Sleepless in Midland

Eight Perfect Murders -- a crime novel by Peter Swanson

For anyone who enjoys good mystery fiction, Eight Perfect Murders is a good one.

It opens when the narrator, Malcolm Kershaw, gets a visit from an FBI agent making an impromptu visit to Mr. Kershaws' book store to discuss a blog post he wrote years earlier listing eight books which involved what he called perfect murders -- crimes with so few clues that they were virtually unsolvable. It seems that a serial killer might be using the creative techniques in those books to commit his/her own unsolvable crimes.

Here's a reproduction of said blog post:

EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS
by Malcolm Kershaw

In the immortal words of Teddy Lewis in Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan's underrated neo-noir from 1981: "Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius . . . and you ain't no genius." True words, yet the history of crime fiction is littered with criminals, mostly dead or incarcerated, who all attempted the near impossible: the perfect crime. And many of them attempted the ultimate perfect crime, that being murder.

The following are my choices for the cleverest, the most ingenious, the most foolproof (if there is such a thing) murders in crime fiction history. These are not my favorite books in the genre, nor do I claim these are the best. They are simply the ones in which the murderer comes closest to realizing that platonjc ideal of a perfect murder.

So here it is, a personal list of "perfect murders." I'll warn you in advance that while I try to avoid major spoilers, I wasn't one hundred percent successful. If you haven,t read one of these books, and want to go in cold, I suggest reading the book first, and my list second.

The Red House Mystery (1922) by A. A. Milne
Long before Alan Alexander Milne created his lasting legacy -- Winnie- the-Pooh, in case you hadn't heard -- he wrote one perfect crime novel. It's a country house mystery; a long-lost brother suddenly appears to ask Mark Ablett for money. A gun goes off in a locked room, and the brother is killed. Mark Ablett disappears. There is some preposterous trickery in this book-including characters in disguise, and a secret passage-but the basic fundamentals behind the murderer's plan are extremely shrewd.

Malice Aforethought (1931) by Anthony Berkeley Cox
Famous for being the first "inverted" crime novel (we know who the murderer and victim are on the very first page), this is essentially a case study in how to poison your wife and get away with it. It helps, of course, that the murderer is a country physician with access to lethal drugs. His insufferable wife is merely his first victim, because once you commit a perfect murder the temptation is to try another one.

The A.B.C. Murders (1936) by Agatha Christie
Poirot is investigating a "madman" who, it appears, is alphabetically obsessed, killing off Alice Ascher in Andover followed by Betty Barnard in Bexhill. Etcetera. This is the textbook example of hiding one specific premeditated murder among a host of others, hoping that the detective will suspect the work of a lunatic.

Double Indemnity (1943) by James M. Cain
This is my favorite Cain, mostly because of the grim fatalistic ending. But the murder at the center of the book -- an insurance agent plots with femme fatale Phyllis Nirdlinger to off her husband-is brilliantly executed. It's a classic staged murder; the husband ls killed in a car then placed on the train tracks to make it look as though he fell off thee smoking car at the rear of the train. Walter Huff, her insurance agent lover, impersonates the husband on the train, ensuring that witnesses will attest to the murdered man's presence.

Strangers on a Train (1950) by Patricia Highsmith
My pick for the most ingenious of them all. Two men, each with some one they want dead, plan to swap murders, ensuring that the other has an alibi at the time of the murder. Because there is zero connection between the two men -- they briefly talk on a train - the murders become unsolvable. in theory, of course. And Hlghsmith, despite the brilliance of the plot, was more interested in the ideas of coercion and guilt, of one man exerting his will on the other. The finished novel is both fascinating and rotten to the core, like most of Highsmith's oeuvre.

The Drowner (1963) by John D. MacDonald
MacDonald, my choice for underrated master of midcentury crime fiction, rarely dabbled in whodunits. He was far too interested in the criminal mind to keep his villains hidden until the end. The Drowner is an outlier, then, and a good one. The killer devises a way to drown his or her victims so that it looks exactly Ike an accident.

Deathtrap (1978) by Ira Levin
Not a novel, of course, but a play, although I highly recommend reading it, along with seeking out the excellent 1982 film. you,ll never look at Christopher Reeve in the same way again. It's a brilliant, funny stage thriller that manages to be both the genuine article, and a satirical one, at the same time. The first murder -- a wife with a weak heart -- is clever in its construction, but also foolproof. Heart attacks are a natural death, even when they aren't.

The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt
Like Malice Aforethought, another "inverted" murder mystery, in which a small cadre of classics students at a New England university kill one of their own. We know the who long before we know the why. The murder itself is simple in its execution; Bunny Corcoran is pushed into a ravine during his traditional Sunday hike. What makes it stand out is ringleader Henry Winter,s explanation of the crime -- that they are "allowing Bunny to choose the circumstances of his own death." They are not even sure of his planned route for that day but wait at a likely spot, wanting to make the death seem random instead of designed. What follows is a chilling exploration of remorse and guilt.

Eight Perfect Murders is relatively short, and at the end I was left wishing it would go on. The book selling websites call this the 1st "Malcolm Kershaw" book which hints that there may more in this series by Peter Swanson. Let's hope.

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4:15 PM 3/27/2021

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A tale of two cities' libraries

Midland and Odessa are about 20 miles apart in West Texas. They have a lot in common and a lot of differences, but they are both great cities, and they both have good libraries.

Tuesday when I drove to the downtown branch of the Midland County Library to turn in a book I was surprised to see a sign telling visitors they were closed indefinitely due to the Coronavirus scare. Even the drop box for returned books was locked. The death the other day of a local Coronavirus victim must have inflamed a fear of the customer in them.

But fortunately, the Ector County Library in Odessa is still open. So I checked out a couple of books by J. Todd Scott to wile away the social distancing time. Mr. Scott has written a handful of novels, three of which involve a law enforcement officer in a sparsely populated Texas county near the Big Bend. The only one I've read so far was "The Far Empty" which was a engaging and entertaining book.

The other two, which I picked up Wednesday at the Odessa library, are "High White Sun," and "This Side of Night." I can't wait to get into them.

A love of West Texas probably helps a reader enjoy Mr. Scott's books. But there is at least one other author who writes similar crime novels set in other locales. One is Tom Bouman who writes novels about a law enforcement officer in rural Pennsylvania. The only one I've read so far is "Dry Bones in the Valley," which is quite good.

In any event, if you find yourself stuck in isolation waiting for the "all clear" those two authors can keep you entertained.

P.S. The Ector County Library takes a novel approach to the situation. They ask the customer to call their request into the library, and they will have the book(s) ready for the customer to minimize his/her time at the library. Smart idea.

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3:57 PM 3/25/2020

Adolf Tolkachev -- the billion dollar spy

My summer reading list last year included a number of books about cold war spies. While I may have written at this blog about some of those books, this one got neglected.

It's fact based story of Adolf Tolkachev, "The Billion Dollar Spy," by David Hoffman. Tolkachev was a Soviet scientist who undertook the dangerous task of supplying the CIA with secrets about Soviet research and accomplishments in weapon development.

Beginning in the late 1970s, he sneaked documents out of his top secret working area, took them home, photographed them, and got them back in place during his lunch time. It was a very risky project. And he eluded capture for a number of years.

But a traitor in the CIA named Edward Lee Howard ratted him out. Tolkachev was apprehended by the KGB and ultimately executed, presumably after they had extracted all the information they could out of him. A portrait of Tolkachev photographing documents hangs in CIA headquarters.

