Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Skagg, Ricky, and Eddie Dean. 2013. Kentucky Traveler: My Life in Music. New York: itbooks.

Review by Michael Beach
 
This work is an autobiography by well-known bluegrass and country artist, Ricky Skaggs. He grew up in Kentucky inspiring the title. Skaggs became famous among the bluegrass crowd as he grew into young adulthood. Later he gained larger audiences as he moved into country music, winning many awards. His most famous hits came in the 1980s. Eventually he was able to become independent of record labels, create his own label, and return to his bluegrass roots.

Skaggs is honest about how others helped him on his musical path. He also speaks to his failed first marriage. He wrestles with his decisions to shift from bluegrass to popular country music. He was soundly criticized by bluegrass purists, and he shared some of their sentiment. Yet his struggles with this musical categorization he also points out to how the much larger stage allowed him to introduce new audiences to the old songs and styles. Throughout the book he also speaks to his specific version of Christianity. The larger popular venues also allowed him to share some of that part of himself. Record company executives and producers pushed back at him, worried that approach might cause damage to record sales.

Record sales dropped off as he began to tire of the road and commercialism’s demands. He was in a place in life where he was less dependent on those pressures, eventually leaving the traditional business route. Skaggs began making income by becoming a producer for other artists. With the freedom to create whatever music he wanted, Skaggs returned to his bluegrass routes.

Eventually, Ricky Skaggs became a staple at the Grand Ol’ Opry. He still is. Many famous artists have included him in duets and other productions in their own recordings. I have heard a number of famous artists attribute Skaggs with helping them return to the music they love most after wandering through more popular music. I like pretty much everything I’ve heard from Skaggs. I learned of him during his more popular years of country music, but also really enjoy his more traditional music including both bluegrass and gospel. I read this book as a tale about how Skaggs became what he is through the combination of his own character, and how he was shaped by family, religion and the music business. Like all of us, he is a product of both nature and nurture. His music both influenced and was influenced by many others.
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Bibliography
​Lee, Harper. 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Harper Perennial.

​Review by Michael Beach
 
This is a well-known classic of American literature. I saw the movie starring Gregory Peck a long time ago with only scant memory of it. I knew it to be about a trial in the south, specifically Alabama. The trial was about an innocent black man, Tom Robinson, accused of rape. Despite evidence to the contrary, he is convicted, sent to prison, and eventually killed while attempting to escape.

Reading the book, I was surprised. I imagined most of the work to be mostly about the trial and interactions of the adults. In fact, most of the first half does neither of these things. Harper Lee introduces all the characters through the eyes of three children. Jeremy ‘Jem’ Finch, Gene Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, and Dill. Jem and Scout are the children of Atticus Finch, a widower. Dill is a friend who stays in Maycomb, their town, over the summer, living with an aunt. They interact with every sort of person throughout the book.

The story contains themes of racism, class distinction, and societal notions of honor. Every character uses the N-word. It is simply the vernacular of the time in 1930s Alabama. Atticus is central to all the goings on and is quickest to excuse what is, or seems to be, bad behavior of others. In many ways this is a coming-of-age story for the children. Their experiences and interactions with each other and the adults teach them about adult issues and attitudes. Social norms are in question throughout the work.

Atticus is not the only adult with more modern sentiment about race and class relations, but his allies are but few as he acts as legal counsel for the accused, Robinson. He and the children are threatened, and near the end of the book are attacked by Bob Ewell. He is the father of the girl who accused Robinson of rape and of beating her. In reality, the girl threw herself at Tom, the father saw it and beat his daughter.

It goes without saying that Lee is masterful in her style in capturing the nature and dialog of the characters. The circumstances and attitude ring true for the time and location. Her storytelling brings the reader into the world of her creation, yet one that feels like they could be actual events. The version I read is the 50th anniversary edition. 
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Bibliography
​Hespelt, E. Herman, Irving A. Leonard, John T. Reid, John A. Crow, and John E. Englekirk, . 1946. An Anthology of Spanish American Literature. New York: Appleton-Century-Crosts, Inc.
 
