On the Rocks: Backbone Bourbon

First an editorial digression:

As a purveyor of fine wines, spirits and beers it is not unusual to watch products get on the distribution merry-go-round; moving from one supplier to another. I honestly feel very bad when I see my distributor’s salespeople hustle to get a new product on the shelf and build up a base of sales only to have it jump ship and watch another salesperson reap the long-term commissions on the repeat sales. This is especially true of my smaller, boutique, distributors. These guys don’t put their products in Wal-mart, the grocery store or the corner gas station. They build them in stores like mine, and I am very grateful for that. Unfortunately, they often see their products go to larger distributors once they are established and rarely see established products come back their way.  I couldn’t run my stores without the blue-chip products of the bigger suppliers, but to be honest it is the small distributors that make my stores thrive. They are the guys who bring the newest stuff that nobody has ever heard of. They keep things interesting and for that I thank them.

Remember that when you are shopping in your local mega-mart. The reason they don’t have anything you’ve never seen before is they don’t deal with the small, boutique, suppliers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Kendall Jackson or Jack Daniels. I sell lots of the both of them. But without the small labels and small production offerings of a real fine-bottle retailer who deals with the smallest of distributors, you are missing out on the newest, most exciting and adventurous products on the market.

Backbone Bourbon – Uncut

Batch #01
114°
70% corn, 25% rye, 5% malted barley

Backbone Bourbon is an uncut whiskey aged less than four years, bottled especially for Crossroad Vintners (meaning it will never fly away to another distributor). You may have never heard of it, and you may never see it unless you happen to be in my neck of the woods at a bar, restaurant or store that sells products that are new, different and delicious.

From the label:
“Backbone Bourbon is a true uncut whiskey that is meant to be sipped and savored. The quality of this bourbon comes from its youthful vigor and the purity of tasting a barrel strength whiskey (where no water has been added to dilute the experience). We have left the backbone in this bourbon. The name is also a tribute to the strength of character that is found in the people of Midwest America.”

Backbone’s nose is a nicely balanced citrus/wood collaboration with orange zest and vanilla spicing the aroma of baked pie crust. It has a nice, creamy mouthfeel, rich and earthy with that same ‘crispy edges of the pie-crust’, bread flavor. The citrus and spice hovers, tantalizing and tingling, in the periphery while the edgy, young whiskey, alcohol bite holds center stage through a long finish.

Backbone is a very solid bourbon along the same lines as Knob Creek or Wathen’s Single Barrel, but with a richer mouthfeel. As this is a new product I look forward to seeing longer aged versions and perhaps offerings with different mashbill and special barrel finishes.

These are the kinds of things that make my job so much fun.

On the Rocks: High West Whiskey, Double Rye!

High West Whiskey Double Rye!

Batch: 11L02   Bottle: 1424

High West Distillery
Park City, Utah

You know a whiskey is going have boldness when the distiller feels good about putting an exclamation point in the name. Hand-crafted in small batches, with an exacting attention to detail, Double Rye lives up to the billing.

The eponymous ryes are a tag team of a brash two year old with a 95% rye, 5% barley malt mashbill; and a calmly smooth sixteen year old with a much more corn heavy mashbill of 53% rye, 37% corn and 10% barley malt. When put into a bottle together they create a best-of-both-worlds effect with bright spicy heat and mellow, well-developed, wood notes at a non-chill filtered 92 proof.

Double Rye has a bright and spicy nose full of citrus zest, candied apples and clover honey over a lurking clove zing. It is slightly creamy on the tongue and the wood notes really come through with vanilla, butterscotch and a faint cedar note. The rye heat carries through to a palate pleasing tingle that lingers through the citrus, persimmon, cinnamon finish.

Among whiskey-drinker’s whiskeys this one is a cut above. It is worth it to track down a bottle.

On Tap: Abita Brewing 25th Anniversary Vanilla Double Dog

Abita Brewing
25th Anniversary Vanilla Double Dog

As a fan of brown ales I was looking forward to this one especially with it being a 25th Anniversary offering.

It poured a nice, rich brown with very little head. Smell was malty and slightly sweet with hints of cocoa and the promised vanilla.

The taste was nice and rich, much like the regular Turbodog but with an extra level of depth and complexity. The vanilla comes across more as a wood spice like that of a whiskey than that from a vanilla bean.

Overall it was a very good, but not great, offering. I would definitely drink it again. The taste is nice and the price is right.

