Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern

Mr. Halpern's dad is a foul mouthed, insensitive, and hilarious father. This collection of really horrible things he said to young Mr. Halpern made me occasionally laugh out loud, and feel better about my own parenting.

Growing Up Amish: A Memoir, by Ira Wagler

This was an interesting memoir of Mr. Wagler's troubled childhood, a rebellious young man who was never quite comfortable with the structure of his Amish community, and never quite comfortable outside of it. Unfortunately, the memoir misses a punchline: how did it end up, what's he doing now, etc. That defect, in my view, makes it not worth reading the book at all.

Shaken, by Tim Tebow

I like Mr. Tebow, because he seems authentic and decent. The NFL doesn't seem to mind hiring thugs, felons, and drug users, and I like that Mr. Tebow appears unlikely to ever be any of those things. Then again, he's also unlikely to ever again play in the NFL.

Still, a likable guy about whom I only ever see good reports: helping special needs kids, helping kids with serious illnesses. So when I saw his book, I thought, why not?

And it was an enjoyable read. I'd recommend it to some folks. But even as I was reading, I found myself wondering what the book is really about. At the end, there was no unifying theme or message. Or maybe there was, about Mr. Tebow's faith, that I just wasn't resonating with.

So all-in-all, for me it was a donut: tasty but not really filling. Your mileage may vary.

Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss

The full title of this book is, "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers." Mr. Ferriss hosts a very popular podcast and this is an edited and annotated collection of interview comments from his successful guests.

On the plus side, there are tons of interesting thoughts to be found.
On the negative, if someone reads this with the expectation of finding a formula to help them succeed, they're in for a tough time. Not because there aren't great ideas and solid advice, but because there's too much.

Probably better indexing would help the reader seeking an "answer."
The happy reader will either enjoy all the comments from Mr. Ferriss' very interesting guests, or if they are pursuing a self-improvement goal, will pick and choose a crisp clear path, and be willing to leave many great ideas on the side lest they be a distraction.

As for me, I don't want self-help advice. I don't seek out entrepreneurial ideas. But I really enjoy reading this stuff and looking for leads to new ideas or practices, and cool twitter feeds or web sites that I've not heard of. So for me, this was a very enjoyable read.

Living with a SEAL, by Jesse Itzler

This is a terrific, fast -reading book. The background is that Mr. Itzler (a successful, wealthy entrepreneur who is also a distance runner) entered a team race where runners take turns over a 24 hour period. He saw an individual running the race as a one-man team, doing over 100  miles, and was intrigued. (It turns out this person is a Navy Seal who doesn't want his name used, so Mr. Itzler refers to him only as SEAL throughout the book.) Net is, Mr. Itzler hired SEAL to train him for a month, living with Itzler and his family.

This book documents the training. Wait! Don't go -- this isn't a fitness training book! It is more of a journal, a peek into the life of a billionaire family through this experience. But it really isn't that either, it isn't really voyeuristic at all. I guess I don't know how to describe it except to say that I laughed out loud five times while reading. That's a lot for a 251 page book about doing pushups and running.

I recommend this for anyone, athlete or not, because it was just plain amusing. Oh, language warning: there is some foul language used, but no other concerns about reading it aloud to your toddler at bedtime.

They Call Me Supermensch, by Shep Gordon

Mr. Gordon is an entertainment manager who got his start handling Alice Cooper, and is also known for representing famous chefs. In this auto-biography, he emphasizes his notion of treating people well, striving for win-win deals, and paying back kindness.

The book is very engaging and it was great fun to read. But I have one complaint, something that nagged at me about this book until I finally figured out exactly what it is.

Mr. Gordon, a lifelong cannabis user, talks quite nonchalantly about his pot (and other drug) use in his book. The thing is, in many parts of the US, including Hawaii where Mr. Gordon lives, its (non-medical) use is illegal.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not opposed to cannabis. I just find it very upsetting that wealthy or famous folks like Mr. Gordon can flaunt their use of cannabis when literally millions of Americans are arrested for the same thing. For example, according to the ACLU, "Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana." [www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrests-numbers]

It seems as though a privileged class of elites, like Mr. Gordon, Snoop Dogg, Willy Nelson, and the like, can be quite public about their use of cannabis and flat out ignore the laws, but millions of normal folks who use cannabis risk incarceration and even felony prosecution.

