Thursday, December 24, 2015

Book review: "Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS" by Joby Warrick

Reading the 2015 book "Black Flags" can be painful. As author Joby Warrick details the origins of the terrorist group ISIS, you learn of the many ways that the United States and its allies contributed to the group's growth. 

True, it's not fair to say we "created" a monster. But we certainly helped it along.


In attempting to document the rise of the organization that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Warrick has given himself a difficult task. This sort of  story could easily splinter into many pieces, losing the reader in a fog of too many players. 


But in "Black Flags," Warrick does well, maintaining a tight narrative that mostly follows the career of terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. While Zarqawi didn't live to see the birth of the entity called ISIS – he was killed by Americans in 2006– Warrick makes it clear that he laid the groundwork.


Zarqawi grew up a thug and a drunk. In trying to straighten him out, his family put him into a strict Islamic religion education program. It backfired, giving Zarqawi religious rationales for his anarchist urges.

"It was like he went too straight," said one source quoted by Warrick. "So now you've got the worst of both worlds."

Imprisoned in the 1990s in Jordan, Zarqawi was placed together with some of the most hardened criminals. Locking up the worst criminals in one place might have made sense on paper, but in reality it created a festering pot of Islamist rage that would burst loose when Zarqawi and his compatriots were released from prison in a wide 1999 amnesty by Jordan's new King Abdullah II.

(Abdullah would later say that he never intended to include such prisoners in the amnesty. "Why," he demanded of his staff, "didn't someone check?")

Free to terrorize, Zarqawi found what he wanted in Iraq after the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. had kicked out Saddam Hussein but failed to make sure a stable government was put in place. Into the vacuum came Islamist insurgents led by Zarqawi, feeding off the chaos and the growing hatred of U.S. occupiers. Each U.S. mistake, like the abuse of Arab prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison, made the insurgents stronger. 

"The combination of American jets and Arab jails was the critical fulcrum around which Al-Qaeda and ISIS could germinate," said a source interviewed by Warrick.

Had it not been for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, would likely have continued a career as a college professor, Warrick wrote. Instead, Baghdadi joined the insurgents, rose to lead ISIS and became "the Islamic State's greatest butcher."

In keeping a neat-and-clean story line, Warrick sometimes simplifies things too much. One Iraqi's comments about U.S. troops is used to symbolize the attitude of the whole country. He praises Jordan's internal police, the Mukhabarat, for rooting out terrorists, while overlooking that fact that its zealousness sometimes results in the harassment and imprisonment of innocent people.

Still, anyone who reads "Black Flags" will gain a better understanding of ISIS and its related Islamist terrorist kin. 

So what's the takeaway here? What does "Black Flags" tell us about the future?

First, Islamist terrorist groups will continue to try to kill Americans and western Europeans. This is how they build a following, gain prestige, and get money. And in their twisted world, the more they kill, the more prestige they earn

Second, special operations military forces can disrupt and set back these groups, but they must have reliable intelligence. This is hard, tedious work, and may require "boots on the ground."

Third, we can't afford mistakes. Every time the U.S. or its allies accidentally kills innocent civilians or mistreats Muslims, ISIS gains more followers.

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Monday, November 16, 2015

Book review: "A Storm Too Soon" by Michael J. Tougias

A horrific storm. A sinking sailboat. Three men lost at sea. What's not to like?

Michael J. Tougias, author of the gripping "Fatal Forecast," has once again put together a terrific story of maritime disaster.

This one, called "A Storm Too Soon," is set in 2007 when three men – J.P. de Lutz, Rudy Snel, and Ben Tye – set out from Florida aboard the sailboat Sean Seymour II on their way to France. Two days out in the Atlantic Ocean, they found themselves engulfed in a massive storm with 80-foot waves and are soon fighting for their lives.

Tougias, having interviewed all the players in this drama, gives us a detailed look at both the struggles of the three sailors as well as the Coast Guard crew that comes looking for them. He also includes some other stories of ocean survival to give some perspective on the complicated nature of ocean rescues.

Tougias has a real talent for offering just the right details to give a real you-are-there feel to the book while also keeping the story moving forward. For example, with the sailboat tossed over and the men struggling to get out, Togias writes:

"JP somehow manages to slide open the hatch and swim out, barely able to hold his breath. He needs air, yet he doesn't shoot directly for the surface. Instead he lets his hands feel their way to the starboard leg of the arch that rises from the stern of the boat, not far from the companion way hatch. He sweeps with his arm, feeling for the life raft canister, and follows the arch to the port side. Still no raft. It should be in the canister just a few inches aft of the arch. His lungs are screaming for air, and he's fighting their call. He can sense that his body will ignore the commands from his brain to hold his breath and that his mouth will open on its own."

