Book Review

Book Review: Connected by Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD and James H. Fowler, PhD

Connected has had a lot of positive press, and the premise is rather provocative, so my work book club chose this for the January reading which we discussed this week. It doesn’t disappoint.

Christakis and Fowler put forth a tidal wave of studies and analytics showing that there really is no such thing as independent free will, that everything we do, from how much we make to how we vote politically, is influenced by the people up to three degrees from us. (So for me, dear readers, that would be all your friend’s friends.) Reading this book felt like taking an anti-Ayn Rand pill. The poster child for the libertarians, Rand’s whole objectivism philosophy is based on the idea of selfishness and individual choice. Christakis and Fowler put forth the idea that try as much as you like, if you are a human being (and certain animals) you can’t help but be influenced by your social network. He’s the best argument I’ve ever read to debunk Ayn Rand and that’s really saying something.

Christakis and Fowler then take a nice little stroll into the specifics, citing examples and studies. Love and dating? Check. Disease and illness including obesity? Check. Your wealth and income profile? Check. Your political affiliation? Check. It seems like no facet of modern life is immune to the effect of these people 3 steps removed from you, who most likely, you’ve never met.

Overarching the topic specific examples are a couple of themes. The first is that kindness and compassion beget kindness and compassion, and vice versa. The examples he cites regarding transplant patients is particularly heart-warming. Another is that we are genetically wired to be social beings receptive to group norms; cooperation was key to our early hominoid development. He even cites experiments that show that we might be able to predict your position in a social network based on genetics!

The book also had some really interesting facts. For example, women are the key to spreading behavior through a network, since they usually are the people that maintain ties. It was also very interesting to read about AIDs being spread in Africa. He cites evidence that the spread of HIV isn’t a hub and spoke model with sex workers at the core, but rather a fundamental difference in African social networks vs. those in the U.S. This was fascinating.

Of course the health implications were most immediate for our group. Here I quote the book: “Our health also depends quite literally on the biology, choices, and actions of those around us.” Social network information can really change the discourse on public health – and we are just beginning to understand how.

A review of the book isn’t complete without a shout out to social networking on-line. The main take-aways here are that modern technological devices have made us more susceptible to panic and more likely to organize against a perceived offense. The first is discussed better in other finance books and nothing here was groundbreaking. The second was more interesting; there was a story about a builder in Canada who swore they would never build another networked community after the first one he built were able to organize a neighborhood association in record time to complain against shoddy workmanship. At the end of the day though, the authors agree, social networking is no replacement for relationships in real life.

All in all an interesting read on a burgeoning topic. It will be interesting to visit this topic again in 10 years or so and see what other breakthroughs are uncovered.

January Cooking

Bonjour Happiness inspired me to go back to basics. Breaded chicken has been a mainstay of the pantry for years. In fact, I remember when Ger and I lived in NY. From time to time, we would visit his parents vacation home in the Poconos which would result in a marathon cooking stretch of the “basics”. We would try and leave NY in time to hit Mr. Z’s supermarket, then Ger would wake me up early on Saturday morning to get me cooking.

 

The operation has been finely tuned over the years. Up above you see in the pyrex chicken breast trimmed of fat and cut in half length-wise. Then cookie sheets are lined with aluminum foil and swiped with vegetable oil (vegetable oil gives an extra crispiness to the chicken, I wouldn’t use olive oil here) then with the left hand you soak the chicken breasts in egg and milk and bread with the right. Cleaning the chicken took about 30 minutes, breading it all up, another 45, then another hour and 20 minutes to cook (approx 35 minutes per batch of cookie sheets).

The result is a massive amount of breaded chicken, which in a pinch can be sliced up for chicken ceasar salad, heated up in the toaster oven with mozzarella (ger’s favorite) served up over rice and salsa with plantains (em’s favorite) and a million other options in between.

 

Back in our NY days, we would then allocate the chicken for either my or Ger’s apartment and carefully put them in freezer bags for transport back to NY (along with meatballs and  few other staples, but that’s another post). At some point we figured out that we could save even MORE money if we re-used the plastic freezer bags for transport (Ger’s frugality, in particular, is legendary). These days I like to splurge on labels from the label maker (we like to live high on the hog).

While I’m at it this week’s soup is a vegetarian split pea, always comfy when there is snow on the ground.

 

January Cruise from NY to Bahamas!

Ger and I started off 2012 with a cruise from NY to the Bahamas. A cruise was exactly the kind of vacation we needed - relaxing! Here they are on the balcony of our room, sailing out of NY.





