"Together" -- Rudyard Kipling

I ran across this poem yesterday when I was flipping through a book of Kipling's poetry at Barnes & Noble. I'll let it speak for itself:

“Together”
(ENGLAND AT WAR)
Rudyard Kipling

WHEN Horse and Rider each can trust the other everywhere,
It takes a fence and more than a fence to pound that happy pair;
For the one will do what the other demands, although he is beaten and blown,
And when it is done, they can live through a run that neither could face alone.

When Crew and Captain understand each other to the core,
It takes a gale and more than a gale to put their ship ashore;
For the one will do what the other commands, although they are chilled to the bone,
And both together can live through weather that neither could face alone.

When King and People understand each other past a doubt,
It takes a foe and more than a foe to knock that country out;
For the one will do what the other requires as soon as the need is shown,
And hand in hand they can make a stand which neither could make alone!

This wisdom had Elizabeth and all her subjects too,
For she was theirs and they were hers, as well the Spaniard knew;
For when his grim Armada came to conquer the Nation and Throne,
Why, back to back they met an attack that neither could face alone!

It is not wealth nor talk nor trade nor schools nor even the Vote,
Will save your land when the enemy’s hand is tightening round your throat.
But a King and a People who thoroughly trust each other in all that is done
Can sleep on their bed without any dread—for the world will leave ’em alone!

I need to read more Kipling.

my speed-reader is broke

I read pretty fast compared to most people. Probably about a page a minute for normal fiction. My definition of "normal fiction" is made up of a completely abstract combination of variables such as page size, font size, writing style, complexity of plot and general likability of the book, none of which is very well defined in my mind. I just know that when I'm reading "normal fiction", I tend to read about a page a minute. Which is a whole lot slower than some people:

I read fast. Really fast. I read about six paperback pages a minute, give or take.

Her secret is to skip things. I think I do a fair amount of skipping as well, but probably not nearly as much as she does. Anyway, that's not my point. I was reading the comments below her post about speed reading when I came across this statement:

In my limited anecdotal research, I have found the reason why some people read so fast and others cannot is that the latter learned how to read by actually "speaking" the words to what they are reading in their minds, as if they were reading out loud. Those who can read very fast uncoupled that need to "speak" the words in their minds to comprehend what they are reading.

I was stunned to discover that simply reading his hypothesis caused me to start sounding out words in my mind, which momentarily crippled my ability to read quickly. It was frightening. I can't imagine living in a world where general reading requires effort. Yes, some study reading will always require concerted effort to comprehend, but in general I expect words to leap naturally off the page and into my head without any conscious effort on my part.

Now, if my speed-reader has recovered, I'm going to go finish reading The Last Templar. It's in no danger of becoming one of my favorite books of all time. But then, it's a book about modern conspiracies related to the Templar Knights, and I'm not sure that there's ever been a book on the topic that was *really* good, as opposed to just being readable.

thunderstruck -- Erik Larson

I recently finished reading Thunderstruck, Eric Larson's latest historical crime thriller. As in The Devil in the White City, Larson uses the true story of a notable crime to paint a much broader picture of social history. Some random thoughts:

• All people are broken--successful business leaders, brilliant inventors, national leaders, murderers, ordinary men and women. None of us is quite normal.
• Even the most cold-blooded criminal is a sympathetic figure when viewed from a certain light.
• For some crimes, capital punishment is absolutely appropriate.
  
• Society owes a large degree of its success in technological advancement to ego.
• Society suffers a large degree of its failure in relationships because of ego.
• People living today have no idea how much slower the world moved prior to the era of electronic communication.
• Eric Larson has a genius for taking simple history and turning it into a book that I can't put down.
• I really need to read Isaac's Storm.

the ten best books I've read

I recently had a discussion that prompted me to think about what books are worthy of a place on my "top 10 books of all time" list. Comparing books of different genres can be a bit like comparing apples and orange soda so I decided to give up on the "top 10" list and construct a list of my "top 5 books that I happen to remember off the top of my head--because I'm too lazy to unpack all of my books and see if I'm forgetting something--while attempting to restrict each genre to a single representative". In no particular order, I came up with:

1. Fantasy: The Lord of the Rings -- Never before has one brilliant author inspired so many posers to follow in his footsteps. Tolkien wanted this published as one volume, so I say it's one book.
   