The billion dollars in the book title refers to the estimated amount of money he saved the U.S. from research made unnecessary by the materials he was able to share.

Related:
Author's website: David E. Hoffman;
Book Review | The Billion Dollar Spy;
The Billion Dollar Spy.

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3:04 PM 3/8/2020

Quote of the week -- Frank Sheeran

This is from the book, "I heard You Paint Houses." It's one of the versions of what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It's a fascinating story, although we don't know how much of it is true. Anyway, the Netflix movie "The Irishman" was supposed to be based on this Irishman, Frank Sheeran.

On the last page of the book author Charles Brandt recounts a session Sheeran had with a reporter in which Sheeran said,

"If I did all the things they allege I did and I had to do them over again I would not do them."

Hmm. Regrets without admission. Well, OK then.

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2:48 PM 12/23/2019

Spy tip of the week -- never ask for confirmation of something you already believe

I've been reading a book titled "The Spy and The Traitor" by Ben McIntyre, and it's a fascinating story about a KGB officer who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Britain in the cold war and passed top secret info to the Brits. A shocking block of information was about *Operation Ryan.

The short hand version of the tip is this: Never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. And it has application in a many areas. However, in this context, here's the entire paragraph and its application to the story told in the book:

In launching Operation RYAN, Andropov broke the first rule of intelligence: never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. Hitler had been certain that the D-day invasion force would land at Calais, so that is what his spies (with help from Allied double agents) told him, ensuring the success of the Normandy landings. Tony Blair and George W. Bush were convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that is what their intelligence services duly concluded. Yuri Andropov, pedantic and autocratic, was utterly convinced that his KGB minions would find evidence of a looming nuclear assault. So that is what they did.

McIntyre tells readers of the book that Andropov believed it, and his spies sought to prove it.

*Operation RYAN was the code name for raketno-yadernoya napadeniye which represented the erroneous belief by Yuri Andropov that the U.S. intended to launch a preemptive nuclear strike to obliterate the Soviet Union.

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4:04 PM 7/8/2019

Obama's fast and furious scheme mimicked KGB trick before Czech invasion in 68

So I started reading "The Spy and the Traitor" by Ben Macintyre about cold war spying, and ran across an interesting parallel near the very beginning.

In 1968 the KGB was planting fake news, posters, and other things to give the false impression that Czechoslovakia was about to erupt in a violent counterrevolution so that the Soviet crackdown that followed might appear justified.

Among the things the KGB did was this:

They distributed inflammatory posters calling for the overthrow of Communism, and planted arms caches, wrapped in packages conveniently marked "Made in the USA," which were then "discovered" and denounced as proof of an imminent insurrection.

Gosh, that sounds familiar. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Eric Holder did something similar in the early days of the Obama administration. It was called "Fast and Furious," and it too dealt with arms. You'll recall the history. Firearms were supposed to have been sold legally in the U.S. but somehow ending up in Mexico. The goal was to influence voters to accept stricter gun control laws. Fortunately, it backfired. But unfortunately, their aggressive illegal efforts ended up killing innocent people. That would have been an acceptable risk to the Soviet Union, and it was probably acceptable to the Obama administration. After all, as the famous dictator once said, "You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

In any event, "The Spy and the Traitor" is a good book, so far. Hopefully, it will be as interesting as another of Ben Macintyre's books, Rogue Heroes about the start of Britain's SAS.

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2:40 PM 7/1/2019

The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber - chapter 25

We talked about this book the other day after I had read the first half. It is about the serial killer nurse, Charles Cullen, and how he killed patient after patient by injecting their IV bags with drugs that in small doses could save lives, but in large doses could kill. The scary aspect of this is how the hospitals where Cullen worked seemed to prioritized avoidance of liability and embarrassment over patient safety. They couldn't prove anything, so Cullen was typically shown the door without involving law enforcement. Cullen usually got another nursing job at another hospital where he resumed his activities.

Anyway, Chapter 25 was the most poignant. It involved a simply phone call from a nervous pharmacist to the New Jersey Poison Control Center. She had been tasked by hospital management with finding out how much digoxin was toxic. They had barely begun any sort of investigation, and this phone call got the ball rolling.

Chapter 25

July 7,2003

The hold music is lite jazz, upbeat and hopeful. The recorded voice said, "Thank you, a specialist will be with you shortly, please . . ."

Then: "New Jersey Poison Control Center, can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah." The caller identified herself as Nancy Doherty, calling from the pharmacy department of Somerset Medical Center. "It's actually not something that's happening now - we're trying to investigate, umm a 'didge' toxicity that occurred in a patient and I don't know if you have somebody that I could discuss it with . . ."

"Okay," the operator said, figuring the date. "So this is a case that happened.,."

"It happened...um...a couple...well, the person is actually..."

Dead. But Nancy stopped herself.

"Six twenty-eight, it happened," she said.

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New Jersey Poison Control pharmacist Dr. Bruce Ruck called back to Somerset Medical Center ten minutes later. He was put on hold and listened to Vivaldi behind a professional female voice; "At Somerset Medical Center, patient safety comes first. . ."

"Nancy Doherty." Nancy's rounded Jersey vowels were a shock after the clipped broadcaster English: Nyancy Dowyty.

"Nancy, hi, it's Bruce Ruck." Broose shared Doherty's accent and much of her training. He knew that Nancy was only a messenger, tasked with handling a serious internal matter at Somerset.

"Yeah," Nancy said. She exhaled into the phone. " lt's . . . getting real . . . complicated."

Doherty was calling on the instruction of her bosses, to get help figuring the probable drug dosages in two patients. She told Bruce that the first patient coded in their Cardiac Care Center three weeks ago, on June 16. A blood test revealed the patient had excessive levels of the heart drug digoxin. In small doses, didge, helps stabilize heart rhythm. But Nancy was not calling about small doses.

"Then on the twenty-eighth, on the same unit, we had another dig toxicity. . . ."

"Wait," Ruck said. That couldn't be right. Two patients, same drug, different nights? "And this was in the same unit?"

"Yeah."

Ruck asked about the first patient, Mrs. Han -- had she come into the hospital with dig toxicity?

No, Nancy said. "We called the lab. She had normal dig levels when she came in."

"Oh my," Bruce said. ..Nancy, what hospital are you in again?"

"Somerset Medical Center," Nancy said. "I feel like I m a detective."

"Well, it sounds scary to me!" Bruce said.

"Yeah," Nancy said. She sounded relieved, hearing another pharmacist acknowledge that.

Nancy put Ruck on hold, so she could explain the rest from the privacy of her office. "Patient 4, the Reverend Gall--" Nancy read his dig numbers from the lab reports: 1.2. on the twentieth, 1.08 on the twenty-second, 1.59, 1.33,... and then, just after dawn on the twenty--eighth, it suddenly jumped to 9.61.

"So after the twenty-seventh, before he spiked--when did he get his next dig?"

"He never got another dig," Nancy said. His digoxin levels spiked a full day after doctors took him off the drug.

"First thing I think of is lab error ..."

"Well, they're telling me they retested it."

"Mmm," Ruck said. '.Then it couldn't have gone up to nine-point something. . ."

Bruce wasn't getting it. "He coded," Nancy said. "He died, okay? All right?"

Ruck was struck silent. .,Okay,,, he said finally. ,.Let me slow myself down. I'm going to take a deep breath."