Sailing out of NY, I was struck by the skyline of my hometown, Jersey City, which is right on the other side of the Hudson river from lower Manhattan.



Our cabin was very comfortable, and it was a true treat to come back after breakfast and find the bed made (though not in this picture).


We did a lot of lounging and relaxing, Matt was the most active of all on the kid's water slide.


Breezy and tropical. Just what the doctor ordered.



Part of the reason of starting this blog was to try and be better about taking pictures. Just as I was mentally congratulating myself for taking one of two nice pictures of Ger and Matt on this vacation the universe sent me this link in my e-mail. It was like the universe saying, "Now, now Emily, don't get comfortable and don't slack off! You need to work harder at taking better pictures- you have a long way to go!"

Book Review

Book Review: Bonjour Happiness by Jamie Cat Callan

January is turning out to be a month of exploring the power of myth, and there is no myth more pervasive among American women than the impossible chicness of French women. French women don’t get fat, they don’t sleep alone, they have secrets to fashion, cooking and aging gracefully. Bonjour Happiness is another addition to the literature trying to deconstruct the myth of the French woman.

In Bonjour Happiness, Jamie Cat Callan travels the orphan archetype’s journey. She starts out orphaned from French culture (her grandmother was French) by her Irish family and American upbringing, and goes on a personal journey to reconstruct her joie de vivre by a combination of trips to France, trial and error and Weight Watchers.

Yes you read that right, Weight Watchers. In fact there is more Weight Watchers than any other topic which goes to show Ms. Callan is most definitely American. She points out that some of the secrets of French women are actually Weight Watchers tips, such as drinking lots of water, no snacking and walking everywhere. The trick is probably that French women actually do these things rather than write and talk about doing them. I’ve never been to a Weight Watchers meeting, but this advice and all the rest of her main takeaways (stand up straight, clean out the closet, don’t be sloppy on the weekend) fall into another category: “Things My Mother Told Me Over Christmas Break”.

There is value in these simple things, and in being reminded of them. But the advice about walking and taking stairs, well, there is a more complicated truth at work here. Americans prefer driving. Years of car advertisements have convinced us that driving is synonymous with freedom, independence and happiness. It’s not efficient to walk anywhere and at time you take your life in your hands. The USA is also a much bigger place than France, and we live further apart. When things are far away and separated by six lanes of highway going 80 miles an hour, well you need to drive. I remember living in the Residence Inn in North Chicago during my MBA internship. There was a shopping complex less than a mile away but on the first day we were given a memo advised never to try and walk there – too many previous guests at the inn were killed and maimed trying to cross the highway that separated the two buildings.

I am one of those rare Americans who grew up in a family without a car till I was a teenager, my mother walking to the grocery store every few days buying what we needed and lugging it all back – 8 blocks – back to the house. Now that I’m a mom myself, I realize what a labor and a pain this must have been. My mom wasn’t the only person on the block to do this, I can still see Mrs. Scardino walking up the block in her heels, one full bag of groceries in each arm. The results were meals that were fresh and small – my mom was always cooking and baking. The fact is, stopping at the grocery everyday on the way home after working all day and picking up the kid at day care is just not feasible (my mom was stay-at-home, Ms. Callan has one adult child). For this to work on a regular basis I would need a shorter work week (ahh the secret behind the myth! Ms. Callan glosses over these facts).

On another note, it is to Ms. Callan’s credit that she doesn’t let her early French experiences dissuade her from her mission to find her joie de vivre. The myth is so pervasive for Ms. Callan it prevails even when her first trip to France is a disaster. As a budget traveler, she was hungry, cold and people were routinely mean to her. An ex-boyfriend tells her to go back to the U.S. Even her French grandmother was mean to her – giving her a girdle on the first day of junior high that resulted in her having vomit episodes. That she didn’t give up is a testament to the power of myth.

The best two things that come out of this book are the following: try to buy three panties for every bra (genius) and I’m going to look out for apple ice cream (after four years of living in New Hampshire and trying just about everything you could do to an apple – I have to admit I had not come across apple ice cream). As that’s two more tips then I usually get out of a randomly chosen fashion magazine and I don’t disagree with the other advice I can’t classify this book as completely useless. It is at best a harmless light read worth it if you won’t beat yourself up for wasting a bit of time and want to know more about Weight Watchers.

Book Review

Book Review: The Hero Within by Carol S. Pearson, PhD

As many of you know, I’ll read anything, absolutely anything, except psychology. As a computer science trained person who learned to program when I was eight and argued with my second grade teacher about the existence of negative numbers- I felt a long with most people- that psychology was a fraud. Later, as I learned about the world of art and studied the classics and archaeology, I was able to dismiss it on another ground- it’s was really an art either.