This anthology contains many original works, and excerpts of original works. As the title implies, all the authors are Hispanic. One could argue that first portion authors are not American authors, but rather Spanish authors writing in the ‘new world.’ For example, some of the more interesting writings to me are up front. They include memoirs of several Spanish conquistadors, contemporaneously written by members of their teams with specific assignment to capture events. These were generally also religious representatives intending to convert indigenous people to Christianity. As a reader of history, one has to take these accounts for what they are. The saying goes that history is written by the victor. Reading these sorts of historical memoirs, I tend to assume they are only loosely true, but they do show a great deal about the perspectives of the author if not the subjects.

I think my favorite section includes gaucho stories. These are mostly poems and remind me of comedic cowboy poetry of the American ‘wild west’. I found the most entertaining to be Fausto written in 1866 by Estanisao del Campo. In the poem, Anastasio el Pollo relates to his gaucho buddy Laguna the story of Faust. He stumbles into an opera house while visiting the city. He sees the play and believes he is watching actual events happening in front of him. He has never been to a play and did not understand the idea of fiction. The whole thing reminds me a bit of some of the work done by Andy Griffith when he would recount Shakespearian plays using ‘down home’ or ‘red neck’ expressions and a southern accent to tell the story.

As one might guess, this anthology contains a wide range of prose and poetry, some comedic, others patriotic, historical, or emotional. Their is a short exposition in English at the beginning section of each writer's works giving a short bio of the author and some descriptions of their writing style and focus. The actual works are in the original Spanish. Since the writings range from the 1500s through the mid-1900s, and includes authors from many countries, the Spanish language used differs from piece to piece. I was comfortable with most of it, but kept an online dictionary close at hand. 
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Bibliography
​Schwartz, A. B. (2015). Broadcast Histeria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York: Hill and Wang.
 
In the broadcast industry, the events during the radio broadcast led by Orson Welles is the stuff of legend. It was said that as people believed they were hearing real news interruptions into otherwise normal programming, they went crazy collectively. The broadcast warned up front it was a fictitious portrayal. Several times during the program similar messages were shared. Yet, people often tuned in during times that did not include the caveats. Supposedly, people ran out into the street screaming. Others packed up the family car and headed for the proverbial hills. A few are said to have committed suicide. In this work, Schwartz examines many of these myths and debunks them. He does share some examples where a relatively small number of people did think the program real and started fleeing, but these documented examples are few.
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What Schwartz does document is a somewhat skeptical public. Newsrooms and police station phones rang off the hook. People were looking for some sort of official confirmation to what they were hearing. Was there really a Martian invasion in progress? Were people dying by alien death rays?

In the chapter titled ‘Journalism and Showmanship’ the author examines how the news covered a real story of the same time period, specifically the Lindberg baby kidnapping. Sensationalism in reporting inspired people to flood the Lindberg estate. Charles Lindberg was a celebrity in his day. He was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. “Within half an hour, newsrooms in three states had gotten word of the crime and begun frantically revising their front pages” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 13). Much of the Welles fictional story had the same trappings of what people experienced during the immediate aftermath of the Lindberg kidnapping story. The storytellers were acting in a believable manner. In other words, they were good at their writing and acting craft.

Schwartz wonders if things are all that different today. Whether one calls it fake news, misinformation, disinformation, or whatever the newest terms will become, there are people who purposefully copy realism fictitiously. Welles was in it for entertainment, and perhaps that the same goal of some modern-day trolls. It seems clear to me that some of this effort is not just for a joke, but with specific outcomes intended. Motives may be political, social, or criminal, but each looks to sway some portion of the population into a preference action or inaction. Schwartz shares several examples such as ‘the Veracruz Twitter panic’ in the popular resort of Veracruz, Mexico. A few residents of the city started reporting crimes and violence throughout the city that were not actually happening. The reports were forwarded by others, then picked up by some websites that “capitalized on this by writing fake news stories with provocative headlines” noting how such headlines “can generate a small fortune in ad revenue by exploiting gullibility” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 223).

