Elderhood by Louise Aronson

One of the best things about Elderhood is that Aronson pushes back against all of the '70 is the new 50' rhetoric. She points out that as long as we assume 50 is somehow better than 70, we are not being fair or kind to ourselves about aging.

Elderhood is an amazingly engaging book. Aronson has skillfully woven anecdotes, research, and personal experience into a book that reads like a novel. It reminds me a little of reading Omnivore's Dilemma, another nonfiction book that qualifies as a page turner.

This is not an overtly political book, but it does challenge the profit motives of our currently constructed health care system. She says bluntly, "Families often assume doctors know best. But medical professionals are the products and purveyors of a system that pays for only certain sorts of care, even when it's more likely to prolong suffering than to restore health and even when, in report after report, most state that they would not choose that care for themselves or their loved ones."

There is ample evidence that Aronson has bucked the system, and that she has experienced both successes and disappointments, as those who take on the status quo so often do. I have every confidence that this will be a widely popular book, and that it will empower legions of people to speak up, question more, and ultimately to change the way we all interact with our various health care machinery. Changing something with so much power takes pressure from every angle. Consumers will need to do their part.

There is a universal aspect to growing older. Even if every individual does not get that chance him or herself, odds are there are older friends or family members who will require us to interact with the elderly and the systems we have to care for them. But aging is not only about health care, Aronson gives us a new way of regarding age in general, and some ways to counter longstanding and harmful stereotypes.

Readers already in the Elderhood zone will almost certainly find this book compelling, but anyone who has a reason to interact with older folks or the systems that older folks depend upon will also find this a fascinating and thought provoking book.

FEAR by Bob Woodward

As soon as this book was released, I put my name on the library queue because, well, he's Bob Woodward. I admit that I have not read everything he has written, but I admire him immensely. He is the dictionary definition of thoughtful and intelligent with quite a bit of courage thrown in for good measure. This is not a tell-all book with salacious details designed to create sales. It is much more serious in it's content and format than several others that attempt to accomplish a similar purpose, namely: to explain our current politics.

It is fascinating to get a more complete and behind the scenes look at events that have been headlines for months or even years. This bit of realism will ring true to even the most seasoned skeptic. But the main draw of the book for me is that it delves into the most basic tenets of complicated foreign policy and economic theory in a way that is highly educational. These two areas are not my strong suits, but I am much more well informed than before I read this book. The reason that these things are explained in such plain language and simple ideas is that Woodward is chronicling the efforts of advisors and White House staff to explain these things to our current president in clear and basic outlines. I hope they are somewhat heartened by the fact that I learned something, because they have had their share of frustration.

I have never seen Woodward as a partisan fellow; he is much too wedded to journalistic integrity to veer in any particular direction. He is the embodiment of what journalists used to be before our dial-a-slant news atmosphere.

I don't imagine that a staunch supporter of this administration would enjoy the book too much, because Woodward does not bend over backward to sanitize the narrative. I do think the information is one of the most truthful and objective sources of information that can be found. It is highly readable and for some of us, highly informative. If you want it right away, you will need to buy it. On the other hand, there is one less person in line for it at the library now!

A Pretty Fair Explanation

I cannot say that Win Bigly was the one of most satisfying books I've read, but I do think it might be one of the most important. Many people have struggled to explain or understand the results of the 2016 presidential election, including PJ O'Rourke in How the Hell Did This Happen? 

The complete title, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, is a very telling indicator of the underpinning of Scott Adams' analysis. Many people know and love Scott Adams from his Dilbert cartoons. He is a true libertarian and his personal views are what I would call socially liberal, but economically brutal. He favors the "bootstraps" approach to economic problems, whether or not people have boots.

Nevertheless, he is able to talk about the persuasive ability of our current president with a clarity that is convincing, if not especially palatable. Scott Adams paints a pretty good picture of what the scene looked like from the angle of someone who did not have a very strong allegiance to either outcome. He seems a trifle too invested in what I would have called a false narrative about Hillary Clinton, but as his title points out, facts don't matter. If the narrative grew legs, the origins were not going to be questioned by a sizeable majority - or if not a majority, a big enough contingent to make a difference.

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt shares an overarching discussion about why and how people draw conclusions and make political and moral decisions. It is most certainly germane to our current politics, but Adams' book is much more specific to the personality of Donald J Trump.

If you are liberal, you might not like what this book has to say, but you will not be able to dismiss it. And you may find that it brings a little bit of the peace of mind that comes with at least knowing the answer to to PJ O'Rourke's big question. If you are a fan of our current president, you might find that Adams has articulated something that you knew intuitively, but might not have known how to explain.

Whether or not you like the current White House leadership, nearly everyone would have to agree that something important happened with the recent rise of nationalism and the triumph of celebrity politics. Looking at the situation from as many angles as possible is probably the only way to get enough of a handle on what happened to make a difference in the future.

The Righteous Mind

I have read this book twice already and I will read it again. It was written in 2012 and it seems to be more relevant every day. I have also heard Jonathan Haidt interviewed on a couple of occasions. He has been able to see and evaluate current affairs from a fairly wide and long perspective and it is a useful tool for saving one's sanity.

If you find yourself perplexed or even enraged over current events, this philosophical look at people and how they think will, at least, explain how we can seem so different from each other. In a nutshell, we all arrive at our conclusions by means of emotional cues, and then try to come up with reasons for why we think and feel the way we do. We like to think of ourselves as rational, fact based creatures, so we go out and search for evidence that we are correct about the things that we have already concluded to be true. In so doing, of course, we skip over a great deal of information that doesn't square with our already formed conclusions.

The biggest question is whether there is hope for us getting along better, and the answer is: Some. In the meantime, if we understand that our neighbors, our family and our friends are not so different from us, we feel a bit more sanguine about our differences.

Sometimes it seems like current events move along so quickly that any political theory has an extremely short shelf life. By Friday, a show aired on Tuesday is hopelessly irrelevant. The ideas in this now five year old book have become more rather than less relevant. It is definitely worth a look, or even a second look.

John Dean

Conservatives without Conscience by John Dean
Dean describes the difference between the Goldwater version of conservatism and the modern variety. This is informative and interesting.

Modern Politics

Piety and Politics by Barry Lynn
Lynn is the head of an organization calling for careful separation of church and state (Americans United for Separation of Church and State), and he and his organization have figured prominently in several court cases surrounding this topic. He is a very well informed author, having been a front and center player in many of the leading civil liberty issues during the past thirty or so years.

Faith and Politics by John Danforth
Danforth has an impressive background. He is an Episcopalian minister, has been a US Senator, and a United Nations ambassador. He is a lifelong Republican, and writes about the traditional values of the Republican party, and the current trends in the Republican party, which he finds deplorable.