I am adult enough to change my opinion when warranted. While psychology is not quite art and not quite science (this book makes no claim that the field should be either) it does not mean that the questions and field of study aren’t valuable and can contribute to our understanding of the world.

Ms. Pearson attempts to do nothing less than just that: a universally applicable framework for how humans understand the world (based on Carl Jung’s work). She writes that everyone is pre-programmed, both culturally and genetically with the “software” of being human. This software can be boiled down to six archetypes. Everything that happens to us is through the prism of one of these “stories”, with ourselves as the leading hero.

All stories, art, literature, movies are reflective of these six “stories”. The “Orphan”, abandoned by their original “family” is sought to make their own way in the world (story of resilience). The “Wanderer” escapes from a villain to find a sacred relic (story of independence). The Warrior slays the drag or rescues the princess (story of courage). The Altruists sacrifices themselves to save others (story of compassion). The Innocent realizes they had the power within them all along (story of faith). The Magician names the reality they want to bring it into existence (story of power).

We can use these frameworks to “diagnose” what is needed in a certain situation to re-frame things to advantage. We can also try to recognize the negative of each archetype that might cause us trouble (an orphan who doesn’t finish their journey may see themselves as continually the victim, as an example) to help us deal with difficult situations.

The business school student in me likes frameworks. They work really well on PowerPoint slides. While I’m not 100% convinced that everything is so simple as Ms. Pearson lays out (and a peek at her website and a few reviews since shows that the number or archetypes has gone from six to twelve) it’s a pretty compelling vision she lays forth.

Using the worksheets in the back of the book (and with Ger’s help) I diagnosed myself as mostly an altruist and innocent archetype. This rings very true, if there is a problem my first inclination is to work harder, look internally to try to learn a skill to do a task, try harder, try again. Ger’s main archetype is the Wanderer – he is autonomous and independent and isn’t afraid to strike out in new territory to seek the answer outside himself (with very strong “I won’t do what you tell me to” issues).

While it may see as the same conclusions as taking a cosmo quiz, the depth and breadth of the examples convinced me of the validity of the framework (if not the universal applicability). This is book that has some pretty heavy underlining, and I can see myself returning to again.

Book Review

Book Review: Crescent Dawn by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler

If there is sand between your toes, a tropical sun overhead and a fruity drink in one hand – a Dirk Pitt is the only thing that should be in the other.

Ah, a Dirk Pitt adventure. One part action, one part sunken ship with historically significant treasure, one part dangerous villain, two shakes spunky and attractive female character as love interest and one shake high tech toy and then stir. Serve up with a sense of irony and suspension of disbelief. Enjoy!

The NUMA crew are iconic characters at this point, like Batman or Superman (though granted less famous). Campy escapism is exactly what you are getting with a Dirk Pitt novel, no apologies offered. Even the cover of the book is campy (unlike the Hunger Games, where the cover of the book is sleek black and reminiscent of the cover of Stehpenson’s Cyptomonicon. It is almost a double dog dare to recall the cover of that book – one shouldn’t do it unless you are prepared to back it up with depth).

A few books back Clive started to write the books with his son, Dirk. At first I was worried – but after the first one I was ready to have Clive retire and have Dirk take the reins. They were edgier, darker, BETTER! Dirk is Gen X with all the baggage that comes with it.

Yes, we Gen X’ers like it dark, thank you. Think Jack Nicholson’s Joker vs. Heath Ledger’s. Superman saves the world, but he is also a dead-beat dad. Our James Bond, Daniel Craig, may be blonde – but everything else about him is borderline mental-illness. The second episode of Battlestar Galactica remake is a stress filled romp where half of humanity is left behind every 30 minutes to be destroyed by the Cyclons when they can’t keep up with the fleet. If I remember correctly the second episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the crew make a stop at the casino planet. Even our young adult literature is post apocalyptic (see Hunger Games below).

Dirk Cussler understands Gen X angst and as he has more input into the novels (no doubt he is being groomed to take over the brand) the plots get subtler, the characters a little darker, the locales more exotic. Still, it’s not perfect- they’ve also been veering dangerously into DaVinci code territory. Still, for action packed, vacation fare, a visit with my old friends, the Dirk Pitt and the NUMA crew fits the bill nicely.

