Dear and Glorious Physician

Dear and Glorious Physician
By Taylor Caldwell


I picked this book up at random. It was sitting on a coffee table and I knew not how it got there. I have great appreciation for Taylor Caldwell, both her work and the exceptional life she lived. In classic Caldwell style she paints every scene so as to place the reader in it. Caldwell is surely 20th a century rival to the likes of Hugo. You can actually smell the pomegranate in the Roman gardens while reading her book. You get a real sense from this book that the wealthy of Rome had many of the luxuries of today’s modern man. The missing mechanical inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries were simply replaced with slaves and servants. Lucanus, the Physician and main character was the son of a Greek freedman. From that perspective the reader gains a purely neutral view on the strife between Jew and Greek or Roman gentile. Caldwell never speaks directly to it; however the reader, late in the book, begins to sense that in too many cases that the Jews though good people were their own worst enemy when it came to integrating with other cultures.

As the story the story goes: Lucanus the young boy of a freed Greek slave still serving the son of his one time master Diodoris was a prodigy philosopher, though after reading his scripture not a very good writer, aspiring to be a physician. His mentors early on were a Roman tribune, a Greek record keeper, and a Greek tutor. The first two were both frauds in their association with their social setting which was a fraud in itself. In spite of those mentors, Lucanus pursues the one unknown God of the Jewish religion.

Mid way through the book, as Lucanus prepares to leave the Alexandria school of medicine, a graduate Physician, his Jewish teacher bids him farewell and tells a story of a boy born under a star in the East. The teacher predicts that Lucanus shall seek this boy and its only then that this reader of the book has the epiphany; Lucanus - Luke. It allows the author to make Luke an objective critic. An interesting twist of events exposes the Jews as the first to discriminate against the black man, by Caldwell's reference to the legend of HAM. It is also the Jew who doesn't recognize Christ as a messiah but is the Jew who is the early physician/scientist. Karmaiclly it is the Jew who has witnessed a millennium of Diaspora and its discrimination. In a few places the book Caldwell implies that the fate of the 'Diaspora' Jew was of his own making.

While early on Caldwell uses Lucanus to examine a merciless and hateful God, later she introduces the evil man as an alternative. Within the evil man is greed and envy where it's envy playing the evil role over a wealthy man who found his wealth through generosity? Generosity is hinted as being the channel to wealth as a generous person is a good steward of money. This reader was receptive to this hint because of outside influence. It is at this point that the light begins to come into Lucanus’s life that perhaps it is not the vengeful God, but vengeful man at the root of his depression

Caldwell provides a narrative, through the voice of Lucanas’s brother Priscus, the Roman Captain who supervised Christ's crucifixion the telling of that event. The story rivals all I had previously read in any Catholic program that I was raised in. This mainly speaks poorly upon my study. Lucanus's reaction is a revelation to the tormenting he had bore through his life. It was his 'born again' moment where, albeit only implied by Caldwell, that Lucanus became a Christian. Interestingly enough in that moment Lucanus tells his brother of the resurrection purely out of internal conjecture. Lucanus in Caldwell’s book had no fact or word from anyone that Christ had risen.

The first theme of the book is the search to define God. While the ancient people had there gods, Lucanus was busy examining the One God to the extent his challenge to that idea brings forward the notion that the word God is a concept and not a being at all. And so in exploring the concept of god, the second theme being developed is; there is no one philosopher or philosophy that is complete. Caldwell writes through one of her characters Keptah, Lucanus/’s tutor; many philosophers are not wise at all things. Keptah went on; "If a man were to live solely by the theories of the philosophers he would not survive, nor would he retain his sanity. I take this to mean two things. First man is incomplete…until his death.

A third theme comes to full maturation as Lucanus, a seasoned physician, treats the father of three wealthy sons. His illness is derived from a psychosomatic condition. In his analysis Caldwell, through the voice of Lucanus drives home the treatment of a person is more than the function of his body. The point stressed is your health is largely determined by how you both live and view your life. At this point the reader would be reflecting back on the death of an early main character, Diodoris, and contemplating the meaning of death with honor. While it may have not registered with the reader at than moment, Lucanas makes real clear that a physician’s role recognizes that death is every part of life and he must help the dying find comfort in death.

A forth theme may be Lucanas's philosophy that everything can be explained by science. There are many occasions where his treatment of a patient apparently on the brink of certain death, saves his life. In every life saving event Lucanus would say the patient was miss diagnosed. A physician would intuitively be of this mind. Its logical, reason of the mind. However Lucanas's loss of an early love to a fatal illness perpetuates revulsion to anything of the heart as well as a deep rooted contempt for those who believe in the unknown God; though he struggles with both. Lucanus advocates to the unlearned that they must trust the wise. Where as the wise reader knows that no collection of man, let alone any one man, knows everything; as this is the justification for science... what a paradox!!! The purpose of this theme I suspect is to discount all the life saving miracles of Christ and in the balance to poke a stick in the eye of science.


I was compelled upon finishing the book to read Luke’s Gospel and Acts. Specifically to Caldwell’s gradual enlightenment on this subject Luke directly writes the following in ACTS 10:28:
Peter to Cornelius: “You yourself know it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call on anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

My translation: From the days of Christ to 2012 follows this train of semantics. While the Jews associated with creature and man by nomenclature, naming, categorizing and applying rules of law to them; Peter a new Christian delineated between, clean and unclean [in spirit]. He then approached a man of unknown character, looking for the opportunity to recognize his Holy Spirit [‘clean’ intention’, spirit of whole man, using my term - w’holy, one man] in him.

Did Caldwell, by putting Luke's Gospel including Acts I & II in the context of his life put the whole story on trial? Is their divine coincidence in the undercurrent of the spirit of mankind? Is there an ethos that science has yet to discover? Could science and religion surrender their swords and come to an agreement that there is indeed a mystery not to life but in life. Luke’s was a life of long bitterness and then long searching for the One God. Apparently, according to Caldwell this search was a common place, though not necessarily of Romans, of Rome at that time. Luke's gospel is taken in a tone of mystic allegory, where Caldwell's reconstruction of Luke's life gives a rise to the story that was behind the author(s) that was behind the allegory. That rise takes the mysticism out and lends a sense of realism to the accounting of the life of Jesus Christ.

I am not sure to what degree Caldwell intended, she implies an unfavorable character in the Jews. To those early adopters of Christianity many of whom were Jews there is no admonishment of the Law. But rather a following of tradition and fervor of the rabble character of simple people that became the agent of the birth of the Way of which we know today as Christianity. Christianity came to man as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy of which only the humble paid credence to. The Jews, who proclaimed only they to be chosen, were their own worst enemy. If only they lowered their adulation's to themselves, could they have avoided the following 1947 years of what became a Diaspora of tumultuous tragedy.

John the Baptist’s angry and vengeful announcement of the Messiah lit the fuse for Christ's crucifixion. Was that the way God intended the story to unfold? Or is this simply the nature of God...man? Is the nominal name we apply to nature, God? Praise be the nominalists, whether he/she be the High Priests of Judea, the Holy Imams of Mecca, or the Popes and Cardinals of the Vatican, that fall way short of their goal of simply stating reality, physical observation of our world including the psychology and sociology of man, is to be accepted purely as it is. This is the meaning of love. Between Luke a Gentile along with Paul a Jew, Christianity wins it's case in court, where the rabble continue the argument. In Caldwell's version she closes with a case for motherhood. Caldwell uses an allegorical story between Christ and a dark angel. The allegory tells of the virtue of mother earth...nature. Unfortunately it is the nature of man through his nominalistic character, with its dependence on the use of words, one required so far to communicate, a function of community, to argue. The argument is not of reality, but of their rendition of it.


Annotated Bibliography

Page 59: a long predicted Star is witnessed by Keptah he recognizes the message of love. He says to himself have been cleansed... I have been born. Blessed is the Name if the Lord.". A he knees dud have to see him for he knew he who had been born was with all men, in every place on earth, at this hour, and would never depart again.

Page 103: Diodoris, already characterize as one who despises the new Rome, remarks in a fit of rage “corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die....Rome's soldiery virtue died with Caesar Augustus.

My note: Caldwell spends enough time drawing a dichotomy between the virtues of a soldier and the decadence of the egalitarian society of the rulers that the read suspects either the weaving of a moral message or the drama in the plot.

Page 137: [Lucanus at the death of Rubria his child love vows to his mother Iris to defy God and not allow Him to snatch life from people.]. Lucanus murmured to Keptah, " surely it would be merciful to give him a potion and bring him death."

