The Art of War

Having been absolutely blown away by Machiavelli’s The Prince, I decided to further feed my appetite for ages-old learning on strategy by reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which dates back to at least 500 B.C.  And my eagerness to read this book was further bolstered by the claims in the book’s introduction that it has served as essential reading for leaders including Napoleon, Patton, MacArthur, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Castro.

Well, Sun Tzu is no Machiavelli.  Which doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a smart guy — it just means that trying to apply the techniques and principles espoused in The Art of War to my everyday life is a bit more difficult than behaving in a Machiavellian fashion.

There are some pretty good  nuggets here, though, which I think merit some credit because they were first articulated by Sun Tzu so long ago:  “All warfare is based on deception.”  “Hold out baits to entice the enemy.  Feign disorder, and crush him.”  “Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”  These ideas are indeed useful in business, in sports, and in other areas in which you seek an advantage (including, I suppose, in war).  And he even includes a couple of ideas that are all too relevant in our current world: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”  “[T]hough we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.”

But many of Sun Tzu’s principles are either common sense (and would seem to have been matters of common sense even 2500 years ago), or are so specific to waging battle in China in Sun Tzu’s time that they are not really that enlightening or useful.  “If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.”  Uhm, thanks for that tip, Sherlock.  “One cartload of the enemy’s provisions is equivalent to twenty of one’s own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one’s own store.”  “With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.”  Okay — I’ll try to keep that in mind.

This is a very short and I think worthwhile read, but keep your expectations reasonable in terms of what sorts of ancient learning you might take away and implement in your life.

Better late than never

Hey, Matisyahu is playing at Criminal Records this afternoon.  For free. 3PM. Good excuse to skip work early.

And…

I got so caught up in the election excitement that I forgot to mention that the MJCCA Book Festival starts this weekend and runs through December 10.  Rivka Galchen, author of personal favorite Atmospheric Disturbances, was supposed to be reading on Tuesday according to the program (Page 6) that I got in the mail, but she doesn’t appear to be on the schedule any longer.  I am so bummed.  Anyway, they have week’s worth of other stuff to do and see.  Just no Rivka.  Or Tony Curtis.

The Funny

Author and Skinny Black Guy Colson Whitehead writes about having a Skinny Black Guy elected President.  He feels confident that Obama will “reach across the aisle to Skinny White Guys, Haven’t Been Able to Get to the Gym White Guys, and If They Were Women They’d Be Called Zaftig White Guys.”

Joel Stein, writing in Time magazine, was afraid that the “Urkel Effect” would sink Obama’s chances on election day.  John “He’s a PC” Hodgman dared to insist that America was ready for a nerd President.

David Rees (Get Your War On) offers safety tips for having your mind blown by the election results.

Buyology

Since I am an advertising attorney and spend my working hours dealing with consumer marketing, it makes sense that I was interested in Buyology — Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, by Martin Lindstrom, and I was even more excited about it when I read all the glorious praise crammed inside the book jacket and on the back cover.  The book purports to reveal the “astonishing findings from [the author's] groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million dollar neuromarketing study”.

Well, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to find flaws in this book.  While I think the idea of using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (monitoring subjects’ brains as various sounds and images are presented to them) to learn more about what drives consumers, Lindstrom is a lot more bluster than science.  This became apparent to me as I came across multiple references to my company, all but one of which was at best a misstatement or a data point taken out of context to prove his point, and at worst a flat-out lie.

He seems to me to be, above all, a marketer of himself; I would think that if he truly was going to present his findings in a credible fashion, he would better research some of the examples he uses.  The fact that he included so many conclusory statements that I personally know to be false makes me question every other statement in this book, including the veracity of the studies he claims to have helped conduct.

If you want to read this one, remember the age-old warning:  buyer beware.

My Beef with Crichton

Author Michael Crichton yesterday died yesterday after losing a battle with cancer, which I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  I do have some gripes with the man’s art though.  I enjoyed some of his early novels, especially those featuring dinosaurs.  Over the last few years though, it seemed that he had an axe to grind that I was not on board with.  I wrote a full length diatribe about it two years ago.

Some highlights of my lack of appreciation:

• Crichton wins a “journalism” award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for his fictional climate change-denying door stop State of Fear
• Crichton settles a score with a critic by making him a child rapist in his novel Next (read this article about the matter to learn the “small penis rule” of libel
• A trend piece about including a bibliography in novels includes this: Readers are often impressed with his bibliography, Mr. Crichton added. “People will often say to me, ‘Oh my goodness, look how many books you’ve read,’ ” he said.

On the plus side, I came across the completely unrelated Strunk and White Elements of Spam while searching the archives for this post.

New Day Rising

Certain national events have some us feeling pretty darn hopeful.  When I think of “unhinged optimism” one song comes to mind.  The President-Elect’s logo even suggested the song.  It’s not a terribly complex song.  There are only three words and chaos.  And it has been stuck in my head for about two weeks.  Turn it up to 11.

Husker Du – New Day Rising

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Chez went with U2′s Beautiful Day.  That works, too.  ANYWAY, we’ll get back to books soon.  Promise.

Happy Election Day!

What an exciting and historic day. Even though my home state of Connecticut is a foregone conclusion – I was still in line at 5:50 am when the polls opened and there was definitely electricity in the air. We are hosting an election night party (tasty Obamatini’s are calling my name) and have included kids in the festivities. Here is the 2008 Presidential Election Quiz I am giving to the kids (ages 6-12). How many questions can you answer?

1. What state is Sarah Palin from?
2. Where is Barack Obama’s father from?
3. What is Joe Biden’s current job?
4. Name 2 other people that ran against Barack Obama for the democratic nomination.
5. Where did John McCain go to college?
6. John McCain will continue the war in Iraq. True or False?
7. The next President will be number in US history.
8. How many electoral votes does Connecticut have?
9. How many electoral votes do the candidates need to win?
10. What is the minimal amount of electoral votes that a state gets?
11. What is the most common first name for a President?
12. Name two presidents that have the same last name?
13. When does the president take office?
14. What animal represents the Democratic party?
15. Who was the Democratic candidate for our Congressional representative (CT 4th district)?

P.S. In my children’s school mock elections – both of their classes went 100% for Obama.

Move Along

There’s nothing to see here.  We all need to be focusing on our civic obligations over the next few days.  Plus I can’t read or write more than a few coherent sentences.  This election if freaking me out.  My ballot has 51 items on it.   About half are for various judge positions.  Those are important right?  How do you pick from the nine people running for some of these posts?  Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrgggh…