I just discovered this old recording I made back in 2008. I really like the recording. Unfortunately since arthritis robbed me of the ability to play well now, I can’t even fake a play-along video, so I’m just posting this photo of me playing back in the day.
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
The blurb on the cover says Suarez is “A legitimate heir to Michael Crichton.” That’s an insult to Crichton. I only made it 40% through this book because I couldn’t stomach all the sadism and long graphic descriptions of cruelty. One of the first scenes is a drawn out description of what can only be described as child sexual exploitation. The author seems to really enjoy describing it. I was disgusted, but pushed past it hoping that was just intended as an exciting hook and a depiction of how bad the bad guys were, but things just got worse so I stopped. When he’s not writing something offensive, the author blathers on about network protocols and hacking methods that 99.99% of the reading public won’t understand. It’s nothing but a boring ego trip.
There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was fascinating in the way a train wreck is in real time. It’s horrible but captivating. Three intelligent, educated women fall in love with someone going by the name Ethan (“E”). They meet on dating apps but only texting at first. E provided pictures, but no live video chat. E was witty, articulate, responsive to texts and emails, and good-looking in the photos. Of course the photos were of someone else. E is indeed a sick, manipulative person who victimized these women. The author, a professor, confesses her own obsession with E despite weeks of canceled dates or other in-person meetings, broken promises, implausible excuses, and other red flags. It took guts for her to put her own vulnerability out there.
The book was fascinating to me in another way. Through it I experienced a sample of online dating, which is something I’ve never done IRL. I’m a senior citizen and married (45 years now) long before personal computers even existed. Reading how people do this is like an explorer coming across a new civilization in some remote island with a bizarre culture. In fact, I envied the author and her fellow victims in a way because I had a very hard time dating as a young person since I don’t drink or smoke and couldn’t stand being around those activities, so that barred going to bars or parties. I literally went for year-long stretches without a date at one point when I was transferred to a new city three times in three years and didn’t know anyone in each. Still, this book does not make it seem appealing.
I loathe the idea of victim-blaming and I don’t blame these women, but I still find in hard to get my head around how they fell down this rabbit hole. The elderly women who fall for the scammers imitating their grandsons stuck in jail and needing bail money are also true victims, but you can’t help but think of it a bit as a Darwinian process. Still, those victims were of diminished mental abilities, whereas the victims in this case were sharp and accomplished and at the top of their game. One of the victims was obsessed for years. Men also get catfished as we know from the football player case mentioned in the book, but I don’t buy the idea that it can happen to anyone. Some women reading this review will probably be outraged at that. Oh well.
The author writes well and overall I enjoyed the book, but it is quite repetitive, consisting mostly of quotes or summaries of long online chats between E and the victims and the disruptions to their lives, e.g. taking leave from work, spending tons of money on international texts or calls (E was in Ireland at times), staying up late for hours, flunking classes, etc. I skipped liberally and recommend you do, too. Best of all, though, is that E is eventually identified and forced into a sort of atonement and real-life consequences. I was very surprised to find out the real identity of E. The ending is mostly satisfying, though not entirely so.
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book is set in the future, perhaps 50 years or so, where genetic engineering and designer babies is the way most people have children. The story is told from the viewpoint of three different women: a professional surrogate (a woman who carries babies for others), a scientist who works for a rock star, and an aspiring writer tracking down a story about “Selected” children (ones chosen for their genetic attributes) and the class discrimination against the “Unforeseen” (all others). The author has devised a clever suspense-filled plot centered around celebrity genes and how that could be used for extortion and other forms of misuse. The author knows her stuff with regard to the bioethics and the process of surrogacy and making embryos in the lab. I was impressed with that and how she used that not only to build a good plot, but also to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of genetic engineering, i.e. the utopian as well as dystopian aspects. I know something about this and see the recent scientific breakthroughs as a positive.
