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Ideas and Information for Readers Dear Friends, March 2011 “Our 21 st Year” Reviews in This Issue CHRONOS… AND KAIROS There are two Greek words for time: Chronos and kairos. We are all familiar with the former since it is the root of English words such as chronological, chronometer, and chronicle. Kairos is more • Dethroning the King (MacIntosh) Chronos • Bryant & May Off the Rails (Fowler) nuanced and elusive. refers to sequential time, time as the sun passes through the heavens, or a time span. • Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence Kairos, however, means the “moment,” a time in between, that critical instant when one must catch the tide or be of Arabia (Korda) swept under, a moment of undetermined time in which something special happens. While chronos is quantitative, • The Lost Books of the Odyssey (Mason) kairos has a qualitative nature. I heard a homily on these terms some time ago in which it was noted that many of us • Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Fountain) are caught up in busy schedules, are measuring time ( chronos ), thus distracted and preoccupied, so that we miss the • Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable moment ( kairos ). It is those moments of insight, and emotion and joy, that are so essential to the appreciation of life, (15th Edition) and contentment. So, the thinking goes, let us manage our chronos in a way that allows enjoyment of the kairos. • Shantaram (Roberts) • Rules of Betrayal A PROBLEM WELL STATED… (Reich) Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958), an electrical engineer and inventor, is the • Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak (Coram) source of the familiar and oft-quoted, “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” I kept thinking about this • The Killer (Hinshelwood) statement when Wall Street and the banks were being demonized last year during the debate on the massive financial • All the Devils are Here (McLean & Nocera) regulation bill, ostensibly adopted to prevent the recurrence of the deep recession we’ve been experiencing. I believe • Outwitting Trolls (Tapply) that when the history of this major downturn in the U.S. economy is written down the road, clear of the finger- • Left Neglected (Genova) pointing and political maneuvering, the role of the Federal Government will be seen as the root cause. There • The Mind’s Eye (Sacks) is, therefore, ample irony in the sense of the government enacting legislation to regulate what they caused, and • Start-Up Nation (Senor and Singer) naming it the Dodd-Frank bill after two of the legislators who many believe were complicit in creating the • Success Made Simple (Wesner) problems to begin with. A problem well stated? The weight and enforcement of the Com munity Reinvestment • Mark Twain’s Other Woman (Trombley) Act, the use of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite the substandard loans, and the substantial easing • Unnatural Death (Sayers) S • The Attenbury Emeralds by the Fed set the table for the crash. Sure there is plenty of blame to go around, but it was government (Walsh) E • Our Kind of Traitor (le Carré) meddling in the financial marketplace to achieve social goals (affordable housing) that was at the center. N • Scorpions (Feldman) I “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” (Albert • The Warmth of Other Suns (Wilkerson) L Einstein, 1879-1955) • Elizabeth Street (Fabiano) SPRING I find it irresistible to write about Spring when it arrives in California, naturally much earlier than • The Next Decade (Friedman) E in most other areas of the country. While on those early morning forays in the yard with our little dog, you • Rescue (Shreve) H • The Judas Gate simply cannot miss the miracles of nature. By late January/early February the rose bushes begin to break out, (Higgins) T • Separate Beds (Buchan) followed shortly by the camellias, all heralding warmer weather, the resurgence of the deciduous trees and • The Nomination (Tapply) N bushes and the blooming of the entire garden. This annual revival never fails to generate a sense of awe in this • Scribble, Scribble, Scribble (Schama) E observer, and a deeper appreciation of the laws of the universe. We’ve written previously in these pages about Features E the concepts of being opposed to doing. In modern times, some are overtaken by compulsive doing to fill the • Jane’s Selections hours and days. For little things like that garden walk and the observation and appreciation of natural miracles, W • TRE Favorites… A Decade Ago welcome to a little slice of being. T • William Tapply Mysteries… E AN EVENING FOR AMERICA In late February, we attended the Celebration of Freedom Gala at • The Business of Doing Business • English is Not So Easy! B the Ronald Reagan Library (Simi Valley, CA). With Air Force One positioned above us, the event was a . • Pronunciation for the Careful Speaker wonderful, inspirational American evening. We were welcomed by the 1st Marine Division Band, sang the • The Words We Use and Misuse . National Anthem, had the presentation of colors, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Congressional Medal • Building Your Working Vocabulary of Honor recipients were honored, and over half of the some 90 living Medal of Honor recipients were in . • Featured Author—Dorothy L. Sayers attendance! Former Secretary of State George Schultz was introduced by Commandant of the Marine Corps G • The Extraordinary Plasticity of the Brain General James Amos and presented with the Distinguished Citizen Award. Connie Stevens and Ann-Margret N • The Charles Lenox Mysteries I were presented with Bob Hope Awards (“Thanks for the Memories”) for their decades of entertaining service - • … and more D men throughout the world. The evening ended with the great tenor Steve Amerson filling the room with A “God Bless America.” This was the type of evening that all Americans should experience, reminding us of THE QUA RTERLY E the price of freedom and the great privilege of being an American. PUBLICATION R Sincerely, Subscribers-Only Password: FOR READERS KIPLING BY READE RS Until June 2011 for March 2011 Stephen H. Ackerman, Publisher www.the-readers-exchange.com Volume XXI Issue 1 1 ©2011 The Readers Exchange BOOK REVIEWS TITLE Reviews and Ratings: Book reviews are written by the Publisher (SHA) or by one of the Contributing AUTHOR, NO. OF PAGES, Editors and attributed accordingly. The 0-10 rating system was developed to provide some sense of YEAR OF PUBLICATION, the level of satisfaction of a book compared with other books. This is not a sophisticated evaluation. PUBLISHER AND RATING The rating is based on writing, storytelling ability, and the overall impact of each reading experience. ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: What caused the massive financial meltdown in 2008? Many have written good books on the topic: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF Some on how badly (recklessly) firms were managed, some on the creation of the esoteric financial THE FINANCIAL CRISIS instruments which propelled the crisis, and some on the government’s role in the whole mess. The BETHANY MCLEAN & McLean-Nocera book aims to tell it all, stealing (wonderfully) Shakespeare’s famous line from The JOE NOCERA Tempest. Unlike all the other books that went for one devil, McLean and Nocera round them all up, (2010, 380pp, going back to the very roots of the problem—before new things went in bad directions. But first a Penguin) word about the authors. McLean is a writer specializing in so-called “long-form” pieces (a best- selling book on Enron and numerous articles about financial issues in premier publications); Joe 10 Nocera is famous for his weekly column in The New York Times. McLean and Nocera are at the very top of the game, and the book is proof. They do many things that no one else has done: They take the long view, looking back into the institutions and instruments when they were initially benign but started fast in getting dodgy on the edges; they get big players (silent till now), to talk freely; they explain complicated issues and instruments (e.g., credit default swaps) with striking clarity; and they round up all the devils—they tell as much of the whole story as feasible in one book. And they focus on what has been “hidden” from the public. Correctly, they focus on how Fannie Mae, created by Government with the noble mission of facilitating home ownership, lost its bearings and became a ferociously competitive, profit-hungry player in the sub-prime mortgage scramble—this is the classic tale of something very good going very bad, and with the Government helping all the way. And like the focus on Fannie Mae, when its metamorphosis was beginning, they focus on the metamorphosis of the mortgage-backed security, an instrument that went from benign to lethal. They quote the Salomon Brothers bond trader, Lewis Ranieri, who invented the mortgage- backed security: “I wasn’t out to invent the biggest floating craps game of all time, but that’s what happened.” (Contributing Editor William Lilley, III, Washington D.C.) OUR KIND OF TRAITOR Le Carré (his pen name) will be 80 later this year. This is his 22nd novel starting in 1961, and he JOHN LE CARRÉ remains best known for 1963’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and the invention of British (2010, 320pp, master spy George Smiley. I’ve read them all and shared many reviewers’ accolades and frustrations Viking) over the years. His specialty was the cold-war, and his novelistic apogee was, I think, The Honorable 9 Schoolboy (1977), set in Hong Kong with strings pulled by Smiley. Movies of his books include The Russia House with Sean Connery and The Tailor of Panama with Geoffrey Rush and Pierce Brosnan (two James Bonds and counting).