"I know.. .," Nancy said.

"I apologize. Okay."

"All right."

"First of all," Bruce began, "as far as I'm concerned, on the twenty-seventh to the twenty-eighth? It's impossible for the level to go up like it did . . . unless he got more digoxin- Right?"

"Okay. . . "

"Let's take that, okay?"

"Okay," Nancy said. It was that simple. And it was bad.

"l want to run this by somebody else," Ruck said. "This--this is a huge issue."

"Yeah," Nancy, said. "And Bruce?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Off the record?"

"Yeah?"

"There were two more people. Before this."

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Nancy Doherty paced the pharmacy until the phone rang again. As promised, it was Bruce. "Um, can you hold? l want to take this in my office," she whispered. The line clicked over to a recording: "Our new million-dollar computer system is guaranteed to further reduce the possibility of medication errors..."

Nancy closed the office door and pressed the blinking Hold button. "Thank you," she breathed. "Okay. Hi."

"Nancy," Bruce said. "You know, you've got a real---"

"Yeah," Nancy said.

"I'm picking my words carefully here."

"Yeah."

"---dilemma."

"Yeah," Nancy said. "Dilemma. Right."

"And several things, I used several different calculations, okay?"

"Yeah?"

"And to get that kind of level increase, at minimum you're going to need two to four milligrams of digoxin."

"Two to four milligrams," Nancy said, jotting it down. "Okay, of dig?" "Yeah," Bruce said. But it wasn't the math that was scaring him, "You see, the main issue, as far as I'm concerned, is the body does not make digoxin."

"Right," Nancy said.

"So, I don't know any way possible of that level going from 1.33 to 9.61 without the patient getting the drug."

"Uh-huh," Nancy said. Nancy knew this, and she wasn't alone. She had been talked to by Mary Lund and Dr. William K. Cors, the medical director. They needed some calculations done, to connect the dig spike to the nursing schedule. If Gall's heart stopped at 6 a.m., what time did he get that drug, and how much?

"What they, they were-and I don,t know if it's possible, but they want to visualize, like a curve almost," Nancy said. "A curve, you know what I mean?"

"But Nancy," Bruce said. "You know, what also got me a little nervous is your two hypoglycemics you told me about."

"Yeah," Nancy sighed. "Which you're probably not supposed to know, because they're like, they're like, you know...", She and Marty Kelly, the nurse practitioner who first alerted Risk Manager Lund to the issue, had panicked when they saw those numbers. They had insulin ODs and dig ODs. Calling the hot line for help with the dig math was supposed to be a neutral resource, like a police tip hot line or a crisis center. Shed tried to put the hypoglycemics behind her. Now Bruce is making it complicated.

"I don't want this . . . ," Nancy sputtered. .,you know, they,re not_,,

"Nancy, Nancy, you know something?"

"We're not looking at them now," Nancy finally blurted.

"But we are, Nancy," Bruce said, *We have to. We have to look at them."

"Yeah," Nancy said.

Bruce spoke slowly, to make certain Nancy couldn't miss it. .,Not only do you have to look at them," he said, ..but you have a police matter."

Ruck waited.

"And I'm going to put it right in your hands," Ruck said finally. "You now have a police matter."

"Okay, I, I.. .," she said.

"In my opinion, you have a police matter."

"Okay, you know what I see, it-"

Ruck wouldn't stop until she heard it. .,Look, Nancy,,,he said. .,I hate to say it-it's a police matter."

Nancy was silent. "Okay," she said finally.

"Whether this is a pure accident where somebody screwed up, or_,,

"Right," Nancy said. She could do this. "Okay."

"That's the best-case scenario,"

"Okay."

"But Nancy? Of those two hypoglycemics? If they had high insulin levels, and they showed no C-pep, then somebody gave them insulin."

"Okay."

"You know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah," Nancy said. It was chemistry, not magic. No elevated C peptide meant that the insulin wasn't human. It came from a laboratory, There was no other way to look at it: if it was in the patients' bodies, and that, hadn't made it themselves, that meant somebody put it there. And that someone was killing patients.

"Yeah," Nancy said. "l hear you."

"You've got a big issue here, Nancy. And I'll tell you something, you -- and I'm, again, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm not being--"

"Oh, no," Nancy said.

"I mean, maybe there's a good reason for all of this."

"Right," Nancy said.

"But you know what?" Ruck warned. "If this turns out to be a police issue, and you guys are waiting, Nancy? They're going to smear you like crazy."

Nancy sighed. "They don't know that I told you about the hypoglycemic. . ."

"Nancy, you're doing the right thing."

"Okay...," Nancy said.

"You're doing the right thing," Bruce reassured her.

"Yeah," Nancy said. She needed to get off the phone and deal with this. Ruck was talking about driving down from Newark and looking through the fi1es. It was her phone call, her information, that had precipitated that. That wasn't the plan. Now she'd need to tell her bosses.

Nancy asked Bruce not to come down. She'd brief Cors and Lund herself. Bruce Ruck gave Nancy his direct line. Nancy promised they'd call back, as soon as possible.

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Ruck hung up and hurried down the hall. He found his boss's door open. Poison Control director Dr. Steven Marcus was leaning over his crowded desk. Ruck only got a few sentences into it before Marcus cut him off. Data are not ambiguous. His gut told him that somebody at Somerset Medical Center was "knocking off patients." And the longer the Somerset Medical Center administration waited to acknowledge the facts, the more patients might suffer.

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But a day Later, Ruck and Marcus were still waiting for the callback from Somerset. Finally Bruce Ruck dialed the Somerset Medical Center Pharmacy operator again, identifying himself, and waited until the hold music clicked over to the extension. The voice that answered was male, and not friendly. Stuart Vigdor was the head of pharmacy, and Nancy's boss. Bruce decided to drop the emergency tone for something friendly and casual.

"So," Bruce said. "I was just trying to follow up with the outcome.What'd you guys decide to do?"

"Actually, Administration has kind of taken over the investigation," Vigdor said stiffly.

"Uh.. ."

"They've called in our attorneys. And they've asked me really not to talk to any outside agencies at this point in time, until our internal investigators.-"

"Okay," Bruce said. "Just, just so they know, Stu, I'll speak to my medical director, it should be his choice---but you guys put him in a real bad spot."

Vigdor didn't say anything to that. Ruck tried again. "So, you don't know if they've gone to the authorities yet?"

"I don't know that now," Vigdor said. It seemed to Ruck that Stuart Vigdor was shutting this conversation down before it began. And Vigdor knew it would be his ass on the line, not Nancy's. "I'm asked to direct all calls up to Risk Management, up to Mary Lund."

"Okay."

"I think you spoke to her?"

"Yeah," Ruck said. It was a lie, small but quick enough to keep Vigdor from closing the door. "Do you know her number? Let me call her then."

"All right," Vigdor said. He sounded relieved.

"You know, I totally understand," Bruce said, still friendly. 'And, they're doing the right thing, in terms of that."

"Yeah," Vigdor continued, "because, we don't know for a fact if these patients have been..." He paused. "It's an ongoing investigation at this point," he said finally.

"Right."

"Right," Vigdor said. "We don't know that we have devious activity or-"

"Oh, absolutely," Ruck said. "But again-whose responsibility is it to investigate-"

" We are investigating," Vigdor started, then backed off the defense. "We can-you know they can...I'm sure l can give you assurance of that."