Vino Veritas: Lemelson Vineyards Thea’s Selection Pinot Noir 2008

 

Lemelson Vineyards

2008

Thea’s Selection Pinot Noir

Willamette Valley, Oregon

The Lemlson Vineyards Thea’s Selection Pinot Noir is one of the better Pinots I have had the pleasure to sample lately. Usually I prefer wines with a bit more weight than Pinot but the Thea’s Selection is certainly bulky enough to please my palate.

The nose is typical Pinot. Bright and heavy on the fruit. The taste is an entirely different story as it is much more fuller in body than most Pinots while remaining exceptionally well balanced. I am especially impressed by the winemaking skill it took to coax this much weight from a Pinot Noir grape while maintaining this seamless an integration of bright and dark fruit, bright acidity and firm grippy tannin. I have to wonder if there is a good measure of Syrah or something else dark and spicy blended here. Whatever it is it is a style I can really appreciate and get used to.

Delicious. Pair it with beef tenderloin or BBQ chicken.

On the Bookshelf: Scorch City by Toby Ball

 Scorch City

by Toby Ball

Over the summer (The Summer of the Re-read 2010) I got an e-mail right here in the Red Herrings inbox offering me an advance copy Scorch City, a book I had really been looking forward to reading. However, because I was taking the summer off from blogging to re-read all those books I missed that email!

Dammit, I could have read this book months ago!

Ok, starting with  the cover. If you remember, the reason I picked up the first book by Toby Ball, The Vaults, was the cover (if you can’t remember, here is the review so you can refresh yourself). That cover was cool, but this cover is not only cool but seems to embody all of the essential elements of the book as well. The cover shows the four main characters of the book, yes in spite of having only one person in the picture, four. In Novels of The City (you can still use that if you want) The City is a character all on its own, an industrial northern city that dominates the region and the towns around it. In this novel The City is joined by a utopian black shantytown on its outskirts known as the Uhuru Community. The cover, to my mind, shows that Community being crushed, sundered or plowed-under by The City. The third character on the cover could be any of the viewpoint characters of the novel but my bet is Lieutenant Piet Westermann, who is caught in the middle of racial, political and religious forces while he tries to solve the murder of an emaciated young prostitute. Throughout the book he is constantly pulled in various directions by forces and ideologies that he may or may not believe in, yet have the power to affect him deeply. He is a man alone in a crowd just as he is alone among the chaos of the shantytown on the cover yet moving with purpose. The fourth character on the cover may be just my imagination but it seems there is a shadowy hand reaching out from the lower right side of the picture toward the lone figure. There are spooky and shadowy forces at work in the novel but what seals it as symbolic in my mind as a shadowy hand and not an artifact of the terrain is that the light is coming from the figure’s left meaning the shadow is reaching out against the light.

All kinds of symbolism there. Who needs to review a book when all you have to do is talk about the cover!

The novel itself is just as well constructed and thoughtfully laid out as the cover is. The events of Scorch City occur fifteen years after those of The Vaults. It is now 1950. There has been another world war. The threat of Communism has taken a McCarthyesque turn in The City and has become the major issue in a contentious mayoral race while anti-communist vigilantes roam the streets. The setting is still very noir but the heat, the paranoia, the no-win feeling of helplessness, give it a desperate dystopian edge. Everything seems morally ambiguous and you are never quite sure who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, much less who is a murderer.

I enjoyed Scorch City just as much as The Vaults, but for different reasons. Ball has come a long way as a writer in a very short time. In The Vaults my only complaint was that while the settings were vivid and gripping, the character cast seemed too large and unfocused. In Scorch City the characters are much more clear, each serving a vital role and holding a piece of the story that is their own. The plot was just as compelling and even more tightly written and composed.

Keep them coming Mr. Ball, I want more City.

The 2011 Christmas Card Game

Christmas Cards, Holidays Cards, Season’s Greetings, whatever it is you want to call them, this is the time of year when we keep the U.S. Postal Service solvent by sending out copious amounts of mail, mostly out of a sense of guilt and obligation. In fact, most people wish this lame holiday tradition would come to an end.

On the other hand, there is opportunity for fun and bragging rights. This is your chance! Play the 2011 Christmas Card Game with your family and friends.

Rules:

Some point awards are positive (+), some are negative (-).

There are 12 positive and 12 negative awards.

