A Year of Southern Studies?

     In December, I wrote about 2019 being A Year of Soviet Studies.
     Well, I have continued reading but I have definitely moved away from books about the Soviet Union and Russia. It is early in the year and I have only read two books, both of them novels and both of them taking place in the South: To Kill a Mockingbird and Where the Crawdads Sing.
     Both are beautifully written gems, written be female authors and have female lead characters in their youth, and impart wisdom and insight in terms of depth with a pace that one would expect from a novel about set in the US South before they all became red states. When I say beautifully written, I mean it in a few ways. The plots of both are engaging and developed with a slow hand that intensifies as the novels progress. Both authors also are amazingly gifted at describing people and scenes poetically.
     I read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens first. I was at a Barnes and Noble in a nearby town. I was looking for a novel to read. So, I asked the helpful folks at the information desk as they are always helpful. Before they could answer, three ladies behind me in line all said “by all means read Where the Crawdads Sing, you will love it.” I had never heard of the book but was impressed that three ladies, who did not know each other, emphatically endorsed the book. I was unaware of the author and certainly had never heard of the book. One of the ladies added, “It starts a little slow but stick with it you will not regret it.”
     They were absolutely correct. Once I got into the book, I couldn’t put it down and read it in two days. What a great book. It is a coming of age and murder mystery entwined. It is set in the Carolina marshlands and is also a celebration of nature in that part of the country. I do not want to give much away here and leave you with the recommendation that brought me to this beautiful novel, “by all means read Where the Crawdads Sing, you will love it.”
     This was the first novel for Delia Owens but not her first book. She and her husband Mark are both zoologists. In the 1980s, they moved to Africa and went into the Kalahari Desert and Savanna where they lived for seven years studying animals. Together they wrote at least three other books: Cry of the Kalahari, Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna. All of their books are written as travelogues, a genre I have always loved but rarely seek out. Their books, from reviews I have read, are beautifully written. The Cry of the Kalahari is an international bestseller which I have put on my reading list.
     When I finished Where the Crawdads Sing, I felt that dichotomy after reading a good book. I was fulfilled and wanted more at the same time. I then remembered that I had a copy of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird tucked away in a drawer in my office. I was talking with my cousin in-law, Sylva, a few years ago and in the course of general chit-chat, she mentioned that she had finally gotten around to reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I mentioned that I had never read it either. A month or so later, when she finished reading it, she gave it to me.
     Anything accolades and praises I write about Harper Lee’s classic should probably evoke a big and resounding “duh” from anyone who has read the book. If you are like me and managed somehow not to have read this classic, I would recommend doing so without hesitation. It was a great novel to finish just before the Martin Luther King national holiday.

     Upon finishing the novel, I watched the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. Not surprisingly, I never have watched the film either. It is a very good adaptation of the book. I was glad to have watched the film after I read the book as I was happy to have Harper Lee’s well-crafted words and not the scenes from the film provide the images of the peoples and places in my mind. It was impossible to have an image of Atticus that didn’t look like Gregory Peck however.
     My wife asked me how it was possible that I had not read it in middle or high school. I had no good answer except that, we read other books. We read Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. We read some Shakespeare as well. I never read Moby Dick until 2011. Back when I entered college, there was an assumed list of classics every student was to have read per several English and Humanities professors. Public schools including the Detroit and Livonia public schools where I went, had long before moved away from whatever was on those lists. Even though I read more classics in college, I have read many more since and will continue to do so. 

     Why haven't I read To Kill a Mockingbird on my own since graduation?  The answer to this question may be the most inane thing I have written in this blog:  I did not like the title.  There was nothing about the title that made me want to pick up the book and read it.  Oddly, when the ladies in Barnes and Noble suggested Where the Crawdad's Sing, I had the same reaction.  Yes, I am that shallow and I do judge books by their covers... er.... titles.

     There are lists all over the internet of the 25, 50, or 100 books we should read or even read before we die (like we have the ability to still read when we can no longer breathe). Depending on the list, I have read somewhere from a third to half of the books.
     If this is the year of southern studies, I may have to consider William Faulkner. Flannery O’Conner, Cormac McCarthy, or William Styron. We shall see.

