Author: Rick Page
Started: 26 Dec 2005
Finished: 11 Jan 2006
178p / 17d
10 p/d

Soon after my ex-employer (who I will not name) first told me that they wanted me to start playing an increasingly sales oriented role, my boss gave me this to read. I put it on the pile to read, but did not rush to it. They kept saying how important this book was in terms of the approaches it advocated and such. I just kept thinking that if they were so hot on a book called “Hope is Not a Strategy” why did they run the company in a way that seemed like hope was the ONLY strategy. Everything seemed predicated on making wild promises to get business and then crossing your fingers and hoping that somehow all the pieces would come together in time if everyone just pushed hard enough.

But anyway, a little after I had given my notice and I was done with them, I actually got to the book. And it really does have a lot to say that do make sense when doing sales into a complex sales process. Now, I tend to be uncomfortable with sales in general. I’m much more comfortable with a retail model than a model that actually requires sales people. But if you are in a mold that requires that, and where the people doing the buying have a complex process and things are decided in the ways that often go with that, OK, this has some strategies. Do I have any idea if they are optimal or not? No idea. And thank goodness I’m not being asked to think about that sort of thing any more, so I really just don’t have to care.

Not much else to say about this book except this:

After reading it I note that my ex-employers while taking lessons from many chapters of the book, have apperantly been practicing selective reading. There are a few important passages in the book that they seem to have neglected:

Page 14: “The ethical premise of competitive selling is first, your solution is genuinely good for the client’s organization, and second, your tactics remain morally, legally, and ethically sound. If the former is not true, you should get out of the account. If the latter is not true, you should get out of the business.”

Page 15: “A short-term oriented, predatory sales force can actually be a long-term sales prevention force. Unless you exceed expectations of most clients and delight a few, you will not build a foundation of customer loyalty.”

Page 154: “Every satisfied client is a neutron that can bang into another marketing molecule releasing enormous energy and enthusiasm for you and your company. Of course, if your clients are unhappy with the results of what they bought, then the nuclear metaphor becomes one of toxic pollution and fallout as one bad reference cancels out half a dozen good ones.”

Page 167: “Failure to exceed expectations will mean that in the long run, you are actually performing a sales prevention activity and inoculating the account from further business with you.”

But then again, I really didn’t need a book to tell me any of that.

Author: Robert Oerter
Started: 4 Dec 2005
Finished: 14 Dec 2005
327p / 11d
30 p/d

When I left the Jefferson Davis book in a hotel and hadn’t yet replaced it, Brandy bought me this so I would have a book on my next plane flight. It was a very kind gesture. Of course, being all the way I am and stuff, I refused to start the book, because I had started the other book, and I had to finish that one before I could start another one, and then of course there would have to be a fiction book in between because I alternate fiction and non-fiction and such. I was of course being a little bit of a nut. But in the end I did indeed get a new copy of the Davis book, read that, then Harry Potter. But I promised Brandy that this book would be next rather than waiting for all the other books in line.

Anyway… When Brandy first handed it to me I figured it would be your standard sort of pop-physics book where you had an overview of 20th century physics, and the bulk of the book would talk about some of the hot new cutting edge theories currently grabbing people’s imaginations. But that wasn’t what this book was about. It turned the normal form of these books upside down. Rather than the review of the old stuff and concentration on the new stuff, this was the reverse. Just a little of the new stuff at the end, but most of the book was a detailed review of the “Standard Model”, which is basically the unified theory of all of physics… except gravity… and except a few things it can’t explain yet which are where the newer theories come from.

This was an interesting take on things. Although of course it meant that almost all of what was there was stuff I had seen before, either in other similar books, or when I was actually studying physics in college. Of course, most of that has faded completely out of memory, so it was a good refresher. It reminded me just how ugly the standard model is though. It may well be the best explaination we have of all sorts of things, but it is ugly. Too many pieces, too many arbitrary factors. (18 I believe it is.) It just isn’t pretty. Which is of course one of the reasons the search for “more fundamental” theories continues.