In the same page, Schwartz does note that “the same technology that spread that false report also made it possible to verify the story in almost no time at all” (Ibid.). He argues that Americans were skeptical of the original Martian attack story but seem to be more inclined to accept the stories about the hysteria that ensued. He suggests we apply skepticism in both stories and meta-stories we hear. Perhaps we should be less inclined to accept those stories that seem to fit a narrative we already accept.

Bibliography
Ramsdell, Mike. 2006. A Train to Potevka: An American Spy in Russia. Layton: Zhivago Press.

Review by Michael Beach
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This book is an autobiographical sketch of some experiences of a CIA operative working in Russia in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Mike Ramsdell speaks of his early training days in the agency and how his unit was betrayed by another trainee with whom Ramsdell had a friendship. He tells of his bringing up in northern Utah, his marriage and divorce brought on in part by how much he was away on assignments.

The main story of the book is how his unit in Russia was attempting to turn an official into an asset for the CIA. It goes wrong and his unit is told to bug out. That is, the others in his unit are sent to the relative safety of Moscow. Ramsdell is left alone to finish sanitizing the various locations the group of American spies were using. He is eventually ordered to take a train to a safe house in the far away village of Potevka. Before he can make his get away, Ramsdell is attacked by local thugs. He escapes the assassination attempt, but barely. He is beaten and seriously injured. In this rough condition he gets on the train in a lot of pain. It’s the slow train that stops often with the lowest class ticket. He ruminates about his life and what seems to him like abandonment by the agency. As he slept, another passenger steels what little food he had, leaving him to travel for days hungry and bloodied.

Eventually he arrives only to find the safe house empty and with no food. Eventually villagers help him, but not at first. He speaks of how the local people have little for themselves because of the bad policies of the Soviet government. Several times he is stalked by wolves that at one point keep him from walking from the house to the outhouse to relieve himself. After a long stay in the bitter cold and deprivation that included Christmas, he eventually makes his way to rescue and a return to the United States.

Throughout the ordeal, Ramsdell was sustained by his memory of his relationship with his son and a coworker who later becomes his girlfriend and future wife. He wrote to them and imagined future times together. He also considered his own perspective about God and his faith. The humbling experiences at first caused him to question, but then he was drawn closer to God and found his faith growing.

The story is an interesting mix of spy thriller, introspection, and social commentary with a religious connection. Since I lived part of my life in northern Utah, I was familiar with the places he describes. I also made two work-related trips to far eastern Siberia, but after the fall of the Soviet Union. I can see his perspective offering praise and sympathy to the Russian people while questioning their government as well as our own.
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Bibliography
​Collins, H. M. 1992. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Review by Michael Beach

The original publication of this book was in 1985. I read the updated 1992 edition. The focus on this book is an examination of how we perceive order and our need to replicate. In science, replication is important in particular because when one makes a factual claim, it must be based on evidence and any empirical evidence must be replicable. Collins shares three chapters of specific examples to make his point. He discusses the TEA-Laser, detecting gravitational radiation, and paranormal experiments.

Order and perception are subjectively designed. Whenever there we examine a large number of things we try to categorize. In science, categorization is necessary to make sense of differences. The problem with categorizing is that things don’t really exist in discrete groups of things, but rather as a continuum of individual things. Scientists attempt to define categories by defining attributes. Whenever one creates experiments that either attempt to define a category, or attempts to make conclusions about subjectively defined categories, it becomes difficult to take the next step. That is, it is difficult to draw general conclusions about specific empirical outcomes. This is the problem with inductive reasoning. As soon as one attempts to apply a finding in a specific situation to larger groups, the generalized conclusion will inevitably have to include exceptions.
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The major concern Collins points out about replication is that each group defined and included in an experiment will influence outcomes differently. Generally, empirical work includes undocumented steps. “My concern is not how we could be certain in principle about induced regularities but about how we actually come to be certain about regularities in practice” (Collins 1992, 6). For example, some processes are taught from one lab worker to another through tacit practice. Explicit documented procedures carry a project so far, but there are different ways of doing lab tasks. Practices vary from lab to lab and from practitioner to practitioner. This means that replication includes variation, and variation leads to different exceptions when attempting to analyze and generalize findings.