Trying to Make Sense of it All

     On January 3rd, Qasem Soleimani was assassinated in a drone attack by the US while the Iranian general was in Iraq. Immediately, the world feared that war was imminent. People believed that the assassination of a man responsible for countless deaths himself was a good thing or they believed it to be an abhorrent act a global leader, such as the US, should never have even considered. There was very little in between.
     The Persians vowed revenge and retaliation stating that the US had made a grave error. Our President said if there were any retaliation, the US response would be overwhelming and vowed to hit 51 cultural sites in Iran; one for each of the hostages taken in the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy by the Iranians. Again, there was no middle ground in people’s reaction. People here were either totally against the even the suggestion of targeting cultural sites which is against the international rules of war. Others wished we would have just attacked those sites back in 1979. The next day the Pentagon said we would never target cultural sites and Trump was thereafter silent on the matter.
     People were defriending each other on social media over their hawkish or dovish perspectives on the assassination, the potential war, or Trump. And we waited. We waited to see what Iran’s retaliation was going to be. It came on January 7th. Iran launched a dozen missiles at two US military bases. Momentarily, there weren’t two sides. Everyone knew it was coming and everyone’s spirits sunk as it seemed a long, costly, and ugly war was about to begin.
     Shortly after reports of the missile attacks were all over social media, there was a report of a Ukrainian plane crash in Iran. The Persians immediately reported it was a mechanical malfunction. It did not take much longer for the US and others to report that there was evidence that the plane was shot down by an Iranian missile. Things were looking very dismal indeed. If a plane is shot down by a missile, debris is scattered for miles whereas if a plane crashes due to mechanical failure, the debris is contained in a much smaller area. In this case the debris was cast over a large swath of land.
     Then, the next day, war began to look a lot less imminent. The report of the Iranian attacks on the US bases were that there was very little damage and no causalities. I thought “hmmm.” Was it just one of those cases where it was retaliation for show with no intent to harm? Was it one of those cases, where there was a courtesy call or text sent to us to inform us of an impending attack?
     Things got even more curious when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada made a statement about the Ukrainian jet incident as 63 of the 167 passengers, none of which survived, were Canadian citizens or residents all of Persian descent. He said there was strong evidence that the jet was downed by a missile and then added it may have been done in error. Later, I heard a clip of President Trump giving the exact same message. Yesterday, the Iranians admitted that, yes, they had mistakenly and sadly shot down the Ukrainian jet.
      For all the saber rattling and being at the edge of what promised to be a horrific and costly war, tensions had eased lot. Golly, gee whiz, we basically forgave the Iranians for errant downing the Ukrainian passenger jet before they even fessed up. How and why did we become so thoughtful in their regard?
     I don’t know about fake news in this case, but I feel like we are not getting the full story. It is more like manipulative news by omission. It seems to me there has been a lot of talking behind the scene as some of this seems very orchestrated. 

     On one extreme, it may be all coincidental. I really doubt this to be the case.  On the other hand, maybe there was a huge conspiracy between Iran and the US to get to some kind of detente. My out-there theory works as follows.  First, they had to get rid of Soleimani. The US would take him out. Iran would huff and puff and then fire missiles at two bases with forewarning so the missiles would just thud into the desert killing no one and damaging nothing. The Ukrainian jet liner? Unplanned, an unfortunate consequence that can easily happen in the fog of military operations.  It was truly unfortunate but deftly handled by Trudeau, Trump, and the Iranians.
     Why might the Iranians want to get rid of Soleimani? They are a one-party government that needs the support of the people in order to hold power. The US sanctions are hurting their economy and eroding the support of the populace. Probably the leadership, except for Soleimani the hardline regional organizer and supporter of fundamentalists and terrorists, were leaning for dialogue with the US. Thus, Soleimani had to go.
     In this continually evolving story, there are protests in Iran over the Revolutionary Guard admitting they downed the Ukrainian jet. Also, the leader of Hezbollah, warned that the ineffective missile attack against the US bases were just the first many that he threatened to inflict on US forces in the Middle East. I can spin these two items to support my theory or to debunk it. That is how unsure I am.
     Ok. As a child of the conspiracy theory laden 60s and 70s, I am probably way off here. But there is something odd about how this whole thing has unfolded. We are all missing a puzzle piece or three that would allow us to make sense of all of this. I am trying to make sense of all this... and not doing very well at it.

An Very Small Slice of Life

      I took my car to the Toyota dealership today for a routine check-up, oil change and tire rotation. As it wasn’t a long service, I sat in the waiting room, sipping coffee, and read the two most recent Wall Street Journal. I perused the sections, read some articles, and clipped others that will help illustrate concepts to my students in microeconomics, quality, IT, and operations management with real life, current, examples.
     As I read the sections, I put them on the floor next to the easy chair I had nestled into. When I was done, a fellow stopped and asked me, “Are these your newspapers.” I looked up and noticed he was a rather executive looking fellow about my age. I am guessing he was from the subcontinent. I answered, “yes, they are but I am guessing you really want to know if you could take and read them.” He responded, “Yes, if I may.” I said, “Of course, I am done with them. Just know I have ripped out several pages and kept an entire section.” He said something about me “doing busy work to pass the time” and then gathered up the papers and walked off. 
     I got up to get a cup of coffee after finishing reading the article by Jason Gay on whether or not Tom Brady was going to retire, stay with New England, or sign with another team. I would never have noticed that the newspapers were gone except of the fact that this fellow who took the papers left the two plastic bags the papers were delivered in on the floor. 
     It struck me as odd. The plastic bags were in between the various sections I had folded and placed on the floor next to the chair. This means that this fellow had to pick up the papers, separate the plastic bags, and drop them back onto the floor. Why didn’t he just toss them away?
     The fellow was sitting at table on my way to the coffee urns and the trash can. As I neared him, I noted, “You took the papers and left the plastic bags for me to throw away?” He looked at with a gaze that I interpreted as a mix of sheepishness and not giving a damn. He didn’t say a thing. I proceeded to get my coffee thinking only I will probably blog about this guy. 
     I wasn’t mad. Truly, I was feeling quite content, chill in today’s parlance, just coming out of the Christmas break. It just struck me, as mentioned, odd. Odd enough to get me to blog about it (yeah I mentioned that too). Things strike us as odd simply because someone else’s behavior is different than our own in an unexpected way. It is the unexpected part that makes it odd (OMG what an insight). 
     The truly odd thing about this little slice of life is that I am focusing on this small, insignificant, thing rather than deal with the escalating tensions between the US and Iran after we assassinated General Qasem Soleimani in Bagdad. Will there be retaliation? Will there be war? I just don’t want to deal with that today when I am still basking in the glow of my great trip to Los Angeles. 
     Tomorrow? I will start working on getting ready for the Spring Term that begins a week from today and, yeah, reading about what the pundits are thinking about this Iran thing.