Each card is individually scored by tallying the positive points and subtracting the negative points.

Awards are changed each year in order to prevent gaming of the system.

Positive Awards:

+2 points for each card received.

+1 point for a hand-written address.

+1 point for a hand-written return address.

+1 point for a family photo.

+2 point for a photo including a crying child.

+3 points if an alcoholic beverage appears anywhere on the card.

+1 point for a Christmas stamp.

+3 points for a Hanukkah or Kwanza stamp on a Christmas card.

+5 points for a hand-made (by the person sending the card) card.

+1 point if the card includes or features a child’s drawing.

+2 points for a first-time card from somebody you have known for 10+ years.

+2 for a personal hand-written message, of more than two sentences, inside the card.

Negative Awards:

-1 point for receiving a card you didn’t reciprocate.

-2 points if your name is misspelled or your address is incorrect, anywhere on the card or envelope.

-1 point for computer generated, stamped, or printed signatures.

-5 points if there is no handwriting anywhere on the card or envelope.

-2 points if a featured drawing is from a child over the age of 10 and under the age of 18.

-3 points if the card is accompanied by a fruitcake, fruit basket, or really, any kind of fruit.

-5 points if the cards contains a photograph where everyone is wearing the same sweater.

-1 point for a non-holiday stamp.

-2 points if the card includes an original poem by the sender.

-1 point if the card signature includes pets.

-3 points if the card signature includes more than two pets.

-2 points if the card rains glitter when taking it out of the envelope.

There you have it. Happy Holidays and happy card-sending!

So what the heck happened to Red Herrings?

I finally can’t take it any more. I know that picture of the guy in the grape costume is funny and all but I’m tired of looking at it and I guess I should get back to blogging and make it go away.

So what happened?

Well, I took the summer off to enjoy “The Summer of the Re-Read 2011″. The latest books in several series that I have been following for years (including George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons) dropped over the summer and I decided to take a break from blogging in order to go back and re-read those series from the beginning. The idea was to get more free time in order to more quickly burn through those books…

And then there was Civ World…

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Civ World

As diversions, distractions and things to think about when you should be doing something else go (in other words a true Red Herring), the game / insanity known as Civ World reigns (or at least reigned) supreme. For those of you out there who didn’t get sucked in by it, you are lucky, and I also feel very, very sorry for you. Civ World is a Sid Meier Civilization game created for Facebook. Honestly though, at this time I have very mixed feelings about Civ World. When it started I had no idea what I was doing and there was little to no documentation to explain the tricks. On one hand this was great because it was an honest, actual, STRATEGY game. You had to figure them out and those that played the most efficiently ruled. I spent hours playing and thinking about better ways of playing. Hours that I should have been doing more important things (like reading those books and getting back to blogging). On the other hand it was buggy, frustrating, constantly having its rules and gameplay mechanics changed in maddening ways, and then they went and tried to monetize it, and ruined it forever.

I would have to say the very best thing about Civ World is the awesome group of players I was very fortunate enough to team up with. The Civ World Strategy Group came from all corners of the globe: China, Bangladesh, Norway, Sweden, British Columbia (some guy named Sean Meade in South Carolina) and Alabama. These were wonderful, funny and incredibly devious and utterly implacable people. We had the game wired. We knew all the best plays. We crushed all opposition without mercy or remorse. If you were in a game with us, You Were Going To Lose. It was that simple.

I miss Civ World.

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The third thing that changed how much blogging I can do is that at work I was promoted. I am now the General Manager of three stores of purveyors of fine wines, spirits and beers. This is great! I am really happy in my new position and it challenges me in ways that managing a single store didn’t, and I still get to help customers find the great stuff they are looking for, my favorite part of my previous position. The downside, at least as far as blogging is concerned, is that I don’t have an office of my own anymore (though that should change eventually) and I have a lot more stuff to do so I generally work later.

New Job = Less Free Time.

Oh well, I get to try even more tasty wines, spirits and beers and I’m working on ways to create time to share the most tasty of them here. So it will all work out in the end with a little patience.

So, that’s the update. Blogging should increase in the near future. Thanks for reading!

(De)Motivational Poster: Slow Day Today

On really slow days this is what I threaten my employees with.

It has sort of become a running joke but someday I think I will follow through on this. Someday…

Diversion and Distraction of the PR kind: Facebook vs. Google

To summarize:

From The Daily Beast:

“For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.””