2. Sci-Fi: Ender's Game -- Never before has one brilliant book inspired so many readers to read so many sequels that were so deeply disappointing. A litmus test for true nerd-dom is whether you love this book.
   
3. Historical Analysis: On the Origins of War -- Kagan's analysis of international relations made me a neocon. It's not a book to read multiple times, but it's a book that affected my politics like few others.
   
4. Comedy/Heresy: Good Omens -- Prachett and Gaimen turn the apocalypse into a laughing matter. Read the footnotes.
   
5. Modern Literature: Bel Canto -- Patchett almost made me love opera. And the lovers lived happily ever after. Until they died.
   
6. Inspired By God: The Bible -- I take back what I said about Tolkien. Nobody has inspired a host of posers to match the uninspired host of posers that have tried to write a better Bible than the Bible.
   
7. Thriller: Sum of All Fears -- Clancy once knew how to write a complex thriller that was, well, thrilling. Alas.
   
8. Classic Literature: Pride and Prejudice -- Austen's best. I love Lizzy.
   
9. Mathematics Texts That I've Never Read: Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic -- Given the number of books I've managed to fit into my "top 5" list, I think this one surely deserves a place.
   

The funniest thing I read today

Michael Schaub via Tyler Cowen: "it sucks that the publishing industry has given up on some great work from some great authors, while books like M is for Murder and N is for No, Seriously, Murder and O is for Oh My God Someone Just Got Murdered are readily available at every chain bookstore in the land."

Update:

I suppose I should have titled this post: "The funniest thing I read yesterday", since I'm technically just 30 minutes into a new day. That's not a lot of time in which to find funny reading material.

words worth reading

Peter Schramm on becoming an immigrant to America:

My mother tells me, though I don’t remember saying this, that I told my father I would follow him to hell if he asked it of me. Fortunately for my eager spirit, hell was exactly what we were trying to escape and the opposite of what my father sought.

"But where are we going?" I asked.

"We are going to America," my father said.

"Why America?" I prodded.

"Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place," he replied.

Peter Schramm on being a book lover:

There is something special about owning and reading your own books. I never liked to use libraries. Perhaps it is a natural reaction to the communist propaganda of my youth, but I think that some things just shouldn’t be shared. At least not with just anybody. I like to smell and fondle books, keep them, set them back on their shelf, sometimes to just let them fall open to where they may and read into them again. I fancied that these books became friends, and I just couldn’t bear to part with them.

Cicero on the nature of the limits of American and Israeli power:

A friend of mine said yesterday that he believes Israel and the United States have reached the limits of their power. He believes the battle is joined, is highly asymmetric, and has ground American and Israeli forces to a halt. He wasn't gloating, but was hypothesizing.

He might be wrong. Having power assumes a monopoly of violence. As we restrain our power to appeal to our allies and win friends on the ground, Islamicists do everything they can to monopolize violence through random acts of terror. They're quite unrestrained in that pursuit, and on that level, we are neck-and-neck with them for control on the ground. The battle for the monopoly of violence is symmetrical in this war because we restrain ourselves from unleashing our full fury. My friend assumes that we will restrain ourselves indefinitely, and so we have reached the limit of our power.

My friend will be right -- that the Israelis and Americans have hit their wall -- only if we continue self-restraint. We've made war with our seat belts on. There's no guarantee that things can't get to a point where further self-restraint makes no sense.

Smash on conversing with hunger-striking leftist protestors:

I wasn't in uniform (I only have to wear it for ceremonies), so maintaining strict military bearing wasn't an issue. Also, a heavy blanket of humidity had descended on D.C., so the half-dozen or so remaining hunger strikers had retreated deeper into the park, laying in the shade of a couple of magnolia trees. Their banners were strewn across the grass alongside one of the brick walkways. They didn't appear to be holding up very well with the hunger and the heat.

The same man from Friday saw me approaching, and staggered his way over to engage me. If he recognized me from before, he showed no sign.

I paused in front of the banners, and pulled a big juicy apple out of my lunch bag.

"Day seven of a hunger strike..." the man muttered.

I looked him in the eye, took a bite of my apple, and shrugged.

He turned away, and retreated back to the shade of the magnolia. I took another couple bites out of my apple before continuing my stroll around the park.

I give 'em about a week before they break camp.