I never heard of Rosalind Franklin. We've all heard of Francis Crick and James Watson and their Nobel prize for discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. It was Franklin's x-ray photograph of the molecule that showed them what it looked like. Her boss, whom she wasn't even speaking to at the time she shot the molecule, shared in the prize with them.
Rosalind is not the Dark Lady of DNA, except that she worked in a photography lab. She personifies her age: science being predominantly an all boys club where connections and influence tampered with pure discovery in award making. Rosalind like all of us inherited characteristics for her family's genes and her family's history in a point of time. She focused on accuracy and precision, at a cost of forgoing leaps of imagination. All of her work rested on fact and direct observation, she was not a speculator. Her talents and assets were recategorized as flaws and limitations by more tied in ambitious male scientists.
She bounced around the world trying to get a position in a laboratory that was tenured and accommodating. It proved almost impossible.
The book could make a livid feminist extol her as an abused victim of male dominance. That band wagon seems to play a song most younger women no longer listen to. It becomes more a morality tale, of a woman tempered by her culture and time. But aren't we all? It is a tale of caution and insight, suggesting skills women might need to still navigate the world of work successfully.
To Crick and Watson, there was no i teamwork, but a big capital one in PrIze.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
From Leadership to Science but Still Dwelling in Nonfiction
Well, I guess I wasn't really fully back when I announced my return to posting three months ago was I? I must admit retirement is a lot like taking a cure. There are plenty of things I keep doing from my pre R-day life, like fancy cooking, reading and my new hobby -- home improvement construction supervision -- but my urge to communicate has dropped below freezing. Because I restrain myself from calling or writing my former staff, as my voice is now only a weak impression or reminiscence without authority, my brain has concluded that others are equally unaffected by my literary reviews.
Too bad, I will really try over the next couple of days to at least array all the books I have read this fall and winter even if my clever turn of phrase is somewhat rusty.
Since I last posted I did figure out a theme for 2018 -- moving from my quest to understand what makes a good national leader, to reading in the sciences. Let me start with a book I read yesterday in just a couple of hours. (Remember readers, you can always tell an easy book if it has book club discussion questions in the back.) Nonetheless, I found some interesting concepts and contrast and compare opportunities in Irene Pepperberg's Alex and Me.
Pepperberg is a chemist who ended up doing experiments in biology, specifically to determine whether and how language develops in non-mammals; as opposed to those scientists who were working at teaching sign language to chimps and gorilla, she worked with grey parrots that vocalized.
Isn't it the knee jerk reaction that parrots echo back words and phrases in mindless repetition of noises they heard from humans? Was the bird really hungry when Polly asked for a cracker? Dr. P found out her parrot Alex was no birdbrain, as he not only learned how to say colors, numbers, shapes, not to mention food, but also could answer questions to distinguish between them. He understood categorization, comparison.
He listened to what the lab workers said to him and each other in jest and knew under what emotional conditions to say a particular phrase, from wanna go back (into his cage) for both when he was bored doing his experiments to when he was frightened by seeing raptor owls out a window. He could sense human feelings, when to say I'm sorry, and he displayed a sense of humor. When he was bored with a repetitive experiment that he had mastered, he would intentionally give every wrong answer associated with a test (like if there were two items on a table, he would say, 5, 3, 1, 4, everything but 2).
His higher reasoning was evidenced by his ability to associate color, size and number among various items and could answer which category had more of some characteristic in it. Dr. P wanted to see if he understood that words were made up of distinct sounds that could be recombined. Like a baby babbling in a crib, she had heard Alex vocally play with "green" saying cheen, been, keen. Strongly evidencing this insight, one day when he wanted food during a test and kept saying "want a nut" he grew so frustrated he said, "want a nut .... nnn, uh, tuh" and spelled it out for her. When she got a second parrot, Alex would pipe out answers when Griff was slow to reply and often told him to "say better."