From Mashable:

“The PR firm is Burson-Marsteller. The blogger is Chris Soghoian. A Burson agent approached him to write a piece on Google’s Social Circle, a network of social connections that Google uses to deliver relevant search results. The Burson rep even offered to help write the piece and approached other news organizations, including USA Today, with similar offers.

Soghoian declined and instead decided to publish some of the emails from Burson. (They’re available here.) In one email, the Burson rep directly attacks Google, saying, “Google, as you know, has a well-known history of infringing on the privacy rights of America’s Internet users. Not a year has gone by since the founding of the company where it has not been the focus of front-page news detailing its zealous approach to gathering information -– in many cases private and identifiable information — about online users.”

The email goes on to describe Google’s service as the “latest tool designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users –- in a direct and flagrant violation of its agreement with the FTC.”

When Soghoian asked who was paying for this campaign, the Burson representative refused to name the firm’s client. A Facebook representative confirmed to The Daily Beast‘s Dan Lyons that the company hired Burson for two reasons: “First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.””

This is what I thought about the whole situation:

Maybe if there was a 5GW fan page on Facebook they might have done a better job.

On the Bookshelf: Theories of International Politics and Zombies by Daniel W. Drezner

Theories of International Politics and Zombies

by Daniel W. Drezner

There are three sorts of people who are going to read this book. The first are the kind of people who see the title and aren’t able to resist finding out what zombies have to do with international politics. These may, or may not be very interested but they might actually learn a few things about how the world works. The second type of people are those who already have an interest in international politics, possibly recognize Daniel Drezner’s name, and pick up the book to find out in what context zombies could possibly apply to international politics. They might be mildly amused but depending upon how seriously they take themselves may not get past the first chapter or two. That’s their loss. The third sort of person has an interest in zombies as well as international politics. They probably have been awaiting the opportunity, or have already started, to explore this most interesting of black-swan scenarios and it is likely that they will chuckle their way through the book.

I happen to fall into the third category.

No, this isn’t really the kind of book for a thinker who takes themself too seriously, but it is a pretty short and amusing read for someone who likes to think seriously about the unknown unknowns that can crop up from time to time. Honestly, I didn’t agree with some of the characterizations of the approaches of certain kinds of  thinkers that Drezner presents (The neo-cons in particular, though I think that one was more than a little tongue-in-cheek) but I do think he gets way more right than he gets wrong. Actually I really only have one major quibble with anything that Drezner presented, probably because I went against the crowd and I personally think I had good reason for doing so.

Drezner presents two questions that he asked during his research. I remember answering both of them.

You face the following choice:

Option A)  The certain destruction of 500 zombies.

Option B)  A 50 percent chance of destroying 1,000 zombies and a 50 percent chance of destroying 100 zombies.

According to Drezner’s research 61% of respondents chose option ‘A’.

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You face the following choice:

Option A)  A certain increase of 500 zombies.

Option B)  A 50 percent chance of creating only 100 new zombies and a 50 percent chance of creating 1,000 new zombies.

The survey showed that 57% chose option ‘B’

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Dezner uses these questions to illustrate prospect theory where the tendency is to be risk-averse (and go for the ”sure-thing” in the first question) when you think you are winning, but risk-seeking (or take the gamble of question 2) when you think you are losing. By my recollection I voted opposite the majority in both questions because I viewed the scenarios in the opposite way than Drezner because the zombie apocalypse is pretty zero-sum when it comes to survival. In fact, I think the questions better illustrate the offensive (playing to win) and the defensive (playing not to lose).

In the first question I chose option ‘B’ not because I was risk-averse and afraid of losing, but rather that I am on the offensive against zombies and I am looking to win. Even 100 fewer ghouls walking around is better than none and getting 1,000 of them out of the way is even better. On the offensive against the shambling undead, a risk-seeking attitude is a good thing. Be methodical, yes, but seek every opportunity to remove potential zombie opponents.

The second question is one of those hard choice questions that I think really needed more information to be clear. I would like to know if Drezner had in mind the total number of people the decision-maker was responsible for. It doesn’t change my answer but it would be more important to know, to me, from a game-theory point of view. Regardless, I chose ‘A’ for the reason that it implies that I am on the defensive and I know at least 500 of my group would survive when survival, not losing completely, is the goal. There is no other rational choice especially if the risk of creating 1,000 new zombies means that the entire group is zombified. On the defensive against the undead the group is the asset that must be preserved, but in a triage-like manner. If there is a sacrifice that preserves the group, even if it severly diminishes the group, then it is a sacrifice that must be taken. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be potentially one of the 500 any more than anybody else but I definitely wouldn’t want to be in the 1,000.

