The Price of Civilization

Economics and ethics after the fall...

Marvelously challenging and more than a little depressing podcast (or video if you prefer) of a lecture presented by Professor Jeffrey Sachs at the LSE in December 2011 (I'm catching up on my podcasts steadily but slowly).  Sobering stuff, but what choice have we got?

UPDATE: Another interesting LSE lecture (a panel talk actually) titled, About Time, examines some of our social and economic assumptions about the length of the work week in western nations.  It feels a little like a counterpoint to Sachs' talk and is a little less dire.  This one was recorded in January of this year.

Photo credit: http://theenvironmentshow.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-sachs-sustainable-economist.jpg%20

Did You Choose To Read This Post?

Experts disagree...

The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a neat little collection of essays regarding the concept of free will.  Read them, or don't.  It's your decision.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting analysis of five of the papers, written by the author of the sixth.

Image credit: René Descartes' illustration of dualism courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)

The Birds, and Zombies, and Monsters

Oh, my!

Cassie and I went to see The Birds at the Guthrie's Dowling Studio Wednesday evening this week.  Based on Daphne du Maurier's short story of the same name, not Hitchcock's 1963 masterpiece, this play by Conor McPherson departs from both in significant and important ways.  It evokes the claustrophobic "survivors stuck in a stranger's house" trope fleshed out by George Romero in the years since du Maurier and Hitchcock.  It could have been angry birds, killer bees, zombies, or alien invaders outside; the effect of being confined in the house peels the veneer off the terrorized inhabitants all the same.  In time one begins to wonder whether the real monsters are outside the house or hiding inside it.  It's not perfect - it sags from time to time in its intermission-less 95 minutes - but it has its moments, and live theater is always its own sort of special treat.  This production of The Birds even comes with a study guide.  Public rush seating costs $20 Sunday through Thursday evenings and all matinees, and $25 Friday and Saturday evenings.  This will save you $9-14 per ticket.  The Dowling Studio is general admission so show up early and choose a seat that's exactly as good as that secured with full price ticket.  It runs through April 8.

The Walking Dead season finale is this Sunday (already, what is it with these 13 episode cable TV "seasons" with their halfway hiatus anyway?).  I have mixed feelings about the series, but it's the only fresh zombie show in town.  It seems mostly a parable about how difficult it is to protect your family and maintain a sense of community when the chips are down.

Even the spiritually minded Krista Tippett dipped into the genre in a 1 December 2011 On Being episode titled Monsters We Love.  Not her best or most focused work.  It was frustrating to listen to the usually divine Ms. Tippett and her guest, Diane Winston, discussing shows one or the other had not seen.  That, and they got all gaga about vampires, the monster female victims most hope to encounter.

Why do we love apocalypses?  Why are we fascinated with disastrous turns of nature?  What is the attraction of once human monster who now lack personality and volition but present a deadly threat to the living?  Why do we watch - or choose not to watch - Doomsday Preppers or Hoarding: Buried Alive?

Some possible answers have been offered over the years.  Are we embracing the unifying effect of fear, regardless the sort of horror entertainment we're watching?  Indulging our fear of the Other?  Fretting over a fear of loss of control (although that's usually more of a shape shifting werewolf's concern)?  Do our psyches seek release after bearing the numbing weight of terror, war, and recession for more than a decade?  Are we rehearsing our responses to fear and uncertainty?  Or are we engaged in a survivalist revenge fantasy, in which all our frustrations with family, friends, and neighbors can be solved with a head shot, like some real world "first person shooter" video game?  Don't look too close unless you really want to know the answer.

Why Are There More Security Issues With Each Passing Day?

Asks a LinkedIn peer who lives and works in Pakistan...

I won't presume to speak to the realities on the ground in Pakistan, but here in the States I wonder sometimes whether there really are more security problems, or are we simply being told about issues we were never told of before?

The voracious 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of social media present stories – large, small, and obscure - to us with such urgency that it's easy to imagine things are worse.

I find that not watching news programming commercial television or listening to commercial radio drive time talk shows helps a lot.

When we look at the Google news aggregator there may be thousands of reports on a single topic but almost of them are based on the same wire service story.

When selecting the form and quantity of social media to consume we should be careful not to choose sources and communities with which we always agree.

Otherwise we risk being led into an echo chamber where group think and confirmation bias reinforce our human tendency toward cultural cognition of risk which create a sense of dread that is deeper than the facts call for.

Specialization Is For Insects

To borrow a phrase from Robert A. Heinlein, I try not focus too narrowly on any given topic; it's the surprises that are most interesting...

