Review: Glory

As part of my last-minute push to watch as many Netflix movies as possible before they end their DVD-by-mail service, I watched the movie Glory with my son. Glory tell the story of Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War. It was the first Army unit to be comprised entirely of black soldiers, though the officers were white.

The parts like I liked the best were:

• When Shaw confronts the S-4 to demand shoes. Rank is for service, not status, and Shaw shows himself to be a good commander by using his position to get what his soldiers need.
• When Shaw confronts his commander to get his regiment into combat.The 54th's soldiers didn't don't join the Army to do hard labor; they join the Army to fight. Shaw believed enough to give them that chance.
• The scene where SGM Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) confronts PVT Trip (Denzel Washington). Trip is angry and cynical, perhaps deservedly so. But Rawlins puts things in a different perspective.
• The part when Shaw reflects on his imminent death before the assault on Fort Wagner. Shaw gets off his horse, draws his sword, and stands at the head of the column leading the charge. Command isn't always leading from the front, per se, but it is about sharing in your soldiers' hardships.

Review: Modern Times

I saw Modern Times for the first time recently. Here are some notable things I enjoyed about the movie:

• The gamin character is seem scavenging (thieving) near the waterfront. This was possible in the days before containerization; not anymore.
• The scene of the factory manager doing a jigsaw puzzle in his office. This was the pinnacle of management back in those days, I guess. Have your people work harder so you don't have to lift a finger.
• The feeding machine. This was filmed in the heydey of the engineers, back when there was great faith that you could "design" a better society. Eugenics would get discredited the following decade.
• Amusing scenes like roller skating in the department store, feeding the trapped mechanic his lunch, and the Nonsense Song are pure gold.
• The idea of labor unions going on strike and parading in the streets (along with their conflicts with police) are a thing of the past.

One of the things I'll miss about Netflix is its treasure trove of old movies. There are a lot of titles that simply won't be available in digital/streaming format, and I'm trying to knock out as many as possible before the service ends.

Review: The Truman Show

How much of who we are is the product of the influences that have been placed in our lives? This is the big question from the 1998 movie The Truman Show, which I watched with my son while we were staying at my sister's house.

In the movie, the eponymous Truman is a man who was adopted by a media corporation at birth and has been raised his whole life as part of a television show, which is broadcast 24 hours a day.

As Truman begins to suspect that his perfect world is not what it seems, he begins to take more and more control of his life, and faces long-standing fears.

In addition to a theme of self-determination, the movie is also an excellent commentary on the deceit of communism. While controlled economies promise stability, the reality is the controls required to make everything go according to plan would be so extensive that it simply isn't worth it. In real life, things rarely go according to script.

The more you think about the premise, the more ridiculous it seems, but I still like the underlying message. Given the choice between a perfect, television show-like world or the messier lives we decide for ourselves, we choose the latter.

Review: Rudy

Interstate 80 runs right through South Bend, Indiana, so on our way to New Jersey, we made a stop at the University of Nore Dame. I'm not Catholic, I never once considered going to Notre Dame, and I don't care about college football, but I did see the movie Rudy a while back. I figured we'd see the stadium as a rest stop. After we arrived, we watched the movie at my dad's house.

There's a scene that particularly like, where the eponymous Rudy sacks a teammate during practice, and the guy has an attitude about it.

"It's the last practice of the season and this ****** thinks it's the Superbowl!" he yells. But the coach counters, "You just summed up your entire sorry career here in one sentence. If you had a tenth of the heart of Ruttiger you could have made all American." I find this exchange interesting, because I think both perspectives have merit, and I've been on both sides at one time or another.

For Rudy, he is pursuing a dream by playing on the Notre Dame practice squad. He had no talent, little ability, and little reason to hope for ever playing in a real game, but by continuing to give a total effort in every moment, he is fulfilling his dream of playing for Notre Dame.

By comparison, O'Hara is reconciled to the fact that his football career will end when he graduates, and has a lackidaisical attitude about practice. Of course, this grates on the coach, who wants players who put in their best efforts to help the team win.

Given that coaches are judged and paid according to their success, this is completely understandable, but with hindsight it is also true that college football exacts a tax on one's body, and whether the price you pay is worth it is a matter of opinion. There's also the ethical debate about restricting players' freedoms while exploiting their labor.

Like Rudy, I had a hard time after high school. Rudy worked in a steel mill, then went to Holy Cross junior college to improve his grades. Similarly, I went to community college for two years, though I first dug myself a hole before climbing out of it so I could attend the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. So I know what it feels like to work hard and finally achieve your dream.

However, I also know what it's like to have to balance among competing priorities. Did I give my best effort at UH? No, because I needed to balance school with my commitments to work and church. Just like in high school, I was "satisficing." There's no need to get an A+ when an A- gets you the same grade point average and you've got other things to worry about.

Similarly, I didn't give the Army my best effort as a lieutenant, either. Could I have gotten a 300 on my APFTs? Yes, if that was my only priority, but I had a family that I also prioritized, and I enjoyed being at home with them.

Those with the fewer competing priorities will -- naturally -- have an advantage over those whose attention is spread thin. I don't think there's dishonor in that. As long as a person is honest and authentic about what their priorities are, what coinstitutes success is nobody else's business.

Review: The Great Dictator

For "mandatory culture time," I made my son watch this 1940 Charlie Chaplin movie. It's about a Jewish WWI veteran who becomes mistaken for a dictatorial country's leader, and it ends with a speech extolling the virtues of tolerance and democracy. The text of the full speech can be found on imdb.com here, but I might as well embed the YouTube video, so here:
There are two sections from that speech that I find particularly meaningful.