 I wish this was out when I was in high-school or college. It would have made a really fun textbook.

On the Bookshelf: The New Cool by Neal Bascomb

The New Cool

A Visionary Teacher. His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts.

by Neal Bascomb

I am not quite sure how exactly I would describe The New Cool. On one hand it is a book that explores the potential future of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education. On the other hand, it is a story about a high-school sports team that, even though they are relative underdogs, manage to come through and triumph in the face of adversity.

 I guess the best I can say is “Welcome to the world of competitive high school robotics.”

The New Cool follows Team 1717 of the engineering academy at Dos Pueblos High School, a.k.a. the D’Penguineers, during the 2009 FIRST Robotics competition from the unveiling of the game their robot would have to play that season, through the development and building process, to the FIRST robotics competitions that pit robot against robot.

The 2009 FIRST game, Lunacy, is pretty intriguing and was probably a lot of fun to play. The first video is an animated description of the game. The second is a bit of the flavor of the competition from the Team 1717 point of view.

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At the risk of an editorial digression I would have to say that there are points of this book that I really liked and other points where I felt it was very much lacking.

Likes:

As a story about what could, and should, be the model for education in today’s modern world The New Cool is a fantastic read. This is what education should be about, more than just trying to stuff as many facts and figures into a kid’s head so they can take some sort of standardized test, but real and practical learning that lets students develop skills that are important in life and in a career. The New Cool demonstrates that these kids are involved and excited about this competition and really invest in the work that makes it possible. More importantly they have a teacher and mentors that provide real, practical, applications for learning. Nobody is standing over the teacher’s shoulder to judge if the students are learning enough according to an arbitrary standard. That the kids are learning is evident by their failures and their successes. Yes, you learn from both.

The New Cool is a story about vision in education. It is a story about the dedication of a good teacher. Most of all it is a powerful story about kids who want to do something to learn.

Dislikes:

Ok, as far as the story itself went The New Cool lacks an engagement with the characters. There are so many players doing so many different things that there really isn’t room to really get into the trials and tribulations that the students have to overcome. Even those the story follows most closely come off pretty flat. Underscoring this is that these are pretty privileged kids. For the most part, these are kids who have smart parents who are encouraging and involved with their children’s education. If there is a lesson missed in The New Cool it is that the involvement and encouragement of parents goes just as far as that of a teachers, perhaps farther. One chapter in The New Cool does follow a kid from a bad neighborhood, with little encouragement who does make the effort to participate In FIRST with a team called 2Train, but we never really hear back from him. Granted, unlike Team 1717, 2Train is a FIRST Team without a lot of resources that probably didn’t make it very far in the competition, but really, to participate at all and learn by trying, doing, failing and/or succeeding is just as much a victory as going to the robotics championship and that is something that deserves to be highlighted.

Dislikes aside The New Cool is certainly a book worth picking up for its forward-looking story about vision in education.

Ok, a brief editorial digression:

I wish that this really was the trend in education, but I fear it is very much against the tide of the tyranny of standardized tests and the blaming of teachers for kids who aren’t learning. A teacher can teach, but they can’t make a student learn if the kid isn’t at all engaged or interested in the material. FIRST is great for STEM education, but programs just as innovative as FIRST need to be developed for other subjects outside of STEM.

That’s the kind of vision needed in education.

(De)Motivational Poster: Freeze Tag World Champions – U. S. Navy Seals.

When you play for keeps, there is no second place trophy.

(De)Motivational Poster: Hide and Seek Champion – Osama bin Laden

Update here!

(De)Motivational Poster: Two Weeks Notice?

No, I didn’t quit my job, but I was inspired by someone who just did (and good for her)!

Nobody should have to work someplace that makes them that unhappy. Moreover, when you are professional enough to give the courtesy of two weeks notice your employer should have the courtesy of treating you in a similar professional manner for those two weeks. Then again, if they were that professional and considerate you probably wouldn’t be leaving in the first place, would you.

