Charlie Rose talks with Steve Coll about The Bin Ladens.

Patrick Stewart talks about baldness. [via funkaoshi]

Before 9/11, I don't think I could have named one living person from Saudi Arabia. Afterward, I could name one. So I didn't know much going into Steve Coll's book.

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century starts near the turn of the century, with Awadh Bin Laden's beginnings in Yemen. His sons Mohamed and Abdullah would leave for Saudi Arabia and begin the Bin Laden Construction Company. The close ties that Mohamed managed to develop with the first king of Saudi Arabia helped cement his fortunes, earned with a combination of pluck, overwhelming work ethic, and obsequiousness. He and his kids would become involved in construction projects in Riyadh, Medina, Mecca, and other spots in Saudi Arabia. The Bin Ladens were in on a pretty incredible list of projects: lots royal palaces and getaways, highways, telecommunications, infrastructure, renovations on the Prophet's Mosque and the Grand Mosque, and some semi-suspicious military-related projects near the Yemeni border. The Bin Laden family relied on the royal family.

Mohamed had at least 54 children. His oldest son Salem became the new family patriarch after Mohamed's death and continued the ties with the royal family and launched a new wave of international investments. The family businesses and the family itself spread across the globe. Miami, California, D.C., Boston, London, Geneva, Egypt, Syria, everywhere. His brother Bakr rose to leadership when Salem died.

Osama was the 17th son of the family. His story, like the rest of the family, seems to get a pretty fair treatment. It's easy to paint a one-dimensional villain as we now see him, but the whole story is told. There's a sense of appreciation for some of the energy and courage of Mohamed, the ineluctable cheer of Salem, the maturation of Bakr. Coll doesn't hesitate to point out contradictions or hypocritical behavior of anyone in the family. He's also quick to qualify when his research is incomplete ("the best evidence suggests that...").

I could have done with fewer anecdotes about shopping sprees for planes and jewelry. Otherwise, a great read and a surprising page-turner for its heft.

Emmet Connolly collected a bunch of worthy quotes from reading Brian Eno's book, A Year with Swollen Appendices. I didn't figure him to be so cantankerous. My two favorites:

I gave a talk about self-generating systems and the end of the era of reproduction — imagining a time in the future when kids say to their grandparents, "So you mean you actually listened to exactly the same thing over and over again?"

and

Once we get used to the idea that we are no longer consumers of "finished" works, but that we are people who engage in conversations and interactions with things, we find ourselves leaving a world of "know you own station" passivity and we start to develop a taste for active engagement. We stop regarding things as fixed and unchangeable, as preordained, and we increasingly find ourselves practicing the idea that we have some control.

"I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge." ---Stravinsky

I had been meaning to read Robert Higgs’ book for years and I'm very glad I got to it. And I've been sitting on my review for a while because I always fear sounding like a shrill, libertarian paranoid.

Crisis & Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government explores the past century of American history, the national response to the nation's worst crises (whether genuine or contrived), and the aftermath of each. The government's scope and power exploded in response to World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. And after each, the powers were mostly disassembled.

Mostly. The so-called ratchet effect meant that after each event, the government never fully relinquished all its powers. Some of that was due to bureaucratic inertia or cronyism---some agencies never disappeared, but continued or assumed new roles in the aftermath. And a large part was of course due to changing ideology and public support for the government's new roles. There were the lingering effects of decades of propaganda and new generations raised in those times. We grew comfortable with the new role, learning that it "wasn't all that bad"---we could still worship as we pleased, and the news wasn't yet nationalized. We looked to the progressive examples of the European states. The costs of the larger government were hidden with clever schemes like income tax withholding---you never miss what you never had---and the ever-growing number of people included in the tax base. Mind-blowing trivia: in 1913, the highest income tax bracket was 7% and 98% of the population owed no income tax. Times change.

One of the big assumptions in the book, one that makes me uncomfortable for our present, is that "government has substantial autonomy in its policy-making". Like we saw recently, even with widespread opposition to the first bailout, we got one anyway. And the strategy seems to change with every day. We probably have even more on the way. Especially in these crisis situations,

Few people outside the government have enough information to identify the precise contours of the emergency or to formulate comprehensive plans for dealing with it. Citizens tend simultaneously to demand (a) more governmental action and (b) less research, public consultation, debate of alternative, and general "due process" in governmental decision-making.

Higgs' study of each era ranges through the socionomic and political conditions before, during and after; the prevailing ideologies; the leading elites and interest groups; emergency orders and agencies; court challenges and decisions; and the institutional fallout---what society learned. He ranges through statistical analyses, Supreme Court decisions, legislative studies, executive backroom dealing and more. While there is a clear growth trend, Higgs makes the distinction between big government and Big Government. The first is an issue of size, the second has more to do with intrusion in peaceful affairs. We've had increase in both. I find it astounding that, during World War II for example, we so easily accepted conscription and price controls---even the courts went along with it. And once you give in to those, what are a few other small sacrifices here and there?

