No Apology: The Structure

ByJohn Brown

I posted my review of No Apology on a few sites the other day. I can understand how some folks might be skeptical that the book is nothing more than a PR puff job. But I’m surprised at how many refuse to even test their assumptions with ten or fifteen minutes of reading (or listening to a few minutes of the book on audio).

Too bad for them. They’re missing out.

For those who think they know Romney from what’s being reported in the press, I want to suggest you listen to or read Pat Caddell’s recent comments on 9/21/12 at the Accuracy in Media conference. Caddell is a Democrat, BTW. He is the founder of Cambridge Survey Research, a public opinion pollster, and an expert in analyzing public opinion.  He’s been working for democratic campaigns for a long, long time. He started with the McGovern campaign.  Then worked for the Jimmy Carter campaign, for Gary Hart, for Joe Biden, and Jerry Brown. His speech is titled “The Audacity of Corruption”.  Find it here: http://www.aim.org/video/pat-caddell-the-audacity-of-corruption/

Back in college I took this class on epistemology (how we know what we know). It was fascinating. One of the best classes I took. One of the things the professor taught us was that the first step in examining someone’s ideas was to capture them. So he’d have us research all sorts of stuff and then write a short paper in which we restated the ideas in summary form.

A few years later I read Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful people. An amazing book. One of the habits was to seek first to understand, then to be understood. He pointed out that probably the best measure of whether you have actually understood someone is that you can restate their point in your own words to their satisfaction.

First seek to understand, then to be understood. Capture.

I’m going to try to do that here.

I’ll start by outlining the structure of the book.

CHAPTERS 1-3
Romney shares some interesting insights about the four main current geopolitical strategies being employed by major players around the world and the threats they pose to us. He also considers lessons from great nations in the past that have fallen—what were their mistakes and how can we avoid them.

CHAPTER 4
Romney discusses key ways we can grow American “soft power” and maintain our “hard power” abroad.

CHAPTERS 5-9
Romney discusses domestically what we need to do to remain internally powerful, and, therefore, prosperous and free. Topics include the economy and jobs (chapter 5), the entitlement programs social security, medicare, and medicaid (chapter 6), health care (chapter 7), education (chapter 8), and energy (chapter 9).

CHAPTER 10
Romney suggests that culture is a huge factor in the success of nations. He summarizes key values and practices he feels will promote a strong culture.

CHAPTER 11 – EPILOGUE
Romney provides a method for gauging how we’ll we’re doing—a set of national indicators—as well as a summary of all the things he discussed in the preceding chapters that he believes will make and keep America strong.

The central overarching theme of the book is that America will only remain strong if we follow certain principles. We’re at a point where many feel America is starting its demise. Romney rejects that must be the case.

In the next post, I’ll capture chapter 1 and make my few comments. I hope you join me 🙂

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  • LTUE 2024 Writing Presentations

    ByJohn Brown

    Yesterday, I gave two presentations at Life, The Universe, and Everything, a SFF writers conference in Provo, Utah. A number of the attendees wanted copies of the presentations. I’ve linked to them below.

    The Two Types of Plots Every Writer Should Know

    There are two types of plots that power almost all successful commercial fiction. Are you using them in your stories? Do you know how they work? In this class, you learn both plot types, their key beats, the 3 big mistakes writers make, how to generate scenes, and much, much more. Come learn how to make plotting easier and deliver the ride your readers are looking for.

    My lecture notes.

    How to Banish Writer’s Block, Fear, and Doubt and Unleash Your Awesome Power

    The #1 thing that slays more writing dreams than anything else is the writer’s own head games. In 2005 I fiddled with death. Cognitive therapy (and God and a good counselor) saved me. And gave me an explosion of insights about writing stories and the distortions that sabotage so many of us writers. In this class, you learn the distortions, the truth, and a tried-and-true technique for removing the distortions that anyone can follow. You don’t need to struggle anymore. Banish your writer’s block, fear, imposter’s syndrome, comparisonitis, and more. Come learn how to unleash your awesome creativity and have a blast writing.

    PDF of presentation slides.

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  • Some 101 for Congress and the President

    ByJohn Brown

    It’s not really rocket science.

    1. If you have loans outstanding and the payment is due, you owe the creditors a payment. Payables for Idiots 101.
    2. If you have received goods and services, then you owe your vendors a payment. Payables for Idiots 102.
    3. You pay your bills. End of story. That’s what grown ups do. If you have to float some debt for a few months, you do it. And you staple a note to your head to stop spending like a slot machine junkie. Payables for Idiots 103.

    The debts we have are for goods and services we’ve already received. So increase the debt limit and pay your damn bills. What about spending?

