The Myth of Liberal Ascendency

G. William Domhoff’s The Myth of Liberal Ascendency is a book about how businesses play a huge role in US policy. The idea of businesses controlling a nation is nothing new, and there are many other books on the topic. This book, however, is weak in its writing, with endless citations of US government committees, and there are no case studies to be seen. It is not an interesting read, nor is it informative or thought-provoking.

Chapter Two of this book is an endless list of taxes in the 20^th century, with no information on the public response. On page 25 Domhoff says that it was corporate leaders who wanted Roosevelt to regulate the stock market, but this isn’t necessarily true, nor does the author cite the source. He continues to cite every single committee, law, commission, and investigative board, without giving any names of the people involved. I would like to at least know the names of the Senators and Congressmen who were on these committees, and it wouldn’t hurt to give stronger background on the events that led up to these laws the author mentions.  When he discusses the relationship between the labor unions, the industries, and the government, he cites no names or cases here either. This disappointed me, because I wanted to know more about how the US government dealt with unions in the war industries. There must have been some kind of arrangement, because the merchant marine, shipyards, and aircraft plants could not have afforded a strike. But there’s no mention of this.

On page 77, Domhoff says that the Federal Housing Authority started an 800,000 unit affordable housing program, but it was used to expand commercial real estate. If this is true, then where did it happen? Who was involved? The author does not even give the who-what-when-where-how-why that elementary school students are told to put in their current events homework! Furthermore, he mentions nothing about Levittown in this chapter, and that would definitely have been a great example of the business-government relationship in post-WW2 USA. William Levitt must have had some arrangement with the government concerning the licenses, building permits, and sewer lines, plus he had to have arranged something with the banks to cover the mortgages. Since he had no known disputes with the labor unions, he must’ve had an arrangement with them too.

I would not recommend this book for anyone. It has no value to anyone studying business, history, economics, government, or public policy. There is little practical evidence (names, places, specific cases) to prove the author’s point. If you are interested in how businesses and the government work together and/or control each other, I recommend Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal.

This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe

Years ago, a parent came into my classroom and handed out fliers for his missing kid. Now this guy was big and intimidating, and he was clearly very angry, so I thought to myself “okay, he’s pissed off that his kid’s run away.” Not unreasonable, it can be stressful tracking down a runaway. But if he really wanted to find the boy, why did he give me such a blurry photo?

Tobias Wolfe’s memoir was no surprise to me. I can’t even say “shocked but not surprised” but I was neither shocked nor surprised. I’ve seen families where the father is an abusive drill sergeant and the mother is completely spineless. The kids always end up angry, sometimes getting into mischief. But This Boy’s Life takes place in the early 60’s, and not only was Tobias (he calls himself “Jack” in his youth) dealing with a brute stepfather and coward of a mother, but he was also dealing with a lack of rights. It was an era when a man wouldn’t get jail time for beating his stepson and stealing the kid’s money.

The plot isn’t complicated; parents split, father keeps the older brother, mother takes “Jack” to Utah, then Washington State, hooks up with a brute named Dwight, things get rough. But there’s no self-indulgence here, no self-pity or “I had a horrible life” attitude. I expect that after living a life where you can’t rely on adult authority figures, you learn to do more on your own. And he definitely does a lot on his own; paper routes, work, forging his report card so he can get into boarding school. He does it all by himself. When he finds out that his stepfather has stolen his money, he makes one last dash to get revenge; he sneaks back into the house, steals Dwight’s guns, and pawns them. This had to be the best part of the book.

Back when I was 13, I was in a bible study class and we got to the part where the Jews say “let’s go back to Egypt, I miss the food, I miss the melons, I miss the onions.” The teacher said to us “we learn a lesson here, don’t dream of the past, it was never as good as you remember.” When I disagreed, he said “Ben, we didn’t have to lock our doors when I was your age, because we had nothing to steal!” As for this book, maybe the message is “the past sucks” and we shouldn’t look back? Perhaps this book is an anti-tribute to the Eisenhower-Kennedy era? It certainly makes life in the 50’s and 60’s look horrible; women had no rights, kids had no rights, men controlled the family finances, kids had no advocates, nobody ever believed a kid who said he was being abused.