Book Review

Book Review: When Money Dies By Adam Fergusson

With this book, we are in what Gerry calls, “Solid Emily Boring Book Territory”. The subject matter is a study of the inflationary period during the Weimar Republic (Germany after WWI). This book was out of print for a long while, a sole copy heading up to 4 figures on amazon.com, until it was released last year. It was originally published in 1975.

There was no more “civilized’ place on earth than western Europe at the turn of the 20^th century – something that did not inoculate their population from a whole host of horrors. This book however only deals with one – the hyperinflation from 1919 to the end of the 20’s. As scary as a picture the book paints the parallels to the U.S. situation in 2012 are hard to ignore. There is a reason the book is back in print.

The book alternates between an accounting of the levels of inflation (the currency to buy one egg at the beginning is worth 500 billion at the end), a liturgy of the colorless politicians trying to head off the effects of inflation while keeping the printing presses going (the weakest section of the book) and the accounts of the German lay-people and what they see in their lives (the most compelling).

Inflation starts before the German soldiers are home from the trenches. The printing presses are ranked up in attempt to pay German war debts and restart the economy. Printing money is the only available option to the politicians in place. The government is too weak to impose any other measure without jeopardizing its own existence (sound familiar?). However, printing money is a tax on the middle class, plain and simple, whether in 1920, in 1975 and in 2012. Unlike Britain at the end of WWI, which could tax the corporate entities that profited from the war, Germany had no politically viable option other than to print money.

Print they did – and commodity prices rose as a result – till food was ¾ of a family’s budget. Milk rose 40 times. Put in today’s perspective, a gallon of milk at $4.39 would be $176. They printed it until people hoarded goods, because why sell something if the money you get for it is worthless hours later? They printed and people lined up the streets to spend it. Shop keepers eventually closed up shop and hoarded the goods themselves – and the people went hungry.

Women and children are always the ones to suffer the most. Children were, on average, two years behind on weight and heights percentiles because of malnutrition. Tuberculosis in children rose. In one grandmother’s memoir she notes her grandson, whom she was supporting on her pension, developed scurvy. Women went dumpster diving in the more affluent neighborhoods searching for crumbs.

Some of the observations on the perspective of the German-on-the-street struck me as awfully familiar. One was the perspective, not that their own currency was getting weaker but that other’s was “rising”. “How did the Euro get to be so strong,” we asked – when really it was the dollar that was falling. The other is that Germany became a “cheapjack” country. As people sought to spend money, the quality of goods fell. Why make one pair of good boots when I can sell three pairs of cheap boots just as easily? Anyone who has recently bought a refrigerator knows they don’t make ‘em like they used to. An increase in cheaply manufactured products is the natural byproduct of inflation.

One of the most illustrative examples in the book is Hemingway visiting Germany during this period. He is able to effectively live like a king for 90 cents Canadian. He buys an apple for equivalent of 2 cents. He meets an elderly German pensioner who tells him he can’t afford the apples on his pensions. Things are dire for the German population. Our grandmother tells us at the end of the period her whole husband’s pension doesn’t buy her a cup of coffee. Mr. Fergusson doesn’t tell us what happened to the grandson. It’s hard to imagine a positive outcome for this family. Mobs steal the brass plates outside the British Embassy. Today’s corollary is that when Ger and I put out copper pipes from our basement, garbage pickers claimed them within a few hours.

Where the similarity ends, at least right now, is with the mobs. While our population is disillusioned enough to camp in public squares and form tea parties, the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in the 1920s are a lot more desperate and hungry. As Mr. Fergusson puts it, when the deliveries of food stop coming from the countryside, the mobs goes and fetches the food. The descriptions of mobs marauding the countryside, stealing livestock out of hunger and destroying barns out of anger, are downright scary – especially when you are reading the book with an eye to what could happen here on U.S. soil.

The thing is, I think if thing got to that point herein the U.S. we would fare worse. While the German in the 1920s was one or two people removed from their food, I don’t know any farmers to cajole to spare me a sack of potatoes. Despite living next to the supermarket, I have no idea who the manager is or where they live. I don’t know any of the people who stock the shelves by name, no personal history to call upon to get them to give me the first run on bread or beans, like our grandmother in the book can. Not that it matters, the inventory in most supermarkets and big box stores is managed in terms of hours, not days. The shop keepers in the 1920s had more inventory on hand at any given time, since they don’t have massive I.T. investments keeping their inventory down to the lowest possible point (to make the balance sheet look better). If the shipments stopped coming, how long would the stores last? Walmart measures inventory in 15 minute increments.

All in all, “When Money Dies” is a sobering cautionary tale that makes me think I should have taken the “The Dirty Life” a bit more seriously.