    1. You do not spend more than you take in year after year. If you do, that’s called running your business into the ground. In the case of the Congress (primarily Harry Reid’s Senate at this point, although many, but not all, of the Republicans were happy to go along with dumb spending earlier) and the President, it’s the country they’re running into the ground. Spending for Idiots 101.
    2. If you’ve got all sorts of cool things planned like Acorn subsidies for pimps and Antarctica Jell-O wrestling grants for scientists, but you can’t afford them—i.e. you have to go into debt to get them–you cancel those plans. Spending for Idiots 102.
    3. The problem is that Congress and the President buy all sorts of crap and expect to put it on a credit card when it comes due. And there’s nothing to prevent them from doing it.
    4. They’re like irresponsible teenagers. They need controls that won’t allow them to overspend. Kind of like putting limits on a teenager’s cell phone minutes. Or forcing them to use a debit card. When they’re out of cash, they get a card denied response from their vendors.
    5. So you set spending limits, debt limits, and force them to balance the budget each year, except in extreme emergencies like when space aliens try to wipe out humanity. Spending for Idiots 103.

    This means you pass Cut, Cap, and Balance and quit spending money you don’t have. Really difficult stuff. What about getting out of debt?

    1. You eat rice and beans until you’re debt is gone or down to a manageable level. That means you cancel crap you can’t pay for. Sorry earmarks, you’re gone. Sorry grants for nude artists in trees, you’re gone. Sorry subsidies for PBS, you’re gone.  Finances 200: How to Not Be A Money Moron.
    2. You figure out how to reduce your current cost structure. This means you figure out a way to reduce the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and every other service or product you provide, cutting those that aren’t essential. You hire someone like Mitt Romney who knows how to go through every line in a budget and turn a bloated ship around.  Finances 300: No, You Can’t Pay For Your Sister’s Hair Implants with My Money.
    3. You remind people this is the freaking U S of A. A place where a man or woman can make themselves. Not where the government changes your diapers and feeds you mush three times a day. Communism and socialism have failed. They were badly conceived utopias, much like multi-level soap and vitamin marketing schemes that are supposed to usher in the Second Coming.  Finances 400: The USA Buried the USSR for a Reason.
    4. You increase your revenues.
    5. However, if you raise taxes, you’re actually going to depress your revenues. Think about this. Which car company has bigger revenues–Lamborgini or Honda? Who is going to put out, if they’ve got Louie the Fingers and his buddy Jockstrap taking increasing amounts of their money in a protection racket? Don’t be a thug. Be an enabler.  Do what Wal-Mart does and go for volume.  Do what Ebay does–create the environment that entices tons of commerce, entices people to dramatically increase their transactions. Transactions go through the roof; you take only a tiny cut, and, shazam, you increase your revenues.  Finances 500: Um, Do You Want People to Work to Become Rich or Do You Want Them To Pick Up Torches and Burn the Houses of the Rich Down?

    Cut spending, reduce cost structure, and increase your revenues. That’s getting out of debt.

    Is this really that hard?

    EDIT: 8/1 Seems that “wacky” Ron Paul actually has a simple commonsense approach that doesn’t sound crazy. Why couldn’t we do this?

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  • Good Stuff! Factfulness by Hans Rosling

    ByJohn Brown

    Are things really bad as they seem on the news?

    Are they getting worse?

    Do we actually have an accurate picture of what’s going on in the world?

    The answer is no. Not even close.

    The normal American’s view is completely skewed. And negative. And that’s because the news is prone to be overly dramatic.

    We think we’re learning what’s going on by watching the news, but we actually getting an incredibly skewed view. And that view is wrong.

    In his book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling identifies a number of things we get wrong, but also the 10 reasons why, and how to avoid our tendencies to skew the data.  

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    For example, Rosling wanted to see how well we understand the scientific projections of how our population will grow. After all, a lot of people think we’re headed for an overpopulation nightmare.

    In 1950 there were fewer than one billion children (aged 0-14) in the world. By 2000 there were almost two billion. How many do UN experts think there will be in 2100?

    1. 4 billion
    2. 3 billion
    3. 2 billion

    What do you think the right answer is?

    If a bunch of chimpanzees had to answer the question above, each would choose an answer randomly. And 33% of them would get it right.

    But when you ask humans the question, most of them get it wrong. Most of them, in fact, do worse than the chimpanzees. It’s not even close.

    Rosling asked 12,000 people in 14 countries were asked this question, among others. Here’s how many got it right in various countries.

    To be clear, no chimps were tested. That bar is in there just for comparison. But if they were, that’s how they’d do.

    So how is it possible that humans do so spectacularly worse than the chimpanzees?

    It’s not because chimps are secretly studying world population stats and hatching schemes. It’s because we humans think we know something, but, in reality, what we think we know is wrong.