My own extended family is good example of why you should not fear the technology. I have a female relative who donated her eggs to a gay male couple. She was a penniless grad student who had just broken up with her latest boyfriend and was despairing of ever being married and having children, although she wanted them. She was in no position to raise one on her own, but her donation was successful and two beautiful baby girls were born to the gay couple. My relative did not carry the babies, that was done by surrogates, but the girls, years later, met their biological mom and hugged her, calling her mom. She is FB friends with the parents. Fortunately my relative did later marry and have a daughter of her own, although it turned out she was only able to have one. So the process allowed her to have three healthy beautiful children. Of course the clinic did DNA testing on the embryos to make sure they were free of horrible diseases, but they were not screened or selected for traits. Rather, the gay men chose my relative to donate the eggs based on her traits, not the embryos’. She was a beautiful blond, an excellent athlete, and a Phi Beta Kappa grad student in a technical field, i.e. brilliant. The men became fathers of two great kids they couldn’t have any other way. It was a win-win.
Another family member with his wife had a baby boy, but he died soon after birth. Sadly, the mother underwent an emergency C-section that rendered her unable to carry another baby. Although that was heartbreaking, they later used an IVF clinic and a surrogate to have another son, a beautiful, healthy little guy. The surrogate, although geographically somewhat distant, is part of their family now, and even expressed a desire to have another child of theirs. As a lawyer, I followed the process of both surrogate and couple selecting each other and writing a contract that protects them both. A bio-escrow agent is used to make sure everyone’s rights are protected. The couple chose the sex, but that’s the only “selection” they did of the embryo. The doctors screened out the embryos that had undesirable mutations but that’s all. The boy is not a “designer baby.” So here again, happiness for all and healthy babies are the only products of the IVF process.
Despite my approval of the clever plot and the attention it brings to the IVF issue, I was disappointed in the too-frequent clunky writing (e.g. “The lock unclicked.” unclicked?) The technological timeline is murky and contradictory. The biology described is on our doorstep and technically available now, yet she has it set decades in the future. Her understanding of tech outside of the bioethics realm is poor; or at least the tech in the story is often ludicrous. People don’t carry devices. They access the internet through their contact lenses. Somehow, despite these incredible electronics packed in wafer thin lenses, they are transparent. They blink the website they want and blink messages to each other. They can be tracked through their retinas by ubiquitous camera drones. What happened to sunglasses and hats? Although I can’t give it five stars, I can recommend this book. I did NOT foresee the ending.
The Extinction Trials by A.G. Riddle
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book was a big disappointment to me. It resembled an early video game, only one played by survivors of a global apocalypse. These survivors must solve a series of nonsensical puzzles and challenges in order to survive and get to a safe place. There are warring factions they must avoid, androids, strange drugs and technologies, and so on. I could have accepted it as such I suppose, but the end became absolutely ridiculous, completely laughable in fact, but I wasn’t in a mood to laugh by that point.
It’s that time again to share my recent music additions. I’ve been exploring older American music such as ragtime, boogie woogie, early swing, gospel, and blues. My main source recently has been Freegal.com, but I’ve found stuff through Free Music Archive and YouTube, among other sources. Most of the modern, i.e. recorded in recent years, music is new recordings of old music. I removed some things that I got tired of, too, but I won’t bother listing those. Here’s the recent list I just added.
