A Nail-Biting Documentary About A Potential Event?

Meant to post this a while ago...

"A real-life political thriller set on January 6, 2025, War Game imagines a nation-wide insurrection in which members of the US military defect to support the losing Presidential candidate, while the winning candidate and his advisors—played by an all-star roster of senior officials from the last five administrations—war games the crisis in the White House situation room. They have 6 hours to save democracy as the country teeters on the brink of civil war." 

https://wargamefilm.com/

Vets Voice Foundation https://vvfnd.org/

It has solid reviews and ratings from Rotten Tomatoes https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war_game_2024 

War Game was showing at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre as part of the Sedona Film Festival Last month. Vicky and I made an overnight trip to see it.

Before the show we dined at Creekside American Bistro https://creeksidesedona.com/

For breakfast we visited the Coffee Pot https://coffeepotsedona.com/

The Death of Expertise, and other problems...

The Death of Expertise explains a lot about our current social and political climate. Tom Nichols wrote this sobering book in 2017. Recent political discussions reminded me I'd always meant to read it. Wish I'd done so six years ago. It contains valuable lessons for the common person young and old, teachers and administrators in higher education, social media producers and consumers, journalist and their publishers, and of course experts who are not above mistake. An updated 2nd edition is due out in April 2024; I've pre-ordered my copy from our local bookseller. This copy is on the way to one of my favorite relatives...

Another Important Read

I recently purchased and read a copy of "Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present" by scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat  I've heard several interviews with her lately and believe she's on to something to which we all must pay careful attention. While many are drawing parallels between our current political climate and 1930s Germany, Ben-Ghiat makes a compelling case that 1920s Italy may be more instructive. 

PS I bought my copy from Peregrine Book Company. If we want local we must buy local.

Minding My Media Diet

We need to be careful to select a balanced selection of news from a variety of sources...

click on image to embiggen

I've been lazy about the news portion of my podcast feed and ended up with mostly NPR programming.  NPR news is highly rated as neutral and reliable, but bias runs from evident to annoying through their analysis programming.

Fresh Air

1A

On The Media

FiveThirtyEight The notorious Nate Silver and the gang are great fun to listen to, but once the Inauguration is complete their work is about done until the 2024 campaigns begin...

Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast Brian is about as out left as I care to go.  As soon his greatest fear - that Trump will steal the election - is put to rest I'll be retiring him.

I have decided to deliberately select some well-regarded conservative sources for listening. I'm looking for traditional conservatives who regard the aberrant Donald Trump presidency with something between disdainful tedium and Never Trump loathing.

The Editors, A National Review podcast is about as sensible as I hoped it might be.

The McCarthy Report, A National Review podcast is perhaps a little too indulgent of Trump campaign's legal hijinks, but the analysis is sharp.

The Reason Roundtable is populated by libertarians and would be anarchists. More amusing than thought-provoking so far. 

Many (too many) people I know seem to have selected news sources that make them the most comfortable in whatever bubble they have chosen to reside in.  If we're not at least a little uncomfortable with some things we hear we are probably playing it too safe by avoiding cognitive dissonance at all costs.

Good Advice

An important little book...

"Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier, is not a perfect book, but it is an important book. I recommend it, especially to those least likely to read it or heed its advice.

Our Inner Ape

A leading primatologist explains why we are who we are...

Frans De Waal's excellent book draw undeniable parallels between the great apes - bonobos and chimpanzees in particular - and humankind. In the categories of power, sex, violence, and kindness our similarities are hard to ignore. Excellent reading for the naturalist or the moralist.

Daegu

Daegu was our next stop...

We came to visit Haein-sa the repository of the Tripitaka Koreana, the largest existing library of the Buddhist canon.

As always, the walk through the park was scenic and soothing.

The temple complex was first built in the year 802.

All the bells, but no whistles. Drums though...

Temple guardians.

The Tripitaka Koreana are carved on wooden tablets and stored in specially constructed buildings, featuring natural passive ventilation and extended eaves to keep the sun off the collection.

Concoctions of minerals under the floors absorb moisture when it's too wet, but humidifies the library when it's too dry.

The tablets are birch treated in salt water. Each one was hand engraved. The Korean government once built a special climate controlled storage facility for the tablets. The tablets began to mildew in their new high tech residence, so they were returned to their 1200 year old home.

Daejeon

From Seoul we took a short bus ride to Daejeon...

This is the back entrance to Gyeryongsan. The hike up the hill into the park seemed tolerable. I quickly learned that if there is level ground in Korea they farm it or build a city on it. The rest of the country is either uphill or downhill. 

The mountain forests are as lush as the hills are steep.

3.2 klicks didn't look as far on the map.

The Nammaetap pagodas at our destination.

Korea has no shortage of scenic vistas.

