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ON MY OWN by Diane Rehm discussion

08 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, blog, Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, Discussion, friend, Life, Love, Non Fiction, recommendation, review, time, Today, work, Writer

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I’ve been listening to NPR and The Diane Rehm Show for many years now. Many of the books I’ve read are books I learned about on Rehm’s show when she’d interview authors about their latest publications. I’ve also enjoyed the insights into various topics on her show as well. Despite being an avid listener of her show, I somehow was unaware that she had a few books of her own published. To my delight, I came across her most recent memoir in my local library, On My Own. 

Due to the book’s short length, I was initially going to include it in my “holiday week reading wrap up” but when I began reading it, I realized that this book deserved a post to itself. The subject matter is too important to be thrown in with the other three books I read over the course of the week.

On My Own jacket-675On My Own is Diane Rehm’s reflections on her life immediately following the death of her husband of 54 years, John Rehm. John had Parkinson’s disease and as the disease took over his body, he began to lose his ability to function. In early June of 2014, John made the decision that he’d refuse food, water and medication which ultimately lead to his death on June 24, 2014.

John’s death immediately changed Diane’s life. She had never lived on her own before and as she approached the age of 80, she was faced with living a life without the person who had been next to her for over half a century. Rehm discusses how loneliness, grief and sadness affected her personal and professional life. The circumstances of John’s death turned Diane into an advocate for the right to die movement. Her advocacy for this caused a stir in the NPR headquarters as she began speaking, and ultimately representing this controversial stance.

The book is set up in a series of what appears to be both journal entries and essays. The journal entries are far more personal as Rehm reflects on the life she once had with John, including traditions the two of them had around the holidays and different memories the two made with each other. The essays are generally more topical and talk about grief, death and the politics that relate to them. Both of these formats work well together in this book offering a comprehensive look into the mind of someone who is trying to maneuver through life in the wake of all of these traumatic changes that have taken place.

Some of the more difficult parts of this short memoir are when Diane takes into consideration her own death – you can see she has a trepidation as she considers the last days of her life. She is adamant that she is given her own right to die as she refuses to die without any dignity. Diane mentions the death of her parents in here quite often – insisting that her dad died 11 months after her mother of a ‘broken heart’ – and as I read through her memoir, I could only think that Diane believed she’d have the same fate – a death due caused by a broken heart at the loss of her beloved, John.

On My Own is only 162 pages, and can easily be read in one sitting – I do recommend this book. I believe that I will be buying a copy for myself

Life Does it Again

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in anger, blog, cat, Coffee, debt, friend, home, House, Life, Money, time, Today, Uncategorized, work

≈ 1 Comment

I momentarily must revert back to posting a personal blog.

I am in full panic mode – I’ve broken down crying multiple times today.

I fear that everything is unraveling.

Stress Meter Showing  Panic Attack From Stress Or WorryMoments before work last night, my roommate – the one who has been living with me for almost a year.  The one who so desperately needed a place to live because his girlfriend had kicked him out. The one I met through my [former] best friend and helped as much as I could.

He sent me a text letting me know that he is moving out.

Yesterday morning I thought for once everything was beginning to look up for me, and now I have to go through the worry and anxiety of finding a new roommate.

Two of the major reasons why I got this house to begin with… have moved out.

My morning has been filled with thoughts of whether getting this house was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made or not. The tears and the uncontrollable emotions keep coming unexpectedly for me today.

I feel so lost. Abandoned. I don’t know what to do and I feel I have absolutely no one to lean on.

The story of my life continues…

I need a new roommate – preferably someone who shares my interest of books and hopefully can also respect my stuff.

I wish I had the ability to just walk away from all of this – like my [former] best friend and my room mate have, but I don’t have that option.

I am stuck and I fear this is how things will be for the rest of my life. I don’t know how to overcome this.

