It's Even Weirder Putting On Hearing Aids In The Morning

Hearing Woes, Part II

Do you remember the scene in SINGING IN THE RAIN when Ms. Lamont, she of the squeaky voice, is miked up for her first foray into talking pictures?  You could hear her every move, the crinoline creaking, her too loud steps across the stone floor, her breathing.  That's what my world sounds like now.  The BANGING of the keyboard.  The ROAR of the air conditioner.  Anyone's CRASHING steps across our wood floor.  When the refrigerator turns on, it is agony.  I stepped outside to get the paper and when I went back inside, the SCREECH of the screen door made me look quickly behind me to see which of our sadistic neighbors was strangling his cat.

This experience will not last, the hearing lady at Kaiser assured me.  After some initial testing, some adjusting, and perhaps a cochlear implant, I will be pleased with the results.  Again, the hearing lady assured me.  I put a little pressure on her when I told her if my world was going to sound like this from now on, I would surely kill myself.  I was only semi-joking.

The thing is I developed tinnitus about 35 years ago when Katherine was going to grad school in Greeley.  I didn't really tell anyone; I just coped.  I've been coping all that time.  I did go to Dr. Kaufman a few years ago (maybe 10) and told him about my ringing ears.  He just laughed and said that it was just Nature turning up the volume.  Some consolation.

Lately, it has been getting worse.  If I am in  a crowded room, I can't make out anything anyone says. I have an impossible time hearing the speaker at the drive-thru at McDonald's.  Katherine has to translate almost everything to me.  My children, I am sure, are making jokes behind my back.  And the thing that drives me the craziest, the thing that probably drove me to the damn audiology department in the first place, is that I can't hear my grandchildren when I am taking them for rides in the car.

So, to make a long story short, I have loaner hearing aids and they are tuned as loudly as I can stand it in an effort to acclimate my brain to hearing things again.  After a month or so, I will go in for more consultation, get my little surgery (big surgeries), get new hearing devices adjusted and be good as new.  And they will look so attractive too.

The thing I am being a little shocked by is how horrible the world sounds.  I guess it has been 35 years since I've really heard the daily din assaulting us.  I have been blissfully ignorant of the true horrors of leaf blowers, and out of tune cars, and planes flying by overhead, and neighbors talking to each other, and laughing, and yelling.  Not to mention the droning electric sounds coming from our television.  Was Mayberry really that loud?

How did you all stand it all those years?

I live in constant fear that something will set off our smoke detector.

Oh well, I can't take the sound of the computer humming anymore.  I'll keep you posted.

It's Weird To Wake Up Knowing You're Deaf

After my first round in the booth, the audiology tech walked in, took off my ear phones, and, looking a little paler than she did a few minutes earlier, said, "Well, you have a profound hearing loss!"

She used the same tone Richard Dreyfus used in JAWS when he examined Chrissy's body after the first shark attack.  "WELL, THIS IS NO BOATING ACCIDENT!"

She then asked me, the look on her face growing even more concerned, if I had ever had a hearing test.  I admitted that I couldn't remember.  She shook her head and put the head phones back on.  "I'm going to play a man's voice now.  I want you to repeat the last word he says in each statement."

So, I got serious.  I sat up straight.  Closed my eyes.  Concentrated.  I only got twenty per cent of the words correct, she informed me, now on the verge of tears.

I wanted to give her a little hug and tell her that it was gonna be alright.  Mostly, I felt guilty about being such a bad audiology patient.  I was also happy that she couldn't pull my license to walk freely around the world.  I mean with my hearing the way it is, there are a lot of things I could inadvertently run into without hearing them first.  Crying babies in carriages.  Angry honks from delivery trucks.  Buskers singing and dancing in the middle of the street.  The hazards are rife.

I didn't want to go to this appointment in the first place.  I knew what the results would be, but Christian, obviously growing tired of having to repeat everything he says when in my presence, made an appointment for me at one of those miracle hearing places that advertise on TV along with personal injury lawyers and Chia Pets.

I gave in and told him I would make an appointment at Kaiser.

All the loved ones around me knew I was not looking forward to the appointment.  Kathie even volunteered to rearrange her schedule so she could go with me.  Chris offered to hold my hand.  Christine said she would go if I really wanted her to.