"The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost."

These words are just as applicable as they were in 1940.

"You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise."

I find this one interesting because of the "election denialism" that has become more popular since the 2016 election. "Despite the lack of evidence, and the judgments of election officials from both parties and judges appointed by presidents from both parties, election denialism has become not only a thing, but a movement. And when critics call this an attack on democracy, some election deniers respond by saying the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a republic." [Source]

As The Atlantic put it, "It is quaint that so many Republicans, embracing a president who routinely tramples constitutional norms, have suddenly found their voice in pointing out that, formally, the country is a republic. There is some truth to this insistence. But it is mostly disingenuous." [Source] Disingenuous, because this line of reasoning is merely a justification for rule by the shrinking Republican electorate.

It used to be that Republicans used demovracy to justify the war in Iraq. As George W. Bush explained, " It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's most influential nation was itself a democracy." [Source]

It would very strange if the country that sponsored the growth of so much democracy in the world was not actually one itself.

Review: The Court Jester

The upcoming termination of Netflix's DVD by mail program is a great loss. One of the best things about it, in my opinion, has been the ability to rent old movies that simply aren't worth maintaining on a streaming service.

The Court Jester is one of those movies. It came out in 1956, and has arguably one of the most entertaining sword fight scenes of any movie I've seen. With no swearing and no sex, it's a fine movie to watch with the whole family, although the lack of English subtitles was unfortunate.

The movie is hilarious, but the plot is actually quite complex. On one level, there's a usurper on the throne trying to find and kill the rightful heir, who's an infant. On another level, there's a plot to usurp the usurper. And then, on top of that, there's also a plot (by the usurper's daughter) to keep out of a political marriage.

The action, dialogue, and tension involved in the multiple deceptions make for a movie that's as easily watchable the first time as it is *re*-watchable .

Review: Indiana Jones Trilogy

I recently made my kids watch the 1980s Indiana Jones trilogy as part of "Mandatory Culture Night." It was something that had a big impact on my thinking.

The first two -- not so much, because I only remember them being really scary. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, one guy's head explodes; another's melts. In the second, a guy has his heart ripped out and gets burned alive. But because they didn't have any swearing or sex, they were rated PG. In fact, it was *because* of these movies that the PG-13 rating was created.

When the Last Crusade came out in 1989, though, I was old enough to not be affected by that sort of thing, and I found it really inspiring. I mean, here's a guy who didn't just visit foreign countries -- he lived there, learned the language, and built friendships.

When the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles came out in 1992, I was really excited, and would have liked to have watched the show consistently. Unfortunately, life and work got in the way, and I didn't see that many episodes.

Looking back, I can see how the movies planted the seeds of the life I grew to dream of. I wanted to travel, but I didn't want to just visit foreign countries; I wanted to life in those places. The hard part, for me, was figuring out how to do that. It took until 1994 that I figured out I wanted to major in International Business.

There are two lines from the Last Crusade that stand out to me. The first is toward the end, when the bad guy, Donovan, drinks from the wrong grail and instantly decays, collapsing into a heap of dust and bones. The grail knight, in the biggest cinematic understatement *ever*, says, "He chose ... poorly."

The second is when the Germans are trying to buy access to the site where the grail is, and offer the sheikh gifts "from some prominent German families." I remember the theatrical version used "Jewish" instead of "German," a nod to the persecution the Jews faced under the Nazi regime.

When we were watching the DVD, I paused the movie at that point and asked my kids what they were referring to, and then explained what was going on. Having been to the bunker in Berlin last November, it was an ah-hah kind of moment for them.

Perhaps one day, they'll remember this movie for the impact it had on them, too.

Review: History of the First Div in WWI

My great-grand-uncle Thomas Jodon was a part of the First Division during World War I. He was drafted in summer 1918, got to France in September, and was probably assigned to the division in October, just in time for the last few weeks of the war. I bought this book to learn about his experiences during the war, and learned that he probably took part in the push to Mouzon, the march to Sedan, and the Occupation near the Koblenz bridgehead.

The book was written *by* soldiers in the First Division, *for* the soldiers of the First Division. As such, it has a lot of details about the war that you don't get from other sources. The division was the first to arrive in France in 1917, and it was the last divisional unit to leave in 1919.

The book itself is not impressive. It's not a reprint of the original 1922 publication. Rather, it's a bound stack of photocopies of the New York Library's copy of the book. Because of that, the pictures are barely intelligible.

It is also suspiciously wrong in a number of its details. Its honor roll section lists the men who died, what unit they were in, and what they died from (KIA, disease, etc). In looking up some of the names from my uncle's unit, though, it turns out they were in a different unit. For example, CPT John Bryan Tomlinson is listed as the only captain from Company M, and has him dying from wounds. However, his grave site at Arlington has him assigned to Company K, and having died from disease (and given the date, 14 October 1918, it was probably influenze). [Source]

It's an understandable error, but it calls into question the book's authority.

A third criticism is that it is -- essentially -- a panegyric. Written as it was *by* First Division soldiers *for* First Division soldiers, it is a record of what they did and how awesome they were. And in some places, the authors lay it on a little too thick. In reflecting on their experience, "One almost wonders if ... those stalwart American soldiers, who could be tender with children and who could look unflinchingly in the face of death, really performed those wondrous deeds of heroism and sacrifice; if they dashed with unparalleled impetuosity across stream and trench and wire, by battery and machine gun next, under the hitherto unconquered Mont Sec...."