Rather than continuing to marvel at the thoughtful language Alex developed, I will now act more like a book reviewer. Pepperberg writes like she is teaching Alex. She seems to be condescending when she tells us the behavioral terms of language development. She stays rigidly within her boundaries of seeing how language develops not making any assumptions about what the ability to speak actually empowers a speaker to express. She sees emotions in her bird, humor, boredom, insistence, authority but does not make the leap between being and saying.
Lastly as I inevitably do, Alex and Me parallels themes and observations expressed more angrily in the book I read just before A&M, Rosalind Franklin The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox. (See next post.)
Too bad, I will really try over the next couple of days to at least array all the books I have read this fall and winter even if my clever turn of phrase is somewhat rusty.
Since I last posted I did figure out a theme for 2018 -- moving from my quest to understand what makes a good national leader, to reading in the sciences. Let me start with a book I read yesterday in just a couple of hours. (Remember readers, you can always tell an easy book if it has book club discussion questions in the back.) Nonetheless, I found some interesting concepts and contrast and compare opportunities in Irene Pepperberg's Alex and Me.
Pepperberg is a chemist who ended up doing experiments in biology, specifically to determine whether and how language develops in non-mammals; as opposed to those scientists who were working at teaching sign language to chimps and gorilla, she worked with grey parrots that vocalized.
Isn't it the knee jerk reaction that parrots echo back words and phrases in mindless repetition of noises they heard from humans? Was the bird really hungry when Polly asked for a cracker? Dr. P found out her parrot Alex was no birdbrain, as he not only learned how to say colors, numbers, shapes, not to mention food, but also could answer questions to distinguish between them. He understood categorization, comparison.
He listened to what the lab workers said to him and each other in jest and knew under what emotional conditions to say a particular phrase, from wanna go back (into his cage) for both when he was bored doing his experiments to when he was frightened by seeing raptor owls out a window. He could sense human feelings, when to say I'm sorry, and he displayed a sense of humor. When he was bored with a repetitive experiment that he had mastered, he would intentionally give every wrong answer associated with a test (like if there were two items on a table, he would say, 5, 3, 1, 4, everything but 2).
His higher reasoning was evidenced by his ability to associate color, size and number among various items and could answer which category had more of some characteristic in it. Dr. P wanted to see if he understood that words were made up of distinct sounds that could be recombined. Like a baby babbling in a crib, she had heard Alex vocally play with "green" saying cheen, been, keen. Strongly evidencing this insight, one day when he wanted food during a test and kept saying "want a nut" he grew so frustrated he said, "want a nut .... nnn, uh, tuh" and spelled it out for her. When she got a second parrot, Alex would pipe out answers when Griff was slow to reply and often told him to "say better."
Rather than continuing to marvel at the thoughtful language Alex developed, I will now act more like a book reviewer. Pepperberg writes like she is teaching Alex. She seems to be condescending when she tells us the behavioral terms of language development. She stays rigidly within her boundaries of seeing how language develops not making any assumptions about what the ability to speak actually empowers a speaker to express. She sees emotions in her bird, humor, boredom, insistence, authority but does not make the leap between being and saying.
Lastly as I inevitably do, Alex and Me parallels themes and observations expressed more angrily in the book I read just before A&M, Rosalind Franklin The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox. (See next post.)
Monday, December 11, 2017
Back to my Old Self
Finished a book in two days, amongst all the other pre-holiday duties: The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.
There are many things a like about the book, some things I am really not engaged with, and probably have a way different reason for reading it than he had for writing it.
It begins with an admission that he copied way more top secret documents than just those having to do with the Vietnam War, information that he analyzed in his position at RAND which he obtained as an expert in decision making theories which evolved into questions about how would someone react to unknown unknowns and was there a chance that someone would drop an atomic bomb absent clear orders to do so. Interesting hypothesis and exhaustive research concludes that such a risk was quite likely due to military delegation of authority and military bravado that they knew much more than their civilian chain of command.
I firmly believe Americans have the right to have this information and analysis and for the most part, Ellsberg seems neutrally competent in disclosing it notwithstanding his being forbidden to do such. It's when he aligns his actions with the more recent ones of Snowden and Manning that I chagrin ... Snowden even writes an endorsement blurb on the back of the book.