Keptah shook his head slowly, "Hippocrates has declared that is forbidden. Who knows at what instant the soul shall recognize God? Shall we kill the sufferer tonight when in the morning the recognition would come? Besides man cannot give life. Therefore it is not for him to give death. These are reserved only for Him, who is unknowable to our natures, and who moves in mysteries. "

My note: Caldwell wrestles as late as the 1950's with a physician’s decision of life or death. I appreciate she may be a clairvoyant in terms of regression. However examining the same decision in 2011, the physician’s role has become that of a scientist]. In this context has science and religion merged, or has the Scientist assumed the role of God? If he as assumed such, is he qualified? It begs the expression: 'only God knows.’ While medical science may have usurped God in giving life (cloning) and preventing death, has science overlooked the rest of the equation... A universe or at least an earth that can sustain a population explosion?


Page 149 [in the reconciling of the deaths of Aneneas, Lucanus' father, and Rubrea, Diodorus' daughter; Lucanus describes his regret for having treated his father in such a condescending way]. “I lost my father," Lucanus said ... " I am a son who came not to hate his father, but to be despise him lightly as a man if little learning and of many pretensions. I became arrogant and impatient, and condescending. I forgot all he suffered, all he had known.... I did not lose my father in those years, but my father lost a son. And now the son has lost his father, and I cannot reach him and ask his forgiveness for cruelty and impatience and pride of youth."

Diodorus' ... "Surely the gods do not reject contrition, and surely the shades in the regions of death are aware of repentance."

[Diodorus found peace in their dialogue. Lucanus, found in his youth only revenge. Revenge railed against a God who showed mo mercy for the one he loved. The dialogue and all of chapter 12 was about the dichotomy of selfishness and love for life].

My note: Does the scientist of 2011 have the moral compass to navigate the shoals of selfishness? Is it death itself that promulgates morality itself? Death being the prime variable to scarcity prompts moral thinking to choose between himself as though his body and spirit were inseparable and the living, all the living, mankind.

Page 153: comfortlessly, Lucanus would ask himself (If we are not immortal then why were we born? If I could only believe there is no God! But I believe in Him, and from Him I will have His victims, if not his answer! He haunts all men for the satisfaction of his hatred.

Page 186: says Diodorus; "Remember this, my children, that oppressive government is fiercer and more feared than a tiger.

My note: a common thread woven into the author’s moral message with Diodorous as the raw material.

Page 195: [in dialogue with a Jewish professor on a Indu professor of art, comparing Hindu to Judaism]. He has discussed with Joseph ben Gaiel [Lucanus poses the question on Hindu and Karma]. Then the Jew had said, "No. One only has to consider the illimitable harmony of nature, which is the reflection of God, it's precise laws which never deviate, its exactness. God is the Law and the Law is perfect and immutable."

My note: if the Jews has stopped there as opposed to writing the Torah and the Talmud’s their religion may not have run in to so much opposition...perhaps?

Page 196: As all patients were either slaves or destitute, experimentation upon them was sometimes merciless and quite often the experiments had no relationship to the immediate disease at all. This Lucanus found intolerable and hateful, and again only the Jewish teacher understood [not the other three in the room; Indi, Egyptian, or Roman]. The others kindly laughed at Lucanus. “Is it not justifiable that one man die so that others, multitudes, may live?" they would ask him. To which he would reply, while the Jewish teacher listened in searching silence, "No. One man is as important as a mass, and perhaps even more so."

My note: With the Holocaust in mind; why did Caldwell write this? She implies that only the Jew understood the concept that one life was as valuable as many. She clearly in context of the pertinent chapter condemns directly the Hindu, and then non specifically draws in any other than Jews. This is before Christ, so Christians get a pardon so far.

At this point this reader is dedicated to reading Luke in the Bible to see where one mans life equates to One Man as this Christian of Unity Doctrine sees it.

And finally to this point, I have to ask; has modern medicines challenge to death lost its moral compass? There was once a role where physicians allowed man to die in dignity. Have we evolved to ongoing experiments in biology to the advancements of medical research and the material rewards that come to the physician that breaks through?

This queer attitude did not diminish the affection and respect of the physicians. But when Lucanus would lament over mortal illness and work until he sweated to relieve its pain and to save the patient, all but the Jew were puzzled. Truth, knowledge was the object of
medicine. Death was the fate of all men, and pain also. "Yes, men must die,” Lucanus would say bitterly. "But is it not our duty to be most greatly concerned with pain? Even the pain of a slave?

My note: We know Caldwell is well researched and clairvoyant. What is her source on this philosophical question?

My note: This passage also speaks to the mission of doctors that would form the view of the American Founding Fathers. The scope of medicine then recognized death and at the same time looked to preserve life. But first and foremost was the dignity of the life while living, knowing death is inevitable. What is today's scope of medicine? Is it to prolong the biological term for the sake of medicine, as could be the case in Mary Schiavo? Does today's medicine exceed or deviate from the scope of our Founding Fathers. This question is most pertinent with the onset of Obamacare. Tying this to the other theme Caldwell explores through Diodorus, can government be so big to be oppressive through egalitarian excesses? Example IRS employees get free mass transit passes for work, so as to sponsor the government mass transit system. Would government employees, ie Congress and their families continue to get special medical care over the masses? These are moral questions that challenge not only medicine but also society. At present medical advances are out in front of our moral consensus as a society. Should we wait? Or shall we proceed and throw out the compass, as well as the rudder and sail into uncharted waters and leave the fate of man kind to chance? With 300 pages to go, I am hoping Caldwell speaks to this in more broad terms than the specific chapter, which speaks directly to whole medicine rather than specialized medicine. Was Mary Schiavo kept alive by medicine so as to study her organs? After all the current television series House speaks exactly to this subject.

Page 249: said Diodorus: "Listen to me Keptah! A mans first duty is to God and his country. Nations are God's expression of spiritual realms. When those nations become abandoned and debased, given up to bloody pride and debauchery, to war and tyrant, then they have deaaced the kingdoms of the earth, and penalty is death. Rome will inevitably
die unless many like me shall speak, and where are the voices raised in her behalf? Who shall cry out to Romans, 'You have destroyed what God has built and you must return to freedom and purity and virtue at once, lest you die'?"

Page 276: Keptah to Cusa on Lucanus; He said Rome was already lost, but man is not lost, a sophistry I did not refrain from pointing out to him. Man is his own executioner; he hangs himself in his own cross; he is his own disease, his own fate, his own death. His civilizations are an expression of him.

Page 281: Keptah says to Lucanus: Civilization to you is man's pathetic attempt to bring order to nature, to regulate it in to some form of meaning, to guide it's pointlessness in to some semblance of significance To you nature in it's seeding, it's growth, it's death is
a sum without an equation, a circle encompassing nothingness, a tree that flowers and bears no fruit and dies in a from desert. Such thoughts are lethal; they are frightful with death.

My note: my first thought was Godell, Escher, Bach. Most importantly was Godell's incompleteness theorem. Nature is incomplete and therefore we live on as a species. Science's penchant to remake nature under the pressures of society to be first more comfortable and then to defy death is a slippery slope with a frozen pond o tf thin ice at its foot. Yet in this conversation both Lucanus and Keptah are only half right, yet rather than merging thought to complete a beautiful interpretation of life; they part company of different views, the drama in the dichotomy of science and religion.

Page 282: Again Keptah shook his head. “You are wrong. Nature is absolute order, rules by absolute and immutable laws laid down at the beginning of the universe by God. Civilizations, so long as they agree with nature and it's laws, such as creation, freedom of growth, the dignity of all that lives, and beauty of form, and reverence for the being of God and their own being, survive. Once they turn to rigidity and anonymousness under State , and regulation of large and small forms to one flowerless level, the degradation of the best to the fruitless masses of men, the rejection of freedom for all - then nature must
destroy them, through wars or pestilences or quick decay. You are in the midst, in these days, of the workings of the Law.

My Note: Rome fell and it gave way to Dark Ages, then Renaissance, then Enlightenment, now? Are we again in the midst of the working laws of nature, often referred to as God?

Page 296: of Tiberius Caesar’s mind: He was trying at the time to save Rome, to restore some of the qualities that made her great. But a depraved people would not accept their liberty and former discipline and their character. [The dialogue continues to dwell on the faults of Christ's time Rome and the meaning of life, which was lost on Romans]


My note: Caldwell published this in 1959. Disclosed in her preface, She actually wrote it in a period of American history that found supremacy over all other nations. How is it at this time that Caldwell could have the premonition to draw a parallel to the United States and Russia, and then discount it in her peace?

Page 310: If man dies valiantly in armor on some battlefield of principle or patriotism or in protection of what he held most dear, then he had not lived in vain. But those who won battles and baubles lived ingloriously and died as ingloriously, the object of later
satires or a warning to the ages. It was strange that empires never learned that lesson, thought Lucanus. It was stance that man never learned anything at all.

Page 312: Lucanus thought [of the Roman elite]. Cicero had lamented that though the forms of the Republic were still celebrated the Republic no longer existed. Among these men and women there was no love for their country, no celebration of freedom, no honor for the mighty dead who had founded their nation and their institution.