I get it -- that was simply the style at the time -- but I didn't need the paeans.

There are two sections that I find particularly interesting. The first is at the beginning, where the book quotes a Chicago Tribune article from June 9th, 1917. Back then, the experience of the British Expeditionary Force was fresh on everyone's minds, and the public expected the same fate would meet the First Division. Although the BEF was composed of enlisted volunteers and highly professional, it was decimated by Germany's draft-based army.

In "An Epitaph for an Army of Mercenaries," AE Housman paid honor to those men who, in 1914, stood firm against the invasion of France while the draft divisions trained up.

These, in the days when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and the earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay. [Source]

As expressed in the Chicago Tribune on June 9th, 1917,

“Pershing’s men to the Germans are these forerunners of a new enemy. They appear at the top of the hill, few in numbers, not tangibly menacing, but terribly suggestive. It is not what they can do which will be significant. It is what they mean, what they promise, and what they threaten. In numbers they are less than Gen. French’s ‘miserable little army.’ But Germany has met the great armies which followed those British troops. The miserable little army was sacrificed, but the ground where these men died will, we think, see other British soldiers, and the German mind may comprehend that millions if needed, carrying the same flag that Pershing takes to France, will see the ground where his men die. It is with unashamed emotion that we think of Pershing’s men. They are our first sacrifices.” [Source]

The second section that's interesting is what happened after the armistice. While other divisions moved west toward Brest for a quick demobilization, the First marched east, through Luxembourg, toward Koblenz. There, it occupied the city, not just on the west bank, but also in a 30km radius on the east bank. This was called the Koblenz bridgehead. For the First Division, occupation duties lasted less than a year, but the soldiers seemed to have used their time well. They set up a newslette, sponsored a theater production, used passes to visit cultural sites, and set up education opportunities. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed that summer, the First Division began packing up to return to the U.S. As they landed in Hoboken in September, New York City hosted a parade for them on September 10th. Washington, DC, did the same on September 17th. At that point, the division turned in their equipment and was demobilized.

Review: Rise of Wolf 8

I first bought this book for my dad's birthday in 2019 after I'd heard this NPR interview with the author. In January of this year, I got the Kindle version for myself.

From the time Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, wolves were seen as a nuisance -- pests that preyed on the rest of the ecosystem -- and park rangers who encountered them would shoot them. After a concerted effort, wolves finally exterminated in 1926.

In the ensuing decades, though, their absence had a number of unintended consequences. Without predators, the elk populatoin exploded. "The overpopulation led to extreme overbrowsing of aspen shoots, extensive damage to willows growing along creeks and rivers, and erosion along waterways due to loss of vegatation.

Thus, when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, the ecosystem began to recover. “Willows began to flourish along Crystal Creek, and beaver, which need aspen trees for food and building materials, moved in and colonized the area.”

The rest of the book is a bit like a high school drama series, with rival packs competing for territory, females competing for dominance, and males breaking off from their birth families to find mates.

The best part of the book, though is the relationship between the eponymous Wolf #8 and his adoptive son, Wolf #21. While 21 was still a juvenile, “the two males seemed to have an understanding that they needed to cooperate to get things done for the pack.”

The books ends on a poignant note. “21 inherited his size and strength from his sire but was raised, trained, and mentored by his adoptive father. 8 showed his adopted son how an alpha male and father would should behave. Experts say dog learn best by watching and imitating other dogs. That is what 21 did: he watched and imitated 8 the only father figure he ever had.”

Thinking back to 2019, I doubt I could have picked a better present.

Review: Against All Enemies

Richard Clarke wrote this book in 2004, but it wasn't published until 2006 (something about White House clearance or something). I don't remember when I got it, but in with the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, I finally made it a point to read it.

Clarke covers the U.S. experience with terrorism from the 1980s through to the Iraq War. He then discusses why the Iraq War was a terrible strategic error that, in fact, distracted from the real War on Terrorism, which was in Afghanistan.

In the final chapter, Clarke criticizes the George W. Bush administration for having misled the country regarding the connections between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network. While -- yes -- Iraq had not accounted for the weapons of mass destruction it reputed had, the allegation of ties to al Qaeda was a fabrication that not even British prime minister Tony Blair used as a casus belli.

Nevertheless, fully 70% of Americans (at the time of writing) believed Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, and therefore supported the war. Why did they believe that? Because President Bush said so.

Bush used the slogan, "Support the Troops" to win reelection in 2004, despite the signs that it was not going well. By 2006, it was even more apparent, and in the midterms eletions the Republican party was handed a serious drubbing.

It's been 20 years since the beginning of the Iraq War, but we've never really had a deliberate reconciliation with what we believed, what was true, and what responsibility we have for the mess we made in Iraq. In the name of the ~3,000 people who were killed on September 11, we killed tens of thousands more.

What makes it all the more tragic is the fact that it was completely extraneous to the war on terrorism -- a fact Clarke identified before the war had even started.

Review: The Last Man on the Moon

After forcing my kids to watch The Right Stuff, Apollo 11 and Apollo 13, figured I'd close things out by watching The Last Man on the Moon.

My interest in Gene Cernan started when I learned he had commanded the Apollo 10 mission. Everyone knows Apollo 11; Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were household names (Michael Collins a bit less so, but I knew it). But I wondered if the Apollo 10 guys ever felt slighted, like someone would if they were just one number off from winning the lottery jackpot.

