Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance - Book Review

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (Harper Collins, 2016, $12.59/15.99) has been on the NY Times Best Seller List for forty-nine weeks, and at the time of this writing, stands at number two. This touching, revealing, warm, sad, and inspiring memoir, written by a Yale Law School graduate whose childhood was spent in the hills of eastern Kentucky and the migrated community of Middletown, OH, opens many sores while explaining in the most human and personal terms possible the pain and misunderstanding that harms working class and poor white Americans in the Hheartlands. Throughout this tale Vance sometimes mentions findings of academic studies and other research, using them to support or introduce his own poignant experiences, but, most of all, this is the story of one man's ability to persevere in an environment where success such as he has experienced is rare, and , according to him psychically costly as well as economically expensive.

Living within a home with serial father figures coming and going and an alcoholic, drug addicted mother, he attributes the source of his core values to life in rural Jackson, Kentucky in the hills and hollers of Appalachia with his Mamaw and any number of uncles and cousins. He describes on academic paper in which the authors suggest that “hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist, a characteristic of bluegrass music, too. Vance refuses to look the others way.

Vance tracks the two major migrations from Appalachia to the industrial mid-west, particularly Middletown, OH, which were mirrored in the South, mid-South and New England, the depression era migrations and the post-WWII migration of returning veterans. He examines how the regions prospered and then died off with the decline of America industrial might, leaving abandoned neighborhoods, unemployment, and drug dependency behind, attributing this to both bad government policies and globalism.

Vance consistently refers to himself and his family as being poor and then at other times being “working class.” Joan C. Williams, in White Working Class seems to make a clear distinction between the two while Vance vacillates. He talks about “his people,” Kentucky migrants to southern Ohio, as often living off the dole, not working, and being plagued by drugs and violence, yet also talks about an uncle who escapes to the middle class, and his mother who, despite being an addict, was a nurse who was able to work a good deal of the time. He glories, however, in his extended family, his many uncles who provide him with male role models in both positive and negative ways. At times he seems remarkably judgmental, while at others, forgiving.

As Vance matures through adolescence, he begins to see the disjointures between both liberal and conservative points of view. He sees many of the government programs as well meaning but ineffective while the conservative solutions were disciplinary and draconian. In his reading of sociology, while in high school, he began to realize that the situation of black people described in his readings about black America contained the same dilemmas as did the lives and existence of the white working poor from Appalachia. “Our Elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.” (144) He's writing about religion, work, and family when he observes the deep “cognitive dissonance between the world we see and the values we preach.” (147)

As Vance prepares to attend Yale Law School he explains in touching, no-holds-barred language why a person like him, growing up in poverty, bedeviled by the rigors of having a drug addicted mother living with multiple husbands, and seemingly inured to violence and loss could reject the attractions of both the left and the right. These chapters, presented within the context of an actual life lived in poverty and difficulty, if not despair, bring so many working class and poor white men, especially, to accept so much patently untrue or misleading material in seeking to understand who they are, why they got that way, and how difficult it is to extricate oneself. In short, Vance asserts, it's easier for many to blame “the other” than it is to do the hard analysis of one's own choices, accept the verdict, and get to work to change things. What sets J.D. Vance apart is his ongoing optimism, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Interestingly, Hillbilly Elegy can also stand as a “How To” book for those seeking to find their own way to a different place in both the workplace and in society. For instance, the non-verbal behavioral cues of social class are significantly different than the behaviors that pass for progressing in working class employment and social environments. Vance shows himself always to be exceptionally alert to what's going on around him. As he gains in self confidence, his ability to ask questions of those he trusts increases. He's also a very fast learner. Nevertheless he owns to deep feelings of abandoning the culture from which he comes while yearning to become part of that with which he's not, yet, thoroughly familiar. However, the struggle is neither easy nor always successful.

J.D. Vance

Throughout Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance scatters data and information from relevant sociological and psychological writing to illuminate the points he makes, to give them a solid theoretical context. Such use of accurate research information never seems intrusive or fault-finding. Rather, it seeks to help a reader generalize from the highly personal revelation of the pain and confusion of Vance's childhood. It helps the reader gain understanding and perspective without ever excusing either those who raised him or his own mis-understandings, missed paths, and possibly botched relationships. He bravely opens the scars on his psyche, examines them, faces their consequences, and comes out the other side a stronger and better person. His painstaking honesty with the reader and his courage are never in doubt. This is not a book for the reader to quarrel with. Rather, it requires being good listeners, seeking to find the truths as they apply to them. Some would prescribe better, more effective programs. Others view the problems of poverty and drug addiction as the fault of the victim. While, ultimately, Vance looks towards personal responsibility for life, he fully understands the necessity for a compassionate government and individual acceptance of responsibility working together to make progress possible for all. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle app.  

Meeting of IBMA Local Organizing Commitee in Raleigh

Yesterday we were honored to be asked to attend a meeting of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for World of Bluegrass and Wide Open Bluegrass held in the conference room of  Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitor's Bureau in the Bank of America building in downtown Raleigh. As you might imagine, the staffs of the Raleigh Convention Center and the RCVB have been shaken by the legislature's passing of the discriminatory HB2 and its effect upon the business climate in North Carolina generally and the City of Raleigh specifically. 

Local Organizing Committee Chairs

When we travel, we make it a point to listen to local radio (mostly NPR affiliates) and to watch television news. We like to try to gain more than a superficial understanding of the places we visit. On our way north from Florida, we had listened to Governor Nathan Deal's courageous veto speech of similar legislation in Georgia, citing its effect on the growing business community in his state as well as mentioning the progress made in the state in terms of broad non-discrimination. 

When we arrived in North Carolina, we heard a great deal about HB2, its effect on the climate and reputation of the state as well as varying reactions to it. Television news leads almost every evening with the story. Several states have refused to allow people traveling on state funds to come to North Carolina while HB2 stands. Performers like Bruce Springsteen, Ryan Adams, and Ringo Starr have cancelled performances in the State. This questionably promulgated legislation has had a real impact on North Carolina. 

The Shimmer Wall Overlooking the Red Hat Amphitheater

Statement Issued by the Raleigh Convention Center Concerning HB2:

"The Raleigh Convention Center will continue to support all customers and visitors with respect and care regardless of race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. This position is in alignment with our city’s policy of nondiscrimination. House Bill 2, recently passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, does not reflect the values of our facility. We are privileged to serve a diverse public who contribute immensely to the strength and vitality of our area. It is of the utmost importance that all attendees feel comfortable in our facility; and our staff will make every reasonable accommodation to ensure our guests feel welcome. Our mission is to provide an outstanding customer experience that assures that the needs of all customers are met."

Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane

The Mayor of Raleigh, Mary McFarlane, a strong supporter of IBMA and bluegrass music, issued the following statement on the City of Raleigh's web site:

“Raleigh is a welcoming, diverse city that draws its strength from many areas. We have always been a place where people respect each other’s differences and understand that those differences make us stronger. We still have many questions as to the effect of HB2 on our City processes. Our legal staff is conducting a careful review and we hope to have more insight as to the bill's impacts in the coming days. And while HB2 may affect some of our legal language, it does not change our hearts.
Raleigh will always be open to everyone. Everyone. We will continue to support all of our businesses, citizens and visitors with the utmost respect, regardless of race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Raleigh is great because our people are great. Together, we have created a place like no other. And nothing about that has changed. We will continue to work together, cherish each other and move forward with dignity and respect."

Laurie Okun - Raleigh Convention Center

William Lewis - Pinecone Executive Director

Meanwhile, we were amazed at the energy, thoughtfulness, hard work, and consideration of the sometimes competing needs of IBMA and the City of Raleigh as they work to prepare for this major event coming up in five months. Laurie Okun, of the Raleigh Convention Center , Loren Gold representing the Greater Raleigh Visitor's Bureau and Convention Bureau (GRCVB), and William Lewis, Executive Director of Pine Cone, a regional arts council, function in lead positions with the support of a dozen committees working to support World of Bluegrass and Wide Open Bluegrass, a partnership between the City and IBMA, run during the last week of September. When you arrive in late September, it will all seem to work in concert, but getting it to that state of affairs requires more work than any attendee can imagine. There are heads of a dozen committees meeting to coordinate activities: Streetfest, Community Activation, Arts Activation, Sponsorship, Finance, Marketing/Branding, Media, Volunteers, Business Development, VIP Care, Technology, and The Bluegrass Ramble. Each of the individuals have oversight of a committee charged with the developing that aspect of the effort. Many of the people in the room were chairs of one or more committees, while serving on several others, too. Liaison between the various elements in Raleigh and IBMA is ongoing and constant.  

Loren Gold - GRCVB

It was clear, throughout the meeting, that those participating were capable, willing, and eager-working to balance the interests of Raleigh with those of IBMA. It should go without saying, that good partners recognize that they are most effective when they work for the mutual benefit of all people involved in the enterprise. Examples of this spirit of cooperation ran deeply through the morning's discussions. For instance, the question of coordinating and strengthening the role of IBMA affiliates at the state and local association level was emphasized several times, in terms of recruiting volunteers and helping to boost IBMA membership. Another example was emphasizing the importance of supporting and fortifying the concerts at the Red Hat Amphitheater, which have replaced IBMA's Fan Fest as the major external fund raiser for the organization.

Wide Open Minds - Produced by The Raleigh Convention Center - Video

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick - Book Review

I've often read about Richard Feynman, the Novel Prize winning American physicist and mathematician, who's noted both for his scientific achievements, his wit, and his idiosyncratic behavior, but have avoided this biography, thinking that a mind of such breadth and achievement in a field so mysterious to me would not be something I would enjoy. But I knew it would contain something to teach me. In Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick, originally published by Random House in 1992 and widely available in used and e-book formats (Open Road Media, 489 pages, Kindle edition $4.27) I found myself to be both fascinated and entertained in coming to grips with a mind that searched for an understanding of the universe alongside the likes of Newton and Einstein.

While the science and mathematics in this fine book completely elude me, the genius of the man as well as his faults, humor, and passion for seeking and understanding of creation's deepest secrets shine though as a result of Gleick's wonderful writing and ability to place the un-undertandable into language, analogy, and metaphor to make Feynman's work almost comprehensible, while the complex, difficult man emerges in whole. As with other fine biographies, the reader willing to become immersed within the character, comes away with a deeper understanding of the subject as well as the self.

The outline of Feynman's life reveals a man born to secular Jewish parents in Queens, NY in 1918 and raised in a slightly unconventional family that valued seeking and problem solving. He attended public schools where he quickly excelled in math and science, as well as demonstrating a slightly skewed, always intellectually creative mind that kept on grinding out ideas for the next fifty-some years. He attended MIT for his undergraduate degree and Princeton to complete his PhD. Throughout his academic career, from high school through university, he was always recognized as having a mind forging beyond others because of its unique flexibility and facility at finding connections others did not see. His work on the Manhattan project, building the atomic bomb, and later at the Cal Tech, where he was a popular and dynamic lecturer were always groundbreaking. He shared in the 1965 Novel Prize.

Beyond Feynman's superb academic work, including his ability to see connections none had imagined before him, the interest in Feynman remains strong because of his personal life and the personal side of his professional life. Feynman had a quirky sense of humor, a wide and varied sex life, loved Brazilian music and drumming. Feynman married his highschool sweetheart Arline Greenbaum, who was ill with tuberculosis at the time. The marriage was, apparently more spiritual than connubial because of his fear of a pregnancy's risk to her life. Their letters are models of love and devotion. After Arline's death, he married twice more. One surprising, to me, element was Feynman's participation, late in his life, in the investigation of the 1986 Challenger disaster. His research and insights proved that the disaster, which cost the lives of seven American astronauts, grew from NASA's concern for public relations which over-rode safety concerns, causing the inevitable failure of the O-rings connecting the stages to each other and leading to the crash. His work was relegated to an appendix, where it received little notice.

James Gleick

However, the outlines of Feynman's life are not what makes Genius such a wonderful book, nor are the accounts of his achievements in mathematics and theoretical physics. There's another genius at work in this book, too: the author James Gleick, recognized as “one of the great science writers of all time.” Gleick has the ability to find analogies and make relatively clear the extremely difficult and abstract ideas Feynman expressed for the first time and then developed from a theoretical base into living experiments and real weapons. His lively writing maintains interest and challenges the imagination. Gleick had access to original sources including Feynman's letters to his wife and the reminiscences of his teachers, fellow scholars, and former students from throughout his well-documented career. In fact, fully a third of this book contains footnotes and resources for other reading, so don't feel daunted by its length. Gleick is the author of a number of other highly regarded science books, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award three times each.

The Life andScience of Richard Feynman by James Gleick was originally published by Random House in 1992. Although it is twenty-three years ago, the book is still relevant to today, interesting, and wonderfully readable. James Gleick is a master researcher who turns his work into spun gold. In the end, Richard Feynman comes alive through James Gleick's portrayal of him. For anyone interested in science, scientists, or a great read, this is a must-read book. It is available in all formats, new and used. Recently, I've found Thrift Books to be my go to source for used books in good condition. This book is available through Thrift Books beginning at a cost of $3.79. They have been completely reliable, and I recommend this resource for people whose reading is done on a budget.

Atul Gawande - Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gowande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Macmillan, 2014, 300 pages, $26.00/12.99) confronts each reader with an inevitability that must catch all of us: Death. Everyone is going there. From the moment we are born, it's where we're headed. No matter how much we live and strive to enjoy, make meaningful, explore, and understand our life, we're all headed to the end of what's knowable. Gawande has written a much praised and read exploration, handbook, and inspiration designed to help those facing their own mortality or charged with being responsible for the dignified end of life for their loved ones. This book poses several questions which we must answer as we head down this path:

1. What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes?
2. What are your fears and hopes?
3. What trade-offs are you willing and unwilling to make?
4. What is the best course of action to achieve this understanding?