My note: I instantly thought of Lincoln. If he knew he'd be followed by the likes of FDR, LBJ, BHO, would he have ratified the fourteenth amendment? Or would he have recognized that as imperfect as man is; the Constitution as it stood would be preferable to the democracy of debauched society that prevails in 2011 American society. My evidence lay in the TV show Entertainment Tonight where the antics of the debauched Hollywood celebrities invade households of the easily
lead only to entrance the multitudes across this once great Republic for which we once stood.

Page 319: So this was what the emancipation of Roman woman had led to, this vulgar and unabashed wantonness, thus witless shrieking, this half-drunken quarreling, thus continuous chatter of business, gossip, and politics, this effrontery, this noisy insistence! He thought of Aurelia and his mother, Iris, skilled in household duties, gentleness, the care of children, the cherishing of husbands. They might have known little of Virgil or Homer, nor could they have discussed military campaigns or legal suits of prominence of legal suits of prominence in the public courts, as these women had done earlier, but they could bring peace and joy to a home, and honor, and their children and their husbands revered them, and divorce and adultery were unknown. Lucanus mused. Did a nation decline and decay when women won dominance and when no doors of law, business or
politics were closed to them, or did the dominance of women merely indicate the nation was decaying?

My note: I marvel that Caldwell wrote this passage in the 1940's. Well before the women’s movement of the 60's and 70's. She wrote it at America's zenith. We have fallen from there since, I feel. I do know in my wife that she display's along with her friend the traits of this passage. Traits of a marriage, a family, and hence a nation all not in decline but decay. How does Caldwell reach so vividly in the past and foretell the future with such clairvoyant perception?

Page 351: Lucanus looked at the tablet for a long while. Finally he shook his head. "I understand the Jewish religion. It was Noah who upbraided his sons for finding him in his drunken nakedness. He particularly laid the curse on his sin, Ham, of black countenance. It is true that the black man has been truly cursed, but not by any deity, but only by man. If there is a God, and I know there is a God, he has cursed any of His children. Nor to any man has He given the command and to curse other men, but only to do good to them.

My note: obviously one would draw suspect on Jewish doctrine to a degree. If we were to accept Caldwell's research. Do we find here a root to anti- Semitism?

Page 395: [the centurion Antonius and Lucanas’s thought ] Nevertheless, I believe all these lips of the centurion, Antonius, is doubtless true - fro his point of view. Perhaps that Jewish rabbi, the teacher, knows some secrets which seem supernatural to us, but which ate part of natural law we have yet to discovered. And again this seems most reasonable to me, the physicians who attend the servant of Antonius made an error. The servant was not mortally I'll; he would have recovered in any event.

My note: Oddly enough today we call the study of nature science and find science in opposition to religion and this story is making reference to Jesus Christ.

Page 405: [Sara to Lucanus after he realizes he has been running from love and asks for Sara's hand in marriage] You gave been made empty in order that you may be filled with joy an peace beyond al your imaginings, Lucanus. Love tells me so but love does not tell me how. No Lucanus I cannot marry you, for in marrying you I will keep you from your destiny. That which you must find is not in my arms. God calls men from outbid the cities, from their own firesides, from their wives and their children from all they love, and his voice cannot be ignored. He has called you.

My note: People criticize those who use the phrase "its Gods will". But in this example Sara is only pointing out what has been Lucanas’s will for the past 404 pages of the book. Sara is saying to Lucanus it is in your nature to answer to a higher calling than love of Sara

Page 407: [Lucanus Rubria younger brother Priscus] I know that it was inevitable that Rome become what she is. Republics decay into democracies, and democracies degenerate into dictatorships. That fact is immutable. When there is equality - and democracies shall always bring equality - the people become faceless, the lose their initiative, they lose their pride and independence, they lose their splendor. Republics are masculine... [The rest of the paragraph is worth capturing] ...[on page 428] Priscus, you ad a husband and a father, and most particularly a father, can cultivate the masculinity
of free and noble men in your children; a man must always begin with his family, and then reach forth for his neighbors. He may fail, but at least he has tried. It is not in his failing that man is judged, but by the lack of his efforts. At last man is judged singly, and never in mass.

Page 446: [Hilell a wealthy Jew who admonishes first Jews then others to Lucanus to]. "And then there is the rabble, the marketplace rabble which afflict all cities and all nations, demanding always, greedy, eager for sport, with lusty animal appetites, quarrelsome, milling restlessly, incapable of learning anything, contentious and
dependent. Have you not such trouble in Rome, and will Rome not die of them, and the taxation they impose on their betters for their idle support.

My note: I am sure, have done some background reading on Caldwell, there is no 2011 agenda here. She wrote this in the 1940's. Yet my oh my, the ominous parallels.

Page 447: [Hilell continuing] "So you have the priests, frightened for their people and their faith; you have self appointed guardians if the Law, the Pharisees, who detest the humble; you have the shrill rabble, always searching for a victim. And you have Rome, ever watchful for signs of a rebellion against her power. Considering all these, it is a marvel that He was denounced to Roman officials, and that was the end. Or in the beginning" added Hilell.

Page 475: Lucanus. Looked down at the sleeping man and murmured;

" Oh You who have brought me from the wasted spaces, and the darkness, and barrenness, out of Your love and Your eternal mercy! Oh you who are companionate beyond imagining, You who know the suffering of men, because You have suffers them! [How profound a statement. Caldwell is actually saying that God, Nature has suffered man]. Oh hallowed are You in my soul, and I implore that You will accept my life that I serve You! Always have I loved You even when I contended with You out
of my lack of understanding.

My note: Profound to say God has suffered man. A world without that reality made apparent was a world where Lucanus witnessed the suffering of one mans actions upon another only to discover that the omni presence of God included suffering. A simple expression of 'it is what it is' absent a trait of the nominalist’s interpretation. How often have you heard the expression, 'it's beyond words'. When it's real, a revelation, it's beyond words. Or better said words are not necessary.

Page 482: Lucanus put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it dazedly. "I do not understand ", he muttered. Then he flung the coverlets from his brother's body and felt over his stomach and liver, and his glands. The ominous tumors have disappeared. The flesh was thin and emaciated, but also firm, and the pulse was strong.

Lucanus straightened. "It is not possible!" he cried. He looked at Nicias and Joshua imploringly. "We made an error."

"No," they said, and smiled at him.

"Through you God wrought his miracle, as a witness to us." said Joshua. [this was Lucanas’s revelation, his baptism in to Christianity]

My note: Up to this moment of all other 'miracle cures' that Lucanus witnessed, he was certain he made an error in his diagnosis. This time he implores two other physicians who confirm it was no mistake. The message I get is not so much the miracle, as that men of medicine at time accepted the concept of miracles for things of biology that they could not explain. Science and religion were not as adverse as 2011's current of pagans have us conceding to.

Page 508: [Lucanus] thought of Rubria and Sara, the dead he loved with such tenderness, and he said to himself that in reality there was no age, no weariness, no pain, no despair, no parting, no death. The world and the planets, the countless suns, rang with immortal youth, and the constellations and galaxies rejoiced in it. An exhilaration filled him. All he had ever loved was with him forever.

My note: I genuinely related to this passage. As death separates Lucanus from his first love, life's stories separate me from mine. I have always known in the physical world that physical aspect of love is long past and never to present itself in the future. I take extreme solace however knowing in spirit the immortal youth and the love that goes with it lives on... nothing more nothing less, just what is and it's acceptance...love. This is my reality. It is what makes the memories cherishable.

Page 535: [as Lucanus come upon the Sea of Galilee]. The foliage of the olives had the aspect of fettered silver; the green palms did not sway in the pure and windless air; the pomegranates bore their red fruit on their branches Luke jewels. Sheep slept about the olive trees, their wool pale gold. There was no cry of bird here in this aureate effulgence. The peace beyond understanding, the light that never lay on land or sea, was here caught as in glowing crystal, eternal and unchanging.

Page 546: [in the story of Zachary, father of John the Baptist]. Visions were no rare things to these simple and pious people; legends of the appearances of angels and portents ran through all their conversation.

My note: to the skeptic anti Christian, here lay a notion to your argument. While Luke was a physician of legend, wise of the world; his gospel was a recording of events among these simple people.

I wonder if it's like that there.

Page 562: [top] John [The Baptist] was a man of furious temporment.
Jesus knew he was his kinsman. John...

Cool Metaphors

Retreated like the moon behind a cloud
Pure as a cows milk
Soft as a doves call
Murmurous as a softly struck harp
On feet that moved no heavier than a breath

An interesting contrast; greed & envy
Interesting trivia: the fish symbol is a Greek anagram for Christo.

A Nation Like No Other

A Nation Like No Other
By Newt Gingrich

Grounded in the ideals that formed this country, Gingrich has religious orientation but is not a religious zealot. His basic premise is; to give man a footing of moral consciousness, founded through any religion [or facsimile thereof] that distinguishes between good and evil, and allow the individual the power of society that begins with inalienable rights bestowed upon all men under one God. Gingrich is an ardent proponent to the study of history and this book is a reminder of these core American values, just in case any one of us has lost sight of them.