For those of you who do not have access to my LinkedIn "Reading List by Amazon," here are some of my non-fiction shooting, hunting, fighting, and warfare favorites:

1776 by David McCullough

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose

A History of Warfare by John Keegan

A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa: Being a Narrative of Nine Years Spent Amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa by Frederick Courteney Selous

A Rifleman Went To War by Herbert W. McBride

African Rifles & Cartridges by John Taylor

After Big Game in Central Africa by Edouard Foa

American Hunting Rifles: Their Application in the Field for Practical Shooting by C. Boddington

Another country: Personal adventures of the twentieth century by Jeff Cooper

Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Douglas D. Scott, Richard A. Fox Jr., Melissa A. Connor, Dick Harmon

Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Re-examined by Richard Allan Fox Jr.

Beyond Fair Chase: The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting by Jim Posewitz

Big Game Hunting and Collecting In East Africa, 1903-1926 Kalman Kittenberger 
  
Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose

Cooper on handguns by Jeff Cooper 

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 

1754-1766 by Fred Anderson

Days Afield: Journeys and Discoveries in Hunting and Fishing by Thomas McIntyre

Death in the Desert: The Fifty Year's War for the Great Southwest by Paul I. Wellman

Dispatches by Michael Herr

Fireworks: A Gunsite Anthology by Jeff Cooper
  
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides

Guide to Nyati: The Art of Hunting the African Buffalo

Gun and camera in southern Africa; a year of wanderings in Bechuanaland, the Kalahari  Desert, and the Lake River country, Ngamiland by H A Bryden

Herodotus: The Histories by Herodotus *

Hiroshima by John Hersey

History of Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Hit Or Myth by Louis Awerbuck

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Horn of the Hunter: The Story of an African Safari by R. Ruark

Horned Death by John Burger

In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection by Massad F. Ayoob

Instinctive Shooting by G. Fred Asbell

Kill or Be Killed: The Rambling Reminiscences of an Amateur Hunter by Major W. Robert Foran

Kursk: The Clash of Armour by Geoffrey Jukes

Lion-Hunting in Somali-Land by C. J. Meliss

Longbow: A Social and Military History by Robert Hardy

Moving Mountains, Lessons in Leadership & Logistics From the Gulf War by Lt. Gen. William G, Pagonis

No Second Place Winner by Bill Jordan

Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression by Robert L. O'Connell

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel C. Fick

Principles of Personal Defense by Jeff Cooper

Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser

Rifles For Africa by Gregor Woods

Roman Warfare by Adrian Goldsworthy

Safari Rifles by Craig Boddington

Sharpshooting For Sport And War by William Wellington Greener

Shots at Big Game by Craig Boddington

Shots fired in anger: A rifleman's view of the war in the Pacific by John B George

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell

Song of the Paddle: An Illustrated Guide to Wilderness Camping by Bill Mason

Stalking & Still-Hunting by G. Fred Asbell

Street Smart Gun Book by John Farnam

Tactical Reality: An Uncommon Look at Common-Sense Firearms Training and Tactics by Louis Awerbuck

That Every Man Be Armed by Stephen P. Halbrook

The AK47 Story by Edward Clinton Ezell

The Art of the Rifle by Jeff Cooper

The Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1515 by Charles Oman

The Combat Shotgun And Submachine Gun: A Special Weapons Analysis by Chuck Taylor

The Complete Book Of Combat Handgunning by Chuck Taylor

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning, Second Edition by John S. Farnam

The Fighting Rifle: A Complete Study of the Rifle in Combat by Chuck Taylor

The Hunting Rifle: Design, Selection, Ballistics, Marksmanship by Townsend Whelen

The Mask of Command by John Keegan

The Modern Technique of the Pistol by Gregory B. Morrison

The Lost Art of War: Recently Discovered Companion to the Bestselling The Art of War by Sun-Tzu

The Rifle in America by Philip B. Sharpe

To Ride, Shoot Straight & Speak the Truth by Jeff Cooper

The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45 by Stephen E. Ambrose

Up North (Outdoor Essays & Reflections) by Sam Cook

Use Enough Gun by Robert Ruark

With British Snipers to the Reich by Capt. C. Shore 

* Okay, Herodotus was pretty fanciful, less so than Homer - who was clearly a storyteller without pretense, but not nearly so careful as Thucydides - the West's first serious historian.

UPDATE: As of late March 2012 I have discovered Goodreads and have moved many of my reading details here http://www.goodreads.com/michael_brady