Progress & impediments: Why I’m leaving Facebook
Back on January 1, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions, here. Sorry to report less than satisfactory progress on all but one goal, learning German. Thanks to the exercises on DuoLingo, that’s going quite well. I can now read texts much more easily, though still with frequent recourse to the dictionary. However, my main purpose … read more »
Albania!
Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi My rating: 5 of 5 stars ALBANIA! If you haven’t yet read Lea Ypi’s delightful and surprising book about growing up in that eccentric little country, you must! From the death of « Uncle Enver », as patriotic tots like little … read more »
2024: Return of the Man Who Can
The Man Who Can is the most potent and most pragmatic of my alter-egos, the one who solves problems and gets things done, but he has been unavailable, hors de combat for much of this past year. Two overseas trips — to the U.S. in June and Italy in October — interrupted my, and his, work. … read more »
Chile: The coup and I
The coup in Chile on September 11, 1973, was a tremendous shock — not because it was unexpected, which it wasn’t, but because it was so much more violent and murderous than we, or at least I, had imagined, in a country long known for its civility, its culture, and its rational and orderly manner … read more »
How Naziism arose
The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise To Power by Bnjamin Carter Hett My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is the clearest and most concise of all the books I have read (many) to understand how Germany, known for its philosophers, scientists and artists, and with the largest social democratic party in Europe or anywhere … read more »