Connect by David Bradford & Carole Robin

3.27 / 5

Some spelling errors in my copy, but other than that, the book is about the six pillars of having an "exceptional" relationship. Exceptional is of course a subjective term, and is used — often synonymously — with "fulfilling." While I may not agree with that, the pillars are certainly interesting.

1. be authentic
2. both people can be vulnerable
3. proceeding with the understanding that self disclosures won't be used against you.
4. having the ability to be honest with each other. this includes the range of emotions and constructive feedback of behaviours.
5. Dealing with conflict productively using the four step process listed:
   • have the other person take the issue seriously.
   • share what's going on with them.
   • come to a mutually satisfying solution.
   • decide what repair work must be done.
6. commit each other's growth and development.

A criticism of this work, and one that doesn't really get talked about, is forced interactions. Some people are forced to work with sociopathic, narcissistic, or toxic people and they have no choice. When dealing with these human stains, none of the steps work, and of course that's not what the book is about, it's about "exceptional" relationships with friends, co-workers, and families; nevertheless, the conflict management, and steps to build a relationship will not work on these people. People who thrive on conflict and drama would enjoy nothing more than seeing your vulnerability, and will use that information as a weapon.

Other than that, this is nothing that hasn't been said before. It tries to be Carnegie's "How to Win Friends & Influence People" but with a more dry style.

Thirst by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

4.28/5

This book should be read alongside Blindness and Hunger, for the symbology and allegorical telling of the novel is not merely literal and physical, but existential and intellectual. The senses pine for more. The mind's expanse is infinite. What are young people who are thirsty for meaning and purpose in a leaden and desolate earth meant to do to find that purpose? Volunteer for the army? Follow excruciatingly simple orders like "defend this water tank"? Die for their country? Now meaning is fulfilled because their family members are told they died holding the objective.

Now a turn. When truth is commodified and used as a psychological tool, the writer becomes the sword rather than the pen. What now, is the writer meant to do in that same world with those same values and goals?

"Since time immemorial, we poets have assuaged and mollified the drunkenness of caliphs with our grandiloquent oratory and the tenderness of our temperament, to the accompaniment of the lute; and now we are expected to use our words to applaud and encourage the insane intoxication of our leaders, leaden words that have to march at the speed of a printing press, draped in military clothes and paraded in front of eyes that cannot stand seeing any bad news in print."

These are the questions before us against the backdrop and realities of the Iran-Iraq war, a war where every Western nation supported the war criminal Saddam Hussein, who would later become their very enemy not because of the genocides he committed (one of them in '86 during the war backed by the Americans), but because his nation had oil. The novel does not touch upon this — it was written before the illegal invasion of Iraq in '03, but it is there, ever present, like a cloud on a sunny day, like a drizzle on a dewy morning.

"A hill and a group of soldiers whose task is to defend it, a healthy, young prisoner whose life was extinguished in the instant it took to fire a bullet, and his well-built body shoved into a pit at the bottom of the hill."

Young people died, many on the Persian side for Iran did not have the backing of nearly every world leader unlike Saddam; however, young Iraqis died just the same, because those same leading nations needed to sell weapons.

What are we all doing, if not dying of thirst while being forced to defend a water tank just because we are told that is the way forward, whilst staring at the gaping maw of corporate surveillance and politicians in acting in the interests of their corporate backers?

"Skimming words, passing over words has become a habit for humans. Maybe if pen and paper hadn’t been invented, humans would have developed a sharper capacity for memorizing words. For example, this title of the “noblest in creation” might have left a trace on the memory of mankind that was not superficial and shallow; that would not have been forgotten, and if uttered it would not be out of habit, and so this most important judgement on mankind would not be destroyed by mankind, and this accursed brain would not have dragged me to the edge of insanity, to a point where I have arrived at the horrendous conclusion that there is nothing in this world more vile, base, destructive and hypocritical than the clay of Adam … and my captive in the trench is thirsty, Major. Even monkeys don’t take their own kind as captives …’"

An End to Evil by David Frum

0.01/5

This is warmongering propaganda. A neocon revelry of dangerous militant colonials who in their self-righteous indignation attempt to moralize their war-crimes and atrocities.

Where does "freedom" — ; the very "goal" of the war on "terror", fit into the belief that we must all carry biometrical cards? "If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear!" This is is the war cry of fascists and authoritarians. It's said when they are eroding your human rights, social liberties, and attempting to brainwash and alter your beliefs for their own personal benefit.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Encouraging other Americans to "report suspicious activity" and simultaneously believing that law enforcement and immigration officers don’t have enough powers and must be given more carte blanche in dealing with the populace is the war cry of dictators and totalitarians. These are actual domestic and foreign policy recommendations from the book, and the only two I will address, for I do not have the time to pick apart the infinitude of insolent claims made.

Stalin's regime relied heavily on "mutual surveillance," urging families to report on each other in communal living spaces and report "disloyalty."

Where does truth fit into the numerous factual inconsistencies, intellectual dishonesty, and bad faith arguments in this book, written by one of the architects of one of the greatest lies, cons, and manipulations of American foreign policy throughout our history? Where does empathy fit into the American constitution that every man, woman, and child is entitled to the pursuit of happiness? I guess I missed the fine-print saying if you're Iraqi, N.Korean, or Iranian, you're out of luck and should be murdered because you have resources America needs.

Schwarz documents that war advocates like Frum still can't tell basic truths about Iraq even as they adopt the posture of contemplation and remorse. In particular, Frum's claim that Saddam maintained a nuclear weapons program until 1996 is indisputably false.

"Of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil, and we can't really deny that. From the standpoint of a solider who's now fought in the middle east for six years – my son-in-law's fought there for four years, my daughter's been over there, my son has served the nation; my family has been fighting for a long time."

Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of CENTCOM speaking about the Iraq War. "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America's national interest. What the hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs." ~ US Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, about the Iraq war back in 2007.

Empathy, freedom, and truth have no place in the ideology advocated in this "book", because this nearly 300-page rant is propaganda. It's a militarist, fascist, surveillance police-state that is as self-righteous, black-and-white, and moronic as it is ignorant and nonsensical. The only reason why Frum is "anti-Trump" now is because Trump is blatant and obvious in his xenophobia, in his racism, in his sexism, and in his cruelty. Make no mistake, Frum and co. are idelogically identical to Trumpism and Republicanism. We may only hope that a day will come wherein publishers will turn down such hogwash and opt for more informative, historically accurate, and apt analysis of foreign policy and global politics, that would be the true end to evil.