“We have been misled, and the conservative movement has been derailed, by legions of fools and poseurs wearing smiley-face masks. I aim to unmask them.”
John Derbyshire’s aim is to alert us that we’re in Deep Shit and it’s going to get worse. In each topical chapter, Derbyshire identifies a social problem and shows our response to solving it is inadequate. My favorite chapter is “Education: Yale or Jail.” Derbyshire shows that most of the money we spend on education is wasted. All the educational software and computers that were supposed to help kids read better and master math concepts actually produced lower test scores. Throwing more money at the problem won’t solve it. Derbyshire accurately identifies the key problems facing us (but he gives short shrift to Climate Change). This would all be very depressing if Derbyshire wasn’t funny. In his best faux-David Brooks manner, Derbyshire shows how any of these problems–War, Immigration, the Economy, etc.–could ruin us. I thought Derbyshire’s analysis was convincing and clever and occasionally scathing. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
A Call to Pessimism p. 1
Diversity: Nothing to Celebrate p. 14
Politics: Show Business for Ugly People p. 40
Culture: Pooped Out p. 62
Sex: Surplus to Requirements p. 87
Education: Yale or Jail p. 97
Human Nature: Ask Your Aunt p. 134
Religion: What Shall We Do to Be Saved? p. 158
War: Invading the World p. 183
Immigration: Inviting the World p. 199
Foreigners: Inspecting the World p. 213
The Economy: In Hock to the World p. 230
The Audacity of Hopelessness p. 249
Acknowledgments p. 263

Joy is the story of a young woman who overcomes a very dysfunctional family to follow her dream. Along the way, almost every imaginable business problem cascades on Joy. Most people would have given up. Joy doesn’t. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is Oscar-worthy. The reviews for Joy have been mixed. It doesn’t have the wackiness of Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle. Joy shows the frustrations and disappointments of trying to succeed in business. I’m going to encourage my business students to go see Joy. And, I’m going to encourage you to see Joy, too! GRADE: A-

“I write to you in your 15th year. I am writing to you because this was the year you saw Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes; because you know now that Renisha McBride was shot for seeking help, that John Crawford was shot down for browsing in a department store. And you have seen men in uniform drive by and murder Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old child they were oath-bound to protect. And you know now, if you did not know before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction. It does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding… Sell cigarettes without the proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Resent the people trying to entrap your body and it can be destroyed. Turn into a dark stairwell and your body can be destroyed. The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions. And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings and humiliations. All of this is common to black people. All of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible.”

The winner of the Seahawks vs. Panthers could be on the Fast-Track to the Super Bowl. The Panthers are favored by 2 1/2 points. The Steelers are coming into Denver battered and bruised from that knock-out game with the Bengals last weekend. Denver is favored by 7 points. It should be more. Who do you want to win?

I’m not seeing many upsets this weekend. The Patriots (favored by five points) should be able to handle the scrappy Kansas City Chiefs. Green Bay’s dreams will end in the desert of Arizona (favored by 7 points). Who do you think will win today?

Richard S. Prather’s Find This Woman was published in 1951, the third book Prather had published that year (the other two were Bodies in Bedlam and Everybody Had a Gun).. This is Shell Scott’s fourth adventure and Prather is still experimenting with his formula. A rich man hires Shell Scott to find his daughter. The search leads to Vegas where Victor Dante operates a night club called–what else–The Inferno. Bodies are found, Shell Scott gets roughed up, and there’s a tiny bit of sex thrown into the mix. The elements that the Shell Scott series will be famous for–clever one-liners and convoluted plots–are understated in this book. But, if you want to see how Prather started to tweak his creation, Find This Woman can be revealing.