Well, according to Gene Cernen, no.

The Last Man on the Moon gets his perspective on his life as an astronaut, including the Gemeni 9A flight (with its difficult spacewalk), the Apollo 1 tragedy, and the Apollo 10 mission.

That mission did everything the Apollo 11 did, with the exception of actually landing on the moon. It was the dress rehearsal before the opening night; the walk before the run. Yet Cernan was not upset about that; to the extent Apollo 11 wa succesful, it was in part because of his contributions to the space program.

The Last Man on the Moon also discusses Cernan's personal life, including his relationship with his children and his first wife. Cernan admits he was a bad father and a bad husband because of all the time he spent away from his family. It's clear that the "work first" mentality took a toll on those who were closest to him.

Cernan's most notable accomplishment is, of course, that he commanded the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. In doing so, he remains the last man to have walked on the moon -- a fitting reward, I think, for someone who just missed out on being the first.

Review: Joe versus the Volcano

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have starred in three romantic comedies together. Many people my age will be familiar with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and its [not really meant to be] remake You've Got Mail (1998). Much less well known is Joe Versus the Volcano from 1990.

I remember seeing it in a movie theater when it came out, but I wanted to watch it again. Because Netflix's DVD by mail service is set to end in September, it's kind of now or never.

The movie is (unsurprisingly) about a guy named Joe. He works for a rectal probe manufacturer, is frequently sick, and hates his job. When he visits a doctor, he learns that he has only six months to live.

At about the same time, Joe is approached by some kind of agent who offers him a deal: in exchange for a life of luxury furing his final few months, Joe has to jump into a volcano to appease some kind of god, which will allow investors to get some kind of mineral rights from the natives.

There are two memorable scenes that I think are worth writing about. The first is Meg Ryan talking about how rare it is to find someone who's truly awake.

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."

The second is of Joe -- having survived a shipwreck -- marveling at the beauty of a moonrise and thanking God for his life. YouTube says the video can't be embedded, but it's here. [Watch on YouTube]

The movie's biggest impact on me was that I didn't want to end up doing a job "that wasn't worth doing." At the beginning of the story, Joe makes a living, but he has no life. I didn't want to end up living like that.

A second impact is that it reinforced my fascination with the Pacific. Having grown up watching family sitcoms, there seemed to always be a special episode where the family goes to Hawaii. Although it wasn't until 1994 that my dream of going to college in Hawaii coalesced, Joe versus the Volcano contributed a small part toward that dream.

Review: Smartest Guys in the Room, pt2

What are the enduring lessons we can learn from Enron?

1.) Management is just as important as leadership. Ken Lay had a great vision for what was possible, but consistently abrogated his responsibility to manage his subordinates. Rich Kinder helped restrain the organizational climate for a while, but once he left, Skilling couldn’t match his ability to manage.

2.) Don’t believe the hype. Everyone cheered Enron all the way up to 2000, and yet within two years, the entire thing collapsed like a house of cards. Writer Toni Mack correctly identified the double-edged sword that mark-to-market accounting presented way back in 1993, and yet this quiet warning sign was overpowered by bullish voices for seven years.

[Toni Mack article]

Most recently, crypto-currency has been an investing fad – one that has even enticed some of my friends to dally (and lose money) in the market. Not me -- what I witnessed more than 20 years ago is that when *everyone* is excited about something, it’s simply not for me. Unless cryuptocurrencies were somehow part of an index fund, I have lost no money in the cryptocurrency bubbles.

3.) The long-term is more than just a series of short-terms. Enron’s mark-to-market accounting required ever-greater deals to continue dazzling investors. At some point, though, Enron simply ran out of good deals that they could reliably deliver on. Yet the nature of their business was “like running downhill with arms flailing” – hoping that you reach the bottom before you collapse.(p285) The internal system that Enron set up, though, ensured they could never stop running.

4.) “You can act within the rules and still commit fraud.” When Andrew Fastow broke ethics rules as Enron’s chief financial officer, he did so with the knowledge and consent of Kenneth Lay and the corporate board.

“Every single deal I did at Enron was approved by the accountants at Enron, the outside auditors, the internal attorneys, the outside attorneys and the board of directors. How can you get approval from all of those people and still commit fraud?” he said. Perhaps it was not “full” knowledge that went with the consent, but Fastow’s point remains – those with a responsibility to challenge unethical behavior refused to do so out of self-interest.

This is true not just within the corporate world, but also in government, as seen in the Trump administration. Was it illegal for him to hire his children to work for him? No. Was it illegal for him to maintain business interests at odds with his governmental responsibilities? No. Was it illegal for him to withhold his tax returns, despite having committed to do so? No. But all of these represent ethical breaches which his supporters were content to overlook.

When Trump broke ethics rules as president, he did so with the consent of his supporters, and the wider American public who accepted his behavior as a part of a false dichotomy -- they might not agree with him, but compared with Democrats, he was “the lesser of two evils.”

5.) [A] bad company corrupts good character (1 Cor 15:33). At Enron, incentives tied performance-led executives to falsely evaluate the profitability of various projects. Under mark-to-market accounting, this was legal, but it led people to present a distorted picture of business conditions. And those with a vested interest in success used cognitive dissonance to justify looking the other way.