The book was published in the late 1980s, but you can see the same patterns repeated in the wake of 9/11 and our current financial awkwardness. This does not bode well.

By the second week of March 1933 an extraordinary conjuncture had developed: 1) a genuine economic crisis, especially the massive unemployment and the pitifully depressed production and consumption; 2) and artificial economic crisis produced by the nationwide banking shutdown; 3) a widespread sense of crisis and a feeling that only extraordinary measures could prevent an even greater catastrophe, sentiments manifested in the numerous and diverse calls to "do something" even if dictatorial powers were required to do it; and 4) a new administration taking office unencumbered by perceived responsibility for past ill fortunes and unchecked by opposition from a partisan Congress eager to obstruct and embarrass the President.

Scandal is our growth industry.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for youAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to'another due, Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

---John Donne

Doctor Atomic is a new-ish opera about Dr. Oppenheimer, his team, and the first test of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. I saw the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's semi-staged version on Friday night. It was all played and sung well enough. Parts of it were good. Some parts were outstanding---Oppenheimer's aria on John Donne's Batter my heart, three-person'd God was an incredible piece of music, if not storytelling (here's a recording and a video of the solo). And the gut-wrenching countdown carried by the orchestra in the second act was a ton of fun. What suspense!

But some parts on the journey were just dreadfully boring. People sing about the weather and scientific devices and stand around and smoke. There's no real look inside their head and they don't seem to have motivations. The final seconds of the ending---recorded voices of a victim asking for help coupled with the image of a Japanese mother and child projected against the backdrop---just seemed plain old tacky and self-congratulatory in a dangerous way. When you omit the few weeks that happened between the first test and the first bombings, the ambiguity and the wonderful moral dilemma of the time gets washed out.

Awesome? No. Worth seeing? Mostly. Read Greg Sandow's comments on Doctor Atomic and Ron Rosenbaum on why he walked out.

Though I've been a percussion player/enthusiast for a number of years, I'd never heard of a hang drum until I got clued in at Crushing Krisis last week. Hang is like a hybrid of a steel drum, gamelan, and an udu. Here's a video of some hang playing. It's a pretty sweet instrument and it's too bad that the only manufacturer is on hiatus right now. Can't find the thing anywhere.

Carp Leaping Up a Cascade by Katsushika Hokusai. I find this rather breathtaking.

A map of the world showing the most recent piracy incidents at sea. The hottest spot is the Gulf of Arden, between Yemen and Somalia (surprised?). The next worst are the West African coast and the areas around Singapore.

The New York Times has a rather negative review of Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, Outliers.

"All language, at some level, is body language."

Advice from Hal Varian's monograph, How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time [pdf], most of which applies to things not related to economics:

1. Look for ideas in the world, not in the journals.
2. First make your model as simple as possible, then generalize it.
3. Look at the literature later, not sooner.
4. Model your paper after your seminar.
5. Stop when you’ve made your point.

If, as a westerner, you are going to visit Africa, the earlier in your life you do it, the better. The writer also brings up the paradox of service missions:

I suspect my earnest young woman felt that the only "appropriate" way to interact with Africa was to roll her sleeves up and start hammering a wall into place or digging a latrine. That is certainly what most British politicians do when they go to Africa. The charities that organise student gap years also seem to regard building schools in Vietnam and digging wells in Malawi as the best use of their volunteers' time. It's bizarre, when you think about it. The one thing the developing world has a surplus of is physical labour.

"Most normal persons are now taught to neglect far too much the sort of excitement which the mind itself manufactures out of unexciting things." ---G.K. Chesterton on the Joy of Dullness

The history of the weekend and how it's changed our culture of leisure:

For many people weekend free time has become not a chance to escape work but a chance to create work that is more meaningful---to work at recreation---in order to realize the personal satisfactions that the workplace no longer offers.

[via link banana]

Turtle, by Kay Ryan:

Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way To something edible. With everything optimal, She skirts the ditch which would convert Her shell into a serving dish. She lives Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery Will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, The sport of truly chastened things.

"How did you become a poet?""Reluctantly."

Charlie Rose interviews U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan and James Billington of the Librarian of Congress:

If I've written this written this properly, it's like condensed soup... it should be reconstitutable in the mind of the reader and it should come out just about right if you've had a chance to read it.

And this:

I mistrust inspiration... I find it necessary to begin before I have any inspiration.