This is why I never believed Michael Jackson when he said “I was robbed of my childhood.” I would say “childhood sucks Michael, you didn’t miss anything!”

The Poor Among Us by Ralph Da Costa Nunez

There used to be a weird law in New York City; no person of the Hebrew faith could take charity from a Christian, they could only be a burden to their own people. Peter Stuyvesant made that law in the Colonial era, because he didn’t want Spanish Jewish refugees from Brazil coming in (he didn’t like any other minority, for that matter) and becoming parasites (New Amsterdam had its share of layabouts.) Few Jews complained, they did okay without Christian handouts. But keep in mind that that Jewish people, in any city worldwide, have a network of mutual support and benevolent societies. A lot of people do not.

Ralph Da Costa Nunez, a Columbia University professor, has written The Poor Among Us as a history book about New York City, but specifically about how we take care of the poor. He divides it into general eras; the Colonial days, the industrial age, post US Civil War, the progressive era, the Depression, post WW2, and so on. With each age in our history, he shows how poverty reflected the economics of the time. Take for instance in the 1700’s, it was the churches that were empowered to remove children from their families. There were poor families, of that there’s no doubt, but there were not as many. Irish immigration hadn’t yet swamped the city, and even after it did, there were still jobs. Today there’s NYCHA, homeless shelters, and food stamps, but in the 1700’s, it was unheard of. Where would the colony have gotten the money to pay for it?

In the chapter on Catholic and Jewish charities, I could see another comparison between the ages. The Jewish and Catholic orphan societies weren’t based on altruism as much as avoiding embarrassment. The established Jews and Irish didn’t want the new arrivals to create an image of backwardness, so they said “we’ll pay for their education,” and the effort altogether worked. The kids got regular classes, plus job training, and it worked so well because there were jobs for printers, shoemakers, dressmakers, tailors, etc. But today, it won’t work. The industries are gone, and shoes and dresses are made in China. Take for example the animator Ralph Bakshi; he went to the High School of Art and Design, learned cartooning, and got a job in animation. But today animation is computerized, and there are fewer jobs in the field. That high school served a purpose in that it supplied people for jobs in commercial art, but that’s no longer the case. There’s less demand now for commercial illustrators.

This book is well-researched, and I applaud the massive number of primary sources that he managed to locate. I also appreciate how he doesn’t blame the government or racism for everything. Most of the blame falls on economics, and when government is blamed, it’s usually for lack of foresight. New York City never considered what would happen if the jobs vanished from the garment district, nor did they consider the effect of rising heating costs. For the last decade the city never considered the effect of a power outage in the Metro North railway and….oh wait, they had a power shutdown in 2013! People couldn’t get to work. But didn’t we have a transit strike in 2005? Right before Christmas? Do I recall huge traffic snarls that made the Queens-Manhattan drive a two hours slog?

I don’t necessarily agree with those fanatics who say we should “prepare for doomsday,” but I do think we need to be ready for a transit strike, garbage strike, school bus driver strike, rising fuel cost, etc. All these things will come down hard on the families that already struggle. Then again, politicians never really learn from mistakes, now do they?

Modernist Cooking Made Easy: Getting Started

This book isn’t so much about cooking as it is about chemistry. The author begins by defending the use of artificial ingredients, and extolling their benefits in culinary art. Though I’ll never be president of the store-bought sauce fan club, I agree that there is something good about them. First off, some of them do taste mighty good. Secondly, even in the fanciest restaurants, I bet the chef uses them under the table. Thirdly, as the author makes very clear, xanthium gum is in fact a plant extract. So I wouldn’t go crazy in calling the ingredients “artificial.”

Logsdon proceeds to give detailed instructions for making the “artificial” ingredients, thought they’re not really artificial since you’ll be making them by hand. He covers, gels, foams, emulsification, and even a recipe for a caviar made from chili peppers! But for those of you looking for something simple, there’s a recipe for making marshmallows. They won’t look exactly like the ones you buy in the store, because they’re not made by machine. But they’ll still taste like marshmallows.