There are attendants who live at the shrine. Don't blame them; the commute is strenuous.

The leaves were just beginning to turn...

Buddhist temples are lavishly detailed.

At Nammaetap we sat next to the temple with an older Korean gentlemen with whom we discussed the perennial natural of the world's religions, Darwinism, and Richard Dawkins' "selfish gene." He is a molecular biochemist who does health research at a government lab. He shared the last of his coffee with me.

Then the descent, down a 1.1 km long pile of boulders some map maker decided was a trail. Cassie had no trouble on the descent, but my knees are shot and steep downhills over broken ground is hard on my hinges. Back to the hotel for ice and ibuprofen!

There is a monastery at the base of the mountain. It has pavement and level ground. Only a kilometer back to the taxi stand.

Seoul

Some details of my visit with my daughter Cassandra in South Korea...

Sunday we took a tour to the DMZ, where we were only a couple kilometers from North Korea. Some exhibits on the border express an abiding interest in reconciliation if not reunification.

We visited the site of a recently discovered North Korean tunnel. Here propaganda is the name of the game.

Monday we explored the city on foot. There are ancient palaces preserved within the confines of an ultra-modern city. This one is called Deoksugung and was used by various monarchs from 1392 to 1919.

Portions of the past and its artifacts are well preserved at Deoksugung.

The main palace at Gyeongbokgung even has its own lake. A person can imagine they're not in the middle of one of largest cities in the world if you choose the right direction to gaze.

A restored stream runs through the center of the Jung-gu district. In it a heron plied its trade, seemingly indifferent to onlookers.

Fable, Fairy Tale, or Myth?

Thriller, Horror, or Fantasy?

American Fable, a 2016 film by Anne Hamilton, is gorgeous, evocative, and at times surreal. It defies easy characterization. Some might place it in the genre of magical realism but most of the special moments are subtle, more dreamlike than supernatural.  Rather, it has so many mythical archetypes, themes, and props - a troubled king, his pregnant queen, a venal prince prone to manipulation, the wily young princess (Peyton Kennedy as Gitty), her special pet, a well-meaning but bumbling constable, an evil wizard trapped in a dungeon, and a witch from an exotic land - it plays like a fairy tale. At times it transported me to the farm country of my youth.  American Fable is visually imaginative and heartfelt. Many critics liked it, even if they didn't love it.  Me, I plan to watch it again.

What If Justin Brierly Wrote A Book

And some of his favorite non-believers wrote a response...

Justin Brierly, host of Unbelievable, has just written a book titled
Unbelievable?: Why after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian. It's quite good, though it contains little we haven't heard on the radio program (or the podcast).  So of course me and some of the other non-believers who hang out at the Unbelievable forum are having a crack at a "Justin Response Book" in a manner inverse to the Christian response to Bart Ehrmann's How Jesus Became God: Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee. First, I had to read the book. Now comes the writing...

I've Got A Movie For You

If you're into understated science fiction, that is...

Watch the film Coherence (2014) cold. Don't Google it, or read up on it, or look it up, except to order it. I'm glad I didn't miss this clever and effective film. If you like metaphysics-flavored sc-fi you might enjoy it too. About as much fun as I've had watching a small, low budget film since The Man From Earth, or Pi, or Upstream Color, or Primer.

So, There I Was, Minding My Own Business

In Peregrine Books...oops!

I went in planning to purchase one book for my friend and I come home with five of my own. Well, I guess there are more dangerous addictions...

What Abject Cruelty!

Who puts a used book section in the museum gift shop?!!

Visited the Smoki Museum in Prescott this afternoon.  In many ways the Smoki People - white people performing in red face - were to Native America what the Rosicrucians are to ancient Egypt.  Still, they have a fine little museum featuring extensive displays of weaving, pottery, and lithics.  Best of all, on several shelves in the gift shop there are used books at garage sale prices.  The five I chose cost me all of $17.50.

Spare Time Plus Peregrine Books

Equals unplanned purchases...

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly, is for Cassandra, but don't her; it's a surprise.

Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks

Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, by Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey

Lucy M. Lewis: American Indian Potter, by Susan Harnly Peterson

More Grist For The Mill

You may have heard I have a reading disorder...

I have an irresistible weakness for books on sale at National Park, National Monument, and Heritage Site visitor centers.

We visited V Bar V and Palatki Heritage Sites in the Coconino National Forest today.  Their bookshelves are well-stocked.  I came away with:

• Guide to the Heritage Sites: Coconino National Forest Red Rock District
• Ancient Ruins and Rock Art of the Southwest, by David Grant Noble
• A Geological and Archeological Study of the Solar Gnomons at the V Bar V Heritage Site, by Todd Bostwick, Paul Limdberg, and Kenneth Zoll
• Journal of Arizona Archeology, Volume 3, Numbers 1 and 2, Fall 2015

Time for some reading...