WALKAWAY by Cory Doctorow Discussion & Review

10 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, blog, Book Review, books, Discussion, home, House, Life, science fiction, Today, work, Writer

≈ 2 Comments

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow is set in a near future where the world has been overcome by all the disasters we talk about today: climate change, automation of work leading to job loss, ever increasing surveillance technology, an ever widening gap between the rich and poor and so on. A dystopia ripped from the sensationalist headlines – a dystopia with only one solution to get away from: to walkaway.

Walkaway-tempI need to be clear – the premise of this book is great, the execution of the premise however is TERRIBLE. I found that half way through the book that I didn’t care about anything or anyone in it, I pressed on however hoping that at some point this book would show improvement – it didn’t.

The primary aspect of this book that made me dislike it was Doctorow’s persistent use of lingo, slang and made up words that added nothing but confusion to the story. They were used in this book recklessly to the point that it went from being uncomfortable to irritating quite quickly. It also dated the book – planting it firmly in 2017 despite it supposedly taking place in the future. The characters never used words commonly used in the 80’s or 90’s or 00’s (cowabunga!, bodacious!, whatever!, like totally!).

Secondly, Doctorow attempted to make the characters unique – but they all fell flat, terribly flat. Their interactions were annoying and unconvincing, I didn’t care about any of them. When I finally pushed myself through to the last chapter of the book that involves some battle with a prison that one of the characters was in, I did something I NEVER do with books – I skipped 20 pages and just read the epilogue.

So far this has been the worst read of the year.

I regret to say this, but I will never pick up another book by Cory Doctorow again.

☆ – Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

#Thursday #Quotables

08 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, books, cat, Coffee, home, House, Life, Quotables, Quote, Thursday Quotables, Today, work, Writer

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“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

#Thursday #Quotables

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, books, Quotables, Quote, Thursday Quotables, time, Today, work

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“Only the donkey knows how weary it feels, all God cares about are humans, and not all humans, because some of them live like donkeys or worse, and God makes no effort to help them.”

― José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

THE FORGOTTEN MAN by Amity Shlaes – Book Discussion [Part 3]

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, debt, Discussion, job, Life, Money, time, Today, work

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hoover-dam

Since I recently finished the book, what I have consists primarily of thoughts I had while reading the last 100 pages or so of THE FORGOTTEN MAN. Since this is a non-fiction book, I prefer to have ‘discussions’ rather than have a review of the contents. Generally speaking, providing a rating of a non-fiction book seems impractical when critiques are more suitable.

But anyway…The Forgotten Man

After an economy falls apart – who is more suitable in rebuilding it; the government or the private sector? This is the question that Amity Shlaes explores in her book, THE FORGOTTEN MAN A NEW HISTORY OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. The argument that Shlaes is proposing is that the governments interference in the economy actually prolonged the depression rather than rectify it.

After the economy fell apart and millions of people were without jobs, the US Government under the direction of  President Roosevelt believed that the best remedy to this was to put people back to work. In order to do this, the government set up numerous agencies to help re-energize the work force. The Government also believed that another way to help with the economy was to regulate how businesses operated.

The US Government was learning how to deal with the economy through a series of experiments and by observing how other governments were dealing with similar problems. What the author inadvertently made clear was that there was no set procedure in how to pull the USA out of the Great Depression. Whether the private sector could have done it itself or whether the Government prolonged the Great Depression can only be argued in hindsight.

Shlaes presented several anecdotes where the government had overstepped it’s bounds in an effort to show how the government often acted as a hindrance. Although presented as an example as how the Governments programs worked against the economies natural growth – what it really showed was the governments inability to recognize it’s own limits.

I wouldn’t consider the New Deal necessarily wrong – the intention was certainly to correct a problem that hadn’t been encountered to such a degree in America. The largest issue with the New Deal was that the government – primarily Roosevelt – put way too much faith in it. Instead of adjusting to eliminating programs that weren’t going to work – the Government preferred instead to stand behind them, despite the economic destruction they were causing.

