Book Review

Title: A Drink Before the War
Author: Dennis Lehane

I thought it might be fun to put up book reviews as I read. I have a strange relationship with books. Growing up, I didn't read that much. I preferred watching cartoons and playing computer games. I read an odd book every couple of months but most of my reading was confined to assigned books for school. Now it seems a bit odd, because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy fiction so reading in those genres would have been a great outlet. Surprisingly, this changed post college, and I have been reading a lot for pleasure the last 6 years.

What drew me to A Drink Before the War? XX and I are fans of the movie "Gone, Baby, Gone" which is based on Dennis Lehane's novel. I absolutely love that movie and thought it had a great blend of suspense and twists. My one complaint is that I didn't find necessarily find Casey Affleck to be quite believable as the lead character. He's a bit scrawny and I didn't necessarily think that his wise-cracking was suitable to the character. At the time, I assumed that the Patrick Kenzie character would be a more hard-nosed tough guy and that his portrayal strayed from the book. Rather than pick up the book of the same title I started started with the first book of the series.

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are private detectives who are hired by a state politician to track down a person and certain "documents" that she has. This leads to the detectives discovering some pretty dark secrets involving the nature of these documents and the persons involved. The book has a few twists, but none that are particularly mind-blowing. I'm not the type who tries to guess things ahead in the novel but I think observant readers would not find the twists surprising either. The subject nature is definitely dark, I don't want to give away too much of the content of the book but I was surprised by how evil some of the characters are.

The book does make me re-evaluate Casey Affleck's performance. He absolutely nailed it. The novel is written fron Kenzie's perspective, and he has the same wise-cracking wit and sarcasm that he portrayed in the movie. In retrospect, his performance, which I always thought was good, was actually great.

The most appealling parts of the book for me are the details of Boston. I grew up in the suburbs and am very familiar with the city, but not the poorer neighborhoods where a lot of the story takes place. I love how scenes take place in South Station or at Downtown Crossing, mentioning stores and locations that I personally am familiar with. It added a lot of background and visualization to the story.

Overall a very solid book, if not spectacular. I give it a B+.

NY State Politics

I've never been a very big politico, so to speak - especially not one with respect to local politics. I followed national political issues and major developments, but by no means did I have any comfort with who's the junior senator from where, and who was sponsoring what bill, and all that jazz. But by virtue of where I'm working this summer, I've been closely following the hoopla in the NY state senate. And it's just made me feel completely disgusted with politics. I had no idea NY was so goddamn dysfunctional.

After a month of unbelievably childish power-wrangling, the stalemate finally ended with the Dems pretty much bribing the despicable Espada back into the Dem caucus. Absolutely DISGUSTING. I suppose a lot was at stake, with the 2010 Census coming up, and the margins so razor close. But Dems and Republicans alike were just shameless in their ridiculous behavior.

Meanwhile, excellent bills like the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and the Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Bill were left to the wayside, not to mention local budget bills and other routine legislation that needed to be passed to ensure smooth sailing in the state. And same sex marriage, too. Many people had worked hard to lobby for these bills, build up support for them, and it seemed as if the time was finally ripe for something to be done about the exclusion of domestic workers and farm laborers from basic worker protections (like a day of a rest per week, overtime pay, the right to organize).

I just ... can't stomach that the entire month of June was laid to waste with this Albany circus. Bronx voters, show your displeasure! Kick Espada off his power-hungry high horse.

FISA

Back to this same old topic...

I know I'm supposed to, you know, like constitutional rights 'n civil liberties 'n all, and want the government to respect the people's right to be free from unreasonable search & seizure and all that. And in certain contexts, I do.

But for some strange reason, things like FISA don't really bug me all that much. Even though my current company line, of course, takes the Very Opposite Approach. I guess this is where my political outlook collapses in contradictions. In, say, the national security context I'm okay with the gov't eavesdropping and wiretapping, but in other context, I want to suppress evidence illegally obtained!

Strangeness abounds... I guess I don't have much respect for the rule of law. Yikes.

When the Going Gets Tough...

People say that you show your true colors when the going gets tough. Well, the going is tough. And apparently, our colors are xenophobic.

This was the case historically, and it is the case now. Trouble comes, and we turn inward. Up the tariffs, restrict trade from foreign countries, turn out the foreigners within, close off the borders, listen to more Lou Dobbs...

And this WSJ article, "Job Fight: Immigrants vs. Locals" sure ain't gonna help.

I'm not sure where I stand with this. Certainly, I understand the frustration of locals who see their local jobs being "stolen" by immigrants. But I can see no reason why locals should be preferred. Unless they're manifestly more productive, work at lower costs, are more valuable workers, etc. So long as the immigrants are in the country, the negative externalities seem to be the same whoever gets their feet in the door, and whoever gets left out in the cold...

Rough times in America... --> xenophobia!

Parents v. Judges

Should a judge be able to order parents to give their child medical care? The judge in Danny Hauser's case said yes, and ordered the reluctant parents to pick an oncologist and get an X-ray so that the doctor could formulate a chemo treatment plan for his cancer.

Apparently, medical treatment is not the only thing these parents have been denying him. This article claims the kid is illiterate and can't even read the word "the."

I'm Sorry, Maybe I Missed Something Here

This WSJ opinion article says Obama's Auto Plan is Capitalism At Work, and that "Not a single creditor right has been altered during this process."

I'm sorry, maybe I missed something here. But I thought the hoopla was because the unions/employees were getting a cut, when the creditors had not been fully compensated?

Also, my bankruptcy professor was arguing that in all this talk about restructuring the auto industry, no one is realistically looking at the future demand for cars in the country. Apparently, the numbers indicate that we've been selling some 16-17 million cars per year, but that number will drop to some 9-10 million per year going forward. (I don't have a cite for that, other than Class Notes.) And all the car companies are already struggling with the 16-17 figure. What makes anyone think that the car industry is worth saving? That we should be propping up supply when there is no demand....?

If Only I'd Waited

There's been so much news today about Medicare and health policy -- stuff that would have been useful had I waited just one more day to take my exam. Oh well.

This WSJ editorial, for instance, argues against ObamaCare. And this NYT article predicts insolvency for Medicare by 2017. And this WSJ article points out the stupidity of the health care industry's "promise" to churn out savings.

Cost-control, people. Cost-control.

Also, why do Americans persist in the ridiculous notion that health care is not rationed (and should not be)?