| Song | Artist |
| Anything Goes | Original Musical cast |
| Are You From Dixie | Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass |
| Ballad of Heisenberg | Los Cuates de Sinaloa |
| Blue Railroad Train | Eulalie |
| Boogie Woogie Machine | National Radio Station |
| Dig A Little Deeper | Mahalia Jackson |
| Get Down On Your Knees and Pray | Marty Stuart |
| Go Where I Send Thee | Golden Gate Quartet |
| Honky Tonk Twist | Scooter Lee |
| Jukebox Jamboree | Christopher Gregory |
| Just Strollin’ | Bob Crosby |
| Money | Etta James |
| Nobody’s Fault But Mine | Sister Rosetta Tharpe |
| Procrastination Rag | Unknown |
| Roll Em Mary Lou | Rosty |
| Take Me Home | My Dear Companion |
| Travellin Shoes | The Hopeful Gospel Quartet |
| When You And I Were Young Maggie | Eulalie |
| White Freightliner Blues | Tommy Emmanuel and Molly Tuttle |
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anna is the recent widow of a successful novelist. She resents much of what has happened to her in life, but now she’s wealthy and independent. She has no particular plans, but decides a writers’ workshop might be a fun break from the New York hustle and bustle. She didn’t actually intend to write while there, but she thinks, how hard can it be? Not that hard, it turns out, at least, not for her. Not with her rich life history of tragic loss. We soon find Anna to be a successful writer herself. Her book tour goes swimmingly … until it doesn’t. Someone appears and spitefully reminds her of her past, a past when she wasn’t Anna, literary widow.
That’s a great setup and the writing matched the concept. Anna feels herself undervalued and badly used; she is not one to suffer maltreatment lightly, or at all. I really enjoyed Anna’s dogged pursuit of those trying to take away her newfound happiness … until I didn’t. I should say, I still enjoyed the book, but the ending devolved quickly into a disappointing mishmash of absurdly unbelievable scenes of “justice” being dispensed. Overall, it kept me guessing kept me anxious for the next chapter, and wrapped things up tidily, if more in the realm of satire than fiction.
Rough Trade by Todd Robinson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Boo and Junior are bouncers/security specialists for a tough bar in the Boston area. They and a couple of their friends bonded when they were together in a group home. They like to get in fistfights and swear a lot. That’s about all there is to this book. The author likes hyperbole and obscene insults, the more offensive the better. No plot. All the characters make stupid decisions. I only made it halfway through.
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This fictionalized biography of the very real person Mila Pavlichenko, a female Russian sniper during World War II, follows real life fairly closely, or at least the version described in Mila’s own autobiography as well as other historical sources. With over 300 confirmed kills, she was the darling of Washington when she came as part of a “goodwill tour” designed to bring America into the European theater at a time they were only fighting the Japanese. My book club chose this book, but I had read the author’s recent book The Rose Code and greatly enjoyed that so I was among those voting for it, and I’m very glad I did.
It reads very much like a novel, not a biography, with plenty of action scenes and romantic entanglements. While I’m not much of a fan of romance, that part was not forefront in the writing and in any event was largely based on Mila’s autobiography. Do bear in mind that Mila’s book was probably passed by Soviet censors during the Cold War so take it with a grain of salt. Quinn also admits to combining some real-life characters, creating one or two out of whole cloth, and swapping timelines and locations for some events. There is a rather fantastical action scene near the end that defies credibility (and is totally fictional) but doesn’t ruin the story. Don’t nitpick the history; just enjoy the story.
Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book contains several true stories of innocent people who were framed by police, prosecutors, “expert” witnesses, even judges. The stories are interesting and the writing is good. But I could not finish it or give it five stars because the content is just so depressing and misleading. I have no doubt the facts in the book are true and that these innocent people were framed, not just accidentally caught up in the criminal justice system by happenstance. But the book gives the impression that all police and prosecutors are corrupt and no witnesses should ever be believed. My 26 years in law enforcement allows me to know this is a false impression. The vast majority of police, sheriffs, and others in law enforcement are honest and give defendants their rights. The real danger from books like this is to sow seeds of doubt in the public such that criminals cannot be convicted and crime has no consequences.