Fastow explained in 2016, “What I am talking about are people who technically follow the rules but undermine the principles of those rules. The way I looked at it, if there is complexity and ambiguity, it gives me greater latitude to do what I want to do. Never when I did these transactions did I think about the ethics.” [Source]

Similarly, one of the things I saw in the Army was how desire for the perception of success can lead people (myself included) to take ethical shortcuts, call it “feeding the beast,” and then justify it by saying “everyone else is doing it.” Leonard Wong wrote a white paper on this in 2015 for the Army War College.

This mindset took root not just in Enron, but the entire industry. And yet, the vast majority of stakeholders – by adopting a narrow, legal definition -- felt they had done nothing wrong.

“The larger message was that the wealth and power enjoyed by those at the top of the heap in corporate America – accountants, bankers, executives, lawyers, member of corporate boards – demand no sense of broader responsibility. To accept these arguments is to embrace the notion that ethical behavior requires nothing more than avoiding the explicitly illegal, that refusing to see the bad things in front of you makes you innocent, and that telling the truth is the same as making sure no one can prove you lied.” –p406

In 2001, the end of the 1990s bull economy deflated a number of unrealistic expectations, but at Enron, there was no correcting the level of rot in the corporate culture. For that reason, I think Dynegy was better off for having pulled out of its last-minute deal for Enron's acquisition.

I’m not “glad” that Enron went bankrupt; but I can’t argue they didn’t deserve it.

Review: The Smartest Guys in the Room, pt1

I bought the original October 2003 edition of this book way back in December 2013. By that point – unbeknownst to me – the second edition had already been published, which probably catalogues the fates of many former Enron executives. Nevertheless, this book was fascinating – despite having taken me 10 years to read it – and it contains numerous lessons that are just as valid today as they were 20 years ago.

Enron’s rise can be attributed to Ken Lay’s experience, connections, and timing. He was uniquely positioned – by virtue of his education and DC insider status – to take advantage of Reagan-era deregulation of the natural gas industry, and he used it to full advantage. However, Enron’s early years showed a corporate culture that would later lead to its demise: Lay’s hands-off attitude toward those who made money (by whatever means) showed in how he handled Louis Bourget, who embezzled money and later went to jail. Lay tended to hire cronies, and only afterward give them jobs, which subverted his chain of command. He also refused to check subordinates’ egos or make the tough decisions himself, preferring instead to play glad-handing politician.

Jeff Skilling replaced Rich Kinder as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in 1997, accepting the job on the condition that Enron adopt mark-to-market accounting. Skilling was a brilliant consultant, but as a manager he hated 1.) cleaning up other people’s messes, and 2.) getting involved in details. He had terrible ideas about who to hire (guys with “spikes”), how to maintain loyalty (by showering people with money) and how to manage (his peer evaluation system). He focused exclusively on “the big picture,” and dismissed anyone who disagreed with him or pointed out troubling details (HE was the smartest guy in the room). This being the mid-90s boom economy, though, Enron’s faults were masked by bull economy mania.

Beginning with Enron International (EI) under Rebecca Mark, Enron began experienced a series of failures. International business is, by its very nature, fraught with problems and risks, but Enron always assumed the best when predicting future income streams. Using mark-to-market accounting, EI would make foreign direct investment deals and post the future income all at once, without regard for the innate risk involved with international projects. Enron had a flair for glamour, but also overspending, and EI was sold off in 1998. However, the spin-off, Azurix, didn't do any better in the water business, and Mark was fired in 2000. Skilling’s clique rejoiced in her failure, seeing it as a vindication of his business model, but failed to appreciate that Enron was consequently saddled with Azurix’s debt.

Skilling had trouble managing an important question: “Can earnings grow at 15+% sustainably?” The collective answer was “yes,” but he ignored an important qualifier – “so long as stock options continue to vest for executives who meet that goal, and you don’t really worry about our methods.” Given the incentives involved, executives found ways to make it look like they were doing great, all the while pushing the true price to the more distant future.

Before 1997, Rich Kinder had been the guy who made the tough decisions for Lay and and kept everyone in line. However, with Skilling as president and COO, things got out of control. Skilling weakened the internal oversight division, created toxicity through his peer evaluation system, ignored favored-subordinates’ ethics-breaching affairs, and let employees move themselves around in a classic example of what I call “Kindergarten soccer.” The mark-to-market accounting system also grew rife with unchecked abuses, as future cash flows were often entirely imagined. Toni Mack’s 1993 article “Hidden Risks” in Forbes foresaw the problems involved, but in the heady days of the late 1990s, these warning had all been forgotten. Skilling moved the focus away from pipelines and natural gas trading toward glitzier things like Broadband internet access and speculation trading.

During this time, Skilling also brought Andrew Fastow on board. Fastow specialized in creating Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) that could hide off-balance sheet debt, and rose to become Chief Financial Officer. However, despite Fastow being fêted as a genius (and awarded CFO of the Year by CFO Magazine in 2000), he was only really good at that one thing. This made Enron look profitable, even though its cash flow wasn’t there to back it up. In addition. Rick Causey was a weak Chief Accounting Officer, and often served as a mere enabler for Fastow's schemes rather than a check on unethical behavior.

At the same time, Enron’s auditor, Arthur Anderson, let its consulting wing’s profit motives trump its accounting wing’s concerns. They saw their job as “providing good customer service” rather than “properly informing the public.” Analysts and finance pundits, too, proved biased in their assessments of Enron. For example, Fortune magazine named Enron the most innovative company in America for six consecutive years. Those who benefited from Enron’s success story perpetuated the glass-half-full side of Enron’s story, and either dismissed or doen-played the glass-half-empty side.