(hat tip: Roger)

On the Bookshelf: Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Operation Dark Heart

Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan

and the Path to Victory

by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Operation Dark Heart is the now infamous spy memoir that was held up on the eve of its distribution to booksellers by the Department of Defense. The explanation for this halt was that the author, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, was about to reveal important secrets about sources and methods of the organizations he was working for and with. The Pentagon bought the entire first printing and burned them

To get the book on the shelf, Lt. Col. Shaffer sat back down with his publisher and the government and re-edited the book. In what can only be a form of protest over the delay and expense not only was Operation Dark Heart re-edited, it was re-printed as if it had been attacked by a wide-tipped Sharpie marker.

In other words, many of the almost 300 pages went from this:

  to something like this: 

( h/t Propublica )

Aside from making it beastly hard to read , my ever imaginative brain kept trying to insert things into the black spaces. When it seemed Lt. Col. Shaffer was referencing a U.S. spy agency I apparently don’t have the clearance to know about, the NSA got inserted into the text. When taking about a nefarious Pakistani group that doesn’t have the U.S.’s best interests at heart, typically the ISI popped up in my mind. A method that had been blacked out was naturally imagined to be some sort of drone observation or signal intercept. Sadly, from the (un)redacted side-by-sides at the Propublica link above, it looks like my imagination might have been right more often than not in that regard.

Makes you wonder why they really bothered. Even if the gaps were fairly easy to fill back in, copies of the unredacted book were already circulating as advance reader copies (ARCs). Besides, in the digital age can you really suppress information? Heck, Wikileaks even says they have a copy.

Oh well, controversy aside here is my take on the book itself:

I really enjoyed Operation Dark Heart. Like many of the memoirs and dirt-level accounts of warfare in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan (Horse Soldiers, War, The Wrong War to name a few) it is gritty and vivid with an interesting window on the clandestine segment of the war, a unique portrait of a modern American expeditionary warrior in a land that has been largely frozen in time for centuries. Operation Dark Heart is filled with unbelievable-if-it-wasn’t-true, stories of spies and special-ops. Some are humorous. Some are pretty depressing. All are interesting. You take away from this book, and from the others mentioned, that victory isn’t out of reach. We just have to get out of our own way to make it happen. Our people are talented. Our people know how to get a job done and a victory won when we let them do what it is that they do best, in the way that they do it best. It is only when we restrain or restrict, usually in the interest of political C.Y.A., risk-aversion, or failure of imagination and/or trust in our own force’s capabilities, that we lose the initiative and let progress slip from our grasp. Lt. Col. Shaffer’s prescription for fixing what we are doing wrong in Afghanistan even echoes the sage advice of Bing West in his latest publication The Wrong War (my review here).

Good reading… if you can get past the black marker absurdity redactions.

Diversion and Distraction of the Educational Kind: John Hunter and the World Peace Game

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Also, the trailer for the film made about this extraordinary teacher and the World Peace Game. 

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An Editorial Digression:

Teachers like John Hunter are the reason why students get excited about going to school, because they know when to teach and when to get out of the way of the student’s learning. It is through this kind of interactive engagement that education becomes fun and ultimately applicable to the real world, exactly what the educational system is supposed to be about. When this kind of engagement is absent, and teaching is about shoving information at a student and hoping enough of it sticks long enough to pass the standardized test, school becomes just another chore to be endured and does very little to prepare a student for life’s challenges.

Another inspiring story along the same lines is a book I recently finished called The New Cool by Neal Bascomb (my review is forthcoming  my review is here)  about a just as inspiring STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) focused high-school teacher, and his student’s efforts in the FIRST robotics competition.

Diversion and Distraction of the Epic Kind: A Game of Thrones on HBO

Ok, I couldn’t possibly let something this awesome go by without saying something about it. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin is one of the greatest epic stories of all time. You will notice I didn’t say fantasy epics. It is, indeed, fantasy, yet I have no reservations placing it against any epic, fantasy or otherwise.

Plus, how cool is this opening?

The HBO series has been a long time coming (though not as long as some of the books have been coming). From seeing the first episode I think it is way too early to tell it they have really captured the depth and spirit of the book A Game of Thrones but the potential is certainly there. To do it justice they will definitely need to get a few things right.

