
Williams was a less known member of the Inklings. He had a significant influence on among others C. S. Lewis and Dorthey Sayers, especially with this interpretation of Dante. It is perhaps 30 years ago that I read the Divine Comedy and The New Life. If you are a lover of Dante, you will appreciate this book. If not, but you are interested you might start with Mark Vernon’s canto-by-canto description. Here I will just provide a morsel about what Dante’s poetry and Williams book is about.
Love then, however he speaks of it, is a quality—a quality of himself towards Beatrice. It is this quality, once he has become aware of it, which he is to express and analyse, by ‘a passion and a miracle of words’. ‘Dante’, wrote Coleridge, ‘does not so much elevate your thoughts as send them down deeper’; that is, make them more profound. The distinction was well made; it is not a rarefying but a deepening and enlargement of this quality and relation which is in question, until it becomes the universal relationship, in its most intense quality, of the close of the Paradiso. The Figure of Beatrice... Charles Williams Buy New $0.99 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details) Virgil has a kind of tender loftiness in his answer. ‘You—all of you—are always thinking of those things which are diminished by sharing. But above, the more there are to say ours, the more of good and the more of love each has and knows.’ ‘How can the good itself be greater for each when many share it? how greater than if few?’ ‘Because the more the love, the greater the good; the larger the number of those who comprehend each other, the more love, e come specchio l’uno all’altro rende—and each like a mirror renders it back to the other.’
Fernand Braudel: The Identity of France:Volume One: History and Environment
This book will be a great treat for anyone who has, or would like to, travel around France. Braudel provides a history from the bottom up, with geology, geography, climate, etc. playing the key roles. Politics and war when considered still follow the lay of the land, so to speak. It is thus an exemplar of economic description, the real economics of how people live in a particular region, move over the surface of the Earth to produce the things necessary for life.
The figures in my edition are not of very good quality, but wonderful nonetheless. Consider this one, the distribution of roofing materials of all things! The arrow points to the region where I have a house in the south of Burgundy. Note the roofing material is the same as for the Mediterranean coast. As Braudel explains, the Rhone and Soane river valleys made the connection economically practical. My neighbor there, Marc Jambon, is a retired wine maker. His son Pierre-Antoine is I think the eighth generation in the family to make wine on this property (since 1752). It is truly wonderful wine. Mr. Jambon has unlimited patience in explaining wine making to a novice like me. He first told me about the Mediterranean roof tiles and how the river affects the local climate. Take a look at the beautiful landscape and the very reasonable prices for this extraordinary product.
Smedley Butler: War is a Racket (free)
Smedley Butler was certainly an amazing person who lived an amazing life (winner of two Congressional Medals of Honor). He also had some very excellent things to say that are compiled in the free downloaded version I read. But this was not a very good book in the sense of making an organized case. A few examples of his excellent insights are provided. The Identity of France... Fernand Braudel Best Price: $3.77 Buy New $24.73 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details)
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it is His will that the Germans be killed. There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is the defense of our homes. The other is the defense of the Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple. The third group of militarists in this country represents honest and sincere patriotic citizens of the type who believe all they are told—without stopping to analyze the motives of the tellers. They are ordinary citizens whose homes are their most cherished possessions. Clever propaganda has convinced these misguided people that the lack of a huge national defense program is a direct threat to their individual homes. These people are convinced an enemy army in apt to swoop down on them any moment, set fire to their homes, murder their children and rape their women if Uncle Sam is unable to send a powerful fleet of battleships to the harbor of Timbuctoo, on the other side of the world.
Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (free)
War is a Racket Butler, Smedley Buy New $0.99 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details) I was spurred to read ZAMM through my habitation of the little corner of the internet that followed Jordan Peterson to investigate the Meaning Crisis (see my description here). In particular, the YouTube channel A Quality Existence created by Sevilla King, who has read and commented on ZAMM. But I became aware of this book many years ago when I was a mechanical engineering grad student at Duke University. My advisor taught an engineering design course where the students were required to read ZAMM. I didn’t understand this choice at the time, and as I was not a zen kind of guy (sports and engineering) I took no interest. My advisor recently wrote to me that the students really enjoyed reading it. It is a very different kind of book; a travel story, a family story, very much a philosophical treatise, but perhaps most interesting to me was the tension of a man describing his own insanity (see the last book below). Pirsig had undergone electric shock therapy. He is the narrator who describes Phaedrus, his former self before the therapy. Perhaps the most famous line from the book is “Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive.” This and many other fundamental truths are presented in the building of his philosophy of quality.