I assured them that I was perfectly capable of taking myself to a medical appointment.  Just to prove it, I even managed to check in at a self-serve kiosk instead of going to the desk.  See.  Even high tech doesn't intimidate me.

I also kind of liked it at the Audiology Department.  Everyone there made it a point to look right at me when they talked and they pronounced their words carefully and loudly.  If everyone just talked and acted like that, we could all save a lot of money on hearing aids.  Maybe there are lots of people who could even lose their comfort dogs if we made a nation wide push for more articulation.

Finally, she told me to come out of the booth and have a seat.  She came in a few minutes later with two printouts of my hearing test.  She sat down with a sigh, looked me straight in the face, and shared her concern.

I couldn't help but laugh at the whole noirish feeling of the whole thing.  "I'll bet you're wondering how I manage to negotiate my world with my hearing."

"Yes, I am," she answered, holding back a sob.  "I have never seen anyone with hearing like this who could function without a hearing aid!   You have to promise me you'll come in for consultation.  I even think your loss is such that you would qualify for a cochineal implant."

At least that's what I thought she said.  I couldn't really make out all the words.

She went out and made an appointment for me and the lady at the desk spoke very slowly and clearly.

I couldn't help myself.  Before I left, I gave the tech a reassuring pat on her shoulder.  "Don't worry about me, okay?  I'm going to be alright."

She nodded her head as if to say I hope so and walked slowly away.

I meet with a doctor when I get back from Jenny Lake.  I'm going to take Katherine with me this time.

A Fire in the Morning; Ice in the Afternoon

I like to think I am easy to please.  Innkeepers and restaurateurs must like to see me walk in the door. When Kathie and I enter a place like Mizuna, everybody is happy to see us.  At Jenny Lake next month, staff members with smiles on their faces will give us hugs and welcome us back.

I remember a conversation we had in the lodge one evening before dinner with some friends who had some legitimate complaints about dinner (too many consommés), housekeeping, and the woeful job the concierge was doing.   Rachel, the sweetheart of a manager, was there with us and I said that I was easy.  Give me a fire in the morning and ice in the afternoon and I'm content.

The wonder then is that I end up in so many places and situations that go out of their way to please me, to make me happy.  Our recent travels are a case in point.

By our standards, the last two months have been pretty hectic.  We flew to Orlando for a four day weekend to see our grandson get married.  That was the end of March, beginning of April.  We flew back home for a few days and then got on another plane and traveled to Belize for two weeks.  Back home for another week and then off to New York City and then Ireland.

You have to remember that I hate to travel.  I think of all that money and I'd rather stay home and go out to restaurants.  But then when I am actually in the act of traveling, I end up having great times.  This is especially true of the last two months.

Let me make a list.

- After an easy cab ride from Orlando's airport to the Royal Carib just off Disney property, we met Chris and Nate at the bar for drinks.

-We had a great dinner with Nate and Ashley at Rick Bayless' place at the Disney Marketplace.

-We were at the pool hanging out with Chris and Franny and the grand girls.  Jaydee took off from one side of the shallow end and managed to somehow stroke and kick and squirm her way to the other side.  "Well, at least I didn't die," she said when she got her head above water.  I think that's my favorite memory from all of the travels.

-I liked giving Sage and Shannon a toast and reciting Sonnett 116.  I think I've got that sucker down pat.

-Kathie and I were walking the beach in Placencia one morning when we came across a golf cart that someone had managed to drive into the ocean.  A policeman and two others were surveying the scene, trying to figure out how to get the thing out of the ocean without getting wet.  The policeman motioned to me.  He pointed at my feet and said, "Bare feet.  Bare feet."  I told him that he was right and I was indeed barefoot.  I finally figured out that he wanted me to get into the  ocean and pull the thing out because I wouldn't be getting my shoes wet.  I gave it a try.  Finally, after a few fruitless tugs, the other guys jumped in and helped me pull it free.  I felt like a local and so useful.  And my shoes never got wet.

-We had a wonderful afternoon with Gavin at MoMA with a lunch afterward at The Warwick.

-I loved our walk through Central Park all the way up to the top of the reservoir and then down past all of the construction outside the Met.