"Sure, sure," Ruck said. "Okay, so, what's the number?"

Bruce heard a rustling of papers, then silence. A few moments later Vigdor returned. He didn't have the phone number, but he'd been thinking, and he needed Ruck to know, this whole overdose thing, wasn't a pharmacy mistake. It sounded to Ruck like Vigdor didn't want to be caught in the middle, the way maybe Nancy' was now This was a job for the administrators.

"And you want them to report it, too?"

"Well...yeah..."

"You know Stu, you don't have to say it," Ruck said. He'd been picturing Vigdor all wrong. Vigdot was probably, just a kid. Not bad, just ambitious and scared of stepping out of rank.

"I really feel, that they feel you guys are forcing their hand, um, inappropriately. For what that's worth," Vigdor said. 'And, you know, you guys .. ."

"Sure," Ruck said, "sure . . ."

"You're supposed to be there as a viable, um, you know. . ."

"Sure."

"Resource, . ."

"Sure. Sure."

"So that, you know, we shouldn't be afraid to call you guys ."

"No, absolutely', I agree," Ruck said. "But Stu, when it comes to toxicological surveillance,we do have an obligation to report to the State."

"Right. . . ," Vigdot said.

"So, that's one of the --that's one off the sticking points, there."

"Yeah, uh, well-," Vigdor started.

Ruck cut him off. "What's her number?"

Vidgor read it out, sounding relieved.

"That's the risk -- the quality assurance manager," Yigdor said, correcting himself. "Mary Lund."

"Sure," Ruck said.

"You spoke with her yesterday. . . " Vigdor said, half asking.

"Sure."

"And I believe that was with, with Bill Cors --"

"Sure," Ruck said.

"And I know that, you know, um-upper management has come to me, and told, me that it's an internal investigation at this point. They brought legal counsel in on it. They are bringing in investigators."

Ruck smiled at that one -- he was a pharmacy investigator, here on the phone, ready to investigate. But apparently they didn't want him in there. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, " Ruck said. "No problemo;'

"You know," Vigdor said, "I probably said more than I should have right now."

"Stu. What you tell me is -- listen to me, Stu ---"

"Yeah? "

"It's between, you know -- it's just us," Ruck said. "It's confidential." But what Bruce Ruck failed to mention was that all their conversations were also on tape.

end of excerpt.

So it wasn't off the record after all. And that phone call from that nervous hospital pharmacist to the Poison Control Center seeking information for her bosses was what eventually got the police involved. The hospital's priority seemed to be to avoid or minimize liability, and they dodged and weaved and stonewalled as much as they could.

All of Charles Cullen's previous employers managed to get him off their employment rolls and premises without any publicity or police involvement. But Somerset didn't get away with it.

The law enforcement investigators who got the case realized they were in over their heads as soon as they met with the hospital administrators. But they educated themselves the best they could and finally hit pay dirt when they interviewed one of Cullen's co-workers who was probably Cullen's best friend. She was angry at them at first. But when they showed her Cullen's record of drug withdrawals from the Pyxis MedSation, she was dumbfounded. Then she became a confidential informant. She didn't get a confession, but she probably laid a foundation that resulted in Cullen's eventual confession to police.

"The Good Nurse" is an excellent book -- entertaining and scary at the same time.

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2:05 PM 6/8/2019

Charles Graeber's "The Good Nurse" - one scary book

I just finished part one of Charles Graeber's book, "The Good Nurse," and just had to talk about it. The good nurse in the title was Charles Cullen, and it's a true tale about murder by medicine. It's the stuff of nightmares.

Cullen was the nurse the media called the "angel of death" after his murders came to light. Graeber writes a fascinating account of this killer, and it's a scary story. Cullen's M.O. went like this. He would punch his own nurse's code into the Pyxis MedStation along with a request for a particular drug for some patient; the drawer would open; he would steal a different drug; then cancel the order and close the drawer.

He would inject a massive dose of some life saving drug like insulin or digozin into a patient's IV bag, then go about his other nursing duties. But too much of a good thing can kill a person, and if the person was sick already, the patient's death might not raise much suspicion. Often when the patient coded and Cullen was around, he was a hero. Cullen was first on the scene trying to revive the person. And miraculously, Cullen could come up with the antidote. What a brilliant nurse he was. But it was a sham, and too many times the patient died.

Cullen was a cold blooded killer, and he used his medical skills to do it in secret. That was part one of "The Good Nurse." It was years before justice caught up with him, and part two deals with the ultimate investigations that led to his conviction. So there's more to the story than you are reading here.

For a taste of the story an excerpt from the book is reproduced here.

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3:06 PM 6/3/2019

Public libraries -- lots of spaces but not so many books

A few weeks ago we talked about something missing from modern libraries. See libraries today -- books or visual experiences? That was my reaction to the new Centennial Library in Midland, Texas. But it also pertains to the remodeled and recently reopened Downtown Library. We can probably thank Library Director John Trischitti III for that:

“We are excited to reopen the new incarnation of the Downtown Library for the Midland community,” Library Director John Trischitti III said. He continued, “I also appreciate the community’s patience as the project took longer than expected, however, we hope that everyone will feel it was worth the wait. Midland is now blessed to have not one but two top-shelf public library facilities to serve its citizens”.

"Top-shelf." That's cute, given that there is much more open space than there are book shelves. While there were plenty of computers available for card holders' use, there was no card catalog - or the high tech equivalent - available for customer use at the new, old library when I was there the other day. If you want a book and don't know where to look, you have to ask a librarian for help.

The phrase, "on the right side of history," was popularized by a former president. And that's probably where Mr. Trischitti tried to position himself with all the new library innovations he has implemented. After all, the intellectuals say things like Populism can be beaten back by libraries. Really and Millennials are the most likely generation of Americans to use public libraries.

Be that as it may, the crusty curmudgeon writing this blog still likes to read books, not screens.

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3:52 PM 5/31/2019

Christakis' Blueprint -- are we hard wired to be good?

Nicholas A. Christakis wrote a book titled "Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society," in which he makes the case for the goodness of human beings and their ability to work together to overcome differences. Reviews of the book heap praise on him and his theory. And they make him sound so optimistic that it's tempting to hope he's right. Here's an excerpt from the book found at the publisher's website:

As I write, the United States seems riven by polarities—right and left, urban and rural, religious and a-religious, insiders and outsiders, haves and have-nots. Analyses reveal that both political polarization and economic inequality are at century-long peaks.3 American citizens are engaged in vocal debates about their differences, about who can and should speak for whom, about the meaning and extent of personal identity, about the inexorable pull of tribal loyalties, and about whether the ideological commitment to the melting pot in the United States—and to a common identity as Americans—is feasible or even desirable.

Lines appear sharply drawn. It may therefore seem an odd time for me to advance the view that there is more that unites us than divides us and that society is basically good. Still, to me, these are timeless truths.

One of the most dispiriting questions I have encountered in my own laboratory research is whether the affinity people have for their own groups—whether those groups are defined by some attribute (nationality, ethnicity, or religion) or by a social connection (friends or teammates)—must necessarily be coupled with wariness or rejection of others. Can you love your own group without hating everyone else?

Yes, political divisions in the U.S. now could tear apart the fabric that once held us together. And one party's devotion to identity politics certainly doesn't help. But there's hope. Maybe there will come a time when we will all pull for each other rather than just our own tribe. Here's Christakis again:

Genes do amazing things inside our bodies, but even more amazing to me is what they do outside of them. Genes affect not only the structure and function of our bodies; not only the structure and function of our minds and, hence, our behaviors; but also the structure and function of our societies. This is what we recognize when we look at people around the world. This is the source of our common humanity.