Also, given that I was a physics major, there is one similar frustration I almost always feel with these sorts of pop-physics books. There is a pattern they seem to all share:

* In the beginning of the book, when they are speaking about the oldest physics, the physics that has been around the longest and is closest to what someone who hasn’t read about this kind of stuff before it does pretty good. Explains everything in lay terms and I feel OK with that, and it works for me.

* In the middle of the book, as they get into more advanced stuff, I start getting frustrated by the lack of math. I know, I know, it is a book for the general public, not for ex-physics majors, but I start getting really frustrated by the lack of the details. In many places where the author is jumping through hoops trying to explain things without being matehmatical or technical I start screaming out for the math, wanting to see THAT because to fully get it you need both the “engligh” stuff as analogy, but then you need the math to see and understand what is really happening. The english gets the general point across, but I always find myself wanting more…

* Then in the ends of these kinds of books, they move from going over things in all sorts of detail (although in English, not in Math) to suddenly soaring higher and higher and higher. Concepts which could be entire books go by in mere pages. Once again the lack of math hurts. But it is also just that there is a suden shift into higher and higher gears. Lots of times on the basics, then less and less time on the more advanced concepts. Shouldn’t it be the reverse?

But again, I think all three points are necessary common elements of pop-physics books for non-experts. You wrtie differently if you are giving a general overview for the non physics public than you do if you are writing a textbook… and lets say it was a textbook. They have that whole issue of needing to already know the prerequisites. One can’t just pick up a textbook on modern particle physics theories without having made sure you are completely familiar with quite a lot of subjects… that would take a few years of physics undergrad (at least) to get fully up to speed with.

So, I understand why it is the way it is. But being an ex-physics guy it still frustrates. I miss the physics, I miss the math. This kind of thing gives me a taste of what I’ve been missing and makes me want more. Of course, I know if I *did* go out and get an advanced level textbook I’d be lost right away. I had four years of physics undergrad, but at this point it was many years ago. I’d practically have to start at the beginnning to refresh my memory. I’m sure it would come back quickly, but I certainly couldn’t start with Lagrangians and Hamiltonians and General Relativity… I’d have a LOT of review to do!

Oh well! For now it will have the be the occational pop-physics book. :-) And this one did just fine.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Started: 25 Jun 2005
Finished: 22 Nov 2005
604p / 151d
4 p/d

This is the first half of a two volume explaination and justification of the Confederacy by the first and only President of the Confederate States of America written a number of years after the end of the Civil War. A long time ago now… I think when I was still in New Jesey, not even Pennsylvania, definately not in Florida… I saw this at a book store and made one of my fairly rare book purchases NOT from Amazon. They had both volumes, but I thought I would start with one.

I’d always been facinated by the idea of history from the view of the losers, and also with first hand perceptions rather than historical analysis. I saw it on the shelf and I just instantly wanted it. It had lots of pages. Lost of pages with dense type. Lots of pages with dense type consisting of verbose 19th century prose. Lots of pages with dense type consisting of verbose 19th century prose by a historical figure I knew suprisingly little about. I wanted it.

So I bought it. Years later it finally came to the front of my shelf pof books to read. (Of course, that was partially because many books that had been on that shelf are still in boxes). So I started it.

It was indeed dense. Some portions you really had to slog through, but from the very first chapters I was absolutely facinated. He starts with a recap of the adoption of the original articles of confederation and then the replacement of them by the constitution. With some detail on the ratification process, and the fact that most of the states in their retifications included specific language about how adopting the constitution did NOT imply a loss of sovereignty on the part of the states, but rather was a voluntary delegation of certain powers.