I’ve had an up-and-down relationship with The Pushcart Prize series. The early books were great with wonderful short stories and essays and poetry from small presses too obscure for most of us to find. But gradually, the yearly Pushcart Prize books grew in size. I found more and more mediocre work in those pages. Now, after 40 years, the Pushcart Prize collection has swollen to 654 pages. The best essay is Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Childhood of the Reader,” in praise of libraries. The best short story is “Map-Reading” by Richard Bausch. The most terrifying piece in this swollen anthology is “Food and Worker Safety Across the Globe: A Nervous and Incomplete Case Study” by Windy Rawlings. I’m still dubious (as I have been from Day One) about their poetry selections. I can’t recommend any of them. GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
NTRODUCTION, Bill Henderson
MISS ADELE AMIDST THE CORSETS, Zadie Smith
SINGER, Maxine Scates
VISION, Tiffany Briere
SNOW WHITE, Chloe Honum
YELLOW CLAW, Lucia Perillo
TELREF, Edward McPherson
SNAPSHOT, Kurt Brown
THE AGE OF SKIN, Dubravka Ugresic
MUDFEST, Marianne Boruch
THE BRANCH WAY OF DOING, Wendell Berry
ADVERTISING, John Challis
SH’KHOL, Colum McCann
BROKEN CUP, Margaret Gibson
WANDERLUST, Laleh Khadivi
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, Morgan Parker
JESUS RAVES, Jordan Kisner
LOVE POEM, Michael Marberry
ARTIST’S STATEMENT, James Hannaham
THE AUTISTIC SON, Scott Morgan
MAP-READING, Richard Bausch
PORN, Dorothea Lasky
FOUR-WAY STOP, George Singleton
MY FATHER’S LAUNDRY, Sue Ellen Thompson
FATHER JUNIPERO ADMONISHES A BIRD, Poe Ballantine
TEMPLE GAUDETE, Lisa Russ Spaar
THE WEAVE, Charles Johnson
VERNACULAR OWL, Thomas Sayers Ellis
FEAR ITSELF, Katie Coyle
FIRST SNOW, Andrea Hollander
THING WITH FEATHERS THAT PERCHES IN THE SOUL, Anthony Doerr
PICTURE OF A RIVER, Julia Story
PARADISE COVE, Lisa Lee
THE JOINS, Chana Bloch
THE KNOWLEDGE GALLERY, Joanna Scott
WAIST, Afaa Michael Weaver
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE READER, Joyce Carol Oates
from A TILT IN THE WONDERING, Nicole Brossard
BURY ME, Allegra Hyde
WHITE LILIES, Rachel Rose’
PAST THE ECONOLODGE, Brandon Hobson
A SINGLE DELIBERATE THING, Zebbie Watson
HOLI: EQUINOX APPROACHES, Raena Shirali
A RING OF BELLS, Catherine Jagoe
SONG FOR PICKING UP, Tony Hoagland
MEZZO, Kate Petersen
THE SOLDIER OF MICTLAN, Rigoberto Gonzalez
TRAIN TO HARBIN, Asako Serizawa
WAITING FOR RAIN, Ellen Bass
FOOD AND WORKERS SAFETY ACROSS THE GLOBE:
A NERVOUS AND INCOMPLETE CASE STUDY, Wendy Rawlings
EVERY MACHINE HAS ITS PARTS, Bob Hicok
HOLLYWOOD AND TOADVINE, Christian Kiefer
BOMB, Daniel Lusk
VARIATIONS ON A PSALM, Edward Hirsch
WHAT HAPPENED TO US?, Dan Chaon
MIGRATION INSTINCT,Keetje Kuipers
CONSTANCE BAILEY IN THE YEAR OF MONICA LEWINSKY, Sarah Vallance
HOLY NIGHT, Dan Albergotti
LONG BRIGHT LINE, Josh Weil
A COTTONY FATE, Jane Hirshfield
THE ORANGE PARKA, E. A. Durden
IMMIGRATION, Kevin Prufer
HELL, Meghan O’Gieblyn
THE CLOUD, Ann Beattie
DEATH DEFIANT BOMBA…, Lilliam Rivera
WINTER, 1965, Frederic Tuten
PROJECT FUMARASE, April L. Ford
THE TRUE SEER HEARS, Barbara Hurd
NIGHTMOVERS, Perry Janes

Maybe it was watching The Big Short where everyone thought a group of canny investors were crazy when they said the housing market (and many of the securities based on mortgages) was going to tank. Maybe it’s my skeptical nature. Maybe it’s Saudi Arabia manipulating the energy market to punish Iran. But, whatever the reason, I went out and bought more oil stocks. Yes, it seems like lunacy. Gas prices are down, oil companies are going out of business. The Energy Sector is depressed. But like the guys in The Big Short who saw the flaws of the banking system, I see a world dependent on oil. When Saudi Arabia stops pumping cheap oil, there will be another Oil Shock similar to the one we had in the 1970s. I bought Marathon Oil (MRO) and Devon (DVN). They are domestic producers so there’s no Middle East exposure. If you’re thinking about what to do with that Tax Refund, maybe a few oil stocks might brighten your future.

You would think a movie about credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations would make your eyes glaze over. But Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, and the other members of this ensemble cast show how a few very smart investors saw how corrupt and dysfunctional our financial system was back in 2007 and tried to expose the facts. Along the way, they got rich by being right. The Big Short follows Michael Lewis’s brilliant book while pulling some cinematic tricks to keep the audience on their toes. I highly recommend this movie. Sadly, not that much has changed so our economy could implode again sometime soon. GRADE: A

Amid the turmoil of 2015, your comments provided an island of calm and reason in a sea of disruption. Anyone who’s gone through the End-of-Life process knows what I’m talking about. New comers Maggie and Wolf joined our band of cyber companions. The intelligence and wit of Patti, Jeff, Deb, Rick, Beth, Todd, Art, Bill, Bob, Prashant, Sergio, Carl, Lauren, Steve, Jerry, Stan, Dan, Scott, Jim, John, Randy, James, Kent, and Mathew as well as all of you who make this blog a part of your day raised my spirits during some very Dark Hours. So I want to say thank you.

Thank you very much.