-The fact that we were the only plane landing at Shannon at 6 in the morning made the entire experience easy.

-While our fellow passengers were looking for their tour buses or queuing up in front of car rental places, we were greeted by a gentleman in a vest and tie holding a sign with our names on it.  He led us to a black Mercedes.  The back seat had lap blankets and bottles of water to appease us during the fifteen minute trip to Adare Manor.

-Adare Manor!  Need I say more.  Our room was ready at 7 AM!  A friendly chap greeted us at a welcoming desk and led us through the maze of stone hallways to our room.

-Our room!!  Huge.  Two closets in their own hallway with mirrored double doors.  A bathroom with fluffy towels and robes and a rain head shower in a separate stall.

-Breakfast.  The breakfast at Adare was in the Great Hall, a giant room with two killer stained glass windows on either end hovering over the feast.

-Dinner at the Carriage House (day 2).  The Carriage House is at the golf course.  There is a bar, a golf shop, a rental shop, and a restaurant serving lots of fish and lamb.  The food and the service were exceptional, but the thing I most remember is an older couple (Read:  my age) sitting against the wall.  The woman was happily devouring her meal and drinking her wine.  The man, sitting grumpily with his arms crossed, was busily sending back every plate.  How could anyone be that sad in a place like this?

-Dinner at the Oak Room.  We were seated by a window overlooking the garden, the 18th green just on the other side.  A young Irish lad was our server.  He had a delightful sense of humor and timed the dinner perfectly.  I would have to say that the only meal I have ever had to equal this one was at Meadowood in Napa Valley about ten years ago.  Simply amazing.

-A different gentleman in a different Mercedes picked us up at Adare and drove us to the Ashford Castle.  Driving through the Irish countryside is fascinating.  The only other countryside not in the US that I have driven through has been in Belize.  The difference between the little towns and villages in a Western Democracy as opposed to a Third World Country, even a well developed one like Belize, is stark.  There is a lot to be said for infrastructure and a strong central government.  There, I had to get that in.  The Cliffs of Moher were certainly interesting, but the crowds there made me more worried than happy.  We told the driver that we would just as soon get on to the castle.  That made him happy.

-The arrival at Ashford was a lot like the arrival at Adare.  We were shown to a couple of velvet chairs and given drinks made out of gin.  We barely had our first sip when we were shown to a desk, signed in and ushered up to our room.

-Breakfast at Ashford, while not in a room nearly so glorious, was even better than Adare.  The best smoked salmon of my life.  In fact, all of the food was spectacular.

-I loved the walk along the river into Cong, the little village that doubled as Innisfree in THE QUIET MAN.  We stopped at Pat Cohan's pub more than once.  Good conversation; okay fish and chips.

-We spent one memorable morning walking the entire property.  We walked by the skeet shooting range, hoping that the rifles were pointing away from us.  Then we passed the archery area.  After that was the equestrian center.  Finally, the falconry range.  We ended up on a narrow wooded lane that somehow led to a series of gardens.  There was a hidden garden, yes there was.  A walled garden.  A terraced garden.  Each one was more secret, more impressive than the last.  What a place.

-One final thing that made me happy.  We were flying back to Denver and there was a couple in front of us who acted like they were returning from a honeymoon.  They held hands, and kissed a lot, and the girl rested her head against his shoulder.  Very sweet.  That's not what made me happy.  About half way through the flight (the five hour mark), the girl started running her nicely manicured nails through the guy's hair.  He wore his hair short.  She didn't do it once or even twice! She kept on doing it!  The rest of the way back to Denver!  The fact that it was his hair she was doing that to and not mine made me happy and the rest of the flight bearable.

I'm home now.  Except for Jenny Lake and one two night trip to Santa Fe in August, there will be no more travel in my life for a year.  I don't really need to.  As Buckaroo Bonzai said, "Wherever you go, there you are."  Besides, there are all kinds of things around here to make me happy.

We Were Eight Years In Power

Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is the other book I read on the plane rides between Ireland and Denver.  I love Coates.  I think he is the best polemicist currently writing in our country.  He has taken that mantle from James Baldwin and has proved his equal and that is saying a lot.