Simply put, answering these four questions will help structure the way a person approaches death and how family members can help. The book also stands as a beacon for medical practitioners, most of whom have not been trained or learned themselves in helping their patients find answers to these questions such that the they themselves can aid in answering the them rather than obstructing the solutions or striving endlessly to put off the inevitable.

Atul Gawande

Gawande, who is a McArthur genius award recipient and writes frequently for The New Yorker, is a general and thoracic surgeon practicing at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston as well as teaching at Harvard Medical School. In Being Mortal Gowande seeks to achieve several goals, and does so in an effective an entertaining fashion. He notes that changes in society have led to a move away from extended families living in the same home for a lifetime. When several generations live together, they are able to care for the aging at home, giving them the love and respect they have earned through their working lives. He tells stories about his own family, in India, as examples of a society that still functions in this way. In America, we've developed into a culture where children leave home to go out on their own, leaving death and dying in the hands of the medical establishment, rather than the home and family. He notes that the education of physicians, trained to fight ceaselessly to prolong life, has not traditionally focused on helping to ease people through end-of-life situations where the end is inevitable, but whose timing is not easily predictable. Gowande, a lively and interesting story-teller, uses case studies of families and care institutions to describe the changes developing in modern society with its increasing average age.

He describes some of the alternatives to the “old folks home” that have developed since the 1960's in response to changes in retirement patterns and the development of Medicare. He writes about a young rural doctor who developed the idea of assisted living as an alternative to nursing homes for the aging and aged. Other people people re-designed low income housing to allow aged people to maintain their independence longer while being in a setting where resident nurses and aides were on-site and professional medical care nearby. For people with greater means, residential life-care facilities have been developed. All these alternatives have, at their center, the goal of helping the aging to remain as independent as they can for as long as possible, while preparing them the slow (or not so slow) descent into disability or dementia. He bemoans the fact, that while we live in an aging society, the country has chosen, as a matter of policy, to allow the specialty of gerontology to whither on the vine as more glamorous and remunerative specialties have flourished.

Readers can use this book as a guide to thinking about and planning for their own end-of-life experience in order to make the most of it. As Gawande describes the aging process, everyone will experience increasing loss of mobility, the risk of injury from falling, the chances of debility from disease, all leading to increasing dependence and inability to care for one's self. Placing yourself in a position to experience as much comfort as possible as the process moves toward death is the goal. Reducing suffering and fear, finding ways to prepare, is challenging, but possible. Gowande describes the alternatives in graphic, but caring, fashion telling how the decline and death of patients has affected family members, physicians whose perspective is to continue fighting off death, and the patients themselves as, with the aid of family, friends, and medical personnel they seek to die with dignity and fortitude. While most people don't think of their doctors in terms of compassion, that's the word that best comes to mind for Gawande as he learns from his patients, the pioneers in gerontology he interviews, and elder care facilities he visits to introduce them to his readers.

Finally, Gawande describes Hospice as a way to approach the end with dignity in one's home under managed circumstances. Hospice emphasizes palliative care, i.e pain relief, and home care as one approaches death. The research has shown that in Hospice, people go to the hospital less often, when given the choice, and live longer. Palliative care seems to relieve stress and anxiety, relieving patients from continually fighting the illness. Gawande comments “...you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer.” (pg. 178) He emphasizes the importance of advance directions concerning treatment, whether resuscitation is an alternative, how aggressive the treatment should be. He introduces an analogy comparing General George A. Custer, of Last Stand fame, with Robert E. Lee, as models for knowing when to fight and when to surrender. He redefines the role of the physician from insuring health and survival to working to enable well-being as death encroaches.

There are no easy answers to questions regarding death and dying. Gowande helps readers to think about their own deaths, and to engage in a process of preparing for it with grace and dignity. He talks more about easing suffering than he does about delaying death and curing disease in the elderly. These are not easy topics to read about in the abstract, let alone to seek to apply to one's own life. Nevertheless, the questions Gawande raises are of deep and abiding importance to those of us who are aging (that means everyone) and useful for thinking about death and preparing to face it. The earlier one thinks about these issues and makes plans to face them, the easier the days of decline are likely to be. Meanwhile, as we watch Gawande deal with his own father's decline as a physician and a loving son, we are brought into place where such thinking becomes not only possible, but desirable. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Macmillan, 2014, 300 pages, $26.00/12.99) by Atul Gawande is a book that every reader should include in their library. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle App.  

Epic Measures by Jeremy N. Smith - Book Review

Epic Measures: One Doctor, Seven Billion Patients by Jeremy N. Smith (HarperWave, 2015, 352 pages, $26.99/13.59) explores and explains the importance of “big data” in analyzing the state of world health, discovering the actual causes and relative importance of death, disease, and examining the burden of disease at it affects people's quality of life. This important and illuminating book explores the causes of what it describes as the Global Burden of Disease, the accumulated knowledge of when, where, and how people are born and die, how disease affects not only lifespan, but quality of life. To accurately discover this information, it's necessary to collect, collate, compare data down to the level of small towns and villages. The development of the data base required for this program is perhaps the most complex and important compilation of information about the state of humankind ever attempted, let alone accomplished. Its implications for health care delivery and policy are world shaking. The opportunities are truly breathtaking. This exploration and accomplishment is told through the life and career of Chris Murray, a physician, PHD epidemiologist, world traveler, high risk skier, and first rate athlete who possesses the passion, energy, intelligence, and vision to conceive and complete the largest catalog of human health ever contemplated and achieved. This book is both inspiring as Murray the person is revealed and important as it explores the potential for solving many problems in world health.

Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray

Christopher Murray is the youngest child of Minnesota physicians who gloried in world adventure travel and rural medical practice. At the age of seven, he was made responsible for charting a route across the trackless north African dessert to a small medical clinic in South Sudan, where his parents had contracted to run a clinic. When they arrived they found a bare building with no equipment, staff, or patients. Within a few days there were plenty of patients, but no medicine or equipment. During their stay, young Christopher learned and watched, developing a lifelong passion for the needs of the poor. He later enrolled at Harvard College, spent a couple of years at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he picked up a Ph.D. and, soon after his return to the U.S. Enrolled at Harvard Medical School, while simultaneously running a program dedicated to collecting health data. Everyone who knows Christopher Murray is impressed by his intelligence, energy, commitment, and likability. His drive and single-minded commitment to collecting and organizing an entire world's health data make him a challenging colleague, a demanding boss, and a problematic leader. His personality dominates this book, which is filled with able, dynamic people.

