We went to the fireworks last night at one of the literally dozens of shopping malls here in this hillbilly hell litle burgh. Fortunately the Barnes and Noble was open-the better to capitalize on hundreds of people converging on said shopping mall. Since they had a Starbucks and we had time to kill-we joined the throng. $52 poorer we went out to see the fireworks. ( Which seemed shorter than last year-but then again no American fireworks display holds a candle to the Hanami which will go on in Japan from now through the end of August.)
Two gardening books for the S.O. Big mistake-last thing she needs is to get more dug in.
And two books for me:
Seemed like an interesting book that refutes most of the popular myths that have taken hold in the public consiousness. We’ll see as I read it on the plane up north next week.
And the other:
Slate columnist Kaplan takes a contrarian view to the common wisdom that the ’60s were the source of the cultural shift from pre-WWII traditions to the individualistic, question-authority world of today. In Kaplan’s view, the watershed year in this transformation is 1959. He delves into that year’s cultural and political scene, citing Miles Davis and his revolutionary album Kind of Blue; William Burroughs and his equally revolutionary novel, Naked Lunch; and the opening of Frank Lloyd Wright’s radically designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City as examples of fundamental breaks with past conventions.
I’m hoping to get this one done a little later in the month. I had read about the book and since I was born during that particular era -and I had heard a lot about this particular book-I thought, "Why not?" I suspect Kapaln may be right.
I also finished a couple of books recently. George Friedman’s book was interesting but I think he started from a conclusion and worked backwards from it-namely that American dominance as the single superpower is pre-ordained. Nonetheless, his look at some of the trends and the flows of international politics is worth a look. And he does point out that the competitors are nipping at the heels of the US.
I liked Fareed Zakaria’s book better. Most neo-cons and supporters of the neo-con interventionist philosophy probably hate it. Basically, Zakaria takes a look at the data and says that there is no way the US will remain the only power to contend with in the world. Rather than bemoan that fact however-he points out that its actually something the US can embrace-and emerge better from-if it would only try. I agree with him on that. A recognition that the US does not have to be every where, for everyone is a good thing. If, in that retrenchment, the country turned inward to strengthen itself economically-it will be in a stronger competitive position. Zakaria is not advocating isolationism-just a recognitions of the limits of what US power can achieve.
Probably the one down side to the book is that Zakaria is way too complimentary to India. ( He’s Indian-so go figure). I don’t share is admiration for a complex set of reasons, some which have to do with the fact that I still think they ought to be governed by a Viceroy answerable to the British government. That’s a pipe dream of course-but it still does not mean I have to like them any more. I think India still has a long way to go-and it needs to make a greater commitment to all of its people-not just the 1/3 or so that it props up at the expense of grinding poverty for the rest.
Nonetheless, its worth a read-and I recommend it.
Skippy/
I have a slightly different take on the 60s. I would hold that one can divide the period between 59-60–the election of JFK–and 66-67 on. I have to give credit for this bifurcation delineation to a President of the LSU SGA, Bentley Alexander, 3 classes my junior, whom I at first regarded as an insubstantial twerp: “The first half,” he claims was “characterized as a period of optimism on all sides–the left thought everything was going to change for the better, and the right thought everything was going to stay the same.” The second half–the period of discord–he went on to say, only proved how wrong both sides were.
Another characterization or gloss on that era of comity and optimism that was the first half of the decade was perhaps well put by a “CBS Special Report” circa 1987 in which someone–don’t remember who–was quoted as saying: “We didn’t want to “change” anything–we just wanted to “improve” everything.
I won’t tackle the book for about a week or so. But I think that he may be onto something.