In describing how Enron issued off-balance-sheet debt, backing it up with Enron stock, bankers gushed. By hiding debt in ways that could be unreported on annual statements, one Lehman Bros banker said, “He has invented a ground-breaking strategy.” In the bull-run economy, it was easy to assume the stock would continue to go up, so banks continued to lend money, and investment talking heads continued to issue “buy” statements on Enron’s behalf. Fastow got an exemption from Enron’s code of ethics, and used his insider status as CFO to profit from Enron.

Convinced of his own incredible intelligence and far-sighted vision, Skilling led Enron to enter the broadband industry and California’s electric power industry. Broadband proved a bust for two reasons: 1.) internet access and data packets just weren’t like natural gas – you couldn’t “reallocate” bandwidth, and 2.) content-on-demand was still about seven years away (YouTube didn’t start until 2006, and Netflix only started streaming in 2007). Despite its big promises, Enron Broadband only wasted a lot of money.

The California energy market proved to be a terrible strategic move, too. While Enron stood to gain in the long run from a successful de-regulation, its traders instead acted entirely on their short-term interests and sabotaged the company’s wider goals. They exploited quirks in California’s system to create artificial shortages, drove up prices, and caused blackouts. This brought a huge wave of profits, but in doing so they angered the public and undercut Enron’s long-term interests. Nevertheless, Enron placed the blame entirely on California. As Skilling famously stated, "We're on the side of angels." [Source]

In spring 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, tanking the valuations of many internet companies. Although Enron was at first buoyed by its other ventures (like the California energy business), other failures led to greater scrutiny, and short-sellers began to question whether Enron might be on the decline as well.

Enron’s stock peaked at $90 in August 2000, but that was its high water mark. Over the next year, Enron suffered a series of blows which seriously affected Enron’s public image. The backlash in California, a discovered $700 million accounting error, the leftover debts from Azurix coming due, the discovery and unwinding of Andrew Fastow’s SPEs, the 9/11 attacks, an explosion at Teeside, and the downsides of Skilling’s mark-to-market accounting all hammered Enron’s stock.

In August 2001, Skilling resigned, forcing Ken Lay to come back to everyday operations. Then, as reporters kept asking harder and harder questions about Fastow’s secret machinations and how much he’d profited at his employer’s expense, Fastow was fired in October.

By this time (10/24/2001) what Lay billed as a “perception” problem was becoming a cash problem. As the stock price fell, more and more debts that were backed up by stock became due, pushing the stock farther and farther down. As Enron sought more and more cash just to maintain operations, creditors wanted more and more details about what they were getting themselves into, until Enron could no longer keep a lid on anything.

At first, Lay sought a buyout from Dynegy, but continued bad news and a clash of corporate cultures (Enron traders were just too arrogant to accept being bought out) made this unfeasible. Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2002.

Review: Iron Eagle III

These days my son likes playing War Thunder. And when I say “like,” I mean – to the point where he needs to be reminded of his personal hygiene. It’s basically a flight simulator with dogfighting WW2-era propeller planes.

This theme of dogfighting WW2-era planes reminded me of a movie I saw back in summer 1992, while I was visiting France for the second time.

“Aces: Iron Eagle III” was a thoroughly nonsensical movie, though that was rendered moot (for me) by the incomprehensible dubbed-French dialogue. Propeller planes vs. drug dealers and their foyrth-generation-fighter-flying state sponsors?

Somewhere between the concept and the translation, there was something that didn't make sense. Whatever. It had Louis Gossett Jr in it – the Samuel L. Jackson of movies before Samuel L. Jackson. (Enemy Mine, An Officer and a Gentleman, etc.)


Given that the movie is both 30 years old and too stupid to be anything more than completely obscure, the only way to see it is to buy it. So that’s what I did ($10 on Amazon), if only to provide an excuse for a father/son moment.

Watching it with the original English dialogue, I understand now that I didn’t miss anything the first time. It’s just as I remembered it. On the plus side, it did provide material for some wonderful MST3K-style commentary.

In my opinion, it was $10 well-spent.

Review: Dictionary of 1000 Chinese Proverbs

When I got this book in 2010, I thought it would illuminate the full, 5000-year depth of Chinese wisdom, and perhaps explain the origins of the 四字熟语 (four character sayings).

But no. This is just a laundry list of sayings from various sources, with the main part organized alphabetically according to pinyin spelling, and the original 汉字 hand-written-out in the back section.

Given that this was originally published in 1998, I recognize that there were typographical limitations regarding what publishers could do. However, we’re beyond that point now, and this book is just plain obsolete. Here’s what I mean.
This is page 65, the first page of the "M" chapter. It begins with the "Ma" section, which is the pinyin spelling for 马 (horse, mā). You can probably guess that this section has proverbs relating to horses. This is true.

However, #423 "Excessive scoldings and beatings lose their intended effect" (常骂不惊常打不灵) has nothing to do with horses. It's grouped with horse-related stuff because the word for abuse is 骂 (mà). Although the tones are different (and therefore the pronunciation), you wouldn't know that by looking at the pinyin on this page. As far as this book is concerned, 马 and 骂 are the same word. This is a poor way to organize things.

It would have been better to group the proverbs by topic according to the English words (horse vs. abuse), or even to use the diacritical marks and organize them by the Chinese words. Either this was not possible at the time, or this was unfeasible. Either way, it's a pain in the neck to navigate.