They will need to get the feel:

Martin’s world is dirty, violent and brutally unforgiving of weakness. The series seems to be off to a good start in this regard. Nobody gets a free pass in this world. Being a “Hero” means a very nasty death is probably right around the corner. Being a villain means somebody even worse is likely to soon appear. The land is equally as harsh and pitiless. For example, audience members who haven’t read the books need to understand the import of a continent spanning Wall of ice. It is there for a reason. It was built, at great effort and expense, to protect against something. What could possibly be so terrible to require such a barrier be built? Even if the characters never ask these questions, the audience should look at the Wall and absorb a feeling of dread and apprehension. You can create almost anything in CGI these days but CGI alone can’t truly convey the sheer harshness of the environment of a land where winter may last for a generation or more. That has to come from the writing and acting as well as the settings.

There are several characters that have to be right:

This is what you really can’t see by the first episode alone. The most major characters have hardly been introduced, if at all. Arya Stark is there but she says little. Sandor Clegane has one throw-away line and has yet to be formally introduced. Tyrion and Jamie Lannister have a great deal of encouraging screen time. Jon Snow is still much of a mystery as is Daenerys Targaryen even though they are probably the axis on which the series will eventually revolve (at least that is my thinking though, of course, the series has yet to be finished).

Without quality acting from these characters the series won’t fly. It is very cool that on the strength of the first episode alone, the series has been renewed for the second season / second book  A Clash of Kings (I wonder if they will change the name of the series with as each season is intended to cover the events of a single book). It makes me even more eager to get my hands on A Dance with Dragons, the newest book in the series that will hit bookstore shelves shortly after the end of the A Game of Thrones season.

I’ll need to start my re-read soon.

(De)Motivational Poster: Unacceptable

My alternate caption is, Motivation: He has it.

On the Bookshelf: The Wrong War by Bing West

The Wrong War

Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan

by Bing West

As always, Bing West is insightful, informative and on-point. In The Wrong War Bing West tackles the conflict in Afghanistan, combining the dirt-level accounts of soldiers on the front lines, with high-minded analysis of the strategy that drives the doctrines that those soldiers are using. It is this synthesis that makes books by Bing West required reading.

Most of the The Wrong War deals with detailed accounts of operations and campaigns fought by in the rugged terrain of the valleys and passes of  the Afghanistan / Pakistan border region. Bing West uses these accounts to illustrate the various interactions between the Afghan people, the Afghan government, the geography and the Western military forces; and how there is a fundamental disconnect between the situation on the ground, and the strategy that guides Western action in the country. His bottom line is that what we are fighting “the wrong war.”

Counterinsurgency doctrine, or rather the current flavor of counterinsurgency doctrine being used in Iraq and Afghanistan known as COIN, focuses on engaging the people and building their trust through development and security in order to convince them to reject insurgent forces and deny them the safe-havens they require in order to operate effectively. This “nation-building” strategy puts a premium on the COIN theory that “dollars are bullets” and that actual bullets should be rarely used in order to avoid civilian casualties that create political resistance and “accidental guerillas” among the Afghans and poor public relations back in the Western world.

To West this as a horrible strategy. As he sees it, what we have created in Afghanistan is not a nation that can stand on its own against the Taliban, but rather that we have propped up an exceedingly weak, corrupt, kleptocratic, government that enriches itself on Western developmental funds, and a people who see that development as an entitlement they can depend upon and don’t need to work to attain. Worse, through lack of oversight, control and poor policy, we have raised up this innately corrupt government as the preferred alternative to the Taliban. With that in mind, it is no wonder that the Afghan people are reluctant to buy what we are selling.

To West, the “Way Out” advertised in the subtitle of the book isn’t a literal exit from the conflict but rather a prescription for a re-think and realignment of policy and strategy. West argues the main reason we are receiving no real support from the Afghan people is that, despite all of the hand-outs and developmental projects, we aren’t showing them that we are ultimately going to be the winning side of the conflict. West points out that in Iraq the Sunni’s came to our side because they recognized we were The Strongest Tribe and he doesn’t expect the Afghan people to step up until they are convinced of the same eventuality of victory against the Taliban. Until that occurs they will continue to be noncommittal and hedge their bets. However, West also argues that the flaw in U.S. involvement is that we are physically and politically incapable of committing the forces and funding to make that sort of victory a reality, that we have handcuffed ourselves so severely in regards to Pakistan, the Afghan government and rules of engagement, that such a result isn’t possible. In other words, our policy in this conflict won’t let us be the strongest tribe. What then to do? West’s answer is to focus our energies on building up the Afghan security forces and partnering our Special Forces with them so that they can fulfill that role.

Highly Recommended!

(De)Motivational Poster: Experience