I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I needed a print book to read while I was waiting at the doctor’s office, so I grabbed this off the library shelf. It was an easy read and filled the bill, but that’s the best I can say about it. Alex is a skittish young woman with some sort of secret in her past. She lands a dream job at a New York newspaper, filling the vacancy left by the advice columnist she so much admired. The plot from there deteriorates badly, and in fact is outright preposterous. The author clearly did no research into anything she wrote about. Her paper’s newsroom is vacant after 7:00pm! Really? It’s still 4:00pm on the west coast. The paper’s web site has to be updated constantly overnight. Any real big city newsroom is bustling 24/7. She has a police arrest scene where two cops try to make an arrest of a major drug dealer by themselves. No SWAT team, not even any way to get through the door. A real arrest of that type would involve a tactical squad of at least six and battering rams for both front and back doors. The ending got even worse. Everything was predictable – not one of the promised “twists.”
The real problem is that this is chick lit, not that it’s bad to write exclusively for young women. But at least don’t market it as a mystery instead of a coming-of-age story. There was way too much discussion of clothes and fashion brands and some cute guy’s stubble. It’s my fault for not checking the promo material better. There are six praising blurbs on the back cover and every single one is written by a woman. That was a very big clue. In fact, one of those authors, Hank Phillippi Ryan, wrote an equally terrible book I made the error of reading. How do these women get published? Anyway, guys, if you ever see a book cover with all-women blurbs, avoid it like a ten-foot mascara brush.
Havoc by Christopher Bollen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book is just plain nasty. The main character, Maggie, is a crazy busybody lady with a mean streak living in a hotel in Egypt because that’s the only place she could go during the Covid lockdowns. She considers it her home now as the longest guest and she takes revenge on anyone who usurps any part of her status there. None of the other characters are quite as nasty as Maggie, but it’s hard to like anyone in the book very much. The writing is pedestrian and the plot deteriorates rapidly all the way to the end.
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel was billed as a post-apocalypse sci-fi novel, but sci-fi fans would be disappointed in it, I think. I was. Enger is quite the wordsmith and very imaginative. He was probably some creative writing teacher’s star pupil. But the plot has too many holes and eye-rolling implausibilities for my taste. One minor example that grated for much of the book is when the main character flees the U.S. to go Canada and when he gets there, can’t spend his money since they won’t accept U.S. So he barters away some prized possessions, but when he returns to the U.S., he has no U.S. money and the bartering continues. What happened to his money? His continued physical and emotional impoverishment is an important continuing theme, but not necessary if he has money. It kept me busy while I waited in the clinic waiting room, but that’s about all I can recommend it for.
It’s that time again for some newsworthy W3W word combos.
I searched Pacific Palisades for appropriate combinations and the most interesting one in the burned area I found was buzz.entire.city, appropriate for the fire retardant aircraft, but sad because it is near a parish school that was destroyed. The nearby church was damaged, but not destroyed. Close by in Topanga Canyon, in the evacuation zone, was blaze.erase.gone. A few miles farther I found blaze.fries.cars and burns.entire.cities. Those last two are in Los Angeles, near to but outside the fire zone. Ironically, that last one is right between the Chatsworth Fireside and BBQ store and Flame Enterprises.
Moving on to an even sadder event, let’s look at Trump’s upcoming inauguration. Due to the fact Trump was afraid his outdoor crowd size would be markedly smaller than Obama’s in similar weather conditions, he has moved it inside to the Capital One Arena. While I didn’t find a killer combo, that place is large and I found several spots inside it that at least hint at the uncomfortable truth to come. Here’s a list. I’m too lazy to posts the links, but they all go to the Arena. You know how to work W3W if you want to check.
For Melania:
For the rich oligarchs (how they see themselves)
For his MAGA cult members generally
And for our POTUS-to-be:
Devil in the Stack: A Coding Odyssey by Andrew Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The author, who began as a non-coder, dove deep into the culture of computers and computer programmers (“coders”). The book describes coding in simple terms as he himself learned how to write code and what the cultures of the coding communities are like. I use the plural because the different computer languages seem to carry their own cultures. He settles into the Python world and despises C. He spent over four years researching and writing the book. It is filled with interviews with iconic coders around the world and the industry. After moving through what it’s like to learn to code, he moves on to how software has changed our lives for both good and bad and describes the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce even greater good and greater evil. He prefers the term machine learning (ML) to AI as he explains why he thinks AI is a misleading term. The book is well-written and readable, even for those outside the computer/coding world.