While still a relatively young man, Murray managed to be fired from institutions which lesser men strive to head or serve in for decades. Along the way, he developed metrics for creating a data base of the causes, losses, and risks of a number of diseases on a world-wide scale. Many of his studies were accepted and published in the world's most important health journal, Britain's The Lancet. He also conceived and helped develop a metric called Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) which recognizes the costs to quality of life and longevity of pain and suffering. He discovered that many of the heretofore intractable problems of obstetric disaster and child mortality had decreased loss at the level of early life, moving many diseases and issues of adolescence and early adulthood into a higher priority. Thus accidents, murder, HIV/AIDS, and diabetes forged into the forefront of causes of early death. Not surprisingly the inertia of national health agencies and world wide collectors of data were challenged for their hidebound and sloppy systems of collection, while private and public charities resisted Murray's findings because of the threat to their fund raising capability. It was only after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation discovered Murray's work and established the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, that Murray and his team found a base from which to begin completion (the data base will never, of course, be fully and finally complete) of the first global catalog of the Burden of Disease, a data base available to all for study, analysis, and data-based decision making. The interactive charts and diagnoses, made available free worldwide to researchers, health care decision makers, and private individuals, can provide hours (years) of fascinating reading and analysis for those interested in both general matters and specific risks of specific diseases and syndromes. Take a look!

The overall analysis can pinpoint issues and diseases for health care decision makers examining the cost effectiveness and efficacy of health care efforts at the global, national, and local levels. If the death panels that Sarah Pallin claimed would be a result of the Affordable Care Act (Obama care) existed, this is where they would exist. Instead, the Global Burden of Disease data base makes rational decision making about the efficacy and efficiency of health care decisions available and allows decision making based on available resources with the assumption that each life is as worthy as every other life. Playing with the data base is fun, too!

Jeremy N. Smith

Jeremy N. Smith has written for Discover, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Chicago Tribune, among many other publications. His first book, Growing a Garden City, was one of Booklist's top ten books on the environment for 2011. Born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, he is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Montana. He lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and young daughter. (Publisher Profile)

Jeremy N. Smith's important book Epic Measures: One Doctor, Seven Billion Patients (HarperWave, 2015, 352 pages, $26.99/13.59) works well on two levels. It offers a fascinating portrait of Dr. Christopher Murray, a physician and epidemiologist, whose driven commitment to accumulating accurate data to catalog the state of world health in order to help develop policies and practices leading to its improvement led to the publication of the data in the Global Burden of Health. At the same time, Smith describes the turf wars and bureaucratic in-fighting of the health industry (for want of a better name) serving to maintain the status-quo and cater to parochial self-interest. The tension developed between Murray's drive against the lethargy and obfuscation of the world's health powers forms the central themes of this intriguing and illuminating tale. I recommend it highly to those who are interested in health care policy and maintaining personal health practices leading to longer, happier lifespans. Spending some time studying the web site linked to above and here can increase the power of this story. I read Epic Measures as an electronic galley provided by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it on my Kindle app.

The End of College by Kevin Carey - Book Review

In The End of College: Creating theFuture of Learning and the University of Everywhere (Riverhead Books, 2015, 288 pages, $27.95/11.99), Kevin Carey presents a view of the modern American hybrid university as dysfunctional and ineffective on the basis of learning, cost, and inappropriateness for the contemporary high tech world in which learning and learners are widely dispersed while educational opportunity is closely held, elitist, and unfocused. His argument is persuasive and his examples of a cheap, learning-based, highly computerized, and virtually free emerging alternative is both inspiring and more than a little unsettling. While the examples of new alternatives for learning and research are clear and real, he is considerably less effective at presenting alternatives for many of the goals of college life, including development of relationship skills, learning to live in a more diverse interpersonal world, and the essentially social nature of youth. His narrative also falls short in supporting his claim of a virtually free education, because the enterprise he describes is hugely expensive, yet he doesn't explain effectively a structure for providing financial support for the development of courses and learning experiences. Nevertheless, this is an important book presenting a seemingly utopian view of a future where opportunity is based on what people have learned and how they perform rather than how well they have taken tests and what they can afford.

Carey makes a strong case for the obsolescence of the contemporary multi-layered university, which he characterizes as the “hybrid university.” He presents a solid history of teaching and learning, going back to the days of Socrates sitting in the Forum of Athens throwing questions at his small group of students. He spends a good deal of time on how, as the dark ages were coming to an end, learning communities developed in Bologna, Paris, and in England, first at Oxford and later at Cambridge, where students came together in groups (called colleges) which organized together to form universities. In America, the first college was founded at Harvard in 1636, largely as a place to train ministers, who spread the gospel and essential learning first throughout the colonies and then across the nation. Harvard was, and remains, the model for the elite American college. However, as America emerged as a nation and spread across its vast continent, three conflicting goals emerged: education for liberal arts, education for vocational ends, and research brought together in what Carey describes as the hybrid university.

Because the hybrid university distributes its rewards based on the research it produces, the goal of teaching undergraduates has become less and less important, although they are necessary for the money they bring in, and to stand as the base of a pyramid with august scholars, teaching few, if any, courses, at the top. This structure is complicated by the difficulty, impossibility, of finding accurate ways to measure learning, set standards, agree to core learning experiences, or define an educated person. The system becomes based on the accumulation of (usually) 120 credit hours distributed among three hour, fifteen week courses and lasting, ideally, four years. Awarding of degrees is, thus, based on time spent rather than material learned. The brand name of the institution becomes increasingly important for being hired in high paying positions, allowing Harvard, Yale, Stanford and their like to emerge as the schools of choice for primarily those who can afford it and gain admission. Thus admission becomes increasingly expensive and families become willing to assume crushing levels of debt. While American colleges and universities have been democratized by the development of land grant colleges specializing in agriculture and technology and community colleges providing low level arts and vocational experiences for high school graduates, the system is top heavy, expensive, and not clearly learning oriented.

But Carey's book is not merely an indictment. He presents what he calls the University of Everywhere and gives clear and clearly superior examples of how it is emerging as the computer becomes increasingly interactive, cheap, ubiquitous and competitive. The centers of this progress are located in some of the hybrid universities Carey has been writing about: Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford. Particularly at these institutions, scholars and technical wizards have recognized the capacity of the computer to respond at the keystroke level to how and what students are learning in order to pace additional instruction at precisely the right speed to assure learning and retention, while developing ways to recognize accomplishment and demonstrate such acquisition to potential employers. In other words, they have revolutionized instruction, evaluation, and certification. This revolution has been developed largely in the soup of start-up corporations surrounding Palo Alto, California (Silicon Valley) and Boston, where vast amounts of venture capital have been made available for people developing ideas about how to tap the broad world of those seeking to improve their lives through eduction, numbering in the billions.

The solutions are based upon the development of MOOCs. Mass Open Online Courses, which can and are made available at little or no cost to students seeking the skills and knowledge made available. Carey writes about the precursor instructional tools (computer assisted education, so-called distance learning, online lectures, and more), presenting them as early primitive efforts in what is an increasingly sophisticated, interactive, and evolving technology. The courses are apparently more widely distributed in math, science, and foreign languages because they are easier to sequence and measure, but also encompass almost the entire universe of introductory and some highly advanced areas of study. As prestige schools begin to offer them, they are, surprisingly, enrolling hundreds of thousands of students from around the world, some from remote areas like Mongolia, where a young student made such an impression he has been awarded a scholarship at MIT. This information is all presented through interesting and lively interviews with and profiles of the innovators, both scholars and entrepreneurs who are making it all not only possible to achieve, but happen now.

