Aug 17 2011
Ahem …
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Hillsdale professor and author Burt Folsom joins Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry to discuss his book, New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.
Seriously, if you are interested in FDR and/or economic history – particularly Keynesian – then click over and give a listen.
Aug 11 2011
My most recent read is about a very polarizing figure in the George W. Bush Administration – Donald Rumsfeld. His book, Known and Unknown: A Memoir, chronicles his life – mainly his political life. It is not a quick read by any imagination at 726 pages, but it flows well for the most part.
The book is divided into 14 parts which generally cover his childhood, Navy career, Congressional terms, various roles in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, private sector career, and stint as Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration. A majority of the book (close to 500 pages) covers his years in the Bush Administration.
One word describes Rumsfeld’s political life – fascinating. He was obviously an important player in the Bush Administration, but I did not know how influential he was in his earlier political career - especially in the Nixon and Ford Administrations. He had relatively minor roles in the Nixon Administration until he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Under Ford, he was the Whitehouse Chief of Staff and then the Secretary of Defense. In each of these roles, he brought his own style of leadership – allowing his subordinates to do their jobs without much interference from him unless they screwed up.
Aug 11 2011
I have begun a partnership with Pejman Yousefzadeh and Coffee and Markets producing podcasts with various authors. This week we were joined by Tim Groseclose to discuss the his new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.
Here is the publishers synopsis:
Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise, quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or “political quotient” of voters and politicians. Among his conclusions are: (i) all mainstream media outlets have a liberal bias; and (ii) while some supposedly conservative outlets—such the Washington Times or Fox News’ Special Report—do lean right, their conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of most mainstream outlets. Groseclose contends that the general leftward bias of the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points, on a scale of 100, the difference between the current political views of the average American, and the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California or Salt Lake County, Utah. With Left Turn readers can easily calculate their own PQ—to decide for themselves if the bias exists. This timely, much-needed study brings fact to this often overheated debate.
If that seems interesting to you, click on over and give a listen.
Aug 10 2011
On a semi-regularly basis something weird happens and my visits drop off a cliff. I have never been able to figure out why but this is a graphic representation:
Which then causes this …
Aug 10 2011
In my review of The Magicians I offered this opinion as to what its author was up to:
What Lev Grossman attempts to do in The Magicians is both bring this shared love of childhood fantasy adventures into a more adult-like world but also ask the question: “What if something like Narnia really existed?” These two concepts make up the bulk of the book but they do not always work together.
The just released sequel, The Magician King, picks up where this left off and ads the question: “What if you found the fantasy land of your dreams but eventually got bored and restless? “What if it wasn’t enough?”
Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom. Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.
Magician King is still a dark, adult modern version of the young adult or childhood fantasy adventure and it still contemplates the question what if magic, and the fantasy land of your childhood, was real. But then it takes this background and foundation and forces the characters to wrestle with the complexity and difficulty of adulthood that remain even if magic exists. What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be willing to really give of yourself to something or someone larger than your own selfish interests. Does the happy ending still result?
Along the way Grossman also explores what the architecture or building blocks of magic might look like and how human interaction with that – past, present and future – might work or not work.
More after the jump …