Gingrich sets the tone of the book building the scene in Manhattan as the American revolutionaries prepared for battle against the King of England. He depicts a battalion aid reading the Declaration of Independence to the troops that creates an air of exceptional reception to its ideals. He describes exceptionalism as the fabric that wrapped this new nation child at birth. Exceptionalism meaning American is an exception to all other nations. This does not imply a ‘Molly Brown’ better than persona but rather just unique. The reader is thinking aaah a good history book. Gingrich sets you back from that just a little bit when he mildly draws contrast as early as page three by introducing Obama as an example of how far we have drifted from that character that once wrapped us and sheltered us. Gingrich defines exceptionalism as that which 'leads inevitably to a smaller, more effective, accountable, and limited government.' he suggests that the American revolutionaries did not fight to have a future standing president 'fight in Libya for the liberties of man in that foreign country, as a nation of exceptionalism obligated to lead the world’, and then turn on our citizens with oppressive policy; forcing free men to purchase health care as his first on a list of policy that contradicts liberty of the individual in America. By page thirteen the book's theme is well stated. I like books like this. The reader is compelled to see it's depth, whether he agrees or not. Says Gingrich; ‘Our exceptionalism is being eroded by those who acquiesce to policy that undermines it.’

The first part of the book draws on a historic review of five principles that constitute American liberty. As the casual reader relives the story of a few of our founding fathers he would likely be saying to himself ' these virtues that brought us American liberty are
being eroded and are now under attack by an over reaching president, Obama and his party of democrats. Gingrich closes part one by stating the obvious and then prescribes a way back. He intrigues the reader to read parts II and III to explore how the five habits listed below of liberty evolved, how they helped to make America exceptional, how they are dangerously undermined, and how we can revitalize and restore American Exceptionalism. He first takes a moment to quote a few notable people to stress the importance of American Exceptionalism.

Ben Franklin: The expression of that principle [liberty to all], in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy and fortunate. Without this ... We [still] could have declared independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity.

Abe Lincoln: No oppressed people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.

There is no doubt that our Founding Fathers were deists. They arrived in this new America from Christian Europe. They brought their religion with them and purposely held on to its virtues that provided a moral compass and a basis for a new constitution, and the foundation of American law. In our Constitution Gingrich speaks to the higher authority that American man heeds to with no intermediary, be it a religious authority or a government authority. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." [not a life span to 150] This assertion makes some key assumptions about the relationship between man and God.

1. It assumes that God created man.
2. It assumes that God is Sovereign over the universe.
3. It assumes that man must obey an order of justice that God has instituted.

I note first that Gingrich assumes that God is a metaphor for nature. It seems evident however, throughout history that it is the nature of man to violate nature beginning with his violation of another man borne in his belief in scarcity. (Hobbs). Hence man must transcend his nature, I am not sure Gingrich, has given much thought to that. Second I find little coincidence that Gingrich quotes a Founding Father on liberty and then Abe Lincoln who ushered in liberty to all men…in America.

In quoting Franklin “My dear lady we have given you a republic - if you can keep it." Gingrich writes; ‘In a single sentence, Dr [Ben] Franklin summed up the extraordinary drama that would play out for all American history between two vital forces that sustain American Exceptionalism: freedom and responsibility.’

Gingrich writes there are five habits of liberty that come under the heading of Personal Responsibility – Virtue found in Religion, Morality

A. Faith and family
B. Work
C. Civil society
D. Rule of law
E. Safety and peace

Emphasis on these habits are vital to cultivating an engaged, informed citizenry which is needed to sustain a free republic... These habits set America apart from its European counterparts, where monarchs were intent on cultivating passive, obedient subjects unlikely to challenge their rulers claim to power.

I ask myself; where does one observe the erosion of these five habits? In a conversation with a friend of mine, a staunch Democrat and loud evangelist of atheism (a real irony), he said of conserving energy; Look at my toys. I have an Escalade, four other cars, two jet skis. All consume gas. We need to pass some laws or otherwise I wouldn't change my habits." I then think of Al Gore a democrat nominee for president of these United States, who writes a book on global warming and advocates the need for stringent federal regulation while at the same time has one of the largest carbon footprint of any US Senator in history. My friend voted for Gore. Neither acquiesces to personal responsibility. Both advocate though, laws for others to follow, of which only then will they conform ... Or will they?

It is no coincidence that Gingrich lists faith and family on top. He writes; ‘an America that openly rejects faith and the faithful will undermine the surest supports of human dignity in American life. That anti-religious America would soon cultivate a utilitarian culture, described in the above paragraph that elevates the powerful and crushes the weak. But an America that continues to welcome faith and the faithful as integral to American public life will transmit to the poorest and most forgotten segments if society the hope that they too have the right to the American Dream.

I am sure Gingrich is not espousing the fanatical right, but rather the faith found in our founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson who picked out the parts of the Bible that work for him. Note that I used work in the present tense as his work transcended his body and far out lived its expiration. There is no coincidence that Jefferson’s Bible is limited to Christ’s message. Our Founding Father’s held out an expectation that emphasis on man’s moral compass would enable management of a civil society.

I know these people who advocate the adoption of rules, imposed by a supposed 'neutral' government that conform people to society. Gingrich writes ‘It is a utilitarian method that ignores man’s moral footing. In their mind the rules they envision are done so only by those with some innate ability to see right from wrong. Those assumed abilities in this context are what we know as morals. The Church, in theory but not always in practice, makes no assumption that morals are born in the human psyche. The church does not take morals for granted; rather it uses the message of Christ, as did Jefferson, as a moral compass. Contrarily these people claim the utilitarian higher ground, write the laws and then create institutions to correct those who have lost there cardinal headings. In my opinion if the ‘church’ or like kind were allowed to flourish those people of utilitarian methods would find their goal obtainable at a much lower cost to the government than what they have put in place of the Church.’ I can’t help but notice in writing this paragraph that the Caliph of the Ottoman Empire, commonly referred to by the 19th century as the Sick Old Man adopted a similar posture. It prompts a question in 2011’s world drama: where did Christ’s message get it right and Mohammad’s message gets it wrong? I know Christ’s message to be about transcendence through love {unconditional love meaning acceptance of things as they are] to one God, nature.

Alex de Tocqueville observed, “In the United States that associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion"...The Founders' insistence on limited government and created the space for the flourishing of civic life. In turn, to this day civic groups check and balance government power by fulfilling roles that government is tempted to assume, and by cultivating habits of personal responsibility that make individuals more capable of challenging government encroachments in their affairs. Tocqueville presciently predicted that government would eventually usurp many of the duties that private associations performed so effectively. Look at the American Red Cross as well as many other institutions that are the avant-garde of disaster relief. I ask does FEMA encroach on this society. Or should a limited version of FEMA merely complement all the non-profits that constitute the virtues of American man. Gingrich writes of a society that assumed the role of FEMA and note that post Katrina FEMA is now eroding away at the moral fabric conducive to society of Americans, I’ll also note as a case study that Bill Clinton, a self proclaimed public servant, has done more in the NPO sector in terms of humanitarian aid after his presidency than he ever hoped to do as president of the United States. And finally I remember hearing Gingrich say in 2005 that he would not pursue the office of President of the United States because government is too constraining to get anything done. So what is he really doing in 2011 as a presidential candidate? He is either running for President or laying the blanks for the Republican Party. Given his effort to date it is the latter.

Turning to our struggle with Islamic Terrorists, one would think Gingrich has drifted away from the theme of his book, and has garnered a listening ear with this book in his quest for his presidency of the United States. What follows are excerpts to catch the general gist of his message. He writes: ‘The courage to be free is sustained by the moral capacity to distinguish between good and evil. If evil cannot be called by name [Obama doctrine], we will not be able to deter - or even recognize - threats to our nation. Likewise, if we cannot proclaim the righteousness of our traditional values, then we won't be able to mobilize the fighting spirit necessary to defend America. Throughout most of American history, our American leaders have not been hobbled by the kind of moral ambiguity that characterizes our present administration. [Obama]. Looking at the poor results of [President] Carter's foreign policy, we see that the president failed to understand the natural consequences of scaling back American power- it creates a vacuum that is typically filled by the most aggressive actors.’

My reaction to the previous paragraph goes as follows. You can read in history as early as the Peloponnesian Wars, that a society fears another society that is more powerful, not just in terms of military strength buying terms of economic prowess. The inferior will lash out at the superior as Iran does to the United States as an act of hybris, a term that has evolved to hubris. They impose an affront to your superior to show you are not the lesser society. With this as the nature of mankind as documented by philosophers and historians a U.S. President is derelict in his duties when adopting doctrine such as Carter or Obama. Kowtowing to those who aim to harm us is an imposition on our American spirit of liberty, let alone sending an invitation for attack. Kowtowing to our adversaries makes us slaves to an ideal that is foreign to our sovereignty as a nation. We lose that exceptionalism, exception to the rest of the world. We become like Europe whose history is fraught with strife and international conflict and intrigue. With this reaction I find Gringrich’s inclusion of the subject to be fitting with the theme of his book. Otherwise he is taking advantage of a captive audience.

After a foray into our economic situation of which I am in no adequate position to judge whether he has a good solution or not, Gingrich suggests what you the average citizen can do to incrementally contribute to that which makes America and exceptional nation. Below is a simple list.

Ten Steps to Restoring American Exceptionalism

1. Americans should learn about the issues and analyze how they relate to the principles and history of American Exceptionalism.

2. Once you feel comfortable in your knowledge start speaking out in favor of American Exceptionalism.

3. Question government and argue for the right policies.

4. Educate your [any child, defined as an enlightened(able) of any age person] Talk to them about our founding principles.

5. Insist on schools bringing the principles of our founders back to the classroom.

6. Defeat and replace bad judges. Replace activist judges who feel their elite status prevails over the will of the people or the principles of our founders and their Constitution

7. Reestablish work ethic; do so mostly with your children. Teach them to work hard toward their dream. This is still the one country called the land of opportunity.

8. Celebrate American holidays. Don't just take the day off to buy some furniture, remember the reason for the holiday and talk about it with others.

9. Volunteer. Alex de Tocqueville observed this in early America. Our society is [was] more capable than our government. Regain our societal footing.

10. Run for office. Be a prime mover in reducing it imposition on the principles of our founders and restore the values that go along with liberty.


Oddly enough the list is ten. Why does the individual need to pay attention to these ‘steps’? In short, the central failing of big-government welfare state is that it's designers and current champions [Obama] do not think of people as individuals with inherent dignity who are capable of both self- government and compassion for their fellow man; they think of citizens as groups of people to be organized, placated, and for some radicals on the Left, to molded into "New Americans." That radical goal is too ominously close to 1932’s New Germans. Each American’s adherence to any or all of the above steps is an incremental ‘fire fence’ to the same fate of 1932 Germany, and today’s European social problems. We started out an exception to that rule…it is that exception that allows us liberties still not achieved anywhere else. I have traveled to many different countries. There has yet to be a time where when I clear US customs on my return trip I breathe a deep sigh and say ahhh, no place like home.

Decision Points

Decision Points
By G.W. Bush

Drinking. A decision Bush made. After reading the chapter he was a robust social drinker. I call him a "Molly Brown" drinker. I suspect you could have put Bill Clinton in that category. The difference is Bush voluntarily took himself to task. In retrospect I asked why was that chapter in the book anyway. I think it sets the tone for all the decisions GW Bush made in his presidency. It was a presidency where a man of great conviction was taken to task, first by a divided country and second by events on par with Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington.

In the chapter on the decision to run for president you read how ordinary Bush was. Or you could characterize it as honest. I use the word honest because what comes out is akin to the first decision, in that he reconciled all pertinent decisions of a presidential run with himself. When people take Bush to task on his God orientation, I find that taking your self to task on par with taking yourself to God. Bush didn’t ask God if the decision was right, he went beyond the surface, the rational, to his heart to ask is the decision morally right as well. As a goal for a moniker Bush entered office in 2000 with an aspiration to be the "education president". He teamed up with Ted Kennedy to legislate the No Child Left Behind bill.

On this hyperbole notion that Bush was managed note, you learn that Bush was not a person managed by his handlers that may or may not met the test of conviction. You learn that Bush purposefully sought out a reluctant Cheney as a running mate. In fact the people around him, starting with his father, would not have sought out Cheney. Demonstrating the divisiveness of the GW Bush presidency the reader learns that it was not as simple 5-4 Supreme Court decision as the liberal for years etched on to the memory of Americans. There was first the actual vote count that had Bush victorious by 529 votes. You then have a 7-2 vote that held that the recount was chaotic and inconsistent. Non the less Bush started his first term under an extreme handicap where conviction to stay the course was a requirement

When I contrast Bush's failed nomination of Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court to that of Obama's first selection; Meyers was not selected because she had no judicial record and she was currently working a close aid to Bush. By contrast, Obama's appointment, Kagan, carried the exact same baggage. Plus Kagan’s sexual orientation gave the view that "political correctness" compromised the clarity required for prudent confirmation. This selection once again demonstrates Bush being his own man in terms of selecting those around him. As it turned out Meyers was not a good decision yet it was Bush who rightly or wrongly saw in Meyers a juror who would not be swayed in Supreme Court decisions by her own personnel agenda and held that as a priority over he lack of bench experience. Bush's convictions did not always prevail.

When I turned to the stem cell chapter I thought why this would be a land mark decision, a test of Bush's conviction. I was unaware that it was this issue above all the rest where the poignancy in his critics struck deep. It was also this issue that galvanized the thick skin required to be the president of the United States. On the stem cell decision, this was his hardest decision, the one decision that was close and personal. He lost a sister where research may have helped. It was the one decision that the Press was most vitriol in Bush as a person. And it had the greatest ‘bash’ affect on him personally. What I did not know until I read this book is that it turns out Bush was right. Science found a way without using government funding, during his term, to harvest the same cells from skin. Killing embryos was then as is now not required for stem cell research. I am amazed at the non-reporting of the science discovery or the lack of any apology from the Press or his opponents.

9/11: Clarification points Bush had been told that a plane flew into the Trade Center when they were walking into the class room. It was not made clear it was a terrorist act. He was told about the second aircraft in front of the children. It was a purposeful decision to not look frantic. This was not for the children sake alone but for the terrorists that would be seeing his reaction on camera. It was a decision of courage. Not of a non-decision of frantic panic. Even Bush's advisors said don't say anything to the public yet. Bush was the voice of America not just the Commander in Chief giving immediate direction to first responders. He purposely made the decision to frame his reaction to that of undaunted. It was his personal and private conviction, confidence in that decision that enabled him to endure the merciless and reckless criticism from the liberal left that insisted on dividing the country for mere political reason.

In War Footing you come to understand the obstinacy and the agenda of the Democrats when Bush was establishing the Department of Homeland Security, the Democrats pushed back in an effort to make sure the Labor Unions that would staff it were sufficiently organized to secure collective bargaining. Let's compare Bush's Patriot Act with Obama's Health Care Bill. When the Patriot Act was signed it had a 98:1 vote of support. Obamacare required a Democrat Partisan cloture vote of 60:40. When the Patriot Act was signed, Democratic senator Patrick Lehey from Vermont and Chuck Schumer from New York both said we read this Act and it is fair and balanced. Nancy Pelosi said after Obama signed Obamacare "we don't know what's in it. But we will figure it out. The Patriot Act proved over and over as a critical component to our nations security. Bush however required conviction to endure the reckless criticism from the liberal left over this decision.

On water boarding; first contrary to the impression the Left including Obama on the campaign trail and the Press for six years implying that water boarding was standard practice to all POWs called it an egregious compromise of American values. I myself, a staunch defender of Bush, fell victim to the Press brain washing. It was not until 2008 that I became fully aware of the scope of water boarding, the whole truth Said Zubaydah one of the THREE people water boarded, "water boarding was a technique that allowed him to reach that threshold, fulfillment his religious duty and the cooperate.".
You must do this for all the brothers," he said.

Afghanistan: Bush closed with "Ultimately the only way the Taliban and al Qaeda can retake Afghanistan is if America abandons the country. Allowing the extremists to reclaim power would force Afghan women back into subservience, remove girls from school, and betray all the gains of the past nine years. It would endanger our security. After the Cold War, the United States gave up on Afghanistan. The result was chaos, civil war, the Taliban takeover, sanctuary for al Qaeda and the nightmare of 9/11. To forget that lesson would be a dreadful mistake. My fear is Obama even with his troop surge, has committed the United States to a deadline to abandon Afghanistan. He set the stage for a mood of American exhaustion on war. And we are witnessing an extreme sentiment now to abandon what was seen only 10 years earlier as a lesson learned. With the reality that Pakistan is very capable of harboring terrorists, we have gone from a conviction of Bush to stand up a free people focused on anything but international terrorism to a political agenda of Obama that will gradually find Afghanistan as equally dangerous as it was on September 11, 2001.

Iraq: on page 234 you read the question put in a way I had not heard before in the context of that time It’s a question that has a person pause. Perhaps be a little less critical. Bush puts it this way, "Letting a sworn enemy of America refuse to account for his weapons of mass destruction was a risk I could not afford to take. That question was asked to a brutal "elected" dictator who simply would not cooperate. UN resolution 687 mandated not only that Iraq be rid of WMD but also be rid of the ability to produce them. I, a pretty tuned in person on this subject, cannot recall from any Press report, the status of Iraq’s ability to produce WMD. I read in Known and Unknown of the official report on WMD, of which got very little press coverage. In that report it stated that Hussein had the capability to convert industrial sites in to WMD factories in as little as two weeks time. While the report said there was no capability for nuclear attacks, it made the following to provocative points. 1. Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qaeda - with world wide reach and extensive
terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States - could perpetrate the type if terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct. 2. In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step if assisting the Islamist terrorist in conducting CBM [chemical or biological weapon] attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him. When asking whether Bush’s ‘conviction” effected his Iraq decision, one must be sure to put that decision in the context of 911 and then ask that critical question: would you take the risk of letting a sworn enemy of America refuse to account for his weapons of mass destruction.