The bravery and skill of the Coast Guard crew, as portrayed by Tougias, is impressive. While they all are heroes in this story, the hero among heroes is rescue swimmer Drew Dazzo. He's the one who enters the surging seas, putting his own life in peril to rescue the sailors. What he does is almost superhuman.

I also liked that Tougias stays with the characters after rescue. A lot of stories end abruptly with the characters riding into the sunset, with all their problems seemingly solved. But Tougias notes that the rescued men from the Sean Seymour II have real issues to confront right away: They need to replace their lost driver's licenses and credit cards, for one thing, and they need to figure out how to get home.

There were two things I was disappointed in with this book. First, the cover photo gives away – sort of – the end of the book.  Second, I was disappointed that the book has no pictures inside, not even headshots of the characters. However, you can find a large collection of photos posted by J.P. de Lutz here.  Even better, a video of the rescue is here.  Suggestion: Don't look at the video until you're nearly done with the book.

If you like this sort of book, you will also like "Deadliest Sea," by Kaylee Thompson, an outstanding of the sinking of a fishing boat in Alaska and the Coast Guard efforts to save the crew.

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New York Times story on Long Beach schools get facts wrong

The New York Times just published a column praising the school system in Long Beach, California, but the piece gets at least three facts wrong.

First, author David L. Kirp, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, describes Long Beach as a "predominantly immigrant city."


"Predominately" means "mostly" or "majority of." So Long Beach is made up mostly of immigrants?

No, it's not. Census data shows that 26% of Long Beach's population is foreign-born, pretty much the same as state average (27%).

Second, the article says that in Long Beach "a third of the children under age 17 live in poverty." This is not true, either. The actually share, according to the Census, is 28%.  Sure, this is not a great difference from 33%, but if you're rounding things off, it would be more accurate to say that "a quarter" of children under 17 live in poverty.


What's particular troubling about these two mistakes is that they're very easy to check. I found the answers to both on the Census website in about a minute each. Doesn't anyone at the NYT check facts?


The third mistake is Kirp's statement that in Long Beach "all fourth and fifth graders, together with their parents, tour the local college campuses."  It's the "with the parents" part that's untrue. I have two children in Long Beach public schools, and they did tour colleges, but parents didn't come along.

Are there other mistakes in the article? Maybe. I didn't check every fact, and in some cases it's pretty much impossible to. The author, for example, states that "two-thirds" of new U.S. college students "arrive on campus unprepared for college rigor."  What does that mean? He doesn't explain, and like most other assertions in the piece, he doesn't cite a source. 

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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Book review: "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Americans have grown to realize that the confinement of 110,000 U.S. residents of Japanese descent in internment camps during World War II was one of the most shameful chapters in this nation's history.

Yet the topic remains in the shadows, an uncomfortable chapter of history that Americans know little about.

In "Farewell to Manzanar," Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston puts a human face on the episode and takes us inside one of the most famous of the internment camps. Wakatsuki lived from age 7 to 11 at Manzanar, the camp created in a bleak desert landscape in eastern California, .

While there's no justifying the internment, Wakatsuki's portrayal of life in the camp is warmer and less harsh than you often hear. These were not, she makes clear, anything like the Nazi death camps.

Wakatsuki recounts how her family, like others of Japanese descent, lived relatively unremarkable lives in Southern California before the war. But once Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Japanese-American community immediately knew that their lives were about to change.

Forcibly relocated to Manzanar, families did their best to create a "normal" life amid cramped and drafty wooden barracks. People decorated their creaky homes the best they could, got jobs, and sent their children to school. Residents could attend church, takes classes and get items from the Sears catalog delivered.

The harm of the camp came in many, sometimes subtle, ways. Wakatsuki recalls the internment camps helped break up her family for a simple reason: They stopped eating meals together. The camps had large dining halls and in Wakatsuki's large family, the children drifted off to regularly eat dinner with their friends.

"My own family, after three years of mess hall living, collapsed as an integrated unit. Whatever dignity or feeling of filial strength we may have known before December 1941 was lost, and we did not recover it until many years after the war."

Watasuki recalls that even after leaving the internment camps, she retained a sense of shame, as if she had done something wrong. Sometimes she was excluded from a white friend's home, or from a group like the Girl Scouts simply because she was of Japanese descent.