I didn't check the book out when I bought it, so when I opened it up somewhere while flying west over the Atlantic, I discovered that it was a collection of the pieces he has written for The Atlantic over the past decade.  I had already read them all, especially the Case for Reparations that catapulted him to the fame he currently enjoys.  Except for the reparations piece, which I had already read about five times, I read all of his essays again.  Reading then in the context of a Trump (the first white president, according to Coates) presidency gave the pieces even more urgency.

They held together and offered a powerful indictment of the racist history of this country.  The effect on me after reading this book along with all the other political things I've been pouring through lately has convinced me that White Supremacy has always been and continues to be the dominant story of our republic.  Every great political accomplishment or setback can be seen in the context of our country's uneasy relationship with race.  I mean EVERYTHING.  The biggest stumbling block to universal health care (something Truman tried to accomplish as his contribution to The New Deal) was the realization that people of color would not only get the lion's share of the benefits but such a health care scheme would mean that black and brown people might end up sharing hospital rooms with white folks (insert Gasp).  Evangelical types didn't get involved in politics until Nixon took away the tax exempt status of religious schools that refused to admit black people.  It wasn't the evil of abortion, but the fear of black people in their all white classrooms that drove them over the political brink.  Some 40% of self-identified Republicans still believe that Obama was born in Kenya.  If the football players taking knees during the anthem were mostly white instead of black, no one would be outraged about their supposed lack of patriotism. This list of outrages could go on for pages and pages.

The best thing about this book is that Coates has written a short introduction to each essay talking about the writing process and the difficulties he had conducting some of the interviews.  I found all of that fascinating and, as someone who would kill to get published, quite helpful.

There are three or four quotes from the book that are illustrative of the direction and quality of Coates' work:

"America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered."

"Studying the 2016 election, the political scientist Philip Klinker found that the most predictive question for understanding whether a voter favored Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump was 'Is Barack Obama a Muslim?'"

"The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support."

"So when Packer [George Packer] laments the fact that 'Democrats can no longer really claim to be the party of working people--not white ones anyway,' he commits a kind of category error.  The real problem is that Democrats aren't the party of white people--working or otherwise.  White workers are not divided by the fact of labor from other white demographics; they are divided from all other laborers by the fact of their whiteness."

Obama haters' insistence that their antipathy was not based on race was and continues to be laughable.  It was always about race.  It always has been.

If We Can Keep It

Michael Tomasky

I managed to squeeze in two books on the plane rides between Ireland and Denver.  The first was IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Michael Tomasky, my favorite pundit.  It falls right in line with all the other stuff I've been reading lately (THESE TRUTHS, THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, FREDERICK DOUGLAS).

After the constitutional convention, someone asked John Adams to comment on the strength of the thing they produced.  He said the constitution was good (or words to that effect) "If we can keep it."

That's quite an admonition and Tomasky's book suggests that we haven't been keeping it very well of late.  The subtitle adds "How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved."  And that's exactly what the book does.  It offers a tidy history of the US, focusing on the early seeds of polarization and how they grew and currently flourish.  He then offers suggestions to get us back on course.

The book starts with a really handy six page chronology of the events that got us to our current state of polarization.  This list starts with the Connecticut Compromise of July 1787 where the strange equations of representation in the legislature created the inherently unrepresentative United States Senate.  August, 1987 is another big date.  That is when the FCC, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, repealed the Fairness Doctrine.  The result was a proliferation of right wing talk shows.  And, of course, November 1994.  That is when Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House, a black day in American history.

Tomasky also offers a fourteen point plan to reduce polarization.  It is listed there right at the beginning of the book and elaborated on in the last section.  None of his points are particularly new or surprising, but they all make sense.  Seven of his points are aimed at revamping the way our politics work by getting rid of Gerrymandering, reintroducing at large congressional elections. eliminating the filibuster, getting rid of the Electoral College or making it obey the popular vote, etc.  The other seven are geared to society in general and most of those involve tinkering with the educational system, especially things like civics education and cultural exchange programs.

Like I said, the book doesn't really offer many surprise solutions, but it does offer a crystal clear explanation of the situation and it sheds new light on certain portions of modern history that we might have forgotten.

