Pun Salad

Explanation plagiarized from last year, which remains accurate:

Just in case you're interested in what I found informative, interesting, thought-provoking, etc. last year. The cover images are Amazon paid links, and clicking on them will take you there, where I get a cut if you purchase, thanks in advance. Clicking on the book's title will whisk you to my blog posting for a fuller discussion.

I am restricting the list to books I rated with five stars at Goodreads. Nota Bene: Goodreads ratings are subjective; they do not necessarily reflect a book's cosmic quality, just my gut reaction. And perhaps also my mood at the time, grumpy or generous. In other words, don't take this too seriously.

The complete list of books I read in 2024, including fiction, is here.

In order read:

	Road to Surrender:Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II by Evan Thomas. A punchy, accessible story of the thorny negotiations surrounding Japan's defeat. It was a close-run thing. I learned a lot I didn't know.
	Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns. The definitive biography of a Pun Salad all-time hero. The author is unafraid to criticize him, and I'm sure he would object to the subtitle. But the lesson remains: one man can make a difference in turning a country toward liberty.
	The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi. "Bleeding-heart libertarians" tell the story of how this odd ideology (which includes me under its big tent) developed. Never fear, it's fair. And the authors identify broad ranges of agreement, even between folks calling each other nasty names.
	The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance by David Beito. A mostly-warts history of the underside of FDR's biography, showing his distrespectful, and probably unconstitutional, attitudes toward his political adversaries and (of course) Japanese in California. It's not a commonly-told tale.
	Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway. Spoiler: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. Conway is an enthusiastic and diligent researcher, who unexpectedly caught my interest on topics I didn't expect. Sand?
	The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised by James Pethokoukis. This is an age of miracles and wonder, but the author argues (convincingly) that we could have done better. Better than the Roomba, anyway. We need to encourage R&D, innovation, skilled immigration, and (generally) optimism. And (frankly) if it doesn't happen in the USA, it ain't happening anywhere on this planet in the foreseeable future.
	The Weirdness of the World by Eric Schwitzgebel. He's a philosophy prof who likes to think outside—way outside—the box. Is the United States of America is a conscious entity? Eric thinks so, and see if you don't agree. Tough going in spots, but in most parts wonderfully accessible and insightful.
	America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson. He looks at that intro of the Declaration of Independence—the thing which Woodrow Wilson urged us to get beyond—and teases out the mood and thoughts of the country that caused it to be written that way.
	My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places by Mary Roach. Think Erma Bombeck, except still alive. Ms. Roach is Dave Barry-level funny, a natural humorist. All the columns here made me smile, many drew amused snorts, and (yes) a number of guffaws.
	The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America by Coleman Hughes. I found myself in violent agreement with just about everything Hughes says here, in support of his hopeful subtitle. Unfortunate that the dominant ideology these days seems to point the other way, meaning we have more division and animosity to look forward to.
	Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. Yes, another Mary Roach book. It's a little old (2010) but holds up pretty well. Despite the title, there isn't lot of Mars-specific stuff here. Mary interviews astronauts, scientists, engineers, etc., all dedicated to figuring out how to get people into space and back in one piece, keeping them functional while on the way.
	Democracy: A Guided Tour by Jason Brennan. He clearly states his goal: "a guided tour of the best and most important arguments for and against democracy over time." And he doesn't treat "democracy" as a sacred cow, which is refreshing.
	The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America by Jeffrey Rosen. I found this book to be complementary to C. Bradley Thompson's (above), and also excellent. Rosen compiles a reading list of philosophers that the Founders considered insightful: a lot of stoics, and also Hume, Locke, and Adam Smith.
	The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil. And Kurzweil isn't kidding around when he says "merge". We're gonna plug those machines into our nervous system, and… well, he predicts we'll be uploaded. Did he just blow my mind? Yup.
	Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. Yes, another Mary Roach book. Here, she looks at human/non-human interactions, mostly violent, gross, and otherwise unpleasant. Not as hilarious as her other books, because Mary (being nice) often takes the side of the non-humans.
	Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles. A collection of essays from a very independent mind, who (as a lesbian feminist) is somewhat put out as being defined as a "non-man attracted to non-men". She tours outposts of woke ideology, coming away amused, disgusted, and outraged, in various proportions.

James Freeman highlights some recent violent rhetoric:

I suppose. I'm currently reading Christopher Cox's biography of Woodrow Wilson, which (for some reason) goes into a gory description of Representative Preston Brooks' (D-SC) caning of Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) in 1856. Republicans, if Whitehouse starts carrying a walking stick into the Senate chambers, I'd be on my guard.