This imbalance seems unfair. Whichever way the public pushes on legislation, I'd just like to see fairness and equity in the enforcement of the law. So, if you're anti -cannabis, then insist on equal prosecution of Hollywood types. And if you're pro -cannabis, then fight against the current laws that lead to so many arrests: 8.2 million according to the ACLU, between 2000 and 2010, which were 52% of all drug arrests, and of which 88% were for simple possession. [www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrests-numbers]

If Mr. Gordon wrote about all the sit ins or protests or lobbying efforts he'd organized to correct this imbalance, I'd feel a whole lot more impressed by him. Reading about him smoking a joint in his hot tub to help him come to inventive new ideas wasn't all that sympathetic.

Is this a big deal? According to 2013 FBI data; in Texas alone, 70,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession. As Texas State Representative Joe Moody says [http://krwg.org/post/97-texas-marijuana-convictions-are-possession], these arrests can destroy young people's' futures. "... if you had a financial aid grants those could be off the table for you, federal student aid is definitely off the table, getting a job is going to be extremely difficult because those criminal background checks are going to show up... Renting an apartment. Anything a young person is needing to be doing to kind of get on their feet to get their life going, all those things can be derailed by a minor conviction.”

My over-reaction to this political topic affected my view of what was otherwise a very good book, which I still recommend.

The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin

Mr. Waitzkin was a chess prodigy, about whom a book, Searching for Bobby Fisher, was written by his dad in 1988. It became a movie in 1993. As a young adult, Mr. Waitzkin moved from chess to martial arts, competing in Tai Chi's push hands tournaments (a large part of this book), and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

The conceit of this book is that Mr. Waitzkin can extrapolate from his experiences as a world class chess player and world class martial arts competitor to provide lessons about learning. Hence the title.

As an auto-biography, it is interesting although rather repetitive. As an instructional text, it is so far from useful as to be a zero.

So if you're curious about Mr. Waitzkin, then by all means read this (preferably by borrowing it from a free public library). If you want to learn about learning techniques, how to gain excellence in a field, etc., just cross this title off your list now. (The latter was my motivation for reading the book, and the reason for my poor reaction to it.)

Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales, by Penn Jillette

Mr. Jillette is best known as a fabulous magician in his show with Teller. This autobiography focuses on his realization that poor health -- in his case, really scary bad poor health -- was due to his obesity and his embrace of the Standard American Diet.

With help from Ray Cronise (who is referred to as CrayRay, as in crazy, i.e., cray-cray), Mr. Jillette jump starts his weight loss by first breaking his addiction to sugar, oil, and salt, by eating only potatoes. Eventually, he adds the components of a whole food plant based diet free of sugar, oil, and salt. Essentially everything folks like Dr. Alan Goldhamer, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, and many others have been writing and speaking about for years. Mr. Jillette didn't look to them, but rather to a hobbyist (no offense to Mr. Cronise). Fortunately, the hobbyist was on a solid base to give advice.

An important note: Mr. Jillette can't make it through a paragraph without some level of profanity. If that bothers you, don't even open the book. Also, he makes it pretty clear that he's on Withings payroll - a maker of wifi attached scales that garner mixed reviews on Amazon. Consequently, he pushes them hard.

But all that can be forgiven in this very entertaining book.

Oh, when you get to recipes, keep going. They are tucked into the middle of the book; back to the narrative in just a few pages.

Living with a dead language, by Ann Patty

Ms. Patty's memoir is about her choice to learn language as an adult; she had retired from the book publishing business and was without a hobby to fully occupy her mind. She wove in auto-biographical stories that transformed the whole: Ms. Patty gave herself purpose, and found new friends and interests. This is a short, enjoyable book.