Natural selection has shaped our lives as social animals, guiding the evolution of what I call a “social suite” of features priming our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, learning, and even our ability to recognize the uniqueness of other individuals. Despite all the trappings and artifacts of modern invention—our tools, agriculture, cities, nations—we carry within us innate proclivities that reflect our natural social state, a state that is, as it turns out, primarily good, practically and even morally. Humans can no more make a society that is inconsistent with these positive urges than ants can suddenly make beehives.

I believe that we come to this sort of goodness just as naturally as we come to our bloodier inclinations. We cannot help it. We feel great when we help others. Our good deeds are not just the products of Enlightenment values. They have a deeper and prehistoric origin.

Well, he could be too optimistic. But it's reassuring to think he's right.

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3:36 PM 4/26/2019

libraries today -- books or visual experiences?

The director of the libraries in Midland, Texas, John Trischilli lll, was recently elected to a school board position. Maybe we can expect to see the same thing happen to the schools as happened to the library.

The new library -- called Centennial Library -- is visually pleasing and very trendy. The library has some really interesting displays of swimming fish projected onto the floor. It's got oodles of computers for visitors. It has meeting rooms -- although you have get yourself on the approved users list. And it has various visiting exhibits. What's missing from this list? Books.

To be fair, it has books but not nearly enough. And a search of the library online card category for any book over a few years old comes up negative. The old books must be at the old library which is undergoing remodeling. Here's hoping they will become available again once the old library is reopened. In the meantime, the nearby Ector County Library is the go-to library for many books that the Midland County Library doesn't have.

And I might add in passing, although I don't know what to make of this. The Midland County Library has removed at least two conservative writers' books from its shelves: Jonah Golberg and Greg Gutfeld.

[Aside: Maybe the libraries are helping create, or at least adapting to a world without books. One has to wonder whether schools are undergoing the same type of transformation.]

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2:04 PM 4/16/2019

loneliness is not synonymous with being alone

Some people enjoy being alone more than being with others. They're not lonely, they are loners. That said, the points made in George Will's book review in Ben Sasse Confronts America’s Epidemic of Loneliness makes some interesting points.

Here's an excerpt:

Loneliness in “epidemic proportions” is producing a “loneliness literature” of sociological and medical findings about the effect of loneliness on individuals’ brains and bodies, and on communities. Sasse says “there is a growing consensus” that loneliness — not obesity, cancer, or heart disease — is the nation’s “number one health crisis.” “Persistent loneliness” reduces average longevity more than twice as much as does heavy drinking and more than three times as much as obesity, which often is a consequence of loneliness. Research demonstrates that loneliness is as physically dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and contributes to cognitive decline, including more rapid advance of Alzheimer’s disease. Sasse says, “We’re literally dying of despair,” of the failure “to fill the hole millions of Americans feel in their lives.”

It's ironic that people would feel lonely in a world in which everyone is connected to an electronic communication device. In any event, there are plenty of people who would prefer being left alone. And they aren't lonely.

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3:18 PM 10/15/2018

Rogue Heroes -- British SAS in WWII

The origin of the British SAS is a fascinating story told well by Ben Macintyre in "Rogue Heroes." Mr. Macintyre described how David Stirling, a rogue in his own right, created the organization that wrecked havoc on the Nazis in the Middle East during WWII and which eventually became the famous British SAS.

I found the book at the local library after watching Mr. Macintyre talk about it on C-SPAN. That episode can be seen here.

In any event, for your entertainment and education, here's an excerpt from the book which is one anecdote demonstrating how cunning Stirling was. This one happened to be an interaction with Winston Churchill which pretty much sealed the deal to put the SAS on track to become what it eventually became. To wit:

On the evening of August 8, David Stirling shaved, bathed, climbed into his brother's dinner jacket, and prepared to launch a charm offensive against Winston Churchill.

The invitation to a private dinner with the prime minister at the British embassy in Cairo was almost certainly the result of Randolph Churchill's enthusiastic letters to his father, describing the exploits of L Detachment and its fearless young leader. Stirling certainly believed that "Randolph had been talking to his father in much the manner in which I had hoped." Fitzroy Maclean, now fully recovered from the car crash, also received an invitation.

The other guests included General Alexander, the newly arrived commander in chief, and Field Marshal Jan Smuts, South Africa's prime minister and a member of the Imperial war cabinet. In the space of a few days, Stirring went from blowing up planes with machine guns to dining with prime ministers in evening dress. It was a strange war.

Churchill was stopping off in Cairo on the way to Moscow for his first face-to-face meeting with Stalin, an encounter that his wife, clementine, characterized as "a visit to the ogre in his den." The prime minister was in ebullient form, wearing a bow tie and his velvet "siren suit" -- a military-style one-piece boiler suit that would not become fashionable again for another seventy years, until the invention of the "onesie." From the head of the table, Churchill held forth, "pink-faced and beaming." A great deal was eaten, and a great deal more was drunk. "It was little unreal," Stirling later recalled. "A table set with the best of silver and served with the best food, with the British prime Minister at the head of the feast, just 40 miles or so from the Allied front line." At one point, Churchill challenged Smuts to a game: who could recite more Shakespeare without stopping? After fifteen minutes the south African leader, a brilliant scholar with a prodigious memory, ran out of quotations, but Churchill continued, unstoppably. It took several minutes before Smuts realized that Churchill was not reciting genuine verse at all, but a sort of mock-shakespeare of his own extempore invention.

After dinner, cigars were lit, brandy was poured, and Stirling and Maclean were summoned over to accompany the prime minister as he strolled around the elegant embassy gardens. The two young men were the type of adventurers Churchill adored, swashbucklers, daredevils, and, above all, amateurs. He was well aware that Maclean had used his election to the House of commons as a ruse to get into the war, and he thoroughly approved.

"Here," he said, turning to Smuts, is the young man who has used the Mother of Parliaments as a public convenience."

Stirling and Maclean had been warned that they should on no account discuss the impending attack on Benghazi with Churchill. (The prime minister was regarded by some of his staff as an inveterate gossip and a major security risk with a habit of turning top secret information into amusing after-dinner entertainment.) They ignored this injunction. For the next few minutes' Churchill listened intently as the two young officers described L Detachment, its methods, successes, and plans for the future. Insisting that this was "a new form of warfare we were developing" with "awesome potential," Stirling suggested that the unit might have an important role to play behind the lines in Europe at a later stage in the war.

Churchill was "bowled over" by Stirling, intrigued by the contrast between the young man's gentle demeanour and his ferocious pursuit of the enemy." When the prime minister rejoined Smuts in the embassy drawing room, he described to him Stirling's record of destruction and quoted the famous lines from Byron's Don Juan: "He was the mildest-mannered man / That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." The continuation of that quotation also fitted Stirling's character: "With such true breeding of a gentleman' / You never could divine his real thought."

Before leaving, Stirling asked Churchill, Smuts, and Alexander to sign a piece of paper, as a souvenir. of the evening.