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel might better be classified as a collection of short stories. The main character, Mary, a young Scotswoman at the beginning, marries a British diplomat then serving in China circa 1903. The first third of the book remains set in China, but it shifts to Japan for the remainder of the book. The story (or stories) end at World War II. The writing is superb, with descriptions and characters that are fascinating and believable. It evoked fond memories of my days in Japan. But my main dissatisfaction with the book is its lack of a plot. As mentioned, it is more a series of stories, and they depict the Orient (a term now out of fashion) over a period of decades, especially Japan. The author was born in Japan and writes with an insider’s knowledge. Mary’s circumstances and character seem to change radically over time, mainly to suit the story the author means to tell about that particular time frame. I didn’t find her a particularly sympathetic character, either. Even so, the stories, even if they don’t hang together well, are engaging. The writing merits seeing it through to the end. It’s a worthwhile read.
The Object by Joshua T. Calvert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A mysterious object is detected in the far reaches of the solar system. Is it a comet? An asteroid? Melody Adams is the discoverer. She is also a former astronaut who never got to go into space because a competing candidate cheated on a final test and got the slot. There is a lengthy section where the author shows the depth of his research about space travel and extraterrestrial science as the scientists in the story argue about whether it is a natural object or, as Melody believes, a spaceship. Many chapters – too many in my opinion – are spent on the Melody’s struggle within NASA to promote her views and increase her rank. A halfhearted love story is developed between her and another character. Eventually a mission is authorized to explore the object. You can guess who becomes the mission leader. I won’t say more on the plot to avoid spoilers.
The author’s research is impressive but his manner of displaying it is rather clunky. There are a lot of conversations between scientists and astronauts where person A explains some basic science to person B when clearly anyone in person B’s position would certainly already know that. Some of the “science” is speculation or imagination, which is perfectly acceptable in science fiction, but it can be distracting when we don’t know if we’re supposed to believe it or not. Various crises arise which are resolved in dubious manners. In the end the nature of the object is discovered and it is quite imaginatively resolved, although it is not very plausible. I’m rounding up to four stars from three and a half.
The world is overpopulated (by humans, that is). This is a fact, although there will be some who dispute it. We people are causing all sorts of environmental damage, much of which threatens our own existence. So reducing the birth rate sounds like a good thing, and to an extent it is, in my opinion. The birth rate is steadily declining worldwide which contributes to the slower growth rate in the population. There is still a positive rate of growth due to reductions in the death rate, especially among children.
Within the United States the fertility rate (number of births per woman of childbearing age) is about 1.7. This is well below the replacement rate of 2.1, and most developed countries are also below the replacement rate. There are only six countries in the world with rates above the replacement rate. Four of those are in Africa, one in Micronesia, and one in central Asia. The population of the US is still increasing but mainly because of immigration but also due to lowering death rates, mostly among the old. Experts predict that by 2050 the worldwide fertility rate will have dropped to the point where deaths exceed births and population levels off, then begins to decline. This will be great for the environment and other species, like fish.
But what happens in the long run? This is where it gets tricky and we see politics, religion, and moral beliefs muddy the waters. The death rate has to level off since people must eventually die. It can’t reach zero. That means if the fertility rate continues to drop, or just stay below the replacement rate, humankind will eventually breed itself out of existence. There are people who worry about this, and it is not a trivial matter. A few may think that’s not such a bad thing, but most people would disagree with that. Personally I think it’s a valid concern, but I don’t believe that will come to pass. I believe it likely that when there is plenty of arable land per person, birth rates will go up again. Now with automation, a relatively few farmers would easily be able to feed the world. Those who want to can easily grow crops or raise livestock enough to feed their own families. I think there will be enough women who will be willing to have more than two children that an equilibrium will be reached. I foresee a sort of automated hunter-gatherer society emerging.