If you have known me long, or read certain of my posts here, you know that I am very retro in my views of federalism in general. I think that the change to the popular election of Senators rather than having them appointed by state legislators that happened ealry last century was a mistake. I think that the electoral college should operate as originally intended and be a deliberative body where the electors are elected (or appointed) before any candidates for president even exist (let alone having electors commit in advance to a specific candidate) and then having the electors actually decide on the spot when they vote in January who they will be voting for. I think that the 10th amendment is by far the most important of the bill of rights and should not be the completely ignored step-child that it is these days. I believe that we would be better off if the states really did live up to their name and act as essentially independant sovereign entities rather than essentially provinces of a strong central government… and as such almost all domestic issues should be decided on the state level and not the federal level… and I am also very literalist in interpretation of the constituation and various laws. I’m not big on the idea of “interpreting” beyond the actual text, aside from perhaps being knowledgeable of the changes in linguistic usage between when whatever it was was written and the current day… I almost always think that following the correct process is more important than acheiving the correct results… and I’ve always thought it a very strange thing the notion that states did NOT have the right to exit the union if they ever decided to.

Having said all that, I found myself VERY sympathetic to most of the arguments made by Mr. Davis in the first half or so of the book. (The part covering the events before the actual start of the Civil War.) He makes a very strong case for the legality of sucession given the constitution, the nature of the situation surrounding the original creation of the constitution, etc. And I tend to agree with him. I must admit, I have not read or examined beyond skimming, Texas v. White the 1869 post-Civil War Supreme Court Decision that officially decided that states indeed did not have the right to leave the Union, essentially ratifying the actions of the Lincoln administration after the fact. There may be some compelling arguments there, and I do look forward to eventually doing more reading on the other side of the question.

This of course does NOT mean I favor the South’s opinion on slavery of course. I found it very interesting the lengths Mr. Davis went through to avoid that issue in his writings. (Although more explicit references were made in some of his speeches quoted in the Appendices.) He dispenses with it in the very early chapters essentially saying while it was the trigger issue that exposed the sectional differences leading up to the war, what issue it was was essentially irrelevent, and that the fundamental issues were the larger ones of Federalism. Now… to some extent that still seems disingenous. If slavery hadn’t been the issue, then there might not have been an issue. In legal terms, the war was about the right of states to leave the union. But in practical terms, slavery was the real issue. The way in which Mr. Davis time after time refered to the rights of sothern people to move to the territories with “their property” was disturbing and really in and of itself provided a glimpse into the mindset.

Of course, one argument could be made that even if the states had the right to leave the union, because the slaves were not represented in the state governments or conventions that decided to leave, the actions were null and void because they were not made by a legitimate representation of the people of those states. Of course, by that argument, none of the other states or the US federal government was legitimate either since women were not allowed the vote, not to mention other disenfranchised groups. I don’t think that argument goes.

One could argue that whatever the constitutional legalities, the north had a MORAL obligation higher than the legal obligations to bring the south inline and end the institution of slavery. But by those rights, would not that obligation extend outside the boundaries of the US too? To me it seems clear that the course of action that would have done the right thing legally, but still addressed the moral concerns would have been to acknoledge the right of states to leave the union. Let the south go and become an independant country… and THEN declare war on them. War could be justified because of the moral slavery issue, and also because a large slave holding country controlling access to the Mississippi River would be a threat to security of the country.

So give them their independance, then declare war, then invade and take over, hold as a protectorate or whatnot, then eventually if the north felt like it, allow them to be readmitted as states again. In terms of actual results, this is essentially what happened anyway, but just describing it and wording it a bit differently, and doing things in such a way that you would not have to put strange warped glasses on in order to try to read the constitution in such a way that would not allow the South to leave. And also without in the process of the war allowing other violations of constitutional rights and in general a huge expansion of Federal power and the dramatic destruction of many of the most important concepts of Federalism. (Many of the rest were eroded over the many years since… we have very little of it left at this point… I constantly listen to the news and wonder if ANY of the people involved in any of the three federal branches ever paid attention in civics class when the reasoning behind the development of the US Constitution was covered…)

Or, another possibility, with an admitedly modern flair… let them go, do not declare war, but use tools such as economic sanctions and international pressure. Just due to the way the world economy was developing, slavery most likely would have collasped as an instituation within a few generations anyway… add a little covert action to support underground railroad type missions, support slave insurrections, etc, and you just accelerate that. Once again, without blatantly ignoring the Constitution and Federalist principals.