This condemnation of technology is ingratitude, that’s what it is (see my recent article). The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All The time we are aware of millions of things around us…these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road…aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. This structure of concepts is formally called a hierarchy and since ancient times has been a basic structure for all Western knowledge.Kingdoms, empires, churches, armies have all been structured into hierarchies. Modern businesses are so structured. Tables of contents of reference material are so structured, mechanical assemblies, computer software, all scientific and technical knowledge is so structured…so much so that in some fields such as biology, the hierarchy of kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species is almost an icon. An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don’t prove anything one way or another. Zen and the Art of Mot... Pirsig, Robert M Best Price: $6.02 Buy New $10.29 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details) The purpose of the scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths. That, more than anything else, is what science is all about. But historically science has done exactly the opposite. Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The major producer of the social chaos, the indeterminacy of thought and values that rational knowledge is supposed to eliminate, is none other than science itself. And what Phaedrus saw in the isolation of his own laboratory work years ago is now seen everywhere in the technological world today.Scientifically produced antiscience…chaos. He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth,for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. It’s a problem of our time. The range of human knowledge today is so great that we’re all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him. Scientific materialism, which is commoner among lay followers of science than among scientists themselves, holds that what is composed of matter or energy and is measurable by the instruments of science is real. Anything else is unreal, or at least of no importance. “What you like” is unmeasurable, and therefore unreal. “What you like” can be a fact or it can be a hallucination. Liking does not distinguish between the two. The whole purpose of [the] scientific method is to make valid distinctions between the false and the true in nature, to eliminate the subjective, unreal, imaginary elements from one’s work so as to obtain an objective, true, picture of reality. It is not uncommon, he said, for Indian villagers to see ghosts. But they have a terrible time seeing the law of gravity. Dominion: The Making o... Holland, Tom Best Price: $25.62 Buy New $29.63 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details) Which facts are you going to observe? he asked. There is an infinity of them. Traditional Scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination…”unstuckness,” in other words…are completely outside its domain. My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that’s all. God. I don’t want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out.
Tom Holland: Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
In the same corner of the internet where Sevilla King discusses Pirsig, the Calvinist pastor Paul VanderKlay has been promoting this book on his YouTube channel for several months. Holland makes a convincing argument that Christianity has forged the world view of the West to such an extent it is, though invisible to many such as diehard atheists, fundamental to how we understand reality. And because the West came to dominate the globe, this observation applies to virtually everyone on the planet. An example of this world view is the concept of the secular versus religious that Holland explains is a purely Christian concept. This is an important book.
Adrian Bejan: Freedom and Evolution: Hierarchy in Nature, Society and Science
Freedom and Evolution:... Bejan, Adrian Best Price: $16.90 Buy New $12.14 (as of 03:08 UTC - Details) Dr. Adrian Bejan was another one of my graduate school professors in mechanical engineering at Duke. He was immediately an impressive guy to us students, in part due to his size as a former basketball player in his native Romania. Dr. Bejan has made major contributions to the practical engineering fields of thermodynamics and heat transfer. He has also made a mark as an educator through his books and his approach to analyzing and explaining complex phenomena governed by systems of partial differential equations using scale analysis. I can attest to this as I was a student in the first class he taught at Duke more than 30 years ago. This graduate level course on convection heat transfer was a revelation as I will explain. In those days, before computational methods were so dominant, there was an emphasis on the difficult mathematics associated with finding solutions to the Navier-Stokes equation and the coupled conservation equations of heat and mass. But by using scale analysis Bejan, in a seemingly simple fashion, was able to quickly pass the mathematical difficulties to illuminate the core physical phenomena under investigation. Certainly in the end the rigor of the math was present in the course as it has been in the whole body of his work.
Over the intervening years he has developed the Constructal Law that is concerned with flowing systems, or in another sense living systems; living because there is movement. The law is thus formulated that, “for a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to survive) its configuration must evolve (morph) in time in such a way that it provides easier flow access.” On this single basis he is able to show precisely how and why the complex geometric patterns occur in nature. “The Constructal Law is predictive: It teaches us how to discover the drawing and how to predict the evolution—the morphing—of the natural design over time.”
His latest book is almost a stream of consciousness (pun of flow intended) as he treats such a wide array of subjects, but at the core is his Constructal Law. I think this book is an opportunity to observe a great mind at work. It is a very rare academic to author over 600 papers and more than 30 books. But it is unheard of, literally unknown to me, of anyone to amass this productivity without an army of postdocs. You see, Bejan really is an innovative thinker, with an emphasis on thinking. He would walk 3 miles from his home to campus in those days. I can imagine him observing the trees in Duke Forest while conceiving of the Constructal Law. Furthermore, he made fundamental contributions to topics in fluid mechanics and thermodynamic analysis (therefore applicable to heat and mass transfer). In fact, in Wikipedia there are two entries for the Bejan number. Yet it is amazing that the Bejan number I recalled was different, related to a critical length scale for the transition to fluid dynamic turbulence.