"What is so infuriating, looking back, is how I accepted the situation," she writes. "If refused by someone's parents, I would never say, 'Go to hell!' or "I'll find other friends," or "Who wants to come to your house anyway?' I would see it as my fault, the result of my failings. I was imposing a burden on them."

"Farewell to Manzanar" is an easy and worthwhile read, bringing color and light to a period once kept in the dark.

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Friday, October 2, 2015

Book review: "The Billion Dollar Spy" by David E. Hoffman

Remember those old spy movies that featured things like letters written in invisible ink, tiny cameras hidden in pens, suicide pills, and messages stashed furtively under park benches?

Real spies work much the same way, it turns out. One of the biggest takeaways from the true-espionage book "The Billion Dollar Spy" is discovering how much real life is like those movies.

In "The Billion Dollar Spy," author David E. Hoffman tells the story of Adolf Tolkachev, a Russian engineer who passed an incredible volume of military secrets to American CIA agents during the Cold War from 1979 to 1985. The value of this intelligence was once estimated at over a billion dollars in terms of how it allowed the United States to adapt its military technology. Indeed, it's likely that Tolkachev by himself contributed mightily to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

In telling this story, Hoffman has to do a little "Spying 101" for readers. He describes, for instance, how CIA agents in Moscow went through elaborate steps -- driving in circles, switching from a car to a train to walking -- to make sure they weren't being followed. He describes the sometime elaborate disguises they wore. He describes how something as simple as a painted "V" on a pillar, or an open window could be a signal to a spy.

It's notable how little role technology played. They weren't hacking into computer networks or anything like that -- it was a nitty-gritty, person-to-person, street-level actions that made the difference.

Hoffman constructs the story largely from now-declassified documents that give a detialed look at how the CIA "handled" spies like Tolkachev.  Unfortunately, late in the book, the Americans lose Tolkachev and Hoffman can only give us the basics of what happens then.

Still, it's a fascinating book that reads like a John Le Carre page-turner.

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Friday, September 18, 2015

Book review: "Long Beach State: A Brief History" by Barbara Kingsley-Wilson

Among Southern California universities, Cal State-Long Beach has long had to live in the shadow of higher-profile neighbors like USC and UCLA. But with nearly 37,000 students, and a long list of notable alumni, Cal State-Long Beach has had an impact on culture and the economy that deserves to be recognized.


In "Long Beach State: A Brief History, author Barbara Kingsley-Wilson describes in colorful detail how this college emerged from a bunch of agricultural fields just after World War II and grew into major university.  

In the early days, Kingsley-Wilson notes, the college wasn't much. The first classes were held in a converted apartment building. One newly hired professor couldn't find the campus. Another was shocked to find the school's library had no books. In the 1950s, the parking area became so muddy when it rained that cars slid down the hill.

I enjoyed the stories about 1960s, when students starting challenging campus administrators and sought to exercise more of an independent voice. Controversy erupted over one student's sculpture show that some thought was obscene.

In one good chapter, Kingsley-Wilson describes how the basketball program, under Coach Jerry Tarkanian, battling visiting teams amid the noisy and hot Gold Mine gym. The Tarkanian era, Kingsley-Wilson notes, had its ups and downs, and eventually came to an unpleasant end when the coach exited amid charges of NCAA rules violations.

There's also a good explainer on why the college is sometimes known as "Long Beach State," sometimes as "Cal State Long Beach," and sometimes just "The Beach."

I liked the stories about how women's sports grew on campus from a shoestring operation of play days and dance classes to something much more. Eventually, the campus would get a national championship from a women's volleyball team led by someone named Misty May.










Monday, September 14, 2015

An American Family in Europe: Day 19, heading home

(Previously: Day 18, the Tower of London)

It was the last day of our trip, and time to head for the airport. But how would we get there?

We could have taken a taxi, but we were nowhere near Heathrow and it would have cost something like $85.  I wanted to try the train -- partly because our Travelcard passes would cover a portion of the expense -- but I knew it would be a little tricky. In fact, out of all the transportation connections we'd made on this trip, this was the one that worried me most.

First step: Get to Blackheath train station. We had been walking there all week -- it took about 15 minutes -- but this time we would have luggage. I decided to try Uber.

We had never used Uber before, so I was apprehensive. But it worked flawlessly. After I submitted our ride request online, we could see a little car icon on the online map approaching us and the driver was with us in about 10 minutes. It was a short drive and cost only 5 pounds (we added a small tip).