The Great Depression and the New Deal were both the results of inexperience – both in Government and in the economy. Before they happened, there was no “lesson” from a previous experience to learn from. Shlaes even notes how the US Government looked to both the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy for answers – the implication being that there was to prior event to look to.

Fear and hope were the primary motivations behind what the Government did – with no procedure to deal with such a problem, of course they’d run into problems – or become the very problem they were so diligently trying to avoid.

Either way, the book, albeit dry at times, was quite insightful.

Interestingly, the New Deal was largely a massive social experiment with varying degree’s of success and failure. The problem is that it essentially became the Government’s go-to blueprint in how to deal with a troubled economy. How numerous parts of it didn’t work is what needs to be examined – but rarely are and instead are just repeated, resulting in similar errors of the past.

THE FORGOTTEN MAN by Amity Shlaes – Book Discussion [Part 2]

29 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in blog, Book Review, books, debt, Discussion, friend, home, House, job, Life, Non Fiction, rain, time, Today, work

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fig38

Admittedly the first and second chapters of Amity Shlaes THE FORGOTTEN MAN are rather clunky – however, if you press on a, (as I like to call it) clarity-in-hindsight occurs where the argument being made in the beginning chapters begin to reveal themselves. Despite the book continuing to be a slow read, I am enjoying the later chapters far more.

Chapter three is where discussion of the Great Depression begins; or at least, where history likes to give it a starting point; October 29, 1929. The build up to this however, was years in the making. This is where the ‘clarity-in-hindsight’ aspect comes into play as Shlaes recap of the prosperity of the 1920’s among a wide range of industries is referenced. The feeling that people did not know how to adjust to the prosperity and take adequate precautions emerges. ‘Panics’ in the stock market were not new – the best way to handle them, however, varied greatly that when ‘black Tuesday’ occurred – there was not a consensus on how to handle it.

The Forgotten ManConflicting opinions in regards to how to handle the stock market crash and the subsequent recession – and what part the government should play in helping to alleviate the economic hardships is where I begin PART 2 of THE FORGOTTEN MAN book discussion.

After the crash – one of the first financial plagues to sweep the country was deflation. Money was becoming scarce and, in some areas, non-existent due to it’s increased value. People could not afford the money issued by the Federal Reserve so some communities improvised by creating their own currency such as the vallar which was developed for a short time in Salt Lake City, Utah. Other communities developed barter systems.

Although these alternative currencies allowed people to make day-to-day purchases from merchants that accepted them, the money wasn’t an acceptable form of payment for the payback of mortgages and other bank issued loans. Citizens weren’t the only ones seeking a way out of the financial problems. The government decided to get idea’s about how to help the economy from elsewhere – and with, what appeared to be the recent success of the Russian Revolution, that ‘elsewhere’ was, indeed, Russia. Later in the book, Shlaes points out that the US government also was looking at Mussolini’s Italy to get ideas on how to confront the USA’s economic woes.

What I found interesting is how much experimenting was taking place both in the US and the world when it came to dealing with the economy. There were two new forms of governments that had emerged – both centralized in nature; Lenin’s form of Communism in Russia and Mussolini’s fascism in Italy. Democracy in the USA, as anyone knows, is an ongoing experiment. At the time of the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve was new – as it was created in 1913 and many banks were not part of it’s centralized money system.

In some aspects it was like the blind leading the blind trying to find the best solution in dealing with an expanding economy and a growing country. A lot of the proposed solutions of the Great Depression were the result of guess-work. The rise of the so-called ‘alphabet agencies’ of Roosevelt’s New Deal were the result of this guess-work; his experimenting.

Putting people back to work in whatever capacity was a clear goal of Roosevelt, the plan was to reinvigorate the economy with jobs, even if the government was the one footing the bill for it. Another experiment was finding the best way to, essentially, control the value of the dollar. Should the US be on the gold standard? Should the US leave the gold standard? The answer to this was debated and resulted in some indecisiveness.

