The Rabid Reader

Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat (David Dosa, MD, Thorndike Press, 2010, 290 pages)

It's about a cat.  If it were about a dog it would have been better.

Gay Marriage: A Bittersweet Victory? (Howard Chua-Eoan, www.time.com, June 25, 2011)

In the wake of New York State's legalizing of same-sex marriage this past week, Howard Chua-Eoan wrote a thought provoking op-ed piece that appeared on Time Magazine's website.  Chua-Eoan criticizes New York's law because it contains an exemption for religious institutions, to wit: religious institutions cannot be forced to conduct, solemnize or recognize same-sex unions.  To which I must ask: is it the place of the "law" to proscribe one's deeply felt religious beliefs too?     

I've excerpted portions of Chua-Eoan's piece below, and the entire op-ed can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2079861,00.html?hpt=hp_t2.

"No matter that New York is the largest state of the Union to hold that the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman is equal to that of a man and a woman. California, the largest state in the Union, had that distinction for a few months before electoral and judicial jiu jitsu tied marriage up in knots there. There are 44 more states to go and a rowdy presidential campaign season that is bound to roil a whole range of political bases. And who knows if the legalization of gay marriage New York, because it is New York, will actually work against marriage equality across the country. Could an exodus of gay people from the rest of the U.S. to the Empire State sap the will (and pocketbooks) of campaigns to legalize marriage in, say, Missouri or Minnesota or Kansas? Just saying.

"But in one very important way, marriage will not quite be marriage even in New York, even 30 days from now when the law goes into effect. That is because the psycho-sexual-financial-commercial-legal dramas that entangle the domestic lives of straight people often have another component — religion. And religious institutions have an exemption in the new law from accommodating gay people. It was key to the passage of the legislation.

"Marriage without a church or temple wedding isn't going to be the real thing. Why can some people have all the bells and whistles in the church of their choice but not me? Of course, there have been and will be congregations and churches that allow gay men and lesbians to be married in their midst and to bless those unions, recognizing that God loves them just as much as Governor Andrew Cuomo does. But some rich and influential religious institutions are not only are free to continue to reject gay men and women as equal beneficiaries of all aspects of faith but will now rally their congregants to reject politicians who are willing to abide with this extension of secular civil rights — no matter how much acceptance there is of same-sex marriage elsewhere, no matter how many wedding announcements appear in the New York Times.

"I write this as a deeply religious Christian who is pained that the church that otherwise provides me with so much spiritual comfort and joy will never allow me to marry within its walls. Some clerics may be 'liberal' enough to turn a blind eye to gay relationships so long as they do not have to recognize them, much less grant them any kind of imprimatur. And, as of now, even in New York, religious institutions cannot be compelled to perform such a simple act of charity."

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Erik Larson, Crown Publishing, 2011, 464 pages)

Fascinating peek into life in Nazi Germany through the eyes of an American diplomat. . . and his trampy daughter. 

This from Janet Maslin's review in The New York Times.  

"One of the malicious nicknames given to William E. Dodd by his fellow American diplomats in the 1930s was 'Telephone Book Dodd.' The joke was that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed Dodd ambassador to Germany in 1933, had supposedly meant to offer the post to a Yale law professor named Walter F. Dodd but made a mistake in looking up the name.

"As Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City, points out at the start of In the Garden of Beasts,by far his best and most enthralling work of novelistic history, nobody named Dodd was the president’s first choice. And the Berlin post was no plum. Other candidates had already shown their reluctance to do time in what, even before Adolf Hitler assumed absolute power, was an increasingly menacing Germany.

"But Dodd was unusual.  So was the modesty of his ambitions. And so were the extraordinarily candid, often unflattering records of his thoughts upon which Mr. Larson has abundantly drawn. Dodd was also the father of Martha Dodd Stern, an indiscriminate flirt who looked at a stint in Germany as a glamorous lark, and whose own abundant writing fills In the Garden of Beasts with outré remarks. Though she would become a popular author, live a long, complicated life and eventually be accused of spying for the Soviet Union, the young Martha favored breathless, thick-headed comments that no nonfiction chronicler of the Dodds’ misadventure would have dared to make up .