Regardless of the health aspect, the foods covered here are far healthier than anything you buy in the store. None of the recipes in this book involve preservatives.

White Girl Bleed A Lot

Colin Flaherty has done an excellent job in this chronicle of racial violence. He cites cases in most US cities, involving theft, assault, murder, and witness intimidation, but the main concern of this book is mass assault. For the past several years we’ve had innumerable instances where dozens of black teenagers rampage through shopping malls, train stations, and parks, beating and robbing people at random. We know it from the news media as the “knockdown game” and it’s becoming a serious problem in the USA.

The main concern of the author is that race plays a huge part in this. He believes that since 95% of the gang assaults are the work of black teens, it must be the result of either corrupt and lazy black leaders, or race-conscious reporters. He gives an example in Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia and his reaction to these mass assaults. First he openly criticized the attackers, then the next time round he changed his attitude. Flaherty accuses him of being afraid to criticize his own people, either out of resentment, or because he’s afraid of pissing off his angry low-class constituents. The news media Flaherty also accuses in this problem, citing them as being more concerned with appearing liberal (unless you’re tuning into Sean Hannity) in order to avoid accusations of racism, than in reporting honestly.

There is, however, a positive window of hope. He devotes a chapter titled “Granny Get Your Gun” to people who fight back. In states like Florida, Michigan, and Texas, there have been citizens who shot their attackers and saved themselves. In another state, some boys approached an old man and said “we want your wallet.” His response? He took off his glasses, said “well you can’t have it” and fought back. I think this man may have saved the lives of those boys, because risk-takers don’t learn until their luck runs out. His punches to their faces may keep them out of jail. There’s also (not mentioned in the book) the Hasidic private security patrols in Brooklyn, formed after the Crown Heights riots in 1991. Fed up with the lack of police protection, the locals started their own. This was 20 years before the so-called knockdown game became a catchword, but assaults just like it were commonplace. When black boys did it to each other, it was because they were being stupid angry kids. When black boys did it to Hasidic Jews, it was definitely racially motivated.

I have to wonder myself if the “knockdown game” is the result of racial hatred, or simply the result of people tolerating bad behavior from the lower classes. Black communities have been dealing with gang assaults for years, and nobody panicked. Most shooting victims in the inner cities are black and/or Hispanic, and I rarely hear of white people being randomly shot in their own neighborhoods. But it does seem that there is an increase in the number of black boys and girls mobbing and beating whites. If it’s not about race and/or class, could it be the result of weak law enforcement? I fear that both are possibilities.

Ten years ago, Britain had a problem like this; it was called “happy slap,” where teens would randomly hit strangers (or all ages and races) and film it with their cellphone cameras. There were headlines in the paper “Happy Slap Them Straight to Jail” after one such incident caused an old lady to fall, hit her head, and have a stroke. Most of the “slappers” were white kids, and my theory is that the British legal system tolerates crap from lower class people. Their idea is “well that’s how they behave and that’s what we expect from them.”

Back when I was a kid, we had a boy in my school who was always fighting with everyone, very confrontational and angry. My mother’s response was “he’s unhappy, and he doesn’t have all the good things you have, and a mature person doesn’t start up with him.” What she really meant was “he’s from the lower classes, that’s how they behave, the principal doesn’t want to discipline him because he feels sorry for him, and it’ll be too much trouble for me to do anything, so just tough it out.” To this day I consider my mother a coward.

I give kudos to Flaherty for taking the American liberals to task over the return of racial violence. Newspapers in NYC are now omitting the race of the perpetrators when they report crime, and they’re doing it because they’re afraid to be accused of race. My only criticism of Flaherty is that he doesn’t place enough blame on weak law enforcement, lazy judges, or cowardly business people. I say weak law enforcement it a problem, because if the police can’t respond quickly to one assault, how will they respond to a gang of 80? I say lazy judges, because too many of them give short sentences for major assaults, rather than giving the teen 100 hours of community service and making him do it on weekends and school holidays. I blame cowardly business people who won’t even try to throw out disruptive customers, not because they’re afraid for their safety, but because they’re afraid of lawsuits.