As an added layer of difficulty, the hanzi used in the back are the traditional characters (繁体字) used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, not the Mainland Chinese characters used by the PRC today (简体字). And then, just for fun, they're all handwritten. Sometimes just deciphering a character is difficult.
And finally, while some proverbs are pretty good, many are just plain banal. #423 (above) makes sense to me because I have teenage children. But #426 老马识途 "An old horse knows everything" is not particularly enlightening. I mean, yes, old people are wise, but I didn’t really learn anything new there.

Others are cryptic. #510 钱财身外物 "Money is not inherent to man" sounds good, but what does it mean?

Once upon a time, it might have been cool to rewrite this book the way *I* think it should have been. To decode, reorganize, and categorize a digital tome of Chinese wisdom that I could bust out during a Facebook argument and (in my imagination) blow everyone's mind.

This was never realistic though. Two years after I bought this book, a newer version came out. I have no idea if the authors made any changes to the layout, but at this point it wouldn't matter even if they did. It's time I moved on.

Review: To Conquer Hell (2)

I first ordered this book in 2011, and read it while I was deployed to Afghanistan. It was great book, but it was hard to follow the phases and the various divisions as they advanced north. As a result, I could understand the beginning and the end, but the middle was just a horrific morass of battlefield experiences.

Since that time, I’ve learned that I had three great-granduncles who fought in the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Thomas Jodon (1st Division, 18th Infantry Regiment), Lawrence Swenk (37th Div, 145th Infantry), and John William Smith (89th Div, 342nd Field Artillery, pictured below). With that knowledge, the battle “re-interested” me, so I bought the Kindle version, and started tracking what those divisions did. Given that -- for each phase of the action -- the author reports on each division, going from east to west, I used this map from the American Battlefields Commission. [Source] That made everything so much easier; when a division got bogged down and failed to advance, you can see the lack of progress in the phase lines. It’s also helpful to understand where the Meuse Argonne American Cemetery is with relation to the battlefield. There were no new revelations from reading the book a second time, but the actions seemed much more vivid now as I imagined my great-granduncles being in similar units, doing the same thing. For example, here's a passage about soldiers from the 89th Division dragging their 75mm field guns forward:

Half of Casey's men were already dead or wounded, along with many of his horses. Every little while a piece of shrapnel hit a horse, and the men stopped to unhitch the animal before moving on. The surviving horses had to pull twice as hard. Casey saw that one of the horses in the lead tema was bleeding from six wounds. "He had lost an eye, the remnants of which hung in an oystery mass over his nose. I felt like shooting him but he was still pulling and we needed his help."

I don’t have any stories of their experiences in the Great War –- there was nothing passed down through my family –- but if they went through anything similar, I could understand why.

One does not brag about conquering hell; one only tries to leave it behind.

Review: Imperial America & the Bush years (2)

In going through old things, I cam across this book. After almost 20 years, it's interesting to look back at the perspectives the author held, and compare that to what has been going on in the world since it was first published in 2004.

Back then, the author's complaint was that the focus on Iraq diverted attention from real problems that required a broad spectrum of responses, and instead focused on "regime change" for a country that posed much more minor threat. Given all the subsequent events that have occurred in Iraq, and the vast sums that the United States has spent for Iraq adventure, I think the author's underlying point stands. The Bush administration was fixated on a threat that it didn't -- in retrospect -- really have to worry about, and committed the U.S. to a costly, unnecessary war.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. enjoyed the sympathy of the whole world -- even Iran extended its condolences. But rather than unite the world in countering transnational terrorism, the President Bush forced countries to choose whether they were "with us or against us" when it came to rogue states like North Korea. And Iran -- who as a Shiite country regarded the Taliban as enemies, too -- got lumped in with Iraq (its 1980s nemesis) in what Bush called an "Axis of Evil."

With the Global War on Terrorism essentially over now and the West focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I find that Chapter 5 is the most interesting section of the book because of its discussion of Russia. I didn't realize this, but Putin "was the first world leader to call President Bush after the attacks." (p143). Interests didn't always align, but Bush considered Putin a power partner that the West could rely on to make sure deals would "stick."

By contrast, Bush viewed NATO as an irrelevant partner in countering "rogue states" like Iraq. France and Germany sided with Russia in rejecting the justification for Bush's war, and NATO seemed ill-suited to counter-terrorism anyway.

Putin found a champion in British prime minister Tony Blair. "Blair concluded that western and Russian strategic interests were becoming alike and that collective security agreements that lacked Russian participation no longer made sense. Indeed, Blair wanted to see Russia become a de facto member of NATO.” (p145)

Subsequently, “...the new NATO-Russia Council was launched officially in Rome on May 28, 2002. Putin may envisage its modest arrangements one day fulfilling a two-generation-long Russian dream of a pan-European security system, in which Russia would deploy the largest military force and be able to block any alliance military action of which it disapproved.” (p146)

From the viewpoint of 2022, this is astonishing. Also surprising -- given Putin's demand that NATO withdraw from eastern Europe -- is that Putin had no contemporary complaints about NATO expansion. When the Baltic states joined in 2004, he acknowledged that “each country has the right to choose the form of security it considers most effective.” [Source]

Rereading this book after 15 years puts into proper perspective the fears we held following the 9/11 attacks. While true we wasted gazillions of dollars and many opportunities to solve more pressing strategic issues, many of the concerns listed aren't really that big of a deal. Yes, North Korea is a problem, but there doesn't seem to be a fear that they'd sell a nuclear weapon to international terrorists. And yes, Iran is still funding Hezbollah in its anti-Israel terrorism, but this seems to be small potatoes now.