"Unlike many of his wealthy, socially connected fellow diplomats, Dodd was a relatively impecunious historian, the chairman of the department at the University of Chicago, who dreaded the obligations that came with an ambassadorship. But he was 64, felt morosely elderly and thought that Germany might be a safe, quiet place for him to complete his writing project. His book was to be a study of the antebellum American South. Dodd did not arrive in Germany predisposed to notice the way a regime might mistreat certain segments of its population.

"In the Garden of Beasts has the clarity of purpose to see the Germany of 1933 through the eyes of this uniquely well-positioned American family. There are hindsight-laden books that see the rise of Hitler as a parade of telltale signs. There are individual accounts that personalize the atmosphere of mounting oppression and terror. But there has been nothing quite like Mr. Larson’s story of the four Dodds, characters straight out of a 1930s family drama, transporting their shortcomings to a new world full of nasty surprises.

"The new ambassador was the fuddy-duddy, the man whose favorite way to end an evening was with a glass of milk, a bowl of stewed peaches and a good book. 'I can never adapt myself,' he complained to Carl Sandburg — who was one of Martha’s many gentleman friends, and whose language in writing to her is one of this book’s many unexpected treats — 'to the usual habit of eating too much, drinking five varieties of wine and saying nothing, yet talking, for three long hours.'But Dodd was forced to attend, host and pay for such events with his dutiful wife, Mattie. Their son, William Jr., was at 28 four years older than Martha when their father took the Berlin posting, and stayed much less visible than his highly dramatic sister.

"'I was slightly anti-Semitic in this sense: I accepted the attitude that Jews were not as physically attractive as gentiles and were less socially desirable.; Thus spake the 'slightly' opinionated Martha, whose remarks were unfailingly inflammatory and who quivered with excitement over the marvels of her new surroundings. She adapted to Berlin much more easily than her father did. But she was not the one who had to contend with increasingly violent and random attacks by German storm troopers on American visitors or had to report back to President Roosevelt. As Germany prepared to deprive Jews of their citizenship, Dodd — only slightly less casually disparaging than his daughter — advised the president: 'Give men a chance to try their schemes.'

"Mr. Larson makes every aspect of the Dodds’ domestic lives reflect the larger changes around them. When looking for a home in Berlin, he writes, the Dodds found many good prospects, 'though at first they failed to ask themselves why so many grand old mansions were available for lease so fully and luxuriously furnished.' The thrifty ambassador was at first pleased to rent at a bargain rate the home of a Jewish family in exile — and quite annoyed when the owner’s wife and children reappeared on the building’s top floor.

"In the Garden of Beasts, which takes its name from Tiergarten, the park across the street from this residence (though “Animal Garden” is a less lurid translation), would be smugly heavy-handed if it did nothing but emphasize the Dodds’ prejudices and naïveté. But it appreciates the ambassador’s inherent backbone, the mounting provocations that he faced, and the great dread he felt about having to deal directly with Hitler, once such meetings became inevitable. When they did meet, Dodd in top hat and tails, Hitler made a fool of him time and again.

"Yes, this was a family that joked excitedly after Hitler had kissed Martha’s hand, advising that she not wash the part that his lips had touched. (Hitler felt withering contempt for the ambassador’s party-girl daughter, despite his show of courtliness.) But Dodd, who did not rise to become a great statesman but did not bend to German pressure either, would eventually be transformed by what he saw coming in Germany. And it was his sense of history, not his morality, that made him savage the German vice chancellor who dared to profess ignorance at a party about why the United States had entered the First World War. 'I can tell you that,'responded Dodd, in one of his uncharacteristically dynamic moments. 'It was through the sheer, consummate stupidity of German diplomats.'

"The Dodds’ story is rich with incident, populated by fascinating secondary characters, tinged with rising peril and pityingly persuasive about the futility of Dodd’s mission. In his time, he was taunted, undercut and called 'Ambassador Dud.' Hitler would refer to him in retrospect as 'an imbecile.'Yet Dodd spent four years, from 1933 to 1937, in what was arguably the worst job of that era. And he ultimately recognized enough reality, and clung to enough dignity, to make Mr. Larson’s powerful, poignant historical narrative a transportingly true story."