The Mission Accomplished banner was not at any order of the Bush administration. Evidence to this was it was NOT consistent with his speech. He said the major combat mission has ended. And that was true. He also said we have a lot of work left to be done in order to leave behind a free Iraq. And the Press torched him. Contrarily Obama went to the cameras to announce the conclusion of combat in Iraq, with less than proper recognition of Bush, and still to leave behind four thousand combat troops who were still engaged with the enemy. Reports from the Press have become at best second page news. No one Has asked Obama about the combat troops still in Iraq a year later. I raise the contrast to once again examine the convection required of one president compared to his immediate predecessor who was his number one critic, finding his place in the White House specifically through criticism of conviction.

The strategy of the insurgents of Iraq in 2006 said Bush on page 260 was to present an image of Iraq as hopeless and un-win-able, swinging American public opinion against the war and forcing us to withdraw as we had in Vietnam. This lesson that our enemy, enemy in waiting, will wait as long as it takes as a strategy leverage political agendas has yet to be learned by our President Obama. As I read this with the news of Qaddafi murder on the radio, I can only surmise that Obama's campaign stance against Iraq and Afghanistan portrays Obama making the right call. Yet his abstinence to react properly and with full conviction to a crime he is witnessing has positioned America as an accomplice to murder. The mere facts that he has retreated behind the guise of NATO and has used the distant voce of Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, only further develops the quagmire of international intrigue today versus the clear cut lines ever to be criticized found in Bush

In the events behind the Surge of troops in Iraq, Bush met with the survivors of over 550 fallen soldiers. He also read 14 biographies on Lincoln. He modeled after Lincoln in the midst of the reality of his unpopularity. Underscoring this introspective view Bush received daily briefings from the Situation Room, of the terror inflicted on Iraqi people. He also was apprised of the Iraqi people after realizing the Insurgents were not acting in their best interests, switching sides to the Americans. These were events that the Press chose to play down amidst the anti Bush drumbeat. It took real courage to put it all in the balance and make the right decision for the Surge. Courage and conviction will mark his presidency as even his successor in the announcement of success in Iraq failed to give proper recognition to the courage it took to lead not by popular opinion. I write this on the same day that I read about the UN voting, to restrain Qaddafi from his murderous terror. The difference here is Bush made it clear to the World what his convictions were. Obama simply followed the leadership of a foreign body. Amazingly, Americans once again find no fortitude to fight for freedom of ‘One Man’ as they let a border come between that which unites all men. And we have a president Obama, who like Clinton, who chooses to follow the leaders of Europe. In the end lives are at stake, no matter who leads. A sad note on American values when Obama and Clinton are favored over Bush. What Bush makes real clear in his book is the freedom of ‘One Man’ is the security of all men, including the United States of America.


Bush's chapter called Freedom agenda was a forty page summary of his diplomacy. What came out the ‘trot around the globe’ was a common theme. This is a mark of leadership akin to his father GH Bush, Reagan, Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt, Churchill, Wilson. He set a standard and formed a policy around that standard, and he produced a strategy, enabling him to execute on a tactical plan. That standard was an individuals right to freedom. Policy around that standard stated that where there is institutionalized freedom, there is a mitigation of risk on American security. Tactically, where freedom did not ring and those leaders responsible who also pledged eminent danger or threat to the United States were challenged first through diplomacy, and diplomacy's big brother...war. Like his decisions or not, they were clearly vetted, communicated and executed upon. When contrasting to his immediate successor as well as his predecessor I felt more secure in the same way 20th century Americans felt with the aforementioned leaders. This will be Bush’s legacy.


Other challenges:

The Bush presidency sponsored prescription drug programs under a Medicaid reform bill. It was well defined, well debated, and passed with a compromise bipartisan vote. It distributed risk which made it one of the few bills to come in significantly under budget.
Contrasted against Obamacare where a cloture vote along strict party lines against the will of the majority of the people finds the dichotomy in moral fortitude between Bush Republicans and Obama Democrats.

Looking at Bush's failed Social Security reform efforts finds a well stated case for reform and hardened uncooperative Democrats trumpeting that Bush was "privatizing Social Security which was inaccurate. The sad result on this the general public was trained to see Bush as a spender and his reform would have reduced the budget by xxxx and would have fixed the problem instead of passing it on to the next generation , not two generations but the very next one, where it will see it's doom.

The Katrina drama is explained in traditional memoir fashion rose colored lens, or was it? When told- from first person you come away with only criticism of the Press for admonishing a President for playing the role of President in a cast of incompetent leaders in Louisiana. The governor never allowed federal troops in to assist. By day five Bush over rode her. The Mayor did not order the evacuation in time. From a Presidential standpoint Bush admits that his performance was appropriate technically, but his public relations response deserved the outcry it got. Has Obama been guilty of PR gaffs? My first response is the Boston police incident, where he over reacted inappropriately. My second is Libya, where he has enough evidential authority to bring Qaddfi to justice for Lockerbee and does nothing while human beings are being murdered. While the world
looks for a President, Obama once again "votes present." Rather than simply take Qaddfi as a criminal, he abdicates the action to NATO of which the USA is the leading partner. The only fool in the scheme is Obama himself.

I dreaded the challenge of reading the last chapter Financial Crisis. Early on Bush brings me back over to his side. He first puts his personal view of economics forward to set the tone against the noise of the Press and his opponents ranging from Hillary Clinton to Barak Obama to Keith Oberman. Then he sets a few things straight First is our surplus was based on projections of a tech bubble that would continue which didn't. Second 9/11 caused a collapse of that galvanized a recession that was officially under way one month after he was sworn into the first term of office.

This I knew. What I didn't know was. GW Bush's debt to GDP ratio was a percentage point below the mark of the 20th century average. Additionally to assuage my criticism of his spending, he could not line item veto pork or earmarks. He had to look at a Bill in whole and sign it or not. Oddly enough now that Obama era Republicans in have sworn away earmarks, Democrats who were so quick to criticize Bush on the same now claim earmarks only represent four percent of the budget. I now find the need for an apology first to myself for allowing myself to be drawn in by rhetoric from the left. And then to our 44th president for conceding ground to the left.

On Freddie & Fannie: in Bush's 2003 budget in recognizing that they had morphed into an institution that exceeded it's charter beyond promoting home ownership, he proposed a bill that would regulate the GSE’s. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, ranking Democrats on the Fed Committee with friends, former Clinton administration officials running the GSE's, went on the record and said "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis". In 2005 Bush raised a more alarming call for action and put forth through Senator Richard Shelby a bill to regulate the GSE's. The Democrats blocked the bill from passing. A President can only sign into law bills put in front of
him. Democrats prone to criticize Republicans for not regulating failed to do just that at a most critical point in our nations financial 21st century history. By 2008 Bush called for reform seventeen times before the threat of a credit melt down and the eighteenth call was finely acted on. In 2010 we continue to harangue Wall Street for their role when the house of cards collapsed on failed mortgages which are directly connected to the GSE's and legacy policy of the Clinton administration.

In reading Bush's account I am curious as to how much paper in housing George Sorros and people like him had and sold it short. Could the stanch supporters of the Democrat Party who are so quick to criticize Republicans for failing to regulate have benefited from Barney Frank infamous statement? I believe the right investigative journalist could write a good book on this subject. Keep in mind it would put no one in jail because the Democrats blocked any regulation. But would have a new emphasis on the term full disclosure. One could only pray there is a wiki-leak as the key to an investigation.

Son of Hamas

Son of Hamas
By Mosab Hassan Yousef

This book first describes in a rational way the evolution of thought and it's subsequent behavior of an Islamic imam’s sanctioning of terror against it's oppressors. He, the father of the author of this book laid claim to the Quran's call for jihad as the protagonist agent. His claim however was one of default based both on the manipulation of men of power and the doctrine of the Quran. Son of Hamas details the systematic oppression of Palestinians, and police mentality akin to that of the 1770 British in our American rise to independence, the Palestinian mind, and their systematic method for continuous agitation of people to foster terror.

As Mosab Yousef approaches his father on the terrorist's killing of innocent Jews his father's answer implies the notion that they are not people. Yousef in the telling of the story draws on his reading of Act:8 where the people stone Stephen and Saul approves. In the context of the story to this point Mosab draws a parallel between the bible and the Quran. He asserts both giving approval to murder. With the Quran approval is found on the top rung of Islamic mandates, jihad. He doesn't quote it in his book so I immediately read Act:8 where the approval was found in forgiveness. In this divergence is the seed for Mosab to move away from the violence between Muslims and Jews and towards Christianity and eventually becomes a baptized Christian.