As someone deep in the bowels of RAND, his premise of the need to completely disable the US and Russian computerized systems to launch lacks an implementation plan; he fully cites examples of presidential gains from taking an I will launch stance but does not opine as to what would take the place of that position of strength.
While he strongly articulates the end to the world that ensues if not from bombs themselves but from the nuclear winter that follows, it does not come across as hysteria, nor does it seem inevitable. I only hope there are Ellsberg like staff in think tanks now that can not only interpret information but induce the powers to act upon those facts.
There are many things a like about the book, some things I am really not engaged with, and probably have a way different reason for reading it than he had for writing it.
It begins with an admission that he copied way more top secret documents than just those having to do with the Vietnam War, information that he analyzed in his position at RAND which he obtained as an expert in decision making theories which evolved into questions about how would someone react to unknown unknowns and was there a chance that someone would drop an atomic bomb absent clear orders to do so. Interesting hypothesis and exhaustive research concludes that such a risk was quite likely due to military delegation of authority and military bravado that they knew much more than their civilian chain of command.
I firmly believe Americans have the right to have this information and analysis and for the most part, Ellsberg seems neutrally competent in disclosing it notwithstanding his being forbidden to do such. It's when he aligns his actions with the more recent ones of Snowden and Manning that I chagrin ... Snowden even writes an endorsement blurb on the back of the book.
As someone deep in the bowels of RAND, his premise of the need to completely disable the US and Russian computerized systems to launch lacks an implementation plan; he fully cites examples of presidential gains from taking an I will launch stance but does not opine as to what would take the place of that position of strength.
While he strongly articulates the end to the world that ensues if not from bombs themselves but from the nuclear winter that follows, it does not come across as hysteria, nor does it seem inevitable. I only hope there are Ellsberg like staff in think tanks now that can not only interpret information but induce the powers to act upon those facts.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
End of the Year Reconciliation
I went silent, didn't I? I can pretend it was because I wrote too much at work that I didn't want to come home and write more. Or I can say that since I was reading intertwined biographies, I couldn't truly assess one until I completed all. But these excuses are camouflage.
But other things impinged on my dedication to keeping the blog up to date. Most are now resolved, others have become the new reality, the most prominent being that I am now retired three weeks. Time to read all day long if I feel like it, just have to feel more like writing summaries of those efforts.
So rather than trying to compose something unique and insightful for each book I have plowed through these past several months, let me write about them in a more comprehensive compare and contrast essay, like school.
I don't remember which Hollywood actor said when questioned about the President responded "read history." That's what I have been doing in order to accrue some perspective on presidential talents, or lack thereof, and also other biographies that illustrate the characteristics of leadership.
After reading Chernow's Hamilton, I read his two books Titan on J D Rockefeller and House of Morgan on JP. Titan was the more interesting of the two. JD, especially in his earlier years, was a perfect example of an entrepreneur before that was a common term. Chernow focuses on his upbringing, family tensions, and religious beliefs to explain later corporate and charitable actions. On balance, he does not seems as diabolical, money-grubbing and nasty as common lore portrays him.
JP Morgan is personally not as interesting as Rockefeller. I read that book in part because one of my employees worked for years at Morgan and as a history of an organization and the American financial markets, it was superb. Finance was of course Chernow's crucible.
After hearing him speak in Chancellor's Hall where he announced to the audience his next book would be on Grant, I patiently awaited until Amazon let me pre-order and then plowed through another of his tomes. Like with Rockefeller, Chernow shows Grant as the outgrowth of his family and his early failures. Those constraints and determinants make his successes in battle all the more superhuman. They also are the basis with which Chernow attributes the bad decisions he made when choosing advisers when President: the naive belief that his chosen friends were all honest and that those relationships would never be used for personal gain.
Because I enjoyed the descriptions of the Civil War in Grant so much, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his cabinet members. Goodwin's writing style makes Chernow seem stiff and aloof. Her interpretation of the events and people around the Civil War are a wonderful contrast of perspective and preferences. I ended up liking the book more than I thought I would given its Torah like reverence in the last administration but these definitely are two books that a graduate history professor would make back to back required reading for such a compare and contrast exercise.