This would have been a better book had Ms. Patty's editor kept her from a horrible indulgence. Out of nowhere, suddenly on page 165, she says the modern day equivalent of the Abecedarians (who were truly odd and perhaps favored ignorance) are "...Fox News watchers, much of the Republican Party." Holy cow! I'd expect well mannered members of any political party would be annoyed at this sort of random nastiness. Shame on you, Ms. Patty. For me, it took a four star rating down to two stars.

Pilgrim, by Lee Kravitz

Mr. Kravitz yearns for a spiritual life and to be a member of a community of like minded believers. This book outlines his journey across a variety of beliefs (Quaker, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish).  It was not a great book.

Here's what I learned. His wife Elisabeth comes across as selfish (faced with Mr. Kravitz' allergic reaction to her pets she tells him learn to live with the discomfort or find another girl) and judgmental (she hates all Republicans; heaven forfend they might have a useful thought). Mr. Kravitz's journey treads a narrow path in that he can't include his spouse who is committed to her atheism and seems to look at his quest for spirituality as a behavioral defect.

Mr. Kravitz' desires seem reasonable. It was exhausting that it took him so much effort over such a long time span to figure out what works for him. I'm happy he finally did.

While the book was interesting enough that I kept reading -- in fact, for at least the first half I was trying to figure out what the book was actually about -- my overall view of it is, meh. The subtitle is killer, "risking the life I have to find the faith I seek," but disingenuous, as there was no risk whatsoever. And no real dramatic tension.  My recommendation: do not bother reading this book.

The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death by Colson Whitehead

I wasn't a big fan of Mr. Whitehead's novels, Zone One and Intuitionist. So why did I imagine that this would be any better? Chalk it up to (uncalled for) optimism.

This is autobiographical; it covers Mr. Whitehead's participation in the 2011 World Series of Poker tournament. The big problem with this book is that is seems to reveal the author's genuine personality. Yikes. Mr. Whitehead refers to himself as a native of the "Republic of Anhedonia," and that pretty much says it all. Anhedonia is the inability to take pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.

Oy, no wonder he refers to a recent divorce. Mr. Whitehead, it seems, is not so much of an optimist. Given my experience with his novels, he probably wouldn't have spent the $3.28 (with free shipping) for a used copy of this book. I kind of wish I hadn't either. Oh well.

Mr. Whitehead's writing is occasionally interesting and there are enjoyable moments in the book. They are few. Spoiler alert: he doesn't win the big payout at the tournament. No surprise: not having built up a ton of relationship capital with his reader, I don't really care.

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, by Scott Adams

This is a self-help book from the author of the Dilbert cartoon. I find Dilbert enormously funny, probably because I worked for many years in a large company that gave me cause to resonate with so many of the silly situations at which Mr. Adams pokes fun. But this isn't meant to be a humor book (although it is amusing at times); it is meant to be taken seriously.  I'd say it is more interesting and helpful than not.

The key notions include being selfish enough to take care of yourself and your finances well enough that you're then positioned to take care of others. Mr. Adams spends many words explaining his use of selfish in this context; it isn't grabbing the last donut in the box. His ordered list might look like this:

1. Eat right to maximize energy; exercise to further improve your energy. This will allow you to be more productive, creative, positive, etc.
2. Improve the odds that you'll have good luck. Mr. Adams provides many examples and the net is, develop multiple skills. You needn't be great at any of them, but having a bit of capability across a number of domains is a game changer at generating luck.
3. Perhaps just to set up some tension and controversy, Mr. Adams asserts that goals are for losers, winners use systems. He explains the notion of systems in detail.
4. Most of the auto-biographical content describe his many failures and motivates the notions that failures are okay and that you have to learn from them.

In one part of the book [p111ff], Mr. Adams discussed cognitive traps that allow folks to be taken advantage of or sub optimally negotiate. He provided a list, but didn't explain any of them in detail. This is very unfortunate; while it would have added a very long chapter to the book, it would have been worthwhile.