Meanwhile parts of Europe were growing weary – Chancellor Hitler of Germany had entered the political arena and pulled the fledgling Wiemar republic out of it’s depression and was already leading the country into a reconstruction stage. In an effort to protect their gold – people began sending it (or returning it) to the United States for safe keeping.

One thing that appears evident is that Roosevelt believed that, in one way or another, it was the government’s responsibility to get the US out of the depression. That without the government’s careful guidance of the economy there would be no recovery. He perhaps got this notion from Russia (which soon would be recognized as the Soviet Union) or even from Mussolini – regardless he didn’t seem to believe that the economy, left to its own devices would save itself. And that ultimately is the crux argument that Shlaes is attempting to make; that Roosevelt’s interference in the economy enhanced the depression instead of relieving the country from it.

I’ll have further thoughts in Part 3…

THE FORGOTTEN MAN by Amity Shlaes – Book Discussion [Part 1]

22 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in blog, Book Review, books, Discussion, Money, Non Fiction, Trump, work

≈ 1 Comment

poor-figures-from-depression-breadline-H

“Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American Dream. I’ve spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country.

Tremendous potential. I’ve gotten to know our country so well — tremendous potential. It’s going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

– President Elect, Donald Trump Victory Speech Excerpt, November 9, 2016

The Forgotten Man

The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes presents a “new” look at the great Depression.

The idea of ‘the forgotten man’ has a storied history in politics – it’s a concept that was used widely during the Great Depression and first introduced to the public conscious by Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1932 radio address. The expression, when used by Roosevelt, was meant to represent the people on the bottom of the so-called ‘economic ladder’. Trump insinuates that same feeling in his victory address; which is the understanding of that phrase that most American’s also share.

Most American’s share this view of the phrase – except for Amity Shlaes, author of THE FORGOTTEN MAN A NEW HISTORY OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. This is a book that was published in 2007 and became widely popular* as people tried to interpret what the recession of the following year; 2008, meant. Shlaes understanding of what ‘the forgotten man’ is is summed up in a quote by William Graham Sumner of Yale University from 1883 which she quotes at the beginning of the book:

“As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or in the better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X. . . . What I want to do is look up C, I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. . . .
        He works, he votes, generally he prays – but he always pays. . . .”

When I got this book, admittedly I did not know it’s importance in the current political realm. I purchased this book believing – from what I understood of the summary and of the phrase ‘the forgotten man’ that this book would be a compilation of sorts of stories of people who struggled to get by during the Great Depression. What I got instead is a critique of the New Deal and how many of Roosevelt’s policies hurt the bottom line of rich corporate overlords.

I’ve considered DNFing this book (DNF = ‘Did Not Finish’) as the first two chapters are a mess. Shlaes writing is, simply put, atrocious. She spends nearly 70 pages just name-dropping rich business men of the 1920’s and so without making any sort of recognizable point. Her editor (if she even had one) really dropped the ball here. Some of her praise comes across as border-line worship of these people who, quite simply, brutalized their own workers in the name of profit.

As I considered giving up on this book that I began over a week ago, I noticed it started to get heavy attention once again in the media. For example, Media Monarchy just did a short talk about this very book – among other sources and this rejuvenated my interest, so I pressed on.

After the mess of the introduction and chapters 1 and 2 of this book, I just finished chapter 3 and am happy to say that Shlaes writing is becoming more coherent. The point that I was craving that she’d make in the first and second chapters is beginning to formulate now. I see the reason why people are dusting off their old copies of this book.

Although Roosevelt spoke of the people on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, I’m beginning to believe that Trump is referring to the same “forgotten man” that Shlaes is in her book – the wealthy business person who is being put in a ‘disadvantage’ due to policies and regulations set in place by a powerful Government. Trump is looking out for “C” and not “X” and his past 100 days (roughly) in office have reflected this as he rolls back numerous regulations put in place over the past several years to help remedy the 2008 recession.