Metaphorically, my CongressCritter, Chris Pappas, is fond of claiming he's fighting. As are my state's senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. As far as I can tell, they refrain from "actual punches thrown", and just buy into the lame, overused metaphor. Maybe they could make a new year's resolution to tone it down.

(But, amusingly, one of those Shaheen links brings up a 2020 newsletter article says she's "Fighting to protect domestic violence survivors during the pandemic". That's pretty funny to imagine non-metaphorically.)

Also of note:

• Incentives matter. James Freeman (yes, again) observes, helpfully: Technology Can Help Drain the Swamp.

  One of the reasons the Biden era will be fondly remembered in Washington is that our 46th president has managed to keep Washingtonians largely immune from the efficiencies of the digital revolution. Forget for a moment the political debates about how much to take from productive citizens and give to this or that special-interest group. What’s astounding—given how much of government involves the automation-ready tasks of collecting and redistributing money and information—is that the federal workforce continues to grow. While technology relentlessly makes things better, faster and cheaper in the private economy, the productivity wave isn’t washing over the turbid, still waters of the swamp.

  Outside of government, workers naturally wonder if their jobs may be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence or some other form of technological innovation. History says the results are wonderful—with new industries, new consumer benefits and new jobs in which highly-productive workers can demand higher pay. But for particular people in particular situations it can feel like an all-out sprint to stay ahead of the technological curve.

  Freeman points to this WSJ news article Where Did All of the Managers Go? It says (among other things):

  In all, U.S. public companies have cut their middle-manager head counts by about 6% since the peak of their pandemic hiring sprees, according to a new analysis of more than 20 million white-collar workers by employment-data provider Live Data Technologies. Senior executives, whose ranks have shrunk nearly 5% since the end of 2021, haven’t fared much better.

  It's way past time to trim the ranks of less-productive government employees.

• Pun Salad pounces on this report. Ronald Bailey says the science is settled: Moderate drinking linked to lower overall mortality rate.

  "When it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health," declared the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2022. "No, moderate drinking isn't good for your health," headlined The Washington Post citing a 2023 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) meta-analysis probing the epidemiological association between mean daily alcohol intake and all-cause mortality. Interestingly, two of the co-authors of the JAMA article have been associated with various neo-prohibitionist organizations.

  In any case, these pronouncements contradict decades of research that identified a U-shaped relationship in which mortality is greater for both non-drinkers and heavy drinkers than it is for moderate drinkers.

  A new report reviewing evidence on moderate alcohol consumption and health outcomes issued earlier this month by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) concludes that the WHO and the JAMA researchers are wrong. Moderate drinking is associated with some health benefits, with one notable exception.

  (The exception: breast cancer in women.)

• Fashion tips for all you white women out there. Jerry Coyne shares the Time magazine report: Women's March Rebranded, Reorganized, and Is Ready for 2025.

  When activist and organizer Raquel Willis spoke at the inaugural Women’s March on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017, the organization was very different.

  At that time, Willis was a burgeoning leader in social justice and activism, and she says the conversation around trans experiences was limited. “It was a time where there was more visibility than ever before, more trans folks engaged in social justice movement than ever before,” Willis says. “And yet there was a tension between, particularly cis women and trans women, but also women of other experiences too.”

  The first Women’s March was enormous, bringing an estimated 500,000 marchers to Washington, DC and over 4 million throughout the United States. At the time, the protest was the largest single-day protest in the country’s history, and it created indelible protest images of women in pink hats that would define a certain type of opposition to Trump’s presidency. But during the following years, the Women’s March fractured. There were multiple arguments among those within the organization, the group faced allegations of racism and antisemitism, and sponsors fled. There were also strategic questions: Willis says she was skeptical about centering Trump as a singular, isolated political event, and instead wishes there was discussion of him as “reflective of these long standing systems of oppression, white supremacy, cis heteropatriarchy, classism, and capitalism.”

  Capitalism! Oh dear! Gee, wonder why "sponsors fled"?

  But you have to have a heart of stone to read this paragraph without laughing:

  In a further sign that the People’s March is creating some distance with the iconography of the 2017 Women’s March, in the the [sic] Frequently Asked Questions section of its website, the site says marchers should not bring weapons, drugs, or Handmaid’s Tale costumes. "The use of Handmaid's Tale imagery to characterize the controlling of women’s reproduction has proliferated, primarily by white women across the country, since the show has gained popularity,” the site reads. “This message continues to create more fragmentation, often around race and class, because it erases the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country."

  So keep those bonnets in the closet, white women!

  I'll also take issue with Time's description of the 2017 demonstration as the "first Women's March". Back in 1913, the Woman Suffrage Procession was similarly scheduled just before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, in support of the (eventual) Nineteenth Amendment. (Yeah, again a bit of trivia from that Wilson bio mentioned above.)