 

Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (Andrew Caldwell, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 224 pages)

Surprising and mouthwateringly so.

What I thought was to be principally a historical work was actually a cookbook too.  The author, Andrew Caldwell, has worked as a classical chef in Bermuda, Mexico, and the United States. He has managed a number of resorts and overseen the development of more than 40 restaurants around the globe.  Here, in Their Last Suppers, Caldwell explores the favorite foods of some of history's greatest and most notorious, even describing some of these individual's last meals. 

Documented here are the final (or near final meals) of John Edward Smith (Captain of the RMS Titanic), Martin Luther King, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Diana Princess of Wales, John F. Kennedy, Rasputin, Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, Adolf Hitler, Marilyn Monroe, and others, including (oddly) John Candy, the great comedic actor.  Caldwell brings their fare and the recipes into the modern kitchen and provides specific preparation tips throughout.

To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson (Heidi Swinton, Deseret Book, 2010, 600 pages)

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, including myself, regard Thomas S. Monson, the Church's current president, as a modern day apostle of Jesus Christ, prophet of God, and successor to Joseph Smith who organized the Church in 1830.

This book and President Monson make me want to be a better man.

 

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin (Hampton Sides, Doubleday, 2010, 480 pages)

Excellent biography of James Earl Ray (and his many alter egos) and a meticulous and riveting account of Ray's murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the manhunt for Ray that followed.

Rebellion of an Innovation Mom (Anne-Marie Slaughter, www.cnn.com, June 5, 2011)

If you've read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (see my February 21, 2011 review below) you'll definitely want to read Anne-Marie Slaughter's thoughts on the topic, available here: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/05/rebellion-of-the-innovation-mom/.  Slaughter is the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.  I've excerpted portions of her post below.  

"Call it the rebellion of the mother of two adolescents against the Tiger Moms, but what this nation needs to be innovative and entrepreneurial is to ask our kids to do less.

"Innovation requires creativity; entrepreneurship requires a willingness to break the rules. The jam packed, highly structured days of elite children are carefully calculated to create Ivy League-worthy resumes. They reinforce habits of discipline and conformity, programming remarkably well-rounded and often superb young people who can play near concert-quality violin, speak two languages, volunteer in their communities and get straight A’s.

"These are the students that I see in my Princeton classes; I am often in awe of their accomplishments and teaching them is a joy. But I strongly suspect that they will not be the inventors of the next 'new thing'.

"Creativity requires a measure of random association and connection and substantial periods of down time, where the mind is allowed to run and turn over seemingly disconnected bits of information, images, and ideas. Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class (follow him on Twitter at @richard_florida), observes that 'many researchers see creative thinking as a four-step process: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification or revision.'

"Incubation is 'the ‘mystical’ step,' one in which both the conscious mind and the subconscious mull over the problem in hard-to-define ways.Hard to define, yes, but not hard to foster, as long as chunks of the day or the week are left open for relatively random activity: long walks, surfing the Internet, browsing a bookstore, household chores that don’t require too much thought, watching the birds at the birdfeeder and gazing out at the ocean. 

"Creativity gurus often suggest ways to add randomness to your life. Left to their own devices, teenagers are masters at drifting from fad to fad, website to website, and event to event as their fancy takes them, but that seemingly aimless, random wandering is exactly what we are programming out of them.

"Entrepreneurship means undertaking something new, something that you create or make happen that does not exist in your space. It does not have to require breakthrough innovation; successful entrepreneurs can borrow ideas that are succeeding elsewhere and transfer them. But our most famous entrepreneurs have a vision and follow it in defiance of conventional wisdom.

"To nurture young people who are willing to persevere in the face of deep skepticism or outright opposition, we must reward them or at least allow them to be rewarded for breaking the rules, not meeting our expectations by jumping through an endless series of hoops."

The Transformation of Legal Education (Sarah Kellogg, Washington Lawyer Magazine, May 2011, 7 pages)

Sarah Kellogg, a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., recently published a very interesting and timely article about the ever increasing challenges U.S. law schools face in adapting their curriculum and training to the needs of the market. 