The next morning Stirling was still nursing his hangover when a note arrived at Peter's flat. From Sir Leslie Rowan, Churchill's private secretary, it read: "I have been asked by by my chief to ask you, to let me have, for him, without further delay, the short note for which he called on what you would advise should be done to concentrate and coordinate the work you are doing. I have been asked to make sure that this is in my hands today. I can be got at the embassy." Leaving aside the civil service circumlocution' the import was clear: Churchill was intrigued and wanted to hear more, now.

Stirling immediately set to work on his brother's typewriter, and bashed out a two page memo, headed "Top Secret," written so fast it included several spelling mistakes and missing words: "All existing Special Service Units in the Middle East be disbanded and selected personnel absorbed, as required, by L Detachment . . . Control to rest with the officer commanding L Detachment and not with any outside body. .... The planning of operations to remain as hitherto the prerogative of L Detachment." In other words, Stirling proposed to take over all special forces, extract anyone he wanted for his own team, and then run operations exactly as he saw fit. This scheme, he said, would increase "versatility and resourcefulness [with] obvious advantages from the point of view of security." But it would also leave him free from interference, with the unstated implication that the bureaucrats at headquarters were incompetent, interfering gossips. It was a power grab, pure and simple, and it worked.

That evening, Stirling was summoned back to the embassy for further discussions. Running up the embassy staircase, he cannoned into the bulky form of the prime minister himself. "The irresistible force meets the immovable object," grunted Churchill. This is known, in philosophy, as the "sword and shield paradox," a conundrum in which two absolute forms of power are pitted against each other. But it also captured something of Churchill's wartime philosophy: immovability would bring victory ("We shall never surrender"), but it must be combined with overwhelming and dramatic force. War was nor just a matter of bombs and bullets, but of capturing imaginations. Stirling displayed just the right combination of daring and romance. Henceforth, Churchill would allude to him as the "Scarlet Pimpernel" - a reference to the hero of Baroness Orczy's novel, Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy, foppish Englishman on the outside, but in reality a master of the secret, undercover war. Stirling was just the sort of figure Churchill had been seeking to inject some panache into the North African war.

The encounter with Churchill would ensure the future of the SAS; it was also of immediate practical use. Stirling took the "souvenir" signed by two prime ministers and the commander in chief of the Middle East, and typed above the signatures: "Please give the bearer of this note every possible assistance." Seekings and Cooper, the unofficial SAS quartermasters, now found that supplies, vehicles, weapons, and ammunition, hitherto so tricky to secure, could be obtained simply by flourishing this note. Stirling had no qualms whatever about this blatant forgery: Churchill had become a staunch supporter of the unit and so, he insisted, "in a sense it was authentic."

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1:00 PM 9/9/2018

Movie: Absolute Power. Clint Eastwood made a two star movie out of a five star book

The Ector County Library held a used book sale a couple of months ago, and it was a great place to get some good books at the cheap price of $4 per bag. I took home two bags.

One of the books was "Absolute Power" by the prolific writer, David Baldacci. It was a riveting mystery story that involved a master burglar, the burglar's daughter, a homicide detective, and a lawyer. The hero was the lawyer, and although the burglar was an important part of the plot, his character was mainly in the background.

Well, Clint Eastwood must have liked it too, since he bought the rights and made a movie based on it. But the fellow who rewrote the story, William Goldman, made a huge change which didn't make it a better story.

Coincidentally, I found a copy of the movie and watched it after finishing the book.

In the movie version of the story, the lawyer was completely absent, and the hero and main character was the burglar. And guess who played the burglar? Yup. Clint Eastwood.

Oh, I know what you are saying. "The book always seems better." Well, maybe so. But in my opinion, the book earned five stars. The movie, not so many. But don't take my word for it. Check out Rottentomatoes.com where it received a dismal 47/52.

Anyway, when I donate the book back to the library, I'll tie the movie vhs to the book with the hope that they resell them as a package. That seems logical, no?

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12:52 PM 8/26/2018

Ector County Library book sale

Here's a loud shout out -- Shhhh! -- to the Friends of Ector County Library and their book sale on 6/29/2018 and 6/29/2018. Link to poster.

I went to it on Friday and got a bag full of mostly hard bound recent vintage books for the low price of $4.00. The ones I bought were fiction by well know authors, but I didn't spend any time browsing in the other areas. I came away quite pleased with the purchase.

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2:25 PM 6/29/2018

The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille -- not a flattering travelogue for lovers of communism

It was fun reading "The Cuban Affair" -- adventure, intrigue, pursuit and love on the run from Cuban secret police.

Cliff's Notes version: A Florida fishing boat owner is recruited by Cuban exiles to go there and help exfiltrate possessions left behind. Staying a step ahead of Cubans friendly with the government was a challenge.

Want a better sales pitch? Watch this C-span video of an interview with the novel's author, Nelson DeMille.

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1:49 PM 1/16/2018

Hilarious -- "Why Socialism Works" by Harrison Lievesley

This book supplied our quote of the week: In answer to the title question, "It doesn't."

Found at Carpe Diem, the blog by well known free market supporter Mark J. Perry, is this book recommendation: Why Socialism Works.

After scratching my head a few times, I had to see the Amazon page for it. The reviews gave it quite favorable ratings which furthered the mystery. But click the link to see inside. It's a joke! And a good one, too!

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2:27 PM 12/15/2017

Dick Morris' book, Rogue Spooks

The new book out by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, Rogue Spooks, provides a pretty good summary of the events that concluded in the CIA and FBI working to hurt the Trump presidency. Anyone who follows the news probably already knew most of it. But the authors connect the dots with theories of how it came to be.

One chapter of interest to me was the one titled, "How the intelligence community went from red to blue." The intro to that chapter follows:

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HOW THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY WENT FROM RED TO BLUE
The CIA and the FBI have always been bastions of the right. It was the FBI that was filled with anti-communist zealots who hunted down those they considered to be "disloyal." And the CIA patrolled America's borders, intervening to stop any other country from falling under Moscow or Beijing spell.

So they should have been in the cheering section saluting a Trump victory with all they had.

But, instead, they recoiled so violently against Trump that they became the key participants in the virtual coup mounted by the rogue spooks to stop him from governing.

The transformation of the intelligence community from red to blue may stand as one of the most enduring achievements of the Obama presidency-or at least one of the hardest to erase.

When Obama and his Liberal allies saw Trump about to enter the White House, they decided to deploy their weapon of choice against him: leaks from the intelligence community. Having taken care to scrub the intelligence agencies to expunge any taint of conservative thinking, these agencies were perfectly positioned to do Obama's will.

And, in the media, he had a compliant, liberal/radical institution only too happy to print the leaks his people would be handing out.

The intelligence community has long realized that it has two ways to influence public policy in Washington. It can go legitimately up the chain of command to the president, arguing the merits of its case. or it can go outside the process entirely-go rogue-and leak information- or disinformation-to a media wiling and eager to do its bidding.

As the abomination of a Trump presidency neared the oval office, they decided to kill Trump by leaking.

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The authors pin the problem on Obama with John Brennan doing the leg work to fill slots with people dedicated to the progressive agenda. Another interesting chapter was the one on Michael Flynn. The deep state spooks found out he lied about some of his contacts, and they played it into an op that brought Flynn fame, shame and trouble with special counsel Robert Mueller.

Anyway, the book is an interesting collection of factoids and possible reasons behind the acts. And although Trump opponents might brand them as conspiracy theories, those theories have a ring of truth to them.

Meanwhile, to watch a C-Span video of Morris talking about the book, click here.