Now we arrive at the end of November, Thanksgiving week, when my daughter-in-law is here from Texas and buys me two of the three Edmund Morris tomes on Teddy Roosevelt. So even though I feel like I am preparing for a final exam on American presidents, TR would not have been next in my queue but for Emily. Thank you thank you. Volume one is a page burner. This is the book that makes me want to sit and read all day long. When I get up every now and then, I report out that I am now with him in the State Capitol, on San Juan Hill, in Saratoga.
Unfortunately, Em got volume 1 and 3 and I am dead in the water waiting for Theodore Rex to arrive in the mail, having ended volume 1 with his election to the presidency. I was forced last night to pick up a cast off volume on President Jackson, American Lion, which reads like an Austen novel of social status and gaffes. I needed to backtrack to answer the question, Who the hell was Margaret Eaton and why did all of DC care? This book does not read like the others, a reprise of government, politics and economics over a powerful man's lifetime. It reads like a 19th century novel on village sexual foibles. Why would Trump say he wants to be remembered as Jacksonian? I'd rather be measured against TR's 38 published books rather than Trump's 38,000 tweets.
Let me say a bit more about what I unexpectedly have come to like and envy about Teddy. It all comes down to his hyper drive, his perpetual motion, energy and brains. It seems impossible to fill in each day with such meaningful, productive and insightful actions as he did daily. His prodigious literary output has been probably my motivation to write this morning.
My preliminary conclusions after this self-directed course in the American Presidency is that the country had in at least these instances the man of the hour, the right person in the office. (The sidebars especially in TR about his opinions of Cleveland and McKinley remind me that they were not all giants.) The pachinko machine that sorts out leadership in high office is still blinking for the current incumbent; we've really had a string of "tilts" and "do-overs" lately, haven't we
But other things impinged on my dedication to keeping the blog up to date. Most are now resolved, others have become the new reality, the most prominent being that I am now retired three weeks. Time to read all day long if I feel like it, just have to feel more like writing summaries of those efforts.
So rather than trying to compose something unique and insightful for each book I have plowed through these past several months, let me write about them in a more comprehensive compare and contrast essay, like school.
I don't remember which Hollywood actor said when questioned about the President responded "read history." That's what I have been doing in order to accrue some perspective on presidential talents, or lack thereof, and also other biographies that illustrate the characteristics of leadership.
After reading Chernow's Hamilton, I read his two books Titan on J D Rockefeller and House of Morgan on JP. Titan was the more interesting of the two. JD, especially in his earlier years, was a perfect example of an entrepreneur before that was a common term. Chernow focuses on his upbringing, family tensions, and religious beliefs to explain later corporate and charitable actions. On balance, he does not seems as diabolical, money-grubbing and nasty as common lore portrays him.
JP Morgan is personally not as interesting as Rockefeller. I read that book in part because one of my employees worked for years at Morgan and as a history of an organization and the American financial markets, it was superb. Finance was of course Chernow's crucible.
After hearing him speak in Chancellor's Hall where he announced to the audience his next book would be on Grant, I patiently awaited until Amazon let me pre-order and then plowed through another of his tomes. Like with Rockefeller, Chernow shows Grant as the outgrowth of his family and his early failures. Those constraints and determinants make his successes in battle all the more superhuman. They also are the basis with which Chernow attributes the bad decisions he made when choosing advisers when President: the naive belief that his chosen friends were all honest and that those relationships would never be used for personal gain.
Because I enjoyed the descriptions of the Civil War in Grant so much, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his cabinet members. Goodwin's writing style makes Chernow seem stiff and aloof. Her interpretation of the events and people around the Civil War are a wonderful contrast of perspective and preferences. I ended up liking the book more than I thought I would given its Torah like reverence in the last administration but these definitely are two books that a graduate history professor would make back to back required reading for such a compare and contrast exercise.