The Dawn of a New Year and Decade

     I am sitting in my daughter’s house in greater Los Angeles watching the sun rise on a new year and a new decade. It is my favorite time to write; in the early morning in a house full of family and where I am the only one up and about. I am not sure why this is my favorite time other than I do enjoy this short solitude before the pitter patter of my grandsons running to engage me in more amazing, heartwarming, and memorable activities from puzzles to breakfast and playing outside to having me build things they can knock down. .
     En route on the plane here I read articles in the New York Times from Sunday December 29th. They were in the Lifestyle Section and the New York Times magazine. The articles were retrospectives on the past year and the past decade. I had the time and really wanted to delve into highlights of a decade that seemingly went by too fast.
     In two words, I was disappointed and bored. The articles were very well written but boring. They were boring to me, at least. They focused a lot on folks who passed, as such annual retrospectives do. I was amazed, and maybe a bit embarrassed, that I did not recognize many of the names they highlighted. Were they great statemen or industrial leaders? Not as much as would have been in my youth.  The focus was more on celebrities. Sadly, the articles that resonated most with me were two articles on the that focused on our growing polarization in our country are what resonated most with me. Hopefully, this decade gets us closer where we can improve our collective lot and truly make America and the world better places. Me? I would most definitely start with allocating more funds to education and infrastructure.
     There were two photos from these biographical sketches in the New York Times Magazine that I just loved. One was of the famed designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Annie Leibovitz for Vogue
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It showed him at work on the largest and most cluttered desk I have ever seen. I loved it because it made me feel like that it was OK if my desks and offices were often in the same shape as the great designer’s. The second photo was of Doris Day doing a handstand on a diving board. It depicted her beauty, grace, and incredible athletic ability all at the same time. She had an amazing Hollywood career though she was unlucky in love but finally managed to achieve contentment through her dedication to animal welfare after her film career and troubling love life.  She showed that celebrity does not guarantee happiness and, also, that we can reinvent ourselves at any age.
     The boredom of the rest of the 2019 and decade reviews simply confirmed what I have known for a long time. While it is important to note the great events of the past year and decade and the notables who passed away in the same timeframe, it is really the notable events and people in our own lives that make the most impact and

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have a firmer place in our hearts and memories. I first wrote about this in May 2005: Memorable School, Memorable Teachers. At the beginning of this piece, I presented a quiz a friend of mine forwarded to me in an email. It is a short but impactful quiz that is worth taking every New Year when many of us take stock of the past year. It really highlights the perspective I have been focusing on. (The quiz is presented at the end of this piece.)
     So, I closed my eyes and reflected on the decade from a personal perspective. It was the decade in which my five grandchildren were born. What a joy and blessing they are. It was also the decade where my father in-law, father, uncle, and two aunts passed away. It was the decade in which two dear friends passed on. We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary.  It was the decade in which I fulfilled a life-long dream to be a full-time college professor and celebrate my five-year anniversary of doing such. It was the decade in which I began playing in the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble at the University of Chicago. It was the decade where I almost stopped blogging and came back strong.
     As eloquently stated in Job 1:21: The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. No matter what else is going on in the nation or in our work lives, it is this cycle of life, births, deaths, what we do in our own lives, and the impacts that we have on each other in that underscores and defines… well, everything.
      I started to write this piece on New Year’s Day and am finishing it on January 4th. It took quite a while to capture this simple message of several

hundred words. I was not focused on writing but rather on enjoying this precious time with grandsons Vaughn and Sasoun. On New Years Day, they dutifully wore Michigan garb as I was. We attempted to watch the Citrus Bowl in which Michigan was u against Alabama. Michigan lost. I barely watched the game and cannot relate the final score as I barely watched what, for at least three quarters, seemed like a pretty good game. I was having too much fun playing with the boys. Seems like a great way start to a new year and decade to me. 

      Wishing everyone a most healthy, happy, and prosperous 2020.

--
Here is the quiz:

Take this quiz: (mentally)

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do? The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name a half dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Easier? The lesson? The people who make a difference in
your life are not the ones with the most credentials, money or
awards. They are the ones that care.