At the station, I tried to purchase "extensions" for our tickets. Our Travelcards were good for zones 1-3, but Heathrow was in Zone 6. We would have to pay more, but the ticket agent said we couldn't do it at that station. We'd have to wait until we got to a Tube stop. Rats -- I wanted to get that chore out of the way.

Also troubling was that we arrived at the train station at a bad time -- no trains were coming for 25 minutes. On a weekday, they're rolling in every 5 or 10 minutes, but this was a Sunday and we'd just missed a train. We had allowed a lot of time to get to Heathrow but I was starting to feel the minutes ticking away.

Finally, we caught a train to Waterloo Station, and I tried again to buy our extensions. I stood in line for several minutes, only to discover -- arrgh -- I was in the wrong line (I needed the Underground ticket counter, not National Rail).

Reaching the entrance to the Tube's Jubilee line, I looked for a ticket office but saw none. So I bought four extensions at the automated machine. This cost me more than it should have -- I couldn't figure out how to buy "child" extensions for our kids, so I just bought four adult extensions.

I was watching the minutes tick away on my watch -- we had a plane to catch, after all -- but we got good breaks the rest of the way. The Jubilee line train pulled up just as we arrived on the platform. Transferring to the Piccadilly line, we again made an immediate transfer.

It was long ride to Heathrow, but there were no delays and we arrived about two hours after leaving home. At the Tube exit, I wasn't quite sure how to use our ticket extensions, but when I asked a worker, he simply opened a gate and let us through, with barely a glance at our paperwork. We were at the airport an ample two and a half hours before our flight. Whew.

Soon, we were on our flight and heading home.



The full trip, by day: 

Days 1 and 2, Los Angeles to Paris

Day 3, Paris

Day 4, the Palace of Versailles

Day 5, the Eiffel Tower

Day 6, Goodbye France, hello England

Day 7, Windsor Castle & Stonehenge

Day 8, Bath

Day 9, Doctor Who and Swansea's LC

Day 10, the waterfalls of Wales

Day 11, Blists Hill and Ironbridge

Day 12, Warwick Castle

Day 13, Oxford and Harry Potter Studio Tour

Day 14, this is London

Day 15, British Museum and British Library

Day 16, the Tube goes on strike

Day 17, Greenwich, the Thames and Westminster Abbey

Day 18, the Tower of London

Day 19, heading home  



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An American Family in Europe: Day 18, the Tower of London

(Previously: Day 17, Greenwich, the Thames and Westminster Abbey)

When my family was first planning our trip to England, I put down the Tower of London as a "must-do." But as we got into our vacation, we became increasingly tired of crowded tourist sites. We started questioning whether we should visit the very popular Tower.

Our days in England were counting down, so we went back to square one and starting reading, again, about the amazing history of the Tower of London. It became clear: We gotta do the Tower.

So here we were, on our last full day of vacation, going to the Tower of London.

At first, things didn't go smoothly. Arriving at the railway station, we found all the trains delayed from a "pedestrian on the tracks" (we would later learn it was a suicide). What was really remarkable here was that they apologized some 10 or 11 times for "late-running." (In Los Angeles, where I ride the trains, you might get one apology. At most.)

Once we finally arrived at the Tower Hill tube station, we got a glimpse of the Tower of London and naturally decided that ... it's time for lunch.  We sat and ate some burgers at a pretty park named Trinity Garden, that also, by the way, was where more than 125 people were executed in centuries past, including Sir Thomas More. We weren't even in the Tower and history was coming to meet us.

Thanks to a tip from travel writer Rick Steves, we stopped and bought our tickets at the Traders Gate store on Tower Hill -- there was no wait in line, and we saved 5 pounds. Thanks Rick!

The Tower of London is not so much a tower as it is a castle. We crossed the moat, entered the grounds, and toured some of the walls and towers.  We then doubled back to the entrance to take one of the famous tours by Beefeater guides.

Our Beefeater was good, but most importantly he was LOUD. He had to be -- our group had 200 people, a ridiculous size for a tour group (they should consider offering more tours during the busiest times for the year.)

He told us of the beheadings that happened here and the murders of the little princes in the fifteenth century, and noted the many people who are buried in the walls and floor of  the church that lies inside the Tower of London. Yep, there seems to be quite a focus on death here.

After a snack break, we toured "Bloody Tower" -- there we go again -- and then got in line to see the Crown Jewels, which are housed here. The line seemed long, but moved pretty quick and in about 35 minutes we were inside looking at jewels, sceptors and a variety of other shiny objects.