While Carey is quite persuasive in presenting the flaws in the hybrid university, and coruscating in his indictment of the importance of big-time sports, college as a sort of late adolescent summer camp teaching sexual and alcoholic mores, he's less thoughtful about how future academic communities will develop and how the humanities will be taught and learned. It remains true that there doesn't seem to be a practical substitute for placing bright students in a seminar setting with thoughtful, attentive, and skillful teacher exploring great ideas. However, this interaction rarely occurs anywhere but in the most pricey and elitist institutions and at the very top of the higher education pyramid. Meanwhile, the ends of training for mass employment in a rapidly changing job environment can be met for motivated students best through online MOOCs. Such students are available among the masses, ambitious people around the developing world, although they appear to be increasingly rare in the United States. Carey is also vague, at best, about how all this will be paid for, except to emphasize that economies of scale make the per unit cost of online education inexpensive. The words advertising and sales are not found in this book.

Kevin Carey

Kevin Carey directs the Education Policy Program at New America, a non-profit policy institute addressing the next generation of issues facing the United States. He is widely published in pre-kindergarten through higher education issues. He has worked in policy and budget areas for the state of Indiana. A graduate of SUNY-Binghampton and Ohio State, he lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, D.C.

The End of College: Creating theFuture of Learning and the University of Everywhere by Kevin Carey (Riverhead Books, 2015, 288 pages, $27.95/11.99) is an important, engaging, and thought provoking book about the changes in higher education to be brought about by the world wide pervasiveness of computers and the economies of scale created by them. His narrative style relies on anecdotal accounts of the involvement of universities, scholars, and entrepreneurs in developing and popularizing this new approach to learning. The book is aimed at the thoughtful general reader, parents exploring with their children the choices they need to make in this new world, and their offspring, who are discovering this alternative on their own. He examines the inertia, even resistance, sure to be encountered from the colleges and universities as they confront re-purposing their missions, plants, and processes. Carey generally ignores the nature of adolescent development as it applies to higher education; his grasp of the technical seems clearer than of the human, but the human impact is also more muddy. While this book has some flaws, I still recommend it highly. I received TheEnd of College from the publisher through Edelweiss as an electronic galley which I read on my Kindle app.

The Work by Wes Moore - Book Review

Wes Moore (The Work: My Search for a Life that Matters, Spiegal & Grau: Random House, January 2015, 272 pages, $25.00/10.99) seems to be a man in a hurry, but at this point in his life, at age 36 with significant experience and no little accomplishment behind him, it's not certain where he's headed. His first book, The Other Wes (which I have not read) detailed the almost eery coincidences and parallels between the parallel lives of two men with the same name, growing up near each other in the same straightened circumstances, while one went to prep school, college, and the other went to prison. The present book emphasizes the nature of work and accomplishment in endeavors that are rewarding in both financial and socially beneficial ways. Moore has, at the youthful age of 36, had a remarkable career, missing only significant elective office to place him in promising position to seek election at the highest levels. To suggest his arc has been an attempt to achieve such ambitious goals would be cynical in the extreme. Meanwhile, Wes Moore has led an interesting, even inspiring, life worth reading about, learning from, and following.

Wes Moore

Wes Moore seems to have led a charmed life, but not without pain. After loosing his father early on, he was raised by a single mother and hard-working preacher grandfather of Jamaican ancestry. After encountering significant failure in a private school in Baltimore, Moore was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Paoli, Pennsylvania, where he struggled against authority until reaching a realization that he ought to give the school a try. Six years later, he graduated with honors as commander of the corps of cadets and then matriculated at Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated with honors. He was picked as a Rhodes Scholar and studied at Oxford for a couple of years, picking up a degree and considerable knowledge and experience, before leaving for Afghanistan as a captain in the U.S. Army and a specialist on radical Islam. Following his tour of duty, he was tapped for a year as a White House Fellow, working for Condoleeza Rice in the State Department, before heading for several years as an investment banker in New York. At each stop along the way, Moore soaked up knowledge, experience, and expertise while always exuding charm and intelligence. He currently is host of his own show on the Oprah network and tours the country as a motivational speaker.

At a time when few Americans serve in the military, and perhaps even fewer politicians, Wes Moore integrates his varied experiences into a wise perspective on personal growth, American society, the role of the government for achieving good, and his own potential for making a difference. His outlook is optimistic, wholesome, visionary, and realistic. After experiencing a variety of ways to involve himself in making change serving those in need, he has, for the time being, chosen the media and the speaking platform as a way best to spread his view and keep himself before the public. Pairing his own experience with the profiles of people who have undertaken big tasks and (largely) succeeded at them by overcoming huge obstacles, Wes Moore suggests that individuals have more control over their futures than many believe, and that we are not controlled by our circumstances, but can make a difference through hard work, intensive learning, and optimistic goal setting.

Wes Moore's memoir The Work: My Seaarch for a Life that Matters (Spiegal & Grau/Random House, January 2015, 272 pages, $25.00/10.99) presents a picture of an able and thoughtful man headed toward a productive and worthwhile life. I want to like this book more than I do. Moore's assessment of the differences between himself and “the other Wes Moore” ring true to me. His constant acknowledgement of what he owes the multitude of successful men and women who have taken an interest in him, mentoring him along the way, his profiles of the successes and failures of those like him in education, business, and politics all breathe earnest commitment and believability. There is, however, something about this book that reeks of being a campgaign document. Moore's love of family, God, country, and the military all point to next steps leading somewhere important and meaningful while he remains patient enough within his ambition to wait to see where that will be. He exudes charm and intelligence in print and on television. What Wes Moore's next step will be, how far it will take him, what he will ultimately achieve all still lie somewhere in the future. I expect to keep watching to see where that might be. I read this book as an electronic galley supplied to me by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it on my Kindle app.

George Marshall by Irwin & Debi Unger: Book Review

George Marshall by Irwin & Debi Unger (Harper, October 2014, 560 pages, $35.00/18.99) is a contemporary re-appraisal of George Marshall's life and career. Despite the fact that throughout his long military service, Marshall was always recognized for his character and ability, this biography seems to go out of its way to find fault with the man and his achievements. Whether the issue is the impossibility of any human achieving to the level Marshall's acclaim suggests or a need to find fault with a general widely thought to be one of America's finest military examples, the Ungers seem to go out of their way to fault Marshall for not always getting it right. Never recognized for his brilliance in speech nor given the opportunity to command men in battle, George Marshall still managed to rise to the highest levels of the military and to serve as Army Chief of Staff under Roosevelt and both Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense in the Truman administration. A person of seemingly modest ambition, he was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year twice and won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was promoted to General of the Army, the highest possible rank in the U.S. Army. Despite his recognition, the Ungers are always careful to explore how Marshall falls short of absolute icon status when fully examined. How could he not?