I will give one example from the new book regarding the distribution of a flow into a surface made up of equal nodes, distributed uniformly. But he then explains why a hierarchy still develops. handling MR. HYDE: que... Katz, Ira Best Price: $17.20 Buy New $12.98 (as of 04:58 UTC - Details)
The flow from the square territory to the outlet is distributed nonuniformly through the uniform grid. Most of the total flow rate … is concentrated in a small group of channels, …. Geographically, that group is composed of individuals who happen to be in the vicinity of the point of attraction, which serves as outlet for the big stream. This is how we discover that inequality persists even when the “one-size” design is imposed artificially. Geography is the reason for inequality in this extreme design. The “equals” who are positioned close to the point source or sink are the huge beneficiaries. This is the physics basis of the birth of oligarchy in post-communism Russia.
I would add this also describes the physics basis of the Federal Reserve that explains the oligarchy in all but name ruling the United States. Those closest to the big stream money spigot: banks, Silicon Valley, hedge fund managers, universities, and of course the government itself have gorged on the wealth of the country. I agree with Bejan in that…
Inequality is an alternative description of the nonuniform hierarchical distribution of movement on earth. This alternative is common when it refers to two equivalent measures of movement, namely, fuel use and wealth. Inequality has a negative connotation implying lack of justice, empathy, and access to wealth. This implication is in total contradiction with the natural origin of hierarchy, which is freedom of movement. The origin of hierarchy lies in the equal access that freedom provides to the whole, to morph its flow architecture, and to liberate its flows.
But again, the current hierarchy resulting from the actions of the Federal Reserve is not natural and I think is dangerously unstable like the Ancien Régime in France before the revolution.
Paul Bauer: The Coldest Winter in a Century: Book 1 Deeds Not Words and Book 2 The Hurt Men Forest
Paul Bauer is another friend from my Duke years. Arriving from St.Louis, via Princeton and a brief sojourn in New York, Bauer received his PhD from the notorious Duke English Department chaired by Stanley Fish. He was a very smart guy and did get a non-tenure track teaching position at Marquette University. However, he is at the bottom of the intersectionality totem pole so a tenure track position was a one in a million shot. Thus he made a sensible decision to take a law degree from Marquette after he had met his future wife there. In the intervening years he has built a wonderful, gifted family and a solid law career based in Milwaukee. But he never gave up his love of literature. As well as writing this novel, he has left his legal practice to teach literature in a local high school.
This is an old fashioned book. And I seriously mean that as a high compliment. With his Midwestern sensibility, Bauer treats men as men and women as women, and the human response to the age-old themes of love and war. The story begins in a previous volume called Saint Ed. Ed Rybowski is a Princeton student from the other side of the tracks with a very well defined moral character (hence “saint”). But he ends up in a poor marriage and in the infantry during WWII. His 22nd Regiment (which has the motto “Deeds Not Words”) lands at Utah beach on D-Day and fights all the way to the Siegfried Line and the meat grinder debacle of a battle in the Hürtgen Forest (called by the soldiers The Hurt Men Forest). The book ends (abruptly to me) as the 22nd takes the German town of Grosshau at the end of the battle; so I am eagerly waiting for the next volume. I would call this novel Trollopian, that is in the style of Anthony Trollope; having the microscopic complexity of human relationships set within the macroscopic expanse of world events (e.g., Trollope’s Palliser novels and The Way We Live Now). Bauer tells the historical aspects of the story with the precision of a well researched and written legal brief along with the literary nuggets of an English professor. But it also is a pleasure to read this good story about interesting people. The book indicates the author is not only a very smart guy but also a wise and learned man.
Stanley Katz and Ira Katz: Handling Mr. Hyde: Questions and Answers about Manic Depression
Like a traveller to a foreign land that has returned to describe what we otherwise could not imagine, my late brother Stan has described what it was like to be psychotic (like Pirsig) under the influence of manic depression. I read this book we wrote together for the first time in almost twenty-years to prepare it for a new printing. While there may have been some changes in psychiatric approach since first published, the key points about the role of family, work colleagues, law enforcement, the justice system, commercial establishments and of course the medical community in dealing with mental illness, I think, are as cogent as ever. I miss my brother very much so I am happy I have this monument to his courage and intellect to return to. I recently did a podcast discussing the book at The Meaning Code YouTube channel with Karen Wong.
The Best of Ira Katz