Just outside the Crown Jewels exhibit, we saw something else extraordinary -- a drinking fountain, one only a few we'd seen on this whole trip.
The "Walkie-Talkie"

We left the Tower of London and walked several blocks to a more modern tower -- the skyscraper known officially as 20 Fenchurch, but more commonly as the
"Walkie Talkie" for its distinctive shape.

We had reservations to visit the Sky Gardens, an attraction at the top of 20 Fenchurch that offers, we'd heard, a great view of London. I can't confirm that because somehow they way overbooked the place and when we arrived there was over an hour wait to get inside, even with a reservation. We bailed and headed home.

Next: Day 19, heading home



The full trip, by day: 

Days 1 and 2, Los Angeles to Paris

Day 3, Paris

Day 4, the Palace of Versailles

Day 5, the Eiffel Tower

Day 6, Goodbye France, hello England

Day 7, Windsor Castle & Stonehenge

Day 8, Bath

Day 9, Doctor Who and Swansea's LC

Day 10, the waterfalls of Wales

Day 11, Blists Hill and Ironbridge

Day 12, Warwick Castle

Day 13, Oxford and Harry Potter Studio Tour

Day 14, this is London

Day 15, British Museum and British Library

Day 16, the Tube goes on strike

Day 17, Greenwich, the Thames and Westminster Abbey

Day 18, the Tower of London

Day 19, heading home  



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An American Family in Europe: Day 15, British Museum and British Library

(Previously: Day 14, this is London)


The weather report indicated this was the most likely day to rain during our London stay, so we opted for indoor activities.

We took the train into London, stopped at Leicester Square to get some theater tickets for the next day, fit in a visit to the M&Ms store and then headed to the British Museum.

The British Museum houses some of the greatest artifacts of mankind anywhere, and it's free, but I gotta say it wasn't a great experience for us.

First, it was just too crowded. The Rosetta Stone was surrounded by so many people, it was nearly impossible to get close. Everywhere you went in the museum you were constantly evading other people; you couldn't walk in a straight line.

Second, the presentation of items was uninspired. Each artifact was either mounted on a wall, or placed in a glass case, with a small information placard adjacent. That's fine for most things, but you need some variety or it soon becomes monotonous. How about some audio or video elements? An interactive touch screen? Some sort of example that you can touch and hold in your hands? There was none of that.

I did look at the Elgin Marbles, the source of a dispute between Britain and Greece, and got a feel for what the controversy is about.

One little gem I found fascinating, on the 2nd floor of the museum, was the "rolling ball clock," a timing device from 1810 that seems to me to violate laws of physics against perpetual motion machines.

Lunch was at a nearby Italian restaurant Amarcord, where the food took 40 minutes to arrive after ordering. We were so hungry by that point that we scarfed it down in a fraction of that time.

Next stop was the British Library, which turned out to be much more enjoyable than the British Museum. There was less to see, but the items on display were impressive and well-presented.

We first visited the free Treasures Gallery, which features a remarkably concentrated collection of original books and writings. There was a Gutenberg Bible, original handwritten lyrics from the Beatles and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin and others.

Also good was a special exhibit next door -- alas, not free -- on the Magna Carta that dispelled a lot of myths about this historic document. The exhibit included an original Thomas Jefferson copy of the Declaration of Independence and some informational videos to supplement the displays. The two Magna Cartas on display at the end, however, were disappointing. Both were small, and one was so damaged as to be basically unreadable.

This was a lot of museum time for one day, so our next stop was much less formal: The crosswalk at Abbey Road that the Beatles made famous. We rode two buses to get there, and found a few other small groups ready to get their picture taken there just like we were.

The crossing itself is kind of dangerous, because there's a lot of traffic. You have to pick a moment when the flow subsides for a bit, then move quickly out there. A man from Minnesota agreed to take our picture, we found our moment and got our Facebook-ready photo.

Next: Day 16, the Tube goes on strike



The full trip, by day: 

Days 1 and 2, Los Angeles to Paris

Day 3, Paris

Day 4, the Palace of Versailles

Day 5, the Eiffel Tower

Day 6, Goodbye France, hello England

Day 7, Windsor Castle & Stonehenge

Day 8, Bath

Day 9, Doctor Who and Swansea's LC

Day 10, the waterfalls of Wales

Day 11, Blists Hill and Ironbridge

Day 12, Warwick Castle

Day 13, Oxford and Harry Potter Studio Tour

Day 14, this is London

Day 15, British Museum and British Library

Day 16, the Tube goes on strike

Day 17, Greenwich, the Thames and Westminster Abbey

Day 18, the Tower of London

Day 19, heading home  




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