Don's Diary

Oregon Weighs Race-Based Vaccine Preferences

The first edition, 12/20/20, received some valuable feedback, one friend sending me his list, much of it containing stuff I’d never heard of. A few I’ve now read, relished, and included below. …What am I missing? Please advise.

Paris In The Present Tense by Mark Helprin (and all his fiction)
Rules of Civility: The 110 precepts that guided our first president in war and peace by George Washington
Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the rake who wrote the Constitution by Richard Brookhiser
12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
I Claudius (and sequels) by Robert Graves
Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves
Island by Aldous Huxley
All That Is by James Salter (and all his fiction)
Burning The Days by James Salter
The Snoring Bird by Bernd Heinrich (and all his books on running)
How To Live or A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell
Goodbye, Things by Funio Sasaki
Becket by Jean Anouilh (also enjoyed the movie version)
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the raid that sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Tribe by Sebastian Junger
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
The Wet Engine by Brian Doyle
Simon the fiddler by Paulette Jiles
The Last Season by Eric Blehm
The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child
An Officer And A Spy by Robert Harris
The Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris

Now reading (long, dense, meaty) From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun

We Could Be Vaccinating Twice As Fast

In Oregon, 105,000 teachers (unknown when back in the class room) will get vaccinated before the 800,000 citizens 65 and older.

2021 or 1984?

This Actually Happened On Jeopardy

Now reading Rickover: Controversy and Genius (only 720 pages). Born in Poland in 1900 (or maybe 1898). Not a stellar student in his 1922 graduating class at the Naval Academy. Was in charge of the Navy’s nuclear program for over 30 years. Served under eight Presidents, with at least three of them wanting to get rid of him but would not or could not. Finally forced out in 1982. In the late 60s I shared an off base apartment with Joe, a peon sailor like me, who worked for Rickover. Heard many stories. One Saturday morning, when the friend was gone, the phone rang. It was Rickover. He was looking for Joe to drive him somewhere. It was a very nervous Don who had to tell him, kindly, he was out of luck. Upshot? He was ok with that.

He was featured in a very, very funny book, Living with a SEAL

Goggins was not identified in the book. Later I read Can’t Hurt Me.

Goggins on running.

My last ultra race was the Lake Hodges 50K on 3/11/06. In miserable (cold, wet, flood) conditions. With my Santa Clarita friends. And Goggins. Results.

Obesity Worsens Outcomes from COVID-19

Unfit To Serve

Politicians bicker while vaccine goes unused, even tossed

The Mark and Measure of the Man

Born in lily-white Oregon, jogging has always excluded black people, so says a New York Times op-ed last year. …Bullshit, says Toni Reavis