​Bibliography
Reeman, Douglas. 1986. The Iron Pirate. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Review by Michael Beach
 
This story is set in the waning years of WWII. It centers on the German heavy cruiser called Prinz Luitpold. As some of the German fleet were bottled up in the Baltic waters around Scandinavia, the ship receives orders to break away and sail into the north Atlantic to act alone sinking as many support ships of the allies as possible. They are to specifically avoid military ships that might engage them and only approach ships that have little or no defense. They rightfully assume most of the British and American combatants would be busily engaged guarding the invasion of Europe that began in France. They wreak havoc as hoped. As word gets out of a German rogue, some of the British fleet had remained in South Africa during the invasion of Europe. The admiralty of that part of the fleet give chase, eventually sinking her.

The characters on the German ship are twisted into several love triangles. Captain Dieter Hechler was embarrassed by his wife’s constant cheating. She comes aboard before the ship’s departure from the Baltic and attempts to seduce her husband. He refuses her. He rightfully suspects she is pregnant and trying to cover her state by claiming the child to be his. A former classmate of Captain Hechler who is now Admiral Leitner, comes aboard with a public relations film crew and a famous woman aviator to create hope for the German people who are beginning to suffer from losses in battle and bombings in the homeland. He also brought with him some boxes that are quickly locked away, their contents not even disclosed to Captain Hechler. They turn out to be valuables stolen from Jews and political prisoners destined for execution. These poor souls included the wife of the ship’s medical officer, Doctor Kroll. Over time the captain and women pilot fall in love and have an affair. As the ship engages in its final battle, Kroll kills Leitner because of his hiding information surrounding the death of the doctor’s wife. Several crew members abscond with the admiral’s boxes of jewels and money. Many survive and later find themselves in prisoner camps, eventually returning to Germany.

There are other story lines and romantic parings. For me, the romantic angles were not appealing. Intimate interludes are at times described in a rated-R level in my estimation. Also, in my estimation, these portions of the book add little to the story and are unnecessary. They could have been toned down and still help the reader to understand how the relationships influence events and outcomes. The battle scenes and internal tensions that result are well written and realistic.  One other distraction for me is how the author tends to shift suddenly from on scene to another. Often the discussions in distant locations and with different characters seem almost intertwined. At times it can be difficult to follow the transitions, or rather non-transitions. 
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Bibliography
Winner, Langdon. 1986. The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Review by Michael Beach
 
In this work, Langdon Winner considers a mix of nature and technology in the area of San Luis Obispo, CA where he grew up. In Diablo Canyon, as a child he had enjoyed the ocean and the occasional view of the whales as they migrated close to shore through the area. As an adult he visited again to take a tour of the construction site of a new nuclear power plant. Given his academic background reading “history, politics, and philosophy,” he found himself, “drawn, quite unexpectedly, to questions concerning technology” (Winner 1986, 166). Seeing the juxtaposition of the wild and the technical in close proximity in Diablo Canyon became a natural curiosity for him.

The first two sections include a review of some of the questions under examination in the field of the philosophy of science. While reviewing prominent publications along these lines, he progresses to consider how we tend to characterize newer forms of technology. For example, is the goal to ‘build a better mousetrap’? Winner considers decentralization of technological ‘progress’ and helps the reader sort through information about technology. How much of what we learn is factual and how much myth? How do we know the difference?

Langdon Winner finishes this book with a focus on exploring what we scholars of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) refer to as ‘boundary work’. In this case, what is ‘natural’ and what is not. He points out how some argue that when it comes to technological change, “this is the natural way; here is the path nature itself sets before us” (Winner 1986, 121). Still others contend, “what we are doing is horribly contrary to nature; we must repair our ways or stand condemned by the most severe tribunals” (Ibid.). Langdon walks through some of the major questions these two simple polarized perspectives unleash. What morals are in play here? How does one define what is ‘natural’ and what isn’t? Is ‘nature’ a pile of stock goods to be exploited? Is it something that requires taming through conquest? How much human intervention causes something to move between the boundary of natural and not natural? The ideas around many of these sorts of questions are considered by Winner.