Marshall as Cadet at VMI

Marshall was born in1880 in Uniontown, PA, the son of a local businessman, but he early identified with the Virginia gentry from which his mother was descended. He attended Virginia Military Institute, where his career was acceptable, but not notable, perhaps spurred on by a denigrating remark made by his older brother. He was commissioned in the regular Army, and like so many of his age cohort serving in the peacetime Army, found promotion to be slow and rewards meager. Generally speaking, he was recognized for his organizational ability, his attention to detail, and his encouragement of his subordinates to take the initiative. He gained a reputation as an effective organizer and administrator, a role he functioned in throughout his career, never having the opportunity to command troops in battle, the usual path to top positions in the Army. Unlike his, perhaps, greatest rival, General Douglas MacArthur he neither came from a distinguished military background, nor gained recognition through his skill at commanding men or as a strategist. Marshall was a consummate bureaucrat, always keeping the spotlight on others as he rose through the ranks. Whenever the opportunity arose for him to take a command post, his superior officers much preferred to keep him in staff positions where his judgment and knowledge were seen as being indispensable. After impressing General John J. Pershing with his directness and honesty, Marshall often had the support of Pershing as he rose through the ranks after World War I. As Pershing's personal aide, Marshall came to know the people and the levers of power in Washington. After Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, his rise in the Army ranks became swifter. While not highly articulate or learned, Marshall was persuasive in both the counsels of the mighty and before Congressional hearings.

After World War I, the Army's size was drastically reduced. He foresaw the potential difficulties of Hitler's rise to power and lobbied hard to increase the size of the Army and the level of fitness to serve among officers and enlisted me. However, it was not until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 that the U.S. saw the need to mobilize. As Chief of Staff, Marshall oversaw the increase in the Army's size from fewer than 200,000 to over eight million, while helping to organize war production to provide the necessary material support. Seemingly bland and unassuming, Marshall was able to work effectively with the large personalities of men like FDR, Winston Churchill, and even Stalin, as the allies became enmeshed in defeating the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and Italy) around the world. He could see beyond the parochial needs of men like Patton and MacArthur to recognize the importance of maintaining balance and perspective. While never a man of great warmth, humor, or likability, Marshall commanded the respect of all through his probity, honesty, and ability as a fair broker between competing interests. He was a bureaucrat's bureaucrat when the term was not pejorative. The most important moments in Marshall's rise in the ranks seem to have come when he spoke out in opposition to ideas proposed by those in authority. Rather than destroying his career, those moments provided him with a reputation for courage and honesty, and were rewarded with promotions and increases in responsibility, always in staff positions.

Marshall's career did not progress without areas of criticism. In subordinating Army expansion to the needs of domestic suppliers and defense industries, training was compromised and men arrived at the front with inadequate preparation. Marshall, as a consummate compromiser, allowed the U.S. to be involved in the costly campaigns in North Africa and Italy, which served to postpone the invasion of Europe in 1944, but also may have completed the training necessary to succeed. He was strongly criticized in Congress (along with FDR) for the Pearl Harbor debacle, and later was constantly under pressure from the isolationist right wing and from the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the fifties. When President Truman dismissed MacArthur for insubordination, Marshall, too, came under enormous pressure. While maintaining a reputation as a non-partisan, Marshall's greatest success and promotion came under Democratic administrations, which predominated during the height of his career. Nevertheless, Dwight Eisenhower was a Marshall protege whom he happily congratulated on his election as President.

Author Irwin Unger has won the Pulitzer Prize in history for The Greenback Era as well as two Guggenheim fellowships. Together Irwin and Debi Unger have authored LBJ: A Life and several other books. They live in New York City.

George Marshall by Irwin & Debi Unger (Harper, October 2014, 560 pages, $35.00/18.99) is a thorough re-appraisal of the life and career of General of the Army George C. Marshall, who presents interesting problems for potential biographers because he was distinguished for his character and bureaucratic ability rather than for his brilliance as a tactician or strength of personality. To keep this biography from becoming a hagiography, they have resolutely identified areas where Marshall's efforts fell short of the ideal. Tasked with managing an impossibly complex war and then overseeing American efforts as the new post-war country had to confront issues of the Cold War, the emergence of Israel, and the threat of world Communism, it's amazing that one man could manage to keep as many balls in the air as he did. Meanwhile, we still struggle with the outcomes of America's rise and fall in a difficult world with new and ever-changing rules. I received George Marshall by Irwin & Debi Unger from the publisher through Edelweiss as an electronic galley. I read it on my Kindle App.  

A Cup of Water Under My Bed: a memoir by Daisy Hernandez - Book Review

A Cup of Water Under My Bed: AMemoir by Daisy Hernandez (Beacon Press, 2014, 201 Pages, $24.96/13.99) is a coming of age memoir of growing up in a contemporary immigrant family encountering all the joys, problems, anxieties, opportunities, and risks of our complex and multi-layered society. Hernandez' luminous prose touches the heart while challenging the mind to expand and understand. She takes the reader to many places that challenge the comfort zone, especially of comfortable middle-class readers. Her subject matter ranges widely through the worlds of religion, sexuality, social mobility, education, race, class,
immigration and self-knowledge to explore their implications for a young woman growing up in today's United States.

Daisey Hernandez is the child of parents who have come from Columbia and Cuba seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Speaking little English, clinging to their work ethic and family, they are torn from their roots while seeking to support themselves and their close knit families, both in the U.S. and at home. Daisy's father works as a maintenance man in textile factories, while there's still work in New Jersey, and then recedes into increasingly difficult to find labor as jobs leave for Mexico and Asia. Her mother works in clothing assembly, first in sweat shops and later at home. Daisy becomes the link to America for them as, once she enters school, she begins to increase her facility with English, learning that her Spanglish is neither English nor Spanish and finally, as an adult in search of her roots, returning to class to formally learn Spanish in written and proper spoken forms. She's a precocious and thoughtful child who finds wonder, mystery, and meaning in the world around her, composed of bewildering sets of values assailing her from all sides. She's fortunate enough to find people who recognize her talents and mentor her towards advancement and self-awareness, while drawing her further away from the roots that cling to her and to which she is both drawn and repulsed.

Acculturation is a double edged sword, providing hope for the future of individuals and, truly, society. However, there are serious attendant risks attached. Daisy, her parents, and her aunties form a closely knit unit which teaches and smothers. Acculturation means separating from those elements of one's life which mark difference, otherness. For many immigrants to America, particularly these days for people of Hispanic origin, their faces mark them, as color, religion, accent, and behavior have always marked “otherness.” Daisy, raised in Catholic schools, discovers that her culture has created a synthesis between Christianity and the Afro-Latin fusion practice of Santeria, often described as a cult. She seeks, and finds, a way to reconcile the two practices into a believable and valid part of her life. As a young women in a vibrant and changing society, she discovers that sexuality and gender identification offer many, often confusing, paths to satisfaction, which she joyfully explores. As a writer, Daisy discovers herself through her writing at places like Ms Magazine and as an intern at the New York Times, where she finds both the allure of the Times' power and pervasiveness of the middle aged white male in controlling her. As a student and a seeker, she learns that language widens opportunity and separates from community. A Cup of Water Under My Bed, an allusion to a Santeria practice, proves itself to be a voyage of discovery in all these areas and more.