Anyway… I found that whole part about the detailed events surrounding the year or two immediately before the start of hostilities in the Civil War increadibly facinating. I just had never really studied it before, and this was a very detailed and well written chronology of what happened. (Admittedly from a VERY biased and one-sdied point of view.) And it actually gave some interesting information I just didn’t know about the time between the Article of Confederation and the Constitution as well. For instance, that after the last government under the Confederation and even after the first government under the new Consitution, North Carolina and Rhode Island were both fully independant because the Confederation was no more, but they had not yet ratified the new Constitution? The length of time was not hugely long, but it wasn’t mere days or weeks either. In the interum both states sent Ambassadors to the new Government of the US as foreign entities. I find that kind of thing facinating.

Anyway… the part after the war started was a lot less interesting to me. It started to be about supply chain management and battles and Mr. Davis basically explaining why all the military mistakes made by the South and the deficiencies in their ability to fend off the North were not his fault. Yawn!

The book was slow going. I averaged only 4 pages a day. Because unlike a nice lightweight novel, I had to really be in a nice quiet place where I could concentrate for more than a couple minutes at a time to read it. This was not a book I could read while other things were going on around me. I really had to concentrate on reading. So I’d read a few pages or a chapter, but then it might be a week or more until I picked up the book again. It was even more the one time I left the book at a hotel and after calling their lost and found for awhile unsuccessfully had to order a new one.

Anyway, the war stuff is less interesting, but I still very much want to get Volume II and read it too. Not so much for the rest of the military events leading up to the defeat of the South, but to hear some of what Davis has to say about reconstruction, another time period about which I know a lot less than I wish I knew.

I’d also like to put on my reading list some contemporanous accounts of this whole period from the perspective of prominant Northern politicians… obviously Lincoln didn’t live long enough to write up his perspectives, but I’m sure there are more than a few things that were written at the time by folks on the Union side that would be equally as facinating as this volume by Jefferson Davis. Again, not looking for military stuff, couldn’t care less about the battles and such, and I’m not looking for historical overviews written in the 20th and 21st centuries, but rather writings by the people who actually lived it, most particularly from the political side of things.

Love this stuff.

And I loved this book. It was just very facinating, instructive, and thought provoking. The best combination!

Anyway… I’m guessing this is long enough and nobody has actually read this far, so I guess I will stop now. :-)

Author: Jerry Walls
Started: 30 May 2005
Finished: 14 Jun 2005
64 p / 16 d
4 p/d

The last skink book I read was just about skinks in general. This skink book is about the kind of skink Mike is. (Scroll down to see him on that link.) It still covers a veriety of sub-types of skink, but all in the same basic group as Mike.

Things I learned: Mike will need a bigger tank soon. The one we have right now is at about the lower limit given how he has been growing. He also would probably like it if we had his tank slightly hotter than we do. Where it is is OK, but he might not mind even warmer. By just a tad. Mike is very tame, and likes to be hand fed, but could probably use a bit more actual handling than we have been giving him lately (hey, we’ve been busy!) so as to further develop his personality.

The book also had a few things to say about breeding skinks, but I don’t think we will be going there.

Author: Jerry G. Walls
Started: 9 Apr 2005
Finished: 15 May 2005
63p/7d
9 p/d

A book about Skinks that had been on the to read pile ever since we got Mike. Even though it got accellerated higher in the pile because it was a “need to read soon” thing, I still didn’t get to it now. Basically this was a guide to all kinds of skinks, not just the blue-tounged kind like Mike. Where they come from, how to take care of them, etc. Lots and lots of pictures of different kinds of skinks. Nice glossy pictures. Lots of them are very pretty. Some are just interesting. None as cool looking as Mike though. Of course.

It had a bunch of interesting stuff, but in terms of Mike, only a very small portion of the book really pertained directly. Some of the general info did, but turns out there are big differences in how to care for different kinds of skinks. So a book more specific to blue-tounge skinks would probably be better. Luckily enough, there is one of those by the same author, and it is only a couple books down on the book pile…