The entire article can be viewed here (cut and paste, sorry): http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources/publications/washington_lawyer/may_2011/legal_education.cfm  

This from the introduction to Kellogg's article:

"Forces at work in the world are fundamentally transforming the legal profession. A riptide of 21st–century social and economic trends—the ascendancy of information technology, the globalization of economic activity, the blurring of differences between professions and sectors, and the increasing integration of knowledge—has driven the transformation. More systemic than cyclical, these changes have only been intensified by the 2008 economic crash.

"Law schools have been somewhat reluctant partners in this drama. Many schools have made nuanced modifications in their programs, while others have retrofitted much of their curricula, adding new programs on professionalism and ethics, focusing on building practice–based skills, and expanding their international outreach.

"'This is a time of change for the legal practice. The change in the economy precipitated changes that would have come inevitably,' says William M. Treanor, executive vice president and dean of the Georgetown University Law Center.

"'It does cause us to rethink how we prepare lawyers. Again, it’s accelerating a process that had already begun. Classically, law schools taught people to think like a lawyer. That was what the Socratic Method was about. It trained people very well, but for one part of what lawyers do. It didn’t train them to write, problem solve, and exercise judgment. We’re looking more broadly to train people for every facet of the law,' Treanor adds.

"The first official warning shot for law schools came in 2007 with the release of Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The report urged law schools to revamp their curriculum to reflect the real-world needs of the legal community, including emphasizing practice-based skills such as writing briefs, interviewing clients, and understanding legal ethics.

"Since then, rethinking the preparation of young lawyers has become a cottage industry. Law school calendars have been littered with forums, seminars, and panel discussions about the future. The most prominent among them has been the 'contest of ideas' effort known as Future Ed between New York Law School and Harvard Law School. Paradoxically, it seems that the 200 U.S. law schools accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) have taken 200 different routes to address the turmoil.

"Yet there is a feeling among some that law schools have spent more time discussing the future than moving in a straight line toward it. 'A lot of law schools are talking a good change game,' says Larry E. Ribstein, the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law and associate dean for research at the University of Illinois College of Law, who has written regularly on the future of legal education. 'At least it shows the recognition of the need to make change, but they’re not actually doing it. But then, it’s justifiable to not try to turn on a dime without knowing what the legal market is going to look like in five years. And nobody is quite sure of that.'

"Still, law schools are on a trajectory toward the future, whether they like it or not, pulled along by the restless and worried students they serve and the law firms they feed. Those schools that fail to keep pace with the profound changes upending the legal profession will find themselves out of sync with the new demands on lawyers and law firms.

"While it is hard to know for sure, many believe the future of the legal profession won’t be some fanciful Star Trek–type utopia, but rather a pragmatic, considered, and evolved state, where law schools will be called on to reflect the changes in society and the profession, serving both as leaders and followers.

"Ultimately, law schools in the future, like the legal profession itself, will be at once more collaborative, diverse, international, technologically friendly, and entrepreneurial than they are today.

"'It is hard for us to comprehend, but today’s students are likely still to be practicing law in the last half of the 21st century,' wrote Thomas D. Morgan, the Oppenheim Professor of Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law at The George Washington University Law School, in his paper 'Educating Lawyers for the Future Legal Profession.'

"'None of us knows much about what the world will look like in 2050, but the challenge of legal education is one of helping students navigate toward that indefinite future. To meet that challenge, we must think about what future lawyers will do. Conversely, as we think about coming changes in legal education, we may also get a richer sense of what kind of people tomorrow’s lawyers are likely to become.'"

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II (Robert Kurson, Random House, 2004, 375 pages)

Fascinating story and wonderful adventure.

Shadow Divers tells the story of John Chatterton and Rich Kohler, two deep-sea wreck divers who in 1991 discovered the wreck of a World War II German U-boat lying at a depth of 230 feet off the coast of New Jersey.  For seven years, Chatterton and Kohler searched for the U-boat's identity.  Along the way, Chatterton's diving cost him a marriage, and Kohler's love for his German heritage helped turn him into a serious U-boat scholar. The two lost three of their diving companions on the wreck and their mentor, Bill Nagle, to alcoholism. The successful completion of their quest fills in a gap in World War II history and the fate of what is now known to be U-boat U-869.