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6:39 AM 11/25/2017

Hillbilly Elegy -- J.D. Vance helps understand how Dems lost the working man

Just finished reading J.D. Vance's book, "Hillbilly Elegy," and it was pretty good. It was an autobiography of a fellow who grew up in a dysfunctional Appalachian family. And while reading about dysfunctional families is usually not good entertainment, this one was educational. The story had a happy ending. For you see, Vance, with help from those in his family who were not addicted to alcohol or drugs, and he made it out and made it good.

Anyway, for an excerpt, here's the portion where he provides a theory of why Democrats lost the working people's vote. To wit.

I also learned how people gamed the welfare system' They'd buy two dozen-packs of soda with food stamps and then sell them at a discount for cash' They'd ring up their orders separately, buying food with food stamps, and beer' wine' and cigarettes with cash. They'd regularly go through the checkout line speaking on their cell phones' I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off of government largess enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about.

Mamaw listened intently to my experiences at Dillman's. I'd began to view much of our fellow working class with mistrust. Most of us were struggling to get by, but we made do, worked hard, and hoped for a better life. But a large minority was content to live off the dole. Every two weeks, I'd get a small paycheck and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted from my wages. At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else, This was my mind-set when I was seventeen, and though I'm far less angry today than I was then, it was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw's "party of the working man"- Democrats weren't all they were cracked up to be.

Political scientists have spent millions of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democratic Party's embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold that social conservatism has on evangelicals in that region. A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that many in the white working class saw precisely what I did, working at Dillman's. As far back as the 1970s, the white working class began to turn to Richard Nixon because of a perception that, as one man put it, government was "payin' people who are on welfare today doin' nothin'! Theyre laughin' at our society! And we're all hard workin' people and we're gettin' laughed at for workin' every day." 20

This was before the "party of the working man" embraced identity politics and began agitating to increase racial strife. So we could probably add that to bring his assessment up to date.

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1:33 PM 9/21/2017

Books -- The Force and Blue on Blue

I just finished reading Don Winslow's novel "The Force" and can say it's a very entertaining book. It's about a crooked NYPD sergeant who happened to be the top dog in a task force they called "Da Force." The book started out slow, and was a little bit dull with all the background detail, but at the mid point it skidded over into the fast lane and didn't let up until the last page. A good book.

It could be a companion piece with "Blue on Blue," the non-fiction book by Charles Campisi who was the head of IAB at the NYPD for many years.  In that book he told stories of snaring crooked cops. It's a good counterpoint to "The Force" and should probably read last as a palate cleanser.

Both of these books were available at the public library in the modestly sized city of Midland, Texas. Otherwise they are available to non-cheapskates for purchase in various formats from Amazon.com.

Benjamin Ginsberg -- federal bureaucrats think we're all a bunch of idiots

There's an hour long Q and A with Benjamin Ginsberg conducted by Brian Lamb which is available for viewing at this c-span link. In it he discusses the findings of a survey he did involving government employees which is the topic of his book, What Washington Gets Wrong: The Unelected Officials Who Actually Run the Government and Their Misconceptions about the American People.

The take away from the interview is that while federal bureaucrats may be very educated, well paid, and knowledgeable in the subjects required for their jobs, they are woefully ignorant about the people they govern. In the words of Mr. Ginsberg, they think we are all a bunch of idiots. Most of them vote Democrat, too.

And yes, the bureaucrats do govern. He cites an example of an individual doing time in federal prison for whistling at a hump back whale. Seems there's a federal regulation against harassing whales, not a criminal law, a regulation promulgated by NOAA. The individual piloted a whale sighting tour, and when they spotted the whale, he whistled at it. Go straight to jail.

Meanwhile, we have Donald Trump attempting to drain the swamp. Some writers are already issuing warnings, e.g., WARNING: Trump’s EPA Secretary Will Have ‘16,000 Employees Working Against Him’. Good luck, President Trump.

Hypocrisy alert -- Democrats feigned outrage over alleged Valarie Plame outing by a Republican but go silent when one of their own does it

I started reading James E. Mitchell's book, Enhanced Interrogation -- you can tell by the title what it's about. And I got p*ssed off before even getting through the preface. No, I'm not p*ssed because Mitchell was involved in the process. It's because Diane Feinstein or her staff outed Mitchell to the media.

Recall how Democrats made such a huge deal over the possibility that a Republican had outed Valarie Plame as a CIA operations officer. Based on the press coverage one would have thought some evil Republican was out to destroy reputations, careers, and lives. They were wrong, and it became a non-story once the real leaker turned out to be someone they didn't want to ruin.

However, outing Mitchell really could have been a life ending leak considering that ISIS called for his beheading. Luckily he survived. And apparently either he is currently well hidden or the threat has subsided.

But the double standard is breathtaking. Little wonder that so many people find it so easy to ignore Democrats' outrage these days, whatever the outrage of the day happens to be.

Saudi joke -- did you hear the one about the ...

I'm reading Lawrence Wright's "The Terror Years," and on page 120 he tells a Saudi joke.

Mr. Wright lived and worked in Jeddah beginning in January of 2003. He got a job with the Saudi Gazette -- an English language addition of a Saudi newspaper -- where he was supposed to teach new hires how to be newspaper reporters. And the chapter titled "The Kingdom of Silence" consists of anecdotes from his stint at that newspaper. Here's an exchange he relayed in his book:

"Don't you guys ever tell jokes?" I asked one Saudi friend.
"Of course," he said. "We're very funny."
"So tell me a Saudi joke."
He thought for a moment and finally offered this:

A Somali, an Egyptian, and a Saudi are asked:
"What is your opinion of eating meat?"
The Somali said, "What is eating?"
The Egyptian said, "What is meat?"
And the Saudi said, "What's an opinion?"

Well, maybe you had to be there.

In any event, "The Terror Years," drawn from his work researching "The Looming Tower," is an engaging book.

Who will ghost write Obama's new book if Bill Ayers is unavailable?

Kaitlan Collins at Dailycaller.com relays a report that Barack Obama Needs Time To Think About Himself Once He’s Out Of Office which includes the following:

Obama told Axelrod he plans on “writing a book and self-analyzing his time in office” during that time.

Oh my. Fact checkers -- legitimate ones -- will be working overtime to expose all the fake news in that book.

But the question that first springs to mind is, who will write it? Jack Cashill has pretty much proven as well as anyone could that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's first autobiography. See Did Bill Ayers Write Obama’s “Dreams”? To wit:

In short, Ayers had the means, the motive, the time, the place and the literary ability to jumpstart Obama’s career. And, as Ayers had to know, a lovely memoir under Obama’s belt made for a much better resume than an unfulfilled contract over his head. ...

Obama dissembles lethally when he describes Ayers as “just some guy in my neighborhood.” He is much more than that and quite possibly, as I have argued, the real author of Dreams From My Father.

Ayers has little motive to write another one. If some third party is brought in to ghost it, that writer will not only have to write for Obama, but he/she will have to sound like Ayers. That seems like a tall order.

Lyle Rossiter on the liberal mind

We don't hear much these days about how conservatives are mentally disturbed or perhaps just dumb. That line of assault seems to have dissipated somewhat, perhaps because the target has shifted to fiscal conservatism as an ideology.

Nevertheless, turnabout is fair play, and it's refreshing to read an interview with Lyle Rossiter on the liberal mind. He's the clinical and forensic psychiatrist who wrote "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." The interview can be read at Part 1 and Part 2, and it's worth reading if you're frustrated with the path down which Democrats have taken the country and perhaps questioning why so many people find that desirable.