Daisy Hernandez

 

Daisy Hernandez grew up in Fairview, New Jersey in a Cuban-Columbian family. She's worked at the New York Times, Jenny Craigs, McDondald's and ColorLines​ magazine, although not in that order) and has made her home in Virginia, Florida, California, England, and the Upper East Side (also not in that order). She is the author of A Cup ofWater Under My Bed: A Memoir” and co-editor of the feminist anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color in Today's Feminism.” Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, Ms. Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Fourth Genre, and Bellingham Review. A former editor of ColorLines magazine, shehas an MFA in fiction from the University of Miami, an MA in Latin American Studies and Journalism from NYU. Her work has been seen as controversial in some areas. (adapted from her Amazon.com profile and Wikipedia)

In her book A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir by Daisy Hernandez (Beacon Press, 2014, 201 Pages, $24.96/13.99) Daisy Hernandez has filed of her anger even rage under luminous and thought-provoking prose without ever compromising the basic feminist values she has developed. She allows a reader, even one not always sympathetic with her views or understanding her orientation, to see into her experience, share it, and develop a greater appreciation of it without pushing the reader away. This is a rare and wonderful gift, and Hernandez shares her own wonder at her growth and challenges about where she comes from and where she's going with her reader generously. The fact that she's a seeker rather than a knower, a person still scoping life out with insight and courage makes A Cup of Water Under My Bed a fascinating and enjoyable read. I received the book as an electronic galley from the publisher through Edelweiss and read it on my Kindle.

The Affordable Care Act: A Boon for Musicians - Essay

Below is a lightly edited version of the Welcome Message I posted on the CBA website yesterday. Responses to it generated more heat than light. Nevertheless, I believe that the ACA can and does benefit thousands of musicians across many genres whose earnings are insufficient to supply them with the sort of medical care they need.

During the past few years we've all watched too many beloved musicians pass from the music scene. Their illnesses and subsequent loss has cost many of us in grief, especially when friends die too soon, struck down by illness that could have been prevented or cured. Musicians often live in fear and denial, recognizing that they may have health issues and fearing that a trip to the doctor will entail tests, treatment, and medicines beyond their means. When warning signs are present, they avoid seeking medical help, accepting the consequences or denying the existence of the symptoms for fear of the economic costs. They eventually become ill and the generous bluegrass community rallies around them with love and support while opening up their hearts and pocketbooks to help meet medical expenses, often incurred too late. Sadly, the amount of money raised hardly provides sufficient funds to make a significant dent in the large debt often incurred during a serious illness.

Meanwhile, medical expenses have been the largest cause of bankruptcy in America. Dan Mangan of CNBC reported in 2013, “Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data ….Even outside of bankruptcy, about 56 million adults—more than 20 percent of the population between the ages of 19 and 64—will still struggle with health-care-related bills this year.”

A recent article in the Houston Post had this to say, “Musicians and their families often fall through the coverage gap. They're typically young and consequently believe themselves invincible, and are expected to make significant sacrifices for their art. If you want to be a rock star, you'd better be ready to bleed for it. What other occupation has web sites like BetterThanTheVan.com, where groups can beg for lodging from obliging fans, or expects to meet its serious medical-care expenses through benefit-concert proceeds, in contrast to the conventional options offered to teachers and plumbers? “ An article in Billboard had this to say, “Unfortunately, artists aren’t well-informed about the nuts and bolts of Obamacare. The FMC/AHIRC survey found that 55% of artists “don’t understand it at all” or are “unsure” how the law would affect them. That number jibes with a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey that found 47% of Americans have enough information on health-care reform to understand how it will affect them and their families.”

In May, an article in the LA Times said, “The federal law that went into full effect this year made it easier for people to buy health insurance on their own because coverage is guaranteed regardless of preexisting health conditions, and subsidies are available to make premiums more affordable. That creates a new range of options for people who are self-employed or who may have held on to a job they didn't like just for the benefits, said Laura Baker, a senior health and benefits consultant for consulting firm Mercer in Los Angeles.”

In December, OPB (Oregon Public Radio) printed a story on its web site detailing the problems of artists needing health care and suggesting that Oregon's state exchange as well as local insurance brokers who care about the needs of people in the arts community could provide real help for such people. One of the confounding problems mentioned in several places is that many artists are young and relatively healthy. They don't see themselves as needing health care, so they ignore or reject the possible alternatives.
The Southern Arizona Artists and Musicians Healthcare Alliance (S.A.A.M.H.A.) holds regular weekly meetings to help musicians and other artists navigate the questions and problems attached to the Affordable Care Act as it applies to them. They commented, “According to a recent survey, US-based artists — dancers, musicians, visual artists, theatre actors, film and media artists — are less likely to have health insurance than the general public. Like many other Americans, they are also unsure about the components of Affordable Care Act, and seek advice about how to navigate this new health care landscape.” The above suggests that even in states that have resisted the ACA, there are forces at work to help musicians find and get effective health care.

Help is Available: The web site Artists and the Affordable Care Act is an extremely useful site for anyone seeking to negotiate the maze of health health care regulations and the postures taken by various states as they seek to cooperate or resist based on both their politics and their populations. The interactive map provided by the Kaiser Foundation is particularly helpful, detailing at the click of a state the response of each state in the country. It's also quite complicated, as it explains in detail the progress of each state toward establishing (or not) state exchanges and meeting the requirements of the law. There are, however, lots of other resources available to assist people seeking help in their states. http://health.futureofmusic.org/

IBMA, through one of its Affiliated Partners Sound Healthcare has partnered with this company to help provide advice and services to the music industry. “Our primary goal is to provide members access to affordable health insurance and health care advocacy custom-designed to meet the needs of our bluegrass community. We provide customized programs of protection designed to perfectly balance your budget with your needs. Sound Healthcare offers a line-up of best-in-class insurance products, information and resources, and the assurance that we will always exceed the expectations of those we serve.” A form is provided to request further information. I'm sorry to say I reached out to this company for further information, but received no reply. Further information about Sound Healthcare can be found on their web site, here.

The Actors Fund has also put together a very informative web site for all entertainers. Much of it is in the form of talks and charts, which might be easier for some people to navigate. Much of the information is presented as text with a voice over making it much easier to use. The site contains an ACA Basics Tutorial as well as many other resources that should prove helpful to those confused by both the programs available and the overheated rhetoric from both sides of the issue. There are thirty sections, each with a voice over with many accompanied by helpful charts to help reduce anxiety and confusion about ACA choices and responsibilities.


While enrollment for health care under the Affordable Care Act is currently closed until November 15, 2014 for enrollment on January 1, 2015, now is the time to begin preparing to provide for yourself and your family through the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. It's also a good time, if you live in a state which hasn't set up its own exchanges or expanded medicare to write your congressman or state representative urging them to vote for such action. Political ideology is not a good reason to be deprived of rights that have been passed by Congress, signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court. While the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect, we are now seeing millions of people enrolling and the cost curve of medical care beginning to bend downwards. You're entitled to receive these benefits, too.

