Category: Reading

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Education Milwaukee Reading

They Marched Into Sunlight

Is there anything better than a book you simply cannot put down?  They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 written by Pulitzer Prize winner and best selling author David Maraniss is striking a cord with me. This story set on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and a battlefield named Ong Thanh, located 40 miles north of Saigon where American soldiers walked into an ambush.

they marched into sunlightThere are so many elements of this book that make you want to slowly digest each chapter. The early chapters introduce soldiers making their way towards Lai Khe including Lt. Terry Allen, Jr. He was the son of World War II hero Army General Terry Allen.  Soliders came from around the Midwest and were eager to serve our country.

Growing up in Ohio and today living in Milwaukee I was immediately drawn to the stories of those soldiers.

Chapter Six: “Madison Wisconsin” is just a wonderful overview to the student anti-war movement of the 1960s.  One of the students involved in Madison campus protests was Paul Solgin. He has been elected Mayor of Madison three times since 1973. After his first stint as Mayor he became a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  Today he is the current Mayor, elected in April 2011.

The student newspaper The Daily Cardinal editor-in-chief was Jeff Greenfield, current CBS senior political analyst. And former Vice President Dick Chaney was finishing his master’s degree on the Madison campus in 1967.

PBS produced an American Experience segment titled “Two Days in October” about They Marched Into Sunlight.  The BBC re-aired the program renamed “How Vietnam was lost.”  Is it any surprise that Tom Hanks’ production company Playtone, is shooting a movie based upon this book?

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Matterhorn

Tonight I have just finished reading Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War and have been just amazed at how this book has strengthened my understanding of the toll of war has on American soldiers.

matterhorn

There seems to be a strength in Matterhorn about the unique lives of soldiers facing death.  Author Karl Marlantes served honorably in Vietnam and it proves to be the difference.

This is a story in the footsteps of Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and Robert Leckie: Helmet for My Pillow.  These two books were the basis for HBO’s The Pacific series. Matterhorn now sits with Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War and Michael Herr’s Dispatches as must-read books about Vietnam.

As I continue reading The Pentagon Papers I am reminded of casualty reports, focusing on body counts as a way to gauge of victory.  Marlantes brings this to life.  It was all a lie. The soldiers knew it all too well.

Marlantes deserves all recognition surrounding this work.  The riveting story of a US soldier stationed along an ambush line mauled to death by a tiger was just as appalling as the fragging of an officer in the final pages.

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Design Education Globalization Innovation Milwaukee Reading Tablet Technology

Will printed books remain relevant in the future?

Milwaukee radio station 620am WTMJ broadcast a segment regarding ebooks last week.  I finally got around to blogging about it today.  The segment was titled: Will printed books remain relevant in the future?  Book/library aficionado/blogger Paul Everett Nelson joins WAN at 4:34pm.

While the discussion was simple and well targeted to their audience there is certainly more to this story.  I understand the limited time allocated to radio segments — its Milwaukee’s WTMJ – not NPR.

My own experience and love of reading drew me to think deeper about the discussion of the publishing industry and their new demand to charge libraries unbeliveable fees.Some believe the publishing industry has been decimated in the internet age like the music industry.  Not sure that I completely agree with this statement.  A well run publishing business should be able to make significantly more profit from selling ebooks.  But in order to be successful the publishing industry must cannibalize itself.

One of the points of discussion is a rather draconian sales policy ebook publishers have demanded. They are changing their Terms  by actually charging libraries to repurchase (at full price no less) any ebook checked out more than 25 times. Yes you read that correctly – publishers plan to force every library that checks out an ebook 25 times to re-purchase the ebook at full price.

When exactly did those same publishers force those same libraries to purchase additional hardback copies of their books at full price after they were checked out 25 times?  Never, since the idea is just asinine.

Imaging a cable company requiring you to purchase a new cable package after watching 25 TV shows. Yep – now you know how stupid — or simply greed — is driving this decision.

Ever see a stack of 500 books on a shipping pallet?   Consider all the costs for print, assembly and shipping.  Add costs to distribute those books to bookstores and big box resellers….that is an expensive and time consuming process.  Oh yea…want it fast? — then pay extra for overnight shipping. Remember those books are only available during business hours.

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Education Globalization Reading

Opening The Vault On The Financial Crisis

Great Britain slipped into recession again this week. Its worth another view of how close we came to economic collapse:

The HBO movie was good.  The book was so much better….and rather shocking.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

After reading 3,500ish pages I reached a breaking point. I set aside the remaining volumes of  the Pentagon Papers and began reading Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War.
matterhornMuch to my surprise this book has been very highly recommended. As I have been reading each volume of the Pentagon Papers it has become quite clear that the politics of war is true insanity.

Sebastian Junger in the New York Times wrote “one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam—or any war.”

And Mark Bowden who wrote Black Hawk Down commented “(it is) so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn’t sure I could stand to turn the page…There have been some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but Matterhorn is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed.”

What struck me in The Matterhorn that has been echoing in my mind about the Pentagon Papers was the intentional misleading of enemy killed.  At the end of the third chapter a firefight with canon fire killed two NVA soldiers. However as author Karl Marlantes described in the post battle briefing the number of enemy dead was increased as it was sent further up the chain of command.

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