May 31, 2015

Dear Everyone,

This May has had the worst weekend weather.  I think it might have been okay last Saturday, but I was working, so I wouldn’t know.  Otherwise, they have uniformly been rainy and cold.  It is below 60 today!

It’s given me the opportunity to read.  I got out the Senate Select Committee report on Intelligence.  Of course, this 500 page book is the ‘executive’ summary of over 6000 pages (those lawyers just love paper).  I couldn’t read more than a tenth of this, but basically 1) The CIA was committing immoral, unethical and illegal acts (no surprise there), but their activities were also inefficient, unnecessary, and stupid.  Compounding this, they lied about (again no surprise), then lied about lying, then lied about lying about lying, etc.  So, in response to one of Dad’s questions about political candidates in his last letter, I would have to say that I am with Rand Paul on this one part of the platform.  There is a huge governmental overreach into surveillance that is illegal and a total waste of resources.  It needs to be examined, and, if not ended, at least reined in. Of course, I am not happy with the Republicans on a whole host of other issues as well, such that I doubt I could vote for any of them in the near future.

Speaking of intelligence services, I also read most of Amnesia by Peter Carey (http://www.amazon.com/Amnesia-A-novel-Peter-Carey/dp/0385352778).  Did you know the CIA perpetrated a bloodless coup in Australia in 1975? I certainly didn’t.  Unfortunately, the Amazon blurb makes this novel sound more interesting than I thought it was, and I skimmed the last third.  Too bad, because Peter Carey is a great novelist.  So too are my feelings about Neal Stephenson, of whose latest novel http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/books/review/seveneves-by-neal-stephenson.html?_r=0 I purchased a signed first edition through Kickstarter.  Seveneves has had great press, but it had too much about orbital mechanics (a subject hard to make exciting), cardboard characters, and some outlandish, ultimately unbelievable premises, especially in the end of the book.  I read a much better, shorter, and interesting end of the world dystopia recently on the recommendation of Jeff Brown, Immobility by Brian Evenson http://www.npr.org/2012/04/12/150301993/surviving-immobility-and-end-times.  Well worth the read, especially in contrast to Stephenson’s novel (hint - - both authors repopulate the earth with clones).  Finally, the most interesting of the recent bunch has been a personal history of behavioral economics by Richard Thaler, A U. Chicago economist who was one of its earliest proponents http://www.amazon.com/Misbehaving-The-Making-Behavioral-Economics/dp/0393080943 Thaler is a talented, convincing writer  - - I don’t know if he gives classes to undergraduates anymore, but I bet they were stimulating.

Other things of note:  Jasper and Cindy were in Indiana last weekend for a swim meet.  Jasper swam, among other races, a 1500 meter race in 19:20. Jasper and I saw Ex Machina http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ex_machina/ at a local movie theater that had double wide seats that reclined almost to a bed, and food/drink service during the movie.  Ex machine is about a sociopathic cybertech billionaire who is trying to create a true artificial intelligence, and gets one of his minions up to his isolated mountain estate to test it.  The movie has pretty good flow such that you don’t notice the plot holes until some time after the movie has ended.  I thought it was worth watching.  Meanwhile, I had some grilling problems on Memorial day.  The igniter went kaput (have ordered new one via amazon), also, gas ran out in middle of cooking (we had salmon burgers with spinach and feta cheese and chicken Italian sausage, both from Whole Foods, as well as ginger beer floats (root beer is better).

Nicola was in Milwaukee (her impression - - it’s so cute, trying to be a big city and all.)  Lucas missed out an opportunity to play tennis with Roger because of rain, but he and Cindy did go to see a couple of the IL state championship matches that were moved indoors.  The Hinsdale Central Boys Tennis team won state again (fourth year in a row).  Moreover, Hinsdale Central won an unprecedented eight State Championships over the course of this school year—the girls soccer team has advanced to the state tournament...so stay tuned.  And the Blackhawks made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Love, H.