This is light reading with good advice and some humor. Not an academic treatise, but probably useful because it is so accessible and easy to read.

We Learn Nothing, by Tim Kreider

I must become more particular concerning taking advice about books to read. Case in point: Mr. Kreider's collection of essays. One was insightful: "Lazy: a manifesto" does a good job arguing against over-scheduling one's time, and that the phrase "I'm so busy" is nothing about which to be proud.

Mr. Kreider is also a cartoonist. I'd not known that. Had I seen his drawings first, I'd not have read the book; I enjoy them even less than his writing.

There's a blurb on the cover of the paperback edition of this book. Judd Apatow (whose movies I don't love, so wasted on me, but still...) exclaims: "Heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious." Bah, it was none of the above.


We Learn Nothing: Essays

My Rebbe, by Adin Steinsaltz

Rabbi Steinsaltz's biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendal Schneerson, known to many as "the Lubavitcher Rebbe," starts off with an interesting history of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The "Rebbe" was actually the seventh head of the movement, and Steinsaltz starts off with the first, Rabbi Schneur Zalman.

Rabbi Zalman came up with Chabad in 1755 as an acronym for chochmah, binah and da'at, or wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Steinsaltz gives a good overview of the leaders who followed.

Anyone of any religious background who lived in New York City from the 1950s through early 1990s would have been familiar with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as he was an influential character in the city.  Some of his believers were said to have thought he would be the Mashiach, the messiah discussed in the Bible (Old Testament).  In Jewish belief, the mashiach isn't a savior (ala Christ) but rather a human being, a political leader, and someone who's development will be an indicator of a messianic age (imagine an End of Days without the plagues). [1]

Clearly Steinsaltz is a deeply committed fan of the Rebbe. Yet he describes the Rebbe as a relatively poor administrator. Or perhaps that was a part of his approach: to be so ambiguous in direction and over-demanding as a leader so as to force the really good ideas to survive. I found this objectivity refreshing.


Notes:
[1] Interested in the notion of Mashiach? See: Isaiah 2, 11, 42, 59:20; Jeremiah 23, 30, 33, 48:47, 49:39; Ezekiel 38:16; Hosea 3:4, 3:5; Micah 4; Zephaniah 3:9; Zechariah 14:9; Daniel 10:14.

My Rebbe

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Foer

This book was recommended to me by a friend who enjoys Mr. Foer's novels.  In this account, Mr. Foer, about to become a parent, decides to figure out if vegetarianism makes sense.   He undertakes an investigation of the factory and local farm industries which he reports with lots of autobiographical seasoning.  As such, it is pretty interesting.

Except.

It becomes clear after even his initial investigation that factory farming is simply horrid for the animals involved.  If you have any interest in how livestock is treated, you won't have to read far before you say, "enough, message received."

What I enjoyed even more was Mr. Foer's conversation about the decision to eat some meat products but not others.  He writes specifically about dogs in this context, but not enough to get the point across. Why do we eat (intelligent) pigs but not (somewhat less intelligent) dogs?

Eating Animals

10% Happier, by Dan Harris

This is a surprisingly interesting book! Mr. Harris is a TV reporter / anchor who at the time of this writing works on Nightline. I've never seen him on TV (I try to stick with NPR and PBS for my non-financial news). But the title was interesting. 80% of the book is an amusing auto-biography that orbits around Mr. Harris' search for a means by which to quiet the critical and annoying voices in his head - those of his inner mind telling him unhelpful things.

I'm reminded of the book Crucial Conversations .  It describes a process by which we observe events and tell ourselves a story to map to the events, one which dictates our response.  That book, serving business people by helping them to have more productive conversations with colleagues, bosses and subordinates, points out that the story we tell ourselves about a situation is often unreasonable, and that if we consider that another story might map to the facts just as well, we can defuse an otherwise explosive encounter.