But one thing seems certain: the future world population will look quite different. In particular, it will be darker. The fertility rate among dark-skinned people, especially Africans, is much higher than among the white and east Asian people so their representation in the future population will be higher than it is now. I believe this fact is behind the so-called white replacement theory. That theory is a false, racist theory believing there is a plot, probably led by the Jews, to cause white people to go extinct. That is ridiculous of course, but there is a kernel of truth in it. The white race will go extinct, or at least darken, but it will be because white women will almost certainly continue to choose to have fewer babies than the darker races, and more intermarriage is inevitable. I see no problem with this.
The bigger problem is the imbalance in ages. Older people are continuing to live longer during non-productive years, causing younger people to work more to support them. Most species have their older members die off once they are no longer reproducing. This would be more efficient for humans, too, but I don’t see any way that is going to happen. Older people control most resources and governments and will not willingly agree to die faster. This may become permanent.
Finally, I believe this will all work out in future generations. As the population drops, there is more wealth of all kinds available to each person and there will be less need for both spouses or partners to work. Crime will drop and quality of life will be high. This will be many generations in the future. Women are already beginning to find liberation to enter the work force is not always as rewarding as they once thought and the rewards of motherhood are high. Women’s liberation was a good thing and should continue, but that ceiling has mostly been broken now. I see more and more young women drop out of college or graduate school, or quit working after a few years of the daily grind and choose the mommy route. They should have the choice to do either. I’m hopeful the fertility rate will eventually come back up; just not yet. For now it is more important to mitigate the environmental harm we are doing. Religions are certainly pushing for more babies. I think consciously or not, that is the motivation behind the antiabortion movement. It really has nothing to do with saving souls.
The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Shane Collins is a heavy-drinking veteran CIA agent relegated to Bahrain to finish out his lackluster career. He inherits a low-level informant who manages to scrape together enough intel to satisfy his new station chief, a pudgy bureaucratic “rising star” with a flame up his ass. Shane meets and falls for a beautiful local artist. There are some fellow CIA personnel, a Navy admiral and his aide in the mix, various expats and skeezy locals and the stage is set for dead drops, surreptitious meetings, betrayals, and talk of revolution against the king. The Arab Spring is approaching. The plot is exciting, if more than a bit implausible toward the end, but page-turning fun nonetheless.
But the best part of the book is the gritty reality painted in beautiful prose conveying the sad on-the-ground hellhole that is Bahrain. At least I think it is what the real Bahrain is like; the author has me convinced, anyway. Clearly the author, a former CIA agent herself, knows her stuff and makes it feel so real I was tempted to shake the sand from my shoes after a reading session. I’ll stretch my 4.5 to 5 stars for this one. It’s the best spy novel I’ve read in years.
If you follow the news, you know that Donald Trump named Kash Patel, a right-wing FBI hater, to become the next head of the FBI. I doubt he will be confirmed, but if he is, he has promised on day 1 to close the FBI Headquarters Building (currently named the J. Edgar Hoover Building) and to reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.
So I checked my favorite authoritative place-naming site, What3Words.com,, and discovered the U.S. already has a Deep.State.Museum. It’s located in San Antonio, Texas, in an intersection between Autozone, Schlotzky’s Sandwiches, and Sherwin Williams paint stores. Maybe Patel is confused. On the border of Washington D.C. there is a deed.state.museum in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, only 3 miles from the FBI building. That’s probably what he was thinking of, or possibly the feed.state.museum in Laurel, Maryland, only 5 miles from NSA Headquarters. It’s in a gas station … at least that’s what the deep state has disguised it as.
Then maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong place. Museum.deep.state is also in the U.S., in a forest in Wellsville, Ohio. Closer to D.C. there are a couple of other logical museum sites:
If Patel isn’t confirmed, he should be able to set up his museum in one of these likely spots.