The truth is, the United States has moved on from Afghanistan and concerns about terrorism. It's a different world now, and it makes me wonder if anything I felt strongly about back then was really worth it in the first place.

Review: Better Off Dead

I made my family watch Better Off Dead for mandatory culture night recently. I remember seeing it when I was growing up, and it influenced me to choose French for my high school foreign language requirement.

Apart from being a funny movie (in an awkward cringe kind of way), it also has some good lessons about relationships.

At the beginning of the movie, we see Lane’s room, which is practically wallpapered with pictures of his girlfriend Beth. However, Beth soon breaks up with him to go out with Roy Stalin, the super-hunk captain of the ski team (and super-jerk).

This devastates Lane, who makes four suicide attempts (hanging, carbon monoxide, self-immolation, and jumping from a bridge into traffic) before finally taking an interest in Monique, the French foreign exchange student who lives across the street. When Roy makes an unwanted advance on Monique, Lane challenges Roy to a “ski-off” or something, which Lane wins to everyone’s acclaim. Beth renews her interest in him, but he brushes her off to pursue Monique.

The lesson in all this is that relationships shouldn’t be about gaining status and self-esteem, something both Lane and Beth are guilty of.

Beth was never particularly interested in Lane himself; rather, she liked the idea of being liked. When a “bigger, better deal” came along in Roy, she liked the boost in social status that came with dating him. It didn’t matter that Roy treated her badly; what mattered is how she could feel about herself.

Conversely, Lane drew a lot of self-esteem from dating Beth. When she broke up with him (after six months!), he lost all sense of purpose and self-worth. As men, we can’t do that.

Lane’s relationship with Monique, on the other hand, grew as they helped each other. Monique helped Lane fix his car, skied with him, and inspired him to achieve great things. Lane reciprocated by getting her away from her creepy host family making her dinner and – at the end – took her to Dodgers stadium.

This lesson that relationships are about helping each other, not self-esteem and status, has taken me decades to understand. It’s a good life lesson for the young, and I’m glad I got to share it with my kids.

Review: The Lifters

I heard about The Lifters from an NPR interview with author Dave Eggers back in 2018.

It tells the story of a boy named Gran (short from Granite) who moves with his family to a small town named Carousel. At some point in the past, a factory in Carousel manufactured merry-go-round horses. However, hardly anyone remembers that, and the town's best days seem to be behind it.

The residents of Carousel seem to suffer from a general malaise as well. No one seems at all interested in Gran's arrival; everyone completely ignores him, except for fellow misfit Catalina. Gran notices Catalina regularly disappears from class, not to be seen for the rest of the day, and takes an interest in her.

Eventually, Gran and Catalina team up to resist the supernatural force that is feeding off the town's sense of despair. As building after building collapses into sinkholes, they work to prop up (or "lift") the town.

There were several things I like about this book. First, Gran's family has very familiar dynamics. The mother is disabled, Gran can remember a time long ago when she wasn't. Gran's father - a mechanic -- is unreliably employed, and is frequently out-of-town. The family suffers from money problems, which weigh heavily on the parents, and therefore the kids, too. Those things spoke to me.

I'm partially disabled now, but my children remember a time when I wasn't. I also remember a time in high school when my dad had to leave us for a job in a distant place. Within the past two years, I myself have had employment instability and money limitations. And I've lived in economically depressed areas where many of the people around us were also experiencing hardship.

Yet despite all their hardships, Gran's family members love each other deeply. "Gran liked nothing better in the world that to hear his sister's voice awed. It gave him immeasurable strength for reasons he did not know." And "Two years ago, when Gran had asked for a watch, his father had given him this one... On the back, Gran's father had engraved 'Granite, my rock. Love, Dad."

Reading tearjerky stuff like that made the book almost "not safe for work" for me.

Second, I liked the many lessons sprinkled throughout the book, like this one about cognitive dissonance: "When we see something that so conflicts with our everyday expectations of the world, sometimes our brains find a way to explain it away, or even to forget it."

Regarding integrity: "A promise is like the earth underneath us. It must be solid. How can we walk, and run, and live and laugh, when we can't count on the ground beneath us? And so it is with promises. They keep us upright. They hold up everyone and everything."

And trust: "when someone asks you if you trust them, it usually means they're about to do something that will make you reassess that trust."

And courage: "Bravery has its limits. Bravery sometimes needs a rest."

Third, I liked the way the book addressed real problems young people face. When Gran describes his parents' arguments to one of his teachers, talking about how he and his sister would escape the house and throw sticks in a nearby river for an hour or so until things calmed down, there are no platitudes - only understanding and empathy. "I know that at your age, you can feel powerless," the teacher replies. "And the powerlessness can make you angry."

Yet my favorite part is a conversation in chapter 86, when Catalina tells Gran why she didn't think he should be a Lifter. "It's a calling," she'd said earlier - not something one applies for. Initially, she didn't think he had what it takes.

Catalina explains:

"Because to be a Lifter, you have to be serious, and you have to be brave, and just as importantly, you have to know sadness."

"Why?" Gran said. He was intrigued.

"Because sadness is duty....if you know sadness, you understand sadness in others. And if you can understand sadness in others, you're obligated to help....If you know sadness, you want to help lessen it," she explained. "Improve things. Brighten the days. Lift people up. You know?"

It's that sense of duty -- fueled by empathy, and built on a foundation of sadness -- that makes the world a better place. And that's a powerfully hopeful message.