As the story is told the reader gets first hand experience of how an adult world of violence can shape a child’s mind. Beginning at pre-adolescence in Mosabs life the setting is pre second intifada (1980’s) and at a time where there was a segregation of Muslim Palestinian communities and Jewish communities in Israel and from a child’s view the life style of the Jew was a”one-over-the-other” arrangement where the Jew was far better off. The reality of strife had not set in until the burials at his local cemetery began to increase. This brought Mosab closer to the reality of the situation at hand from a Palestinian perspective. Being as such Mosab sympathized with his people and began throwing rocks and taking up arms, without full understanding the consequences.

Mosabs antics find him in a Israeli prison where the conditions from capture to detainment was brutal and torturous. An American reader fully appraised with our own self criticism would be aghast at the description of his treatment. At this point of the book the reader becomes critical of Israel in its oppression and torture of Palestinians. However this view is soon to change.

Appreciating that Mosab Hassen Yousef was actually the son of the Imam who is deemed one of the founding fathers of Hamas the Israeli intelligence agency decided to recruit him as a spy. To provide a cover rather than release him immediately they put him in a prison where conditions provided by the Israelis were better and this prison was largely dedicated to Hamas prisoners. As it turns out inside that prison Mosab witnesses a much harsher torture regime inflicted by Hamas on Hamas people to be sure they hold to their terrorist ways. Where Mosab’s agreement to spy had yet to be put to the test, what he witnessed convinced him that perhaps the Palestinian people were being manipulated by their own people. This eased his conscience on his role as a spy.

In his role as a spy the details of how Hamas activity works around a fog of procedure aimed at always keeping the Palistanian people agitated and dis-satisfied with their Israeli neighbor. Mosab begins to realize that perhaps the Palestinians were not being oppressed and the military law was merely a reaction to Palestinian civil unrest. The book clearly points to Yasser Arafat as a master puppeteer at the head of the PLA for his own selfish gains. When a peace agreement was offered for a Palestinian State within the State of Israel most Palestinians saw it as a workable solution for peace and were willing to sign the agreement. Arafat did not sign it and it is Mosab’s feeling from what he heard from inside is that agreement would mean an end to the bountiful flow if international funding to the PLA treasury for continued conflict. It was this flow of funding that caused people to stop their productive lives working side by side with Jews and instead takes up arms against them. This created friction between Hamas and the PLA and positioned the PLA to sell out both Hamas and his father to portray Hamas as the terrorist cell. Mosab’s father was manipulated to make statements in behalf of Hammas’s cause without knowing where the power was coming form or what the real agenda of the statements were. He, still ignorant to cause and effect of his actions, conceded in the name of Islam. With the death of Arafat the manipulation continued leaving Mosab and his father, the loved and blindly followed Imam puzzled as to who was pulling the strings. As it turns out, the men at the controls are actually not devout Muslims. They were men of selfish ambition taking advantage of a people’s religious doctrine that encourages jihad. I have read many other books where this is the case.

While this is a book review, the details are in this must read book. It helps a westerner including Russians and those of our brothers in India who daily meet with Muslim born terrorism, better understand the mind of a Muslim involved in terror. It helps you better understand how that mind is formulated. That Muslim mind is formulated from within Islam’s current agenda and not strictly founded in the Quran. The Western reaction has yet to find the keys to peace and wont if they allow the argument to be founded in a book debate. Ironically, is it truly a question of surrender to Islam, as the Quran spells out? While the doctrine of Christianity says surrender to God is the path to peace, one begins to question whether God and Allah are the same concept.

Alternatively, like in WWII’s Hitler it takes evil minds with ambitious agendas to dupe a people. Those people must have a historic formulation of traits that allow for the deception to give birth to terror, to be dupped. It is my opinion that the teachings of Islam lay the ground work for easy manipulation of people to commit terrorist acts. Today we see it in Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Russia, India, Europe, and here in America. Islam’s doctrine is suspect, but not the culprit. Because there is an overwhelming mountain of evidence where I will mention the word madrasa, the question seems to loom; are we at war with Islam or are we at war with terrorist, who happen to be Muslim? Is the answer in our strategy to fight that war? It was once a strategy that States that harbor the seeds to terrorism (madrassas) were the enemy. The new strategy is we are not at war with Islam and will never be at war with Islam as emphatically stated by our current president Obama. The word terrorist, code for gorilla soldiers, soldiers who are recruited in these Stated funded madrassas, soldiers who plot not in jungles or hills but in back rooms of our neighborhoods, has yet to be used in a strategy to combat those that intend us harm. In fact the word combat is now not applied to our mission in Iraq, albeit we have 4,500 combat trained U.S. soldiers still engaged in combat there. This new Obama strategy is akin to the strategy that was our undoing in Vietnam and Neville Chamberlain’s strategy in 1938. Is Obama the dupped ore is he part of the duping agenda of the power brokers of Islam? The fact that I raise that question alone raises another question. If we have doubt, do we have the right commander in chief?

In the end of the book Mosab is offered a ticket out of Israel. The offer was to Europe. Mosab refused as he saw his new home in America. This is something to be proud of and Mosab is someone that we should pay attention to. His message helps to understand what is going on yet falls short of the magic key to peace. Mosab Hassan Yousef’s visa is running out. He is at risk of having to return to a land where he would likely be meet doom. Since this legal immigrant is a contributing member of the American society with a message that must be heard by all people, could our questionable leader make a step to remove the doubt and write an executive order, a power he is fond of, to keep Mosab in a place where he can contribute to peace?

The Israel Test

The Israel Test
By George Gilder

What is your attitude toward people who excel you in the creation of wealth or in other accomplishment? Do you aspire to their excellence, or do you seethe at it? Do you admire and celebrate exceptional achievement, or do you impugn it and seek to tear it down? This in a nut shell is the Israel Test. In summary, some people admire success; some people envy it. The "enviers" hate Israel. I found while reading the book that those who fail the Israel test do so not with just Jews or Israelis but with all those who excel beyond their capabilities. It is rather the many people who collectively despise the minds of the few that this book is about. For it is the critical thinking mind that produces the fertile ground to advance mankind and the multitudes that envy the wealth they so justifiably earned.

But it is really more than that and this book peels back the layers of the onion and provides a cross-sectional view effect and cause. Specifically he describes accomplishments of Jews and then colludes with their causes. In the process he takes a critical view on leftward leaning thinkers like Barak Obama as they are never a cause for success in the form of a nurturing perspective. However they may be the cause from a survival or self defense perspective. In the mind of Gilder, Barak Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad albeit one Sunni and the other Shea, find themselves of like minds. Notice both men advance their agendas, by attacking their opponent to distract from the flaws of their own agenda. With this thought in mind you can imagine the “pearl in store” for Israel and America and really appreciate what it is that is at stake should they lose their momentum.

The book does an amazing bit of enlightenment to readers not familiar with accomplishments of Jews in America, Jews in Israel, and then Jews of the world. Ironically, while the book is about Jewish contributions to the world and therefore their necessity in the world, it is just as much about the foundation of capitalism within a democracy that allows for a people to move mankind forward. There is always a nagging question on the readers mind; surely excellence cannot be the sole domain of Jews can it? Without a capitalistic economy on a free democracy, the world would be stuck in a time warp of pre-industrial revolution era....Where Islam had been until oil brought a new dynamic on world order. Gilder takes a high horse posture in his presentation of Jewish accomplishment to set the reader up for the test, to answer the opening questions of this review.

On capitalism Gilder writes, “What makes capitalism succeed is not chiefly it's structure of incentives but it's use of knowledge and experience... Under capitalism knowledge grows apace with wealth. Democracy without capitalism has no content, since no power centers outside the state can form and sustain themselves. Without capitalism and free trade, self determination is a pretext for constant civil war, as each shard of nationality is sharpened into a sword implanted in it's own holy specified agenda, presumably defended by the United States or the United Nations. The critical test for democracy is it's ability to free human energies and intellect on the frontiers of human accomplishment.” To test to see if there is something evidently in the human mind, even when carefully honed at Oxford or at Sorbonne, that hesitates to believe in capitalism?

The actual trial on Israel , a Test on mankind as Gilder calls it, of which is taking ample space above the fold on the front pages of world newspapers does not completely hold Israeli’s without flaw. But he demonstrates that not only could Jewish people make adjustments to their own mistakes they were able to for the first time in the history of Palestinian people provide for an improvement in their standard of living. Gilder provides statistics of the land prior to the State of Israel and then specifically illustrates that in the time post the 1967 Six Day War and prior to the 1987 intifada, Palestinians saw significant, 40% year over year, gains in their living standard as they worked side by side with Jews. The trial is not about a fight over a small piece of land, but rather the Muslim’s refusal to work for and acknowledge a Jew for his accomplishments. In this the Muslims fail the Test. At a higher level “The Test “is about all mans’ willingness to work for and in the graciousness of those few people that make the standard of life for all better.