Now we arrive at the end of November, Thanksgiving week, when my daughter-in-law is here from Texas and buys me two of the three Edmund Morris tomes on Teddy Roosevelt. So even though I feel like I am preparing for a final exam on American presidents, TR would not have been next in my queue but for Emily. Thank you thank you. Volume one is a page burner. This is the book that makes me want to sit and read all day long. When I get up every now and then, I report out that I am now with him in the State Capitol, on San Juan Hill, in Saratoga.
Unfortunately, Em got volume 1 and 3 and I am dead in the water waiting for Theodore Rex to arrive in the mail, having ended volume 1 with his election to the presidency. I was forced last night to pick up a cast off volume on President Jackson, American Lion, which reads like an Austen novel of social status and gaffes. I needed to backtrack to answer the question, Who the hell was Margaret Eaton and why did all of DC care? This book does not read like the others, a reprise of government, politics and economics over a powerful man's lifetime. It reads like a 19th century novel on village sexual foibles. Why would Trump say he wants to be remembered as Jacksonian? I'd rather be measured against TR's 38 published books rather than Trump's 38,000 tweets.
Let me say a bit more about what I unexpectedly have come to like and envy about Teddy. It all comes down to his hyper drive, his perpetual motion, energy and brains. It seems impossible to fill in each day with such meaningful, productive and insightful actions as he did daily. His prodigious literary output has been probably my motivation to write this morning.
My preliminary conclusions after this self-directed course in the American Presidency is that the country had in at least these instances the man of the hour, the right person in the office. (The sidebars especially in TR about his opinions of Cleveland and McKinley remind me that they were not all giants.) The pachinko machine that sorts out leadership in high office is still blinking for the current incumbent; we've really had a string of "tilts" and "do-overs" lately, haven't we
Sunday, July 30, 2017
An Incomplete Book Review, or Two or Three
I really struck out at the library earlier this month and will return the following three books without the diligence but with the good sense not to complete them:
Two who done it or spy novels by William F. Buckley Jr ... The Rake and Getting It Right. I took out both after reading A Man and His Presidents thinking that his fiction would bear the imprint of his political philosophy. He is no Dick Francis.
Lightning Man, The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. Got through 210 pages but the author Kenneth Silverman cannot get a reader engaged in the mean-spiritedness and aloofness of "Finley."
Two who done it or spy novels by William F. Buckley Jr ... The Rake and Getting It Right. I took out both after reading A Man and His Presidents thinking that his fiction would bear the imprint of his political philosophy. He is no Dick Francis.
Lightning Man, The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. Got through 210 pages but the author Kenneth Silverman cannot get a reader engaged in the mean-spiritedness and aloofness of "Finley."
Let Me Count the Poisonous Ways
OK I admit this is sick buying a book to match the theme decor of my new guest room, which is supposed to look like an upstairs garden bower, all summer greens and yellows. So I bought the small, lime green bound book Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart and illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs, the author and artist of The Drunken Botanist which I bought at the Harvard museum when I dragged the "kids" to see the glass flowers a couple of summers ago, pre-Red Sox game, the real reason for the journey to Boston.
I love these two books. The essentially are encyclopedic reference books, full of history and anecdotes and marvelous humor. I also feel a sense of complicit witchery in the topic. So without further ado, let me cite all the wicked plants I intentionally cultivate in my yard, or use for decoration for various seasons, or buy from the local florist with a wry sense of doom:
English Ivy (how apropos that this one comes first)
Pencil Cactus (I may use a computer, but the urge to write in graphite continues, yes?)
Rhubarb
Elderberry
Mulberry
Juniper
Celery
Limes
Periwinkle
Azalea
Rhododendron
Foxglove
Hydrangea
Hellebore
Lily of the Valley
Bleeding Heart
Tulip
Hyacinth
Morning Glory
Aloe
and last but not least, the plant that almost did me in Yew, the source of the dreaded cancer drug Taxol
Maybe I should consult The Drunken Botanist and make a similar list of all the plant fragranced beverage I have imbibed.