It also has some great quotes:

"Today, most of us, whether we like to admit it or not, are consumers first, citizens second.  In the 1930's most people didn't see themselves that way."

"The American Friends Service Committee found that segregated private schools were opened in 31 percent of counties in five Deep South states.  Because they were religious academies, they enjoyed a tax exemption.  But in 1969, some black parents sued and were granted an injunction, and then in June 1970 the Nixon administration unexpectedly ended the schools' exemption.  And that's what originally got the religious right into politics--the fact that they had to start admitting black children to their school."

"Most people resist introspection; whole societies are no different.  Liberals,  however, tend to welcome introspection, and liberals and Democrats of that era [Carter years], starting with the pious man in the Oval Office, did quite a lot of reflecting on what was happening to the national character.  So surely one of the great secrets perhaps the great secret, of the conservative movement's coming success, of Ronald Reagan's success in particular, was to free people of this responsibility of introspection, to release them from the guilt in which liberalism makes them wallow."

"My civic self has rarely been more depressed than it was after September 11 2001, when President Bush, New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, and others said that if citizens want to help the country, they should go shopping."

"Since 1990, not a single Republican House member or senator has voted for a tax increase."

"Before too long, the kind of car one drove, music one listened to, and salad greens one preferred were taken as indicators of political preference.  . . . The simpler, more straightforward choices (Branson, iceberg lettuce) were the preferences of 'real' Americans, while the fussier alternatives (Sonoma County, arugula) marked their adherents as elitists."

"Liberals want to fix the house up.  Conservatives want to burn it down and build a new one."

I've noticed, after rereading some of my recent book "reviews", that I keep mentioning the quote where James Baldwin says that "the world is held together, it really is, by the love and devotion of a very few men."  When I first heard him say that in a talk show interview years ago, it spoke volumes to me.  I always showed a tape of Baldwin's life with a clip from that interview to my AP classes, and I think it arrested them.

After reading the cross over history stuff I've been fascinated by lately, I see even more powerfully the truth in Baldwin's statement.  Jill Lepore's THESE TRUTHS,  Robert Kagan's THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, and now IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Tomasky all tell the story of a country populated by selfish and venal men willing to stop at nothing to have their way.  These despicable human beings are consistently opposed by all those devoted and loving men and women that Baldwin talks about.  These are the people who somehow manage to, in John Adams' words, "Keep it."

I'm desperately looking around for more men and women like that.  They are hard to see and hear amidst all the noise.

Perfect . . .Brilliant . . . Lovely

A lovely lady dressed in a full length heavy topcoat--the kind horsewomen wear in bad weather--and a motor cap complete with goggles, stood in front of a long carriage drawn by a single Irish work horse.  The lady told me the breed, but all I remember is that it was one I had never heard  of.  Standing next to her was the driver, a roundish gent dressed in pretty much the same outfit as the lady.

"This is like a fairy tale, isn't it?" were the first words out of her mouth.

I couldn't disagree.

This was our first full day in Ireland.  We were standing in front of The Adare Manor, about to climb into the carriage with our hot chocolates in hand to take a ride through the estate.  I've always wanted to take a carriage ride through an estate.

The previous morning, our plane landed at Shannon somewhere between six and six-thirty in the morning after a six hour flight from New York.  We cleared "customs" in the blink of an eye and were greeted outside by a man carrying a sign with our name on it.  We were escorted to a black Mercedes and by seven-fifteen we were at the manor.  The doorman, P. J., led us to the check in office, opening doors all the way.  Everybody knew our name.  On the way to our room, a random bellman wandered down the hall, nodded, and said, "Have a wonderful stay Mr. and Mrs. Starkey."  We assured him we would.

The room was huge and the linen, a thread count of alarming proportions.  The bathroom had a separate shower with one of those rain shower heads.

Most importantly, the place was quiet.  Everybody seemed to whisper.  Fur Elise kept playing in the background.

We had spent the previous three days in New York.  We figured we would break up the flight to Shannon with a stopover.  We spent a morning and afternoon with Gavin, a beloved student, and had three great meals with Joe and Carol, our Jenny Lake friends.  The company was great, the food was sensational, but the corner of 54th and 6th Avenue is a lot busier than the expanse of lawn and woods outside our window at Adare Manor.  And we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves whenever we took a walk around the grounds.  Central Park, while a truly amazing expanse, has other walkers and bikers and runners and strollers and dog walkers and guys selling things that you have to move aside for.  It is just different.