2017 Goodreads Resolution

A few more books, a little less screen time...

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. In progress [16]

Death's End, by Cixin Liu. In progress [15]

The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters, by Christine Negroni. Negroni offers a credible theory about the disappearance of Malaysia Air 370 by folding in the fascinating and sobering details of at least a dozen other air disasters and near disasters that have occurred since the dawn of the age of flight. [14]

Deep Time, by David Darling. [13] 

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. [12]

Ancient Ruins and Rock Art of the Southwest, by David Grant Noble. Those who know me understand that sussing out what humankind was up to in the pre-historic period is my thing.  David Noble's book came highly recommended by another amateur enthusiast who works a V-Bar-V petroglyph heritage site.  It does not disappoint, offering succinct directions, useful descriptions, and thoughtful analysis of "ruins and rock art" found in my neighborhood.  [11]

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, by John G. Neihardt. "Black Elk Speaks" tells the story of an Oglala holy man and his Lakota people who lived through the worst of the American Indian Wars, from the Fetterman Fight to the Little Big Horn to the Wounded Knee Massacre. This book has long been on my "To Read" list (and my bookshelf), but when Joseph Campbell spoke highly of it in "The Inner Reaches of Outer Space" I bumped it to the top of my list. As I enter the autumn of my life I have been encountering books I should have read in my youth. This is one of those. [10]

The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, by Joseph Campbell. This collection of essays and lectures by Jospeh Campbell has been on my "To Read" shelf for quite some time, but Mortimer Adler took such exception to it in his "Truth in Religion" I had to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out Adler was upset with about one page of the 148 that make up "The Inner Reaches of Outer Space." I don't disagree with the views Campbell expressed on that page and the rest of the book is a heady melange of psychology, mythology, religion, art, and literature. Certainly not Campbell's most accessible work, but worth reading. [9]

Sinagua Sunwatchers, Kenneth J. Zoll. Of the thousand some petroglyphs discerned on the rock panels at V Bar V Heritage Site located along Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley, many correlate to midday shadows cast by two rock gnomens during the equinoxes and solstices and at other calendrical events throughout the year. "Sinagua Sunwatchers", by Kenneth J. Zoll, lays out the details patiently in methodical detail. [7]

Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth, by Mortimer Adler. The late Mortimer J. Adler reminds his reader, "De gustibus non disputandum: about matters of taste, there is no disputing. De veritate disputandum est: about matters of truth, we should engage in dispute..." And dispute he does. Adler's Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1990) is chewy, spirited, and oddly argumentative (Adler had some strange beef with Joseph Campbell, who approached religion as misunderstood mythology). A thought-provoking, challenging, and ultimately useful read. [7]

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, by Andre Comte-Sponville. My, what a fine "little book" this one is! Comte-Sponville reminds us that the search for meaning has long been - and will forever continues to be - conducted by the non-believer and the non-religious as well as the theist. He reminds the theist that atheism need not equal nihilism while reminding the atheist that non-belief need not entail fatalism. I plan to make gifts of this rich little volume to my favorite evangelical, my favorite Marxist, and many of the others I also love in between. I'll be reading "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality" again. [6]

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam. As with many volumes I finally have made time to read I wish that I'd read this many years ago. It stands as a worthy companion to the works of Rumi, Ecclesiastes, and the Tao Te Ching. [5]

Flintknapping: Making & Understanding Stone Tools, by John C. Whitaker. A rich resource for those who want to make stone tools or just understand their place in pre-history. [4]

An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything, by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber. [3] A worthy effort by two evenly matched opponents, yet more enjoyable than most such exchanges in that authors Rauser and Schieber obviously respect each other. Not sure they got to choose their title. Schieber was called upon to defend the implications of a materialism I'm not sure he holds, while Rauser defended a God of the Philosophers (bare theism) rather than the trinitarian~monotheism of biblical Christianity. I'd buy a sequel, but next time I'd hold out for paper rather than use the Kindle app on my smartphone again.

Hiking the Southwest's Geology: Four Corners Region, by Ralph Lee Hopkins. [2] A marvelous and easily accessible guide to all the many features of the primordial past that lie beneath our feet and entertain our eyes with scenic vistas. This is one of our "Go-To" books we use to plan our road trips across the southwest. Highly recommended!

Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It, by Julia Keller. [1]  A social history about the man and his times, the application of patent law, the rise of industrialization, the internecine machinations of weapons procurement by the American military establishment, and the role of military technology applied to the acquisition and defense of empire. Regrettably, this book contains very details about the innovative gun itself, its evolutions, or its re-adoption in modernized form in the Jet Age. Not what I expected.

Let's read 48 books in 52 weeks...