Gilder at times may appear to come across as an “in your face Jew”. However he is everything but and you learn that what is in your face is likely your own denial that the facts. So what is in your face is not Gilder but your own subconscious as Guilder enlightens you with ample cause and effect to demonstrate the world’s dependence on our passing the Israel Test. Where Israel is at the apex of a test for man kind is the culmination of Jewish success second only to the United States against a world of Islamic hatred for them. In this gauntlet under the umbrella of the United States as US citizens Jewish entrepreneurial prowess was given birth in a new and modern world. They then made their pilgrimage to Israel and continued under the protection of Western powers to found a democracy underwritten by capitalism and perpetuated entrepreneurial contributions enhance the living conditions of mankind.

They did this on a small piece of unproductive land that laid fallow under Islamic rule for 1,500 years. Could this test be applied else where? Will time allow India to demonstrate the same prowess? Absolutely and the reason for this is India like many western powers that have found success, are based in the freedoms within democratic law that allow the engines of capitalism to produce the advancement required to meet the needs of a modern world. I bring India in to the equation so that you can read the book and when challenged by the word Jew simply substitute Indian. This is not to slight either peoples, but rather to help you over come the “Jew in your face” reaction and afford a little objectivity as the facts settle in. When you read Gilders final chapter on his own Israel Test, you will appreciate that it is not an insult to awaken to a need for recognition and acceptance of the hand that feeds you, whether it be America, Israeli, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian. Gilder’s Israel Test is just that wake up call.
 
My notes:
Page 26 after the Arabs refused all offers of land for peace in the wake of the 1967 war, the Israelis inherited it by default. Under Israeli management, economic growth in the West Bank and Gaza surged for some twenty years? And the number of Arabs grew for roughly one million to almost three million in some 261 new towns while the number of Jews in territories rose merely 250,000, settled on land not exceeding 2% of the area of the West Bank. As the Israelis spurred development, Arabs thronged in to participate in it. Between 1967 and the first intifada in 1987, Arab settlers moving in from Jordan and other countries out numbered Israeli settlers by a factor of ten.

Page 27 Hostility toward Jews stems not from any alleged legal violation or untoward violence but from there exceptional virtues. This is the essence of anti-Semitism.

Page 46. In the 19th century Jews purchased land in Palestine a barren land under Arab rule with a poor economy they built an economy that attracted Arab and Jew alike. Arab population surged to 1.35 million the Jews grew to 650 thousand. The peace-process brought millions of dollars in foreign aid which shifted Palestinians from entrepreneurs to codependent ghetto violent male gangs and welfare queens.

Page 59. The concept of economic autarky is the chief cause of the poverty in the world. No one can be rich alone. Wealth is an effect of sharing and collaboration between an elite of capitalists and the insurgent new business rising around them. It is an effect of willingness of the young and less educated or less talented to work for the educated and able. It is a product of apprenticeship and learning followed by entrepreneurial rivalry. The success of the Israeli economy is not an imbalance that crates invidious gaps, it is a gap that summons new energies and new wealth.

All capitalist advance generates imbalances and disequilibrium. Growth is an effect of the dis-equilibrating activities of entrepreneurs, the creative destruction unleashed by rate feats of excellence.

Page 75 by delving down deep in the atom we rise up to a level of mathematical abstraction only glimpsed in the previous experimental science of the visible world.

But we do not, as Von Neumann supremely understood, rise all the way up. As Kurt Godel demonstrated in early twentieth century, and Von Neumann’s Goedel's first interpreter and greatest prophet, repeatedly showed, the symbolic logic driving both math an science - the computer and the quantum - is ultimately axiomatic. It cannot prove itself in it's own term but must rely on a set of assumptions outside the system.

Wealth springs from the minds of men, and, above all from the minds of a relatively few men who operate at the nexus of word and world - on the boarders of math and manufacturer - in the realm of the algorithm.

Page 81 Mathematics ultimately would repose on a foundation of faith. The universe rests on a logical coherence that cannot be proven but to which men must commit if they are to create

Page 104 until 1957 Israel was a high wage, secure job economy. It's economy was not producing. The absence of competition was a result in part of virtually complete protection from foreign competition afforded by import and exchange controls

Page 106 in the mid 1980's Yitzhak Shamir followed Reagan’s example and shortly after the USSR folded and allowed millions of scientist Jews to flee ti Israel. Being anti communist and intellectual gave Israel the engine to jolt them to scientific achievement at first rate based on entrepreneurial capitalism. Their brain power drew in capital which produced technological advancement at pace with the United States.

Page 109. The same forces of freedom unleashed on Israel in the 1990's could well dictate that fortunes will disappear within a few generations. It is a rigid rule of capitalism lm that over funded banks, are disasters waiting to happen, while small sums in the hands of a few exceptional men can yield equally unexpected riches.

Page127 Von Neuman was the paramount figure of the twentieth century science because he was the li k between the pioneered of quantum theory and the machines that won WWII, that prevailed in the Cold War, and the enabled the emergence of a global economy tied together and fructified by the internet. The entire saga is one fabric, woven largely by Jews.

Page 139 the Arab-Israeli conflict everywhere understood (wrongly in my view) as an impossibility embittered dispute over absurdly small patches of geography. The promise of a global network seamlessly providing near-infinite bandwidth indifferent to application is the promise, like almost every major economic advance for the past two hundred years, to render geography trivial.

Page148 Biological beings partake of the Godel proof of the limitations of symbolic logic - it's dependence on axioms that it cannot prove. Like mathematics, biological science depends on and transcends an orderly cosmos of monotheistic faith.

Page 155 Biology is a set of living algorithmic entities. Compile the biological entities into a database and apply the algorithms, and you can find the pathways to the inner logic of life.

The algorithmic thinking that fuels such ventures comes naturally to the gifted few. Without permitting the gifted and diligent to emerge, prevail, create, and ultimately rule the cpanding heights, there is no way to have a successful system based on the algorithms of a new economy.

Page 155 the Talpion system needs to be captured verbatim in the review. The system has vaulted Israel and India in engineering prowess.

Page 165. The successful allocation of capital, like the launch of a new technology, is an elegant expression if the capitalist law that mind rules and matter serves, just as squandering of capital can create havoc far beyond that wrought by any scarcity of goods.

Page 167 in the Period fro 1984 - 1990 evry significant reduction in top marginal tax rates anywhere I. The world for which we have decent data: economic growth surged, inflation fell ( down to 11 percent by 1993$, and tax receipts rose. And Netanyahu's reduction in personal tax rates continues - to a planned 39 percent by year 2015 down from 60% in 1980.

Page 173 Crucial to Netanyahu's is the power as a global financial center to transform the economics of the Middle East. Israel can become the "Hong Kong of the Desert" ultimately reshaped the Chinese economy of it's own image when Deng Xiaoping mimicked it's free economics in his free-zone program. Even the Taiwan and Communist China became turned capitalist and most of Taiwan’s investment moved to the mainland. Under Netanyahu, Israel can become a similar force in the Middle East, reaching out ti Palestinians and other Arabs.

My challenge is why can't this same approach be made in Iraq, Iran or any other country in the Middle East? Is entrepreneurial spirit lacking in Muslim people? Or do their Imams subdue it? There exists an equal comparisons by analysis available between India and The Muslim world.

Page 184 Conspicuous weakness is a prime cause of war.

Page 195. Von Neuman was always concerned with dynamic processes and saw that economic systems could not achieve equilibrium outside an environment of growth. Capitalism by nature is a positive sum game, in which every transaction theoretically can yield two or more winners. As long as the exchanges are voluntary, they will not occur unless both parties believe they will gain from them

Page 197. Newman's message is that civilization depends on long time horizons in repetitive games. In a single exchange, the rational policy is predatory. If predatory action brings success, a player is never induced to extend the time horizon. By accommodating aggression, a nation invites it. Peace requires the imposition of penalties on aggression.

A crucial element in all games is the discount rate, which determines the time value of the reward, the terms in which one can trade benefits now for the benefits over the long run. In economics this factor is quantified as the rate is quantified as the rate of interest.

Capitalism works because if it's long time horizons and low discount rates that optimize behavior. The time element is crucial to the deepening of capital and the generation of positive sum games.

The more players focus on politics rather than on economics, the more the game tends to deteriorate. Without capitalism, democracy is a zero sum game that leads to conflict and war.

Page 217 Netanyahu told Congress after 9/11 that there is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states...Terrorist are not suspended in mid air. The train, arm, and indoctrinate their killers fro safe havens in terrorists countries.... Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, North Korea. Until the world community applies 100% of their policy to not feed them in any way from business to negotiating with them terrorism will flourish at some level.

Over all notion of land for peace is in opposition to this idea.

Page 237 with regard to Israel' s survival not only are they the canary in the coal mine, they are an integral part of the coal mine