I blame President Obama for a lot of this. He’s the nation’s top cop, and if you disagree, look at the constitution of the USA. It says his job is to “carry out the laws, enforce the laws, oversee defense and security of the nation, and oversee Federal property.” But Obama hasn’t been carrying out the law. He did nothing about the Black Panthers in Philadelphia who stood outside the polling stations armed with nightsticks. He did nothing about Mormon Polygamists who traffic underage girls across state lines. He’s done nothing about marijuana growers in the national parks, cross-border drug dealing, foreclosure abuse, or food stamp fraud. If the president won’t do his law-enforcement duties, what does that tell young people?

Back in September 2013, a gang of bikers chased a driver, dragged him from his car, and beat him while his wife and child looked on in horror. Now what race were the bikers? That’s right, they were black (with one Italian American thrown in.) Even the Hell’s Angels wouldn’t have done anything remotely like this. But if I were the driver of that car, I would’ve panicked and run over the entire gang. Fear is a powerful weapon, it tells you when you’re in danger, and when you’re in danger you may have to fight back.

Food, Family, and the Friars

First off, let me admit my mistake. I thought “Friars” had to do with the Friars Club in Manhattan (who knows, maybe dirty jokes about food?) but it refers to the St. Joseph monastery in Harlem. The author, Gino Barbaro, runs a restaurant in Mahopac and taught a cooking class to the Franciscan postulants. This book is a collection of the recipes he taught them, and it’s a surprisingly entertaining read.

The first thing author mentions is the list of knives. Then come the temperatures for cooking beef, fish, lamb, and chicken. After that he lists the herbs, cheese, and beans. You might wonder what’s so special about that? Well he makes it as blunt as it gets. Most cookbook authors drone on and on with too many descriptions, but this chef keeps it brief, so you can progress quickly. It was funny, looking at the list of beans, because I never really stopped to think about the properties of each one (I just throw them together) and the same thing goes for the sauces. As for the Italian food in this book, it’s not the greasy, salty stuff you’d expect from the cheap Sicilian restaurant at the local mall. He stresses using fresh ingredients, making your own stocks and sauces, and keeping the food at the right temperatures.

After a while I realized why Barbaro keeps everything simple. When you’re teaching basic cooking skills to people who have no clue, you need to start with simple exercises. It’s just like a book on how to build model planes or paper mache, you need brief descriptions of the materials, a few starter projects, and then you move on to more complicated ones.

There is one minor fault I have in this book. Other than the short intro from the head of the order, it doesn’t say much about the Friars that he was teaching. I would’ve welcomed a few anecdotes about these guys, perhaps the screw-ups they made when they started? It would make for some funny stories. 

Illustrated Bible Survey

The bible has a lot more to offer than face value. Unfortunately, the King James version doesn’t offer much in the way of commentary or explanation. Illustrated Bible Survey does a brilliant job at explaining the events of the bible and the morals they contain, using contemporary photos of the bible lands.

When studying the scriptures, it pays to note how a massive change occurs after the book of Exodus. Where the Israelites were once advancing constantly, they now appear to “take things easier.” The reason is that since they were no longer enslaved, but at the same time not preoccupied with conquering, they had more time to dwell on their purpose in life. In the chapter on Deuteronomy, it describes Moses as moving away from the adulation of the Lord’s miracles to the obligations of the people. The three books after Exodus are not in the chronological order like Genesis and Exodus. They focus more on philosophy.

Maps, photos, and archeological evidence are all part of this book, which should make it more attractive to young readers. It’s a great thing to read, for both children and adults who want to study the sacred texts in greater depth. However, it is lacking somewhat. The Hebrew commentary by Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak (aka Rashi) has a bit more in the way of explanation, such as the reason the Lord allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery (I’m not going to reveal that one here.) One of the problems with this book is the size, which is quite large. In the next edition, it might do better as two volumes, one each for the Old and New Testament.