From an STS perspective, Langdon Winner uses the use-case of how the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant contrasts with what was there before. He notes, for example, that prior to the power plant there were farms and orchards all along the coast, and they are still there. How natural is agriculture as compared to ‘wild’ vegetation? For me as a reader, the arguments are helpful if not clarifying. I think any time we intend to modify our world, such issues should be considered. At the same time, we can’t be so concerned about changing anything that we are unable to meet the needs of humanity. Power consumption is very real. Our modern Western civilization is dependent on it. Nuclear energy is less of a pollutant form, unless there is some sort of unintended accident in the future. Then it can do more damage than alternative methods. Nothing is free impact or free of risk. Winner asks for consideration while exploring limits and balancing benefits and impacts. 
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Bibliography
Hess, David J. 1995. Science & Technology in a Multicultural World: The Cultural Politics of Facts & Artifacts. New York: Columbia University Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach
 
In the field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) facts are associated as a product of science, and artifacts a product of technology. In this book, David Hess examines influences on and by the multicultural movement with regards to science and tech. The early chapters look at cultural construction of science and technology, later he reviews how science and tech help reconstruct culture. He essentially makes a co-production argument, but in terms of the recent multiculturalist perspective.

One specific example is the chapter looking at non-western medicine. Using the term ‘ethnoknowledges’, Hess considers knowledge systems. This approach is not unique to Hess. He documents several professional forums in the field including the Journal of Ethnobiology, and the Journal of Ethnopharmacology and Ethnobotany. Groups don’t get much more specific than that. I had not heard of either previously.

In his concluding chapter Hess makes a case for more emphasis in education on multicultural issues in science and technology. Speaking of a shift in American demographics he predicts, “that by the middle of the twenty-first century most Americans will trace at least some of their ancestors to a continent other than Europe. In the United States, as in many other Western countries, native-born white males today realize that they are going to have to work with women, nonwhites, and immigrants; they are even going to have to work for them, if they are not already doing so” (Hess 1995, 250). Among other concluding arguments he notes, “All efforts to increase equality and diversity through recruitment and retention of students in the technical fields are very important in the struggle to break through the glass ceilings that hold back certain groups of people. My concluding comments extend and compliment these efforts by focusing on the related question of curriculum reform” (Hess 1995, 253).

As a former employer (now retired) I agree diversity has a positive effect on organizations. I would caution adopting diversity for its own sake, but by broadening recruitment pools it is possible to both bring in quality talent and increase diversity. I’ve seen this firsthand over a career spanning nearly 40 years in the field of communications technology. Not that it matters, but here is my CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-beach-57a0a26/
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​Bibliography
Covey, Stephen R. 1990. Principle-Centered Leadership. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore: Simon & Schuster.
 
Review by Michael Beach

This is a follow-on publication to Stephen R. Covey’s 7-Habits work, which I reviewed some time ago. Many of the principles noted in this book were referred to in the earlier work, but here they are the focus and are better organized.

Covey describes alternate life centers as “work, pleasure, friends, enemies, spouse, family, self, church, possessions, money, and so on” (Covey 1990, 21). Our principles will be grounded on our focus. These alternate centers he groups in four areas: security, guidance, wisdom, and power. Our principles influence our life centers and vice versa.

After a brief review of the 7-habits and an explanation of this life-center framework, the rest of the book in general is an expansion of each of the ideas in the framework. He divides the book into two large sections. The first he calls Person and Interpersonal Effectiveness. The second he calls Managerial and Organizational Development. Toward the end of the second section he reviews another popular framework known as Total Quality Management (TQM). One prominent author of this movement was W. Edwards Deming. Covey maps Deming’s '14 points' of TQM onto his 7 habits and his principles framework. This book is a useful companion to Covey’s earlier work, and as before, includes practical examples from different parts of life, not exclusively business.