I love these two books. The essentially are encyclopedic reference books, full of history and anecdotes and marvelous humor. I also feel a sense of complicit witchery in the topic. So without further ado, let me cite all the wicked plants I intentionally cultivate in my yard, or use for decoration for various seasons, or buy from the local florist with a wry sense of doom:
English Ivy (how apropos that this one comes first)
Pencil Cactus (I may use a computer, but the urge to write in graphite continues, yes?)
Rhubarb
Elderberry
Mulberry
Juniper
Celery
Limes
Periwinkle
Azalea
Rhododendron
Foxglove
Hydrangea
Hellebore
Lily of the Valley
Bleeding Heart
Tulip
Hyacinth
Morning Glory
Aloe
and last but not least, the plant that almost did me in Yew, the source of the dreaded cancer drug Taxol
Maybe I should consult The Drunken Botanist and make a similar list of all the plant fragranced beverage I have imbibed.
Monday, July 17, 2017
History I Know All Too Well
The past few weeks also saw me finishing Failed State by Seymour Lachman, a former NYS Senator, his sequel to Three Men in a Room. Here is local "history" I know almost too well. Lachman seems to be using this reprise as his best argument for a State constitutional convention, something that goes to the voters as an option to change every twenty years. 2017, I believe, it should be on the ballot. I can already predict the vested interests of profiting from political positions will do every thing they can to preserve the status quo, where the chance to profit is preserved. I assume the major argument will be that a convention is too expensive.
Reading this update to Three Men counterpoints Flaubert's claim that had the public understood Sentimental Education, there would not have been the events in the Terrible Year of 1871. Had the public read Three Men, would New York as a Failed State go on unabated?
Ironically, "another chapter" in history has made even this sequel out of date ... one of the three men had is conviction reversed on appeal, the second is probably finished drafting his appeal on a corruption/kick back scheme. The third man eludes.
I also read A Man and His Presidents by Alvin Felzenberg, a biography of William F. Buckley Jr. I found it one to far removed from the man. I've read God and Man and other books by Buckley and I missed his active presence and voice. His one liners still zing as opposed to the Dick and Jane doggerel of current leaders. Buckley was a mandarin (politics need more of them). He might have been the author of a play who also doubles as the guy holding up the cue cards ... he knew he wanted a strong national voice not for the status quo but for the return to basic universal principles of humanity and governing, but he also was often able to put the right words as ventriloquist to several key elected officers.
I love the persona of "a thorn in the side" people, especially those who can see the good and the humor in a given course of rule. Felzenberg lets that characteristic seep into the biography. Such self-deprecation is sorely missing in Lachman, and in politics large.
I think to close the loop on this brief linked series of history, I will switch to Buckley's novels. I'd like to see his marriage of positive outlook against recent world issues, should that really be evidenced and interpretative in his fiction. Signing off to reserve a couple.
Reading this update to Three Men counterpoints Flaubert's claim that had the public understood Sentimental Education, there would not have been the events in the Terrible Year of 1871. Had the public read Three Men, would New York as a Failed State go on unabated?
Ironically, "another chapter" in history has made even this sequel out of date ... one of the three men had is conviction reversed on appeal, the second is probably finished drafting his appeal on a corruption/kick back scheme. The third man eludes.
I also read A Man and His Presidents by Alvin Felzenberg, a biography of William F. Buckley Jr. I found it one to far removed from the man. I've read God and Man and other books by Buckley and I missed his active presence and voice. His one liners still zing as opposed to the Dick and Jane doggerel of current leaders. Buckley was a mandarin (politics need more of them). He might have been the author of a play who also doubles as the guy holding up the cue cards ... he knew he wanted a strong national voice not for the status quo but for the return to basic universal principles of humanity and governing, but he also was often able to put the right words as ventriloquist to several key elected officers.
I love the persona of "a thorn in the side" people, especially those who can see the good and the humor in a given course of rule. Felzenberg lets that characteristic seep into the biography. Such self-deprecation is sorely missing in Lachman, and in politics large.
I think to close the loop on this brief linked series of history, I will switch to Buckley's novels. I'd like to see his marriage of positive outlook against recent world issues, should that really be evidenced and interpretative in his fiction. Signing off to reserve a couple.
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