Badge #1843 NYPD by John Peller

    Most of the book comes from the elder Peller’s autobiography, written because his sons wanted to know about his life, and just in case someone else might be interested in his story (and more would’ve been if he hadn’t held back.) Like my ancestors who grew up in pre-glamor New York, he doesn’t seem keen to talk about the past, yet he does go into detail about the good parts. The Settlement House, for instance, and all the activities it had for kids, gives him fond memories. There were weekend getaways to upstate farms – not a luxury today – but an extreme change of pace for a boy in his day. The city was smoggy and sooty in the 1930’s, and train fare was expensive (besides, people made less money anyway) so getting to run barefoot on the grass, having air you can breathe, and having no sounds at night must’ve been quite a treat.

This book has an interesting angle on the issue of education in the days before the GI Bill. Peller was perfectly competent in the classroom, and could’ve gone to college, but didn’t. It seems that boys in those days were not encouraged to go to college the way they are now. He joined the NYPD during the Great Depression, when there were few jobs available, even to a skilled mechanic like him. He also describes how a lot of college-educated men joined at the time (including future chief detective Albert Seedman) thanks to lack of alternatives, and how it was these college-educated cops who brought about changes to policing.

There are funny anecdotes, like the crazy women who’d call the police so they could get a man. Then there were the bars on the East 100’s that catered to sailors of different nationalities. He mentions one that was frequented by Scandinavian sailors; they’d get drunk, get in fights, spill out onto the sidewalk, and a loud bark from the police would send them all shuffling back in. A frequent emergency in the days before WWII involved exploding refrigerators (they used volatile chemicals at the time) which were the cause of building fires.

Officer Peller’s post-NYPD career takes an unusual turn. He retires and gets a measly pension, but then finds that there aren’t a lot of jobs for guys in their late 40’s. He gets a bottom level job in finance and works his way up, taking whatever training he can get, and eventually building up a very nice career (though he was probably the only male employee.) It resonates with me, because even today it’s difficult to start a new career in middle age. However, I’m surprised he didn’t look for a job as an armed security guard or private investigator.

One of the problems with this book is the writing. It needs a huge amount of editing, and could do with more information about the other police officers. Peller doesn’t mention anything about corruption, racism, the roles of women in the police department. I can understand why he left these things out, but I would still like to know more about the other officers. Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable book about the city in a time when there was grit but no glamour.

The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse

   I don’t need this book to know that the US adult has stagnated. Every day I see 20-something men and women who refuse to work, or simply don’t know how. Then I see grown men at the airport doing coloring books with adult themes. Next come the college students getting special refuge rooms and counseling, all because Donald Trump is now the president. Keep in mind that combat veterans with PTSD can’t get free psychotherapy, but a 19-year-old, with no financial obligation is given a shoulder to cry on. Speakers are barred from college campuses because they’ll traumatize the students with conservative rhetoric. Last of all, in my neighborhood, I see 40-year-old men and women with their kids, and I can’t distinguish the parents from their children.

    Senator Ben Sasse, graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, PhD in History, gives many examples of the softening of the adult American. It all starts in childhood, he says, with the “Baby Einstein” syndrome. More school, less outdoor activity, less manual training, and fewer part-time jobs. Look at The Economist July 6, 2017 article on the disappearing summer job; it uses Ronald Reagan as an example of how a teenager’s job used to mold the mind. It also discusses how rising minimum wage has made it harder to hire teens.

   Sasses give a funny (and at the same time disturbing) example in Talia Jane, whose meager salary at Yelp headquarters kept her hungry and poor. Kind of unfair, no? After all, Yelp’s corporate officers were raking in the cash, and they knew that rents in the Bay area are sky-high. But just when Ms. Jane was about to become the poster girl for the underpaid, another twenty-something named Stefanie Williams tore the poor serf’s platform to shreds. Out came the photos - lifted from Talia Jane’s own social media page – of Jane’s high-maintenance e partying. Yelp’s salaries are not enough? You bet they’re not, if you’re throwing away money on alcohol, expensive cakes, eating out a lot, and living without roommates!

    Most of Sasse’s book blames the problem on helicopter parenting, safety paranoia, pressure to get into a top college, and parents who won’t teach the kid to get himself up in the morning. He refers to his own childhood, where he was expected to work, and how it taught him life skills. He blames helicopter parenting for the lack of financial savvy in today’s young men and women, and I’m inclined to agree. He advises giving the kids more responsibility, giving them tasks that let them prove their worth, and advises against grouping them by age.

    This book should be read with other tomes on this topic. Glow Kids, by Nicholas Kardaras, tells you how too much screen time damaging the children. Rebooting the American Dream is another excellent book on this topic.

Spanish Civil War 1936-1039 Republican Forces

    I have to hand it to author Alejandro De Quesada, he does his best to stay positive about a lost cause. But no matter how hard you look at it, or how nicely the author puts it, the Spanish Loyalists were doomed from day #1. The commanders were incompetent, the militia members disliked military-style discipline, and the Soviet suppliers ripped them off. There was a small professional army among them, and there were some qualified people among the volunteers, but none of them got along. The trained soldiers didn’t like the undisciplined militias, and there was no communication between the groups. With few officers trained in strategy, there would be no logistics.

    De Quesada writes about how Franco’s Nationalist Falange used battle-hardened troops, fresh from the Rif war in Morocco, and the Loyalist militias often ran away from them. Then the extremists in the militias would go on purges against suspected enemies (whoops, didn’t know the town’s only doctor was among the 30 that we shot for being too bourgoise) and loot every church they found. Seeing as the European industrialists and bankers were all Catholic, I doubt the anti-church activities were good for public relations.

    The armor and equipment are shown to have been a problem too. It’s well-known that the Soviets sold the Loyalists outdated Remington rifles for whatever gold there was, and that left the legitimate government cash-strapped. The Soviets did send in a fleet of T-26 tanks, which were better than the ones that the Nationalist and Italian armies used, along with instructors. However, the T-26 was prone to engine malfunction, and the Nationalists had anti-tank artillery. Bungling by the unqualified and incompetent Loyalist commanders made things worse, and loads of T-26 tanks were captured and used by Franco.

    Undisciplined rabble, a hodgepodge of different firearms and ammo, lack of communication, zero coordination, abuse of the Catholic clergy, blatant robbery of church property, and incompetence on the part of the brass, it all contributed to the Republican failure and 40 years of fascist dictatorship. Soviet sympathies among the Republicans didn’t do much to gain the support of France, USA, and Britain, all of whom were wary about the Soviet’s presence in the region. Once the German Luttwaffe came to the aid of Frando’s forces, the Republicans were dead in the water.