    And in this case, we think they know that the population is going to keep growing and growing and growing.

    But it’s not.

    The right answer above is C—there are 2 billion children now, and there will be 2 billion in 2100.

    The world has hit the peak number of children it will ever have at any time.

    There are around 6 billion people on the earth today. As those 2 billion children get older, the UN experts project the total population to fill out and grow to 11 billion in 2100 and then level off.

     That means there is no overpopulation nightmare on the horizon.

    Can this be true?

    Read Rosling’s book.

    Well, what about literacy levels? Poverty? Racism? Wars?

    And what about the news—don’t we see the world going to pieces every night?

    If you want an eye-opening experience, read Rosling’s book. He delivers all the insights with clarity, expertise, and humor.

    Best of all, when you’re done, you’ll have a set of tools to help you correct the picture.

    And while you’re waiting for the book, why not watch Rosling in action in this TED talk where he shows the data on population.

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    Good Stuff! The actual Christmas story

    ByJohn Brown

    It’s interesting how many things we’ve added to the accounts we have in the Bible.

    For example, nowhere does the Bible say that Mary rode a donkey. Mary might have walked. Or rode in a cart. Or gotten piggy back rides. We don’t know. We do know that there is no donkey mentioned in the record.

    It also doesn’t say she had the child the night they arrived.

    It only says she was “great with child” when they made the roughly 80-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And that “while they were there” in Bethlehem “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.”

    So she had the baby sometime while they were there. That could have been during the first hour. But it could have also been a week or month later. We just don’t know.

    It doesn’t mention anywhere the word stable.

    Christ might have been born in a stable, or he might have been born in a cave, or inside the house, or out on the porch, or on the roof (lots of those places had flat roofs where they hung out). We just don’t know. What we do know is that he wasn’t born in a palace. And that they laid him in a manger because there wasn’t any room in the inn. An odd circumstance for a king.  

    Notice as well that there weren’t multiple inns.

    It just says “the inn.” And if you look up that word in the Greek, it’s translated as “guest chamber” in the other spots where it’s used in Luke. So they could have been talking about the one guest room in the house where they were staying. Either way, we don’t have anything that says there was a mean innkeeper who later regretted turning the couple away or that Joseph went door-to-door looking for a place.

    We have no record in the account of three wisemen.

    It just says “wisemen.” So there might have been two of them. Or twelve. We don’t know. And it appears they came sometime after Jesus had been born because they first saw the star of his birth in the east and only then set out to find him. They might have been coming from Persia, hundreds of miles away. Or they could have been living in Bethphage, a mile to the east of Jerusalem. Either way, they didn’t know they should travel to Bethlehem because it says they went and talked to Herod first, in Jerusalem, and asked “where is he that is born King of the Jews?”

    The question freaked Herod out (if you’re the current king, you kind of want to know who else is claiming your throne), and so he gathered all the chief priests and scribes to discuss it, and those guys said the prophecies said it would be Bethlehem. And so Herod met with the wisemen again and told them to go there. And only then did they go down to Bethlehem. So it doesn’t appear the wisemen were there the night of the birth.  

    There’s no record of camels hanging out with the baby either. Or sheep. Or goats. There’s not a lot there. But what is there is interesting.

    Now, I want to go on record stating I have no problem speculating about the event and imagining what it might have been like. I love to do it. Good grief, I write fiction.

    In fact, for many years I figured I needed to get in on the Christmas noun gig. You know what I mean. Every year we get heart-warming books about new Christmas nouns. We’ve had Christmas sweaters, Christmas jars, Christmas boxes, Christmas candles, Christmas carols. This year I see there’s one about Christmas fudge and other about a Christmas train. So I figured I’d do one. Mine would be about the Christmas rat. A little fellow who decided to snuggle up with the babe instead of giving him a nibble. One of these days I will get that hungry rat story written.  

    In the meantime, while there’s a lot of good stuff we’ve added to make the event special, it’s also nice to know what the record actually does say. Whether you’re Christian or not, it’s helpful when dealing with others to know what was recorded about this event that is so significant to the largest religion in the world.

    And so the last bit of good stuff I recommend this month are the two brief accounts we have. The first one is in Matthew 2:1-16 and tells the story of the wisemen. The other is in Luke 2:1-20 and features some shepherds.

    Merry Christmas!

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2 Comments

  1. Enjoying this so far, John. And I’ll be picking up a copy so that I can follow along with these posts. I’m pretty sure that there will be areas that where I differ greatly with Mr. Romney-I’m not a Republican-but I definitely don’t like the way that the media twists a lot of what he does and tries ever so hard to make him look stupid when he’s obviously not. So, thanks for doing these and I look forward to the series.

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