Visit to Washington: WAMU, Baseball, Monuments & Museums

We checked into Cherry Hill RV Park on Monday afternoon after a pleasant drive from our stopping off place near Harrisonburg, VA. Cherry Hill, located in College Park, MD is not only the closest RV Park to Washington, D.C., it's the best urban park we've ever stayed at, well organized to provide all the services necessary for tourists visiting the nation's capital, including easy transportation to the nearby Metro system, which offers access to almost all sites downtown. At the desk, they provided us with a Senior Pass ($2.00) which we filled up at the kiosk on our first visit to the Metro and never again worried about the cost of transportation - convenient and easy.

Irene Heads into the Maw of the Metro

Our friend Katy Daley is the longtime drive-time host of WAMU's Bluegrass Country. WAMU, whose history goes back to before NPR was founded, is a service provided by American University. Bluegrass Country, as far as I know, is the only terrestrial radio station in the U.S. providing round the clock bluegrass music 24/7. It has been an integral voice in the development of bluegrass music in the Washington area, and now is streamed worldwide over the Internet. The station moved into new, spacious studios early this year, and we visited to get a sense of the facility as well as to see Katy at work. The facility is a state of the art building with lots of room provided for expansion of services. A radio station is a strange place, because what we hear when listening suggests more action than is actually seen in the station. Katy sits behind a large electronic desk with computer screens providing access to the entire recorded catalog of Bluegrass Country. She selects songs, introduces them, clicks a button, and they play. Between sets of songs she reads announcements of coming events, public service announcements, the weather and traffic. Her friendly voice is familiar to hundreds of thousands of people in the D.C. area, to a spreading regional radio audience via local transmitters on HD radio, and to a world-wide audience streamed by the Internet. Bluegrass Country hosts numerous live interviews and performances of bands coming through Washington, and has used its new, larger performance area to provide live streaming with video of band performances. Look for this activity to expand.

Katy Daley at Her Broadcast Console

Performance Area for Live Visits

Large, Flexible Studio for Shows with Audiences

Studio Engineer for Diane Rehm Show

Bustling Offices - Programming, Development & Much More

At 10:00 AM Katy signed off after four hours on the air, handing the show off, and we headed down to her car parked behind a heavy, metal garage door which opened at the press of a button, and headed out to see Washington through the eyes of a lifetime resident. While tour buses, open air London-style buses, and even an amphibious duck that takes people on land and water trips ran up and down the streets, we saw the city through the eyes and spirit of a person who loves her city and loves introducing it to friends in a personal and direct fashion. While we have visited the District before, we had never seen it in such a way.

The Marine Corps Memorial

The Marine Corps Memorial is a giant sculpture by Felix de Weldon made from the iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal picturing the raising of the American flag over Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. It stands in Arlington, VA commanding a wonderful view of the District. When we were there, two Marines were busily running flags up and down the flagpole for presentation to veterans. 

Katy Daley & Me in Front of the Marine Memorial

The United States Air Force Memorial

This stunning monument, designed by James Ingo Freed (who also designed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial) depicts the expanding contrails of the Air Force demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, as they head into the sky. Located near the Pentagon, it commands another iconic view of the District.

Washington Monument from Air Force Memorial

National Cathedral from Air Force Memorial

Bronze Honor Guard at Air Force Memorial

Arlington National Cemetery

I suspect that most people visit Arlington to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and to see the perpetual flame at the John F. Kennedy gravesite  as well as a few convenient sections of nearby graves. The overall impression is one of quiet rest after the ultimate sacrifice. A little known feature of graves at Arlington is that spouses of the dead may be buried in the same site as their spouse with their names placed on the reverse side of the stone. Another revelation to me is that the plain stones that dominate are not required, and that families can pay to have more elaborate or informative stones. 

Abner Doubleday - Credited with Inventing Baseball

Edmund Rice Medal of Honor Grave & Memorial

Lincoln Memorial from Arlington

Martin Luther King Memorial

I found this newly opened memorial to be particularly moving. The inscription on Dr. King's statue reads, "Out of the Mountain of Despair, A Stone of Hope." The symbolism of the three granite blocks is obvious. It was designed by the ROMA Design Group and opened 2010.

Jefferson Memorial from MLK Memorial

A Drive-By of the U.S. Capital Dome 

Katy Drops Us at the Metro

Back Into the Tunnel

Clean, Fast, Inexpensive

Home Base Metro Stop

The Nats - Dodgers Game - How the Other Half Lives

Katy Daley & Bill

Dave, a friend of Katy's scored seats for us at National's Stadium. None of us expected them to be in Jefferson Suite 49.

Liberty Suite #49

Yee Haws Giddy with the Joy of Discovery

Two Hour Rain Delay

Irene, Bill & Katy

Concession Area 

Where "Everybody Else" Waits for Rain to Stop

Our Section

Great Game: Nats - 3, Dodgers - 2

The Presidents Race Around the Outfield

Abe Charges through for the Win!

Teddy Enjoys It All

Our Seats

Where Did These People Arrive From?

A Peek at Another Suite

After the game we were treated to more details as we drove to dinner, with appropriate commentary about the District history, including the lowdown on why there's no Metro in Georgetown. We went to nearby Bethesda, Maryland for dinner at the China Pavilion, one of the best Chinese restaurants we've had the pleasure of visiting. It's hard to imagine not getting a meal with something to everyone's taste there. 

The Return to Reality

On Friday we again boarded the Metro to do some sight seeing on our own, visiting museums along the Washington Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. Along the way I saw a sign which summed the Smithsonian up pretty well. It read, "So many museums, so little time." How true!

Out of the Metro at the Smithsonian Stop

The Capitol

The Washington Monument

Smithsonian - National History Museum

The Original Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian - American History Museum

We were told that if you were to read the information and view each of the exhibits at the Smithsonian, it would take 85 years. Of course, if you did that, by the time you finished everything else would be changed and you'd have to start over. We had only a day and the limits of our stamina, so most of the day included general impressions, except for our visit to the Holocaust Museum

A Travel Trailer from the 1930's

The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum

The Holocaust Museum, dedicated to exploring the horrors that Hitler and his Nazi regime visited upon the Jews of Europe with the subsequent loss of six million lives as well as the callous response of the rest of the world to their plight until after the war ended, requests that visitors not take pictures in the major part of the museum, so all the photos used here are ones I've taken from Google Images. As people enter this exhibit, they pick up a profile of an individual person, who they follow through the exhibits from Hitler's ascension to power in 1932 until the end of the war in 1945. What struck me most was how people's behavior and attitudes changed as they were led through the exhibits. They became quiet, and then a spirit of almost worshipful silence developed as the horror of the holocaust took charge. I had studiously avoided this experience, but found myself glad I had finally faced and embraced it. Visiting this museum is, indeed, a powerful experience.

The Holocaust Museum

The Hall of Remembrance

We're leaving Washington this Mother's Day for the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, but Gettysburg itself seems a fitting place to be next week. Do plan on visiting the Holocaust Museum, though. And our deep thanks to Katy Daley and Bill.