"...like listening to a very charming mountain speak..."

So says Philip Levine about poet Adam Fitzgerald. He published The Late Parade in 2013.

Dwight D. Eisenhower on leadership

 “Now, look, I happen to know a little about leadership. I’ve had to work with a lot of nations, for that matter, at odds with each other. And I tell you this: You do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it’s usually called ‘assault’ — not ‘leadership.’” He went on: “I’ll tell you what leadership is. It’s persuasion, and conciliation, and education, and patience. It’s long, slow, tough work. That’s the only kind of leadership I know, or believe in, or will practice.”

Jon Meacham, NY Times, December 29, 2017, Donald Trump and the limits of the Reality TV Presidence

Spiritually ambitious Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Once you give up survival at any price, 'then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in astonishing ways." It teaches friendship. You learn the most valuable thing is "the development of the soul."

And so Sozhenitsyn concluded, "Bless you, prison, for having been in my life."

David Brooks Sidney Awards, Part 1, including Gary Saul Morson's essay, "Solzhenitsyn's Cathedrals" in The New Criterion, NYTimes, 12/16/2017

President Trump's declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital unites foes in Malaysia

"Today, regardless of our political beliefs, we gather to show that as Muslims in Malaysia we are united in opposing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"There are 1.6 billion Muslims. There are only 13 million Jews. It does not make sense if 1.6 billion lose to the Jews. If we don't unite, we will be looked down on."--Prime Minister Najib Razak Malaysia

Mr. Najab has been embroiled in a corruption scandal involving billions of dollars missing from the government's 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund which he led. While the US Treasury Department maintains that the IMDB's coffers were the source of hundreds of millions of dollars that ended up i Mr. Najib's bank account, the Malaysian prime minister has developed a close relationship with Mr Trump. Withe the IMBD case hanging over him, Mr. Najib has expressed gratitude for the support from Mr. Trump.

But at Friday's rally, Mr. Najib said his personal ties with Mr. Trump did not change his support for Palestine. "It is our duty as Muslims to uphold the first Shariah principle, which is to defend Islam."

excerpts from NYT article, December 23, 2017

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

The charismatic Siberian baritone who won critical acclaim and devoted fans around the world for his burnished voice, uncanny breath control and rueful expressivity, died on Wednesday in London. He was 55.

There "have been many beautiful voices," the soprano Renee Fleming said, "but in my opinion none more beautiful than Dmitri's."

In recent years, Mr. Hvorostovsky felt an increasing attachment to his homeland. IN his interview with The New Yorker, he recalled a concert he gave at 22 with fellow singers and instrumentalists in a bread factory in central Siberia in below-freezing weather. The audience, wearing fur hats and warm boots, was overcome.

Those tears, Mr. Hvorostovsky said, "were more precious to me than all the applause I could ever get again."

NYT November 23, 2017

Trump's NAFTA negotiations

The United States has called for raising that threshold for the automobile industry to 85 percent, up from 62.5 percent previously. And it has asked for a new requirement that half of a car be manufactured solely in the United States--a provision at odds with the wishes of American automakers, who fear it will drive up their costs and make them less competitive globally.

Canadian and Mexican officials did not make specific counterproposals to these requests. Instead, they presented data showinbg the harm the proposition would inflict on the auto sector and pressed the United Stats to explain its reasoning.

That response frustrated the United States.

NYT November 22, 2017

Hurricanes and government flood insurance and disaster funding

"We ought to call federal flood insurance what it actually is," as Phil Bedient, an engineer and colleague of Mr. Blackburn's at Rice, put it. "It is subsidized floodplain development." The Netherlands--the global gold standard for water management--does not offer a national flood insurance program for just this reason.

The problem is that hurricanes and floods, worsened by climate change, do not recognize political borders or county lines Their toll is shared by everyone. The latest estimate from Moody's puts recovery from Harvey at $81 billion, much of which will end up paid by taxpayers across the United States.

Harris county demands that new developments retain enough rainwater on site to neutralize the effects of a 100-year storm. But those 100-year numbers date back years. They are based on mitigating a storm that averages 13.2 inches of rain in 24 hours. Harvey brought 25.9 inches in 24 hours. The Memorial Day flood dropped 11 inches in three hours. The Tax Day flood dumped 17 inches in 12 hours in the Katy Prairie.

"Looking back, should we have spent more to avoid some of the flooding?" Judge Emmett asked, rhetorically, when we met in his office. "Sure. Did taxpayers want to pay more to do those things? No." 

" We need a whole new structure of governance," he insisted. "We've built in watersheds, paved roades and highways because we don't have mass transit. Inevitably, it all catches up with us."

NYTimes November 12, 2017, "Houston After Hurricane Harvey"