As of right now, I plan on pressing on with this book. I just began chapter 4 – which is page 105. Considering it took me a week to get this far, perhaps next weekend I’ll be able to write another post covering the next 100 or so pages.

*I have the text version – I realize that not too long ago this book was made into a graphic novel. I do not have that and, admittedly, am not interested in getting it.

This little life of mine

15 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in anger, books, cat, home, House, Life, Money, rain, time, Today, work

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Spring is here – the forecast originally called for storms today, but Michigan thought that a sunny, 80 degree day would be much better. Considering how my week has gone, this change in the weather is very welcome.

After Wednesday, my week finally began to mellow out. The basement is in the process of drying up and not too many eventful things have happened. It is a pleasant 180 from last weekend that included a flooded basement, a flat tire and rejecting a potential roommate.

The past two days I’ve spent being rather ‘lazy’. I did spend a considerable amount of time today cleaning up the house. I vacuumed for the first time in about two months and did various other things I’ve been neglecting.

I have also been reading a lot. I finally finished that (dull) post office book that could have been so much better. I recently started David McCullough’s THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD and I am enjoying that quite a lot. The book is so well written I am visualizing some of the terrifying scene’s he’s depicting and they give me shivers.

Lately I’ve had a strong desire to just read non-fiction. I’m not sure why this is. I tend to gravitate towards non-fiction when I’m depressed – which I still am. I’m trying to figure out how to pay all of this month’s bills which has me considerably stressed. My roommate said that he’d cover the utility bill, but until I see the money for that, it’s still going to be my problem.

I renewed the ad I have on Craigslist in the hopes of finding a new roommate, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up right now. My [former] best friend really threw my life into a loop when he left and it’s been quite the struggle ever since.

I catch myself at least once a day trying not to break down.

Things will get better I’m told.

But when?

This river, it’s at flood level

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in home, House, Life, rain, snow, time, Today, work

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The Grand River in Michigan is at flood level – it’s the highest it’s been since 2013; the ground is heavily saturated with water and it wants to go somewhere.

So it forced its way into my basement.

I, of course was not aware of this until I called the city council to inquire about whether or not there was a sewer back up. I also went online and did some rudimentary research in order to help ease my mind.

With in minutes I found out about the flooding going on all along the Grand River, and within a half hour a person who works for my city checked the sewer and kindly came to my door to tell me that the sewer isn’t backed up, that ground water is most likely getting into my basement and that many people are experiencing this as well.

I found all of this reassuring. Sometimes when unfortunate things happen, it helps a lot to be given a rationale reason as to why it is happening.

When I got home this morning, I knew there would be some water in the basement considering that it had rained most of yesterday evening. I immediately began to sop it up with a sponge and was making considerable progress when suddenly I saw that the water was beginning to get deeper.

It was slow at first and I didn’t think too much of it until I began to notice that the water was forming puddles in areas of the basement that it hadn’t before.

This got concerning.

So I got up from the step I was sitting on and took a soggy walk around the basement just to discover that the lid to the sewer drainage was floating in a rather large puddle. That’s when I started to worry and wanted a more definitive answer to what was going on.

At the beginning of 2016, the previous owner of my house had made an insurance claim in order to water proof the basement. Even upon purchasing the house I was informed that occasionally I’d see some “wet spots” in the basement.

Two inches of standing water is quite different than a few “wet spots”.

Since the river is at flood stage, and it will remain at flood stage for a couple more days, right now I’m going to chalk the situation up to there being excessive water in the ground. I’ll keep an eye on the basement situation – but right now trying to do anything about it is a losing battle.

I did move some of my [former] best friends stuff to higher locations so they wouldn’t get damaged by the water – however I’m not sure what compelled me to do this since I am planning on throwing it all away soon – kind of like what he did to our friendship.

 

 

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