Liberals might find his words offensive, but sometimes the truth hurts. Here are some excerpts. To explain the appeal of liberalism, he says:

The left trades on a villain/victim/hero paradigm, on envy, on injustice collecting, on indulgence of primitive appetites for dependency and revenge, and on childlike longings to be excused from personal responsibility. The left appeals to the needy and potentially spoiled child in all of us, but not to the potentially competent adult in all of us.

The left thus incentivizes all of the wrong goals for a successful society, such as self-indulgence and moral and financial irresponsibility, and fails to incentivize the autonomy, initiative, industry, integrity and mutuality essential to a good life.

As for the root cause, he says this:

Yes, the radical liberal is an angry, envious, needy and spiteful person who acts out his neurosis in the theaters of global politics. He has these problems because he was deprived, neglected or abused as a child, or in some cases indoctrinated by collectivist parents or caretakers, a form of abuse in itself.

The radical liberal rejects freedom because lack of control over others frightens him.

Oh man, that rings so true. I've often speculated in private that many of today's liberals are lashing out at the people they see as the extended versions of the kids in school who out scored them, bullied them, or who otherwise enjoyed more of the social rewards that that our future liberal did not have the skills to get.

One Second After -- one scary book

My holiday reading consisted of the novel by William R. Forstchen titled "One Second After." The title was obviously a nod to The Day After, the made-for-TV cold war movie about the horrors experienced by survivors of a series of nuclear bomb strikes on the U.S. That movie surely caused nightmares across the country the day after it was broadcast.

"One Second After" is about what happens to the inhabitants of a small community in North Carolina following an EMP explosion high above the U.S. The effect was the destruction of everything electrical, sparing only components built before the circuit board became a part of practically every electrical item manufactured. With no electricity or hope of rebuilding the generators and replacing the lines, things went to hell in short order. With no trucks bringing in food, the severe rationing of available food stock brought on starvation. Medicine for the entire community was in short supply, anyone with a medical dependency suffered or died, and epidemics became deadly.

Oh yeah, large armed gangs roamed the countryside taking over communities to steal what food they might have and/or cannibalize the inhabitants.

"One Second After" ends one year after the event with a community of survivors transformed by the loss of 80% of its population.  But hey, it was a very good book.  Just scary.

So could something like that really happen? Many people think so. See North Korea EMP attack could destroy U.S. — now in which Peter Vincent Pry lays out credible reasoning that North Korea currently has the capability to deliver and explode an EMP bomb over the U.S.

For more information, see the EMP Commission Reports .  And Futurescience.com has some survival suggestions.

For more background see the Commission's first Executive Report from 2004 which contains the quaint suggestion the cost of improving our security over the "next 3 to 5 years is modest by any standard." Too bad we haven't done it. Further, "We must persuade nations to forgo obtaining nuclear weapons or to provide acceptable assurance that these weapons will neither threaten the vital interests of the United States nor fall into threatening hands." That the current administration seems more intent on taking guns away from the citizenry than protecting against this type of threat seems laughable in light of what the fictional characters of "One Second After" endured.

Tough on crime -- NM woman jailed for overdue book

Ordinarily I would be opposed to this.

Daily Times of Farmington:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A New Mexico woman was arrested and spent a night in jail for not returning the book "Twilight" and two-DVD set "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" back to the Portales Public Library on time.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Lori Teel was arrested and handcuffed at her Portales home in front of her five small children earlier this month because of $35.98 worth of library materials allegedly not returned since 2010.

But the book was "Twilight." So maybe an extended sentence might be in order.

Jack Cashill, narrative buster

"Mythbuster" was already taken, but "narrative buster" will do nicely. It's CSI Obama bookville.

Sleepless readers will remember Jack Cashill's scrutiny of Barack Obama's "Dreams of My Father" in which he provides much circumstantial evidence that the book was actually authored by Bill Ayers, not Barack Obama. See previously on these pages Where were the main stream media when we needed them in 2008?

Cashill has applied his extraordinary detective skills to the new Obama biography by David Maraniss, titled Barack Obama: The Story, in which he notes the gaps in the Obama narrative. While Maraniss despises the birthers, he's given them more ammo, Mr. Cashill notes in Maraniss Bio Deepens Obama Birth Mystery.

He goes on to tell us that a paper Obama wrote in 1983 for a Columbia University publication called the Sundial contained several grammar and punctuation errors. Those same errors were on display in some of Obama's other available writings, so Cashill used the Sundial article as the Obama Roseta Stone. However, in Maraniss's book that Sundial article and various letters reproduced there were curiously error free. Someone cleaned them up, and the only logical reason was to make Obama look better than he was. Read about it yourself at Did Maraniss Commit Fraud to Protect Obama?

The narrative mismatch goes on for as long as anyone wants to read about it. For more, go to Cashill's bibliography at AmericanThinker.com.

The case for optimism, with a little pessimism thrown in for good measure

Here's the first paragraph from a review written by Michael Shermer of the book "Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think" by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotle:

If every image made and every word written from the earliest stirring of civilization to the year 2003 were converted to digital information, the total would come to five exabytes. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes—or just think of it as the number one followed by 18 zeros. That's a lot of digital data, but it's nothing compared with what happened from 2003 through 2010: We created five exabytes of digital information every two days. Get ready for what's coming: By next year, we'll be producing five exabytes every 10 minutes. How much information is that? The total for 2010 of 912 exabytes is the equivalent of 18 times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written. The world is not just changing, and the change is not just accelerating; the rate of the acceleration of change is itself accelerating.

That's an astonishing amount of information. Moore's law, the famous 1965 prediction that the number of transistors on a chip would double in 18 months, turned out to be fairly accurate. But now it seems quaintly old fashioned.

The concept of exponential advancement affects everything technology touches. And the message to doomsayers, according to Mr. Shermer, is that technology will raise the standard of living for everyone on the planet. And that's probably right. He's also probably right to say "The biggest hurdles, however, are not scientific or technological but political."

If today more people have access to a cellphone than to a toilet, that suggests it takes less of an investment to get them the cellphones than toilets. If a country doesn't have adequate protection of property rights, there won't be the foundation on which to build the infrastructure necessary to provide them with toilets.

But a bad government is an obstacle that can be overcome. So the glass is half full or half empty, depending on our ability to take a realistic approach to the impediments that appear in the path.

But just so we don't leave too happy, be sure to read the latest piece from Stewart Baker decrying "Moore's Outlaws," cyber-criminals "whose ability to penetrate networks and to cause damage is increasing exponentially thanks to the growing complexity, vulnerability, and ubiquity of insecure networks. If we don’t do something, and soon, we will suffer network failures that dramatically change our lives and futures, both as individuals and as a nation."  Dang.  A half empty glass.

We could always privatize the public library

The citizens of Midland, Texas, are patiently waiting for the library board and staff to implement some of the changes recommended by the outside consultant. See Commissioners to assess library staff wants before replacing director.

If they can't agree, here's a way: privatization. (Idea via Carpe Diem.)

It works in other cities. Library Systems & Services, LLC is a company that manages libraries, and they've got a long list of communities in which they run the libraries. Most of them are in California, however three are in Texas: Leander, Red Oak and San Juan.

The company starts by cleaning house. Read a NYT article about it here to see what that means. Or to bypass the NYT, click here.