We sat in The Drawing Room one afternoon at the manor having drinks.  In front of us was a perfect garden in full bloom stretching to the victory circle above the 18th green--they plan on hosting the Ryder Cup in the not too distant future.  Off to the side, along the sidewalk, I noticed a groundsman (they have 70) with a straight spade and little rake making sure the edge was straight.  It took him two double scotches to finish the task.

Perfect.  I used that word twice in the last paragraph.  They use it a lot in Ireland,  "I'll have half a dozen oysters."  "Perfect, Mr. Starkey."

Brilliant is another word frequently in use.  "I'll have the pinot noir with the main course."  "Brilliant."

Lovely is the other.  "I'll have the lamb however the chef is preparing it."  "Lovely."

Katherine and I have tried to figure out the hierarchy of the three comments.  We even asked the lady serving us afternoon tea at the Ashford Castle.  She was of little help.  However, when I told her we would have the champagne pairings along with the tea, she smiled, nodded, and said "brilliant."  I took it as a compliment.

We left Adare after three days that were indeed like a fairly tale and then another guy in a Mercedes picked us up and we headed off to the Ashford Castle and the little town of Cong, where "The Quiet Man" was filmed back in 1951.

On route, our driver stopped at the Cliffs of Moher and told us to take our time nosing around.  There was a sign at the beginning of the trail that read "This is to honor those who have died at The Cliffs of Moher."  It was a little daunting, but we followed the mobs of people climbing up to the summit.  There were people posing on the edge while family members took photos.  This is happening in the beginning of May, remember.  When June rolls around and the temperatures climb, I can't begin to imagine the traffic jam going up the trail.  And the trail gets really close to the cliff and there are signs that say the cliff edge is in fact crumbling into the sea.  The Cliffs of Insanity indeed.

The room was smaller and the whole place was a little dark, but Ashford Castle is all about elegance and spot on service.  And the food was just as good as the manor, maby better.

Mostly though, Ashford Castle and grounds is a place made for exploring.  There is an easy walk into Cong (Innisfree for all you John Wayne fans) that goes right past the spot where Father Lonergin loses a monster salmon and scolds Maureen O'Hara for not sleeping with her husband.

We took one long walk past the archery range, the skeet shooting area, the equestrian center, and the falconry field and ended up in a series of gardens--walled gardens, terraced gardens, hidden gardens--each one more lovely, perfect, or brilliant than the last.

We stopped at Pat Cohan's Bar more than once.  The taste of Guiness (The Ashford Castle used to be the Guiness family home) has grown on me.  We shopped and bought a couple of tees and a big green hoodie for me.

Another driver; another Mercedes.  We left the Castle and stayed at the Bunratty Castle Hotel just outside of Shannon for our final night.  When we first got there, it was a little uncomfortable waiting for someone to open the door.  I finally rolled my eyes and opened the damn thing myself.  You just can't get good help anymore.   Our plane left at 7 am.  After a short flight to Heathrow, a long layover and a nine hour flight to Denver, we made it home.

Fairy tale over.

Memories just beginning.

The Jungle Grows Back

America and Our Imperiled World
Robert Kagan

My poolside reading habits are getting to be a little strange.  My last three books by the pool were GRANT, THESE TRUTHS, and FREDERICK DOUGLAS.  They were all terrific, albeit cumbersome.  At least Robert Kagan's book is small, only 163 paper back sized pages.  I started it at the pool in Orlando, but only read about twenty pages.  I was too busy watching my grandchildren to concentrate.  I read the rest of it on the plane to Denver, finishing it somewhere over Brighton.

The world has enjoyed and prospered from some seven decades free from the horrors of world wars and global aggression.  That relative freedom is the result of the World Liberal Order spurred by the United States.  Prior to the great wars of the twentieth century, the power broker countries/regimes looked at the world as a kind of zero sum game.  If country A enjoyed a booming economy, that boom would be invested in arms and armies to both defend against the aggression of others and launch a few aggressions of its own.  Countries B, C, D, etc. would correspondingly build up their defenses/offenses.  Conquest and war was the name of the game.

That changed after World War II and its aftermath.  The USA helped rebuild Europe.  It made treaties insuring Germany would never arm again.  Implicit in all this rebuilding and treaty making, was the promise that the United States would use its might to give its allies the freedom to rebuild and at the same time would not use its might to gain advantage.

In other words, the USA laid the groundwork for the World Liberal Order, a belief in individual rights over nationalism, in free trade, and relatively peaceful cooperation between nations.  I said a belief in, not that those things were all happening.  But it is true, I think, that our nation and the democratic nations of Europe, govern themselves by those principles.

The problem with all this is that it is quite expensive, both in dollars and in lives, to insure that liberal order.  The United States, being in the best position geographical and economically, is more often than not left with the bill.  That's the price we pay for the world the way it is.

Conservatives will argue, Donald Trump does argue, even Obama kinda/sorta argued that we should not be left with that burden.  Countries should take care of their own problems.  We shouldn't do "stupid things."  The problem is that sometimes it is hard to recognize a stupid thing close up.  Maybe, even though it wasn't really our problem and should have been taken care of by other countries of the region, it was a "stupid thing" to stay out of Syria a few years ago.  Maybe if we had intervened, the refugee crisis in Europe would not be what it is today.  Who knows?

We kept the Liberal World Order in tact by getting bogged down in regional disputes, and "Conflicts" that fell short of the global conflicts of the mid twentieth century.  If you don't take into account that we have somehow stayed relatively insulated and safe, we have given more than we've received.

But the thing is that THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK.  Even though it might look "fair" to balk at doing the most to keep the jungle at bay, if we don't the whole world will suffer.  Who else but us?  It was hard for me to read the accurate criticism of Obama's foreign policy that seemed to be a retreat from our responsibility to the world, even though I can't imagine how Obama could have gotten enough cooperation from a paralyzed Congress to initiate any kind of action overseas.

Of course, the last part of the essay focuses on the world wide movement toward Authoritarianism and the Age of Trump.  The problems all the people like me are having accepting our President and the kind of thinking he represents, is that we all take it on faith that the ideals of the liberal order are the natural way of things, that the country and its thinking will just naturally evolve into the beliefs espoused in the Declaration and the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation and all those other icons of Democracy.

But that clearly isn't the case.  All those ideals had to be fought for and they had to be fought for again and again.  There was another force:  "From the beginning, liberalism inspired a virulent anti-liberalism.  Eighteenth and nineteenth-century critics . . . took aim in particular at the universalism of the liberal world-view, the elevation of the individual and individual's rights above nation, tribe, and family.  Such cosmopolitanism, they argued, uprooted tradition and culture and all that makes one most human.  They believed, as most people had always believed in a natural hierarchy of authority. . ."

We just assume it is given that people naturally desire freedom,  but there is an equal desire for the kind of security a strong leader would provide.  Those conflicting desires on all sorts of levels explain why the jungle keeps growing back.

"We would like to believe that, at the end of the day, the desire for freedom trumps all those other human impulses.  But there is no end of the day, and there are no final triumphs."

James Baldwin said that the world is held together by the love and determination of a very few individuals.  In the panoply of countries, the USA is one of those individuals.  We have to interject ourselves on the world stage.  Sometimes those interjections will be calamitous.  Sometimes they will be mistakes.  Sometimes they just might hold the world together.  "Whoever wants to retain his moral innocence must forsake action altogether." (Hans Morgenthau).

And the main thing we have to do is stop looking at things like trade in terms of winners and losers.  Real estate might be a zero sum game.  I don't think international relations should be.

Lots of people, myself included, protested the war in Vietnam.  I would be there protesting again if it happened today.  But if we hadn't gone into Vietnam, what would Southeast Asia look like today?  If we hadn't gone to Korea, how would the Pacific Rim be different?  I have no idea and neither does anyone else, but the questions have given me pause.

I firmly believe--always have--that the history of the world tells the story of good triumphing over evil.  The triumphs were hard fought and there was lots of backsliding along the way, but they were triumphs nonetheless.  This book hasn't made me change that opinion, but it sure has challenged it.

This is a great book.