Along the way, Mr. Harris was exposed to a number of self-help folks.  It is worth reading the book if only for his honest and amusing description of some of these people.  Meanwhile, he stumbles into meditation.  His approach is really that of "I am uncomfortable with the idea, with the people who promote it, with the promises, and with the associated spirituality, but fine, I'll try it out."

The title comes from his realization that he could avoid getting "oh, now you're weird" reactions from folks who learned about his meditation if he just described it as a way to get 10% happier.

Mr. Harris describes how he first heard the RAIN acronym: recognize, allow, investigate, non-identification, as part of his meditation practice.  This resonates with me as an addendum to the Crucial Conversations notions of re-thinking the story.

Mr. Harris is very open about his struggles, his drug use, and his panic attack on air while doing Good Morning America.  These descriptions don't seem contrived, but rather support the tone of his book as authentic.

I recommend this book even if you have no intention of meditating.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

I don't want to say anything bad about Mr. Altucher's book. So I'll stop right here.

Choose Yourself!

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

The full title of Ms. Rubin's book is, "The happiness project: or, why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right, read Aristotle, and generally have more fun."

Here's the outline:  Ms. Rubin epiphany was on a New York City bus when she saw another women out the window struggling to multitask and wondered, "Is this really it?"   This eventually turned into asking herself how she could feel happier.  And that became her happiness project, culminating in this book, a description of her year long quest to be happier.

After introducing that during her happiness project year she started a blog, Ms. Rubin started using comments from that blog as filler; I found that distracting.

Overall there is not much new news here.  A net-net review of actions that are well supported as increasing one's happiness would be a magazine article, that's not the sort of crisp exposition we have here.  There are tons of anecdotes (many of which lead to me believing that Ms. Rubin is rather a difficult person), and some interesting narrative, but it is a bit rambling.   And shallow.   And insufficiently informative.  And really not worth the bother.

One positive: I might be inspired to read another (better) book on this topic now, perhaps Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis .

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

The Bucolic Plague, by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

The sub-title of this charming memoir is, "how two Manhattanites became gentlemen farmers."   The narrator is Josh who used to work as a nightclub drag queen and more recently works full time in the advertising industry.  His partner is Brent, a physician who (as the memoir begins) works for Martha Stewart's media firm.

The couple falls in love with the idea of being gentlemen farmers.  They buy an old home (the Beekman Mansion) on 60 acres in upstate New York.  And while commuting to their day jobs in New York City, they become gentlemen farmers.

The best way to give you a sense of the book is to quote the opening paragraph of the prologue:

"The last time I saw 4 A.M., I was tottering home in high heels and a matted wig sipping from the tiny bottles of Absolut I always kept in my bag for emergencies.  Emergencies like 'last call.'"

This isn't a laugh out loud book, but there are several audible giggle moments, and overall it is both captivating and enjoyable. It is also a love story.

Purcell and Ridge turned their part time fascination with the simpler life of farming into a business; because it is difficult to earn a living in agriculture, they sell soaps and such. Their web site is beekman1802.com


I can't imagine what it must cost to heat a huge, 250 year old mansion in an upstate New York winter. But the place is lovely, as you can tell from the photos.


 

The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (P.S.)

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, by Robert Gates

This is an excellent book.  Former Secretary Gates left a job he really enjoyed, President of Texas AM University, to return to public service and lead the Department of Defense at the request of Former President Bush (43) and stayed on in that role for most of President Obama's first term.   This book focuses primarily on the US war actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in its most interesting parts, on the functioning of the government.

If you aren't really into understanding the details of military manpower deployments, this book is still interesting enough to pick up:  skip those parts and stay for the reality of how things are run.

As much as I am a fan of Secretary Gates' book, it took me a very long time to get through this - it was just too depressing.  No, not the description of war and the impact on soldiers' lives and families - although that is always at top of mind in any discussion of our military.  Rather it was the extraordinary dysfunction of the US military apparatus at its most senior levels, the absolutely criminal incompetence of much of the US Congress, the number of critical leaks to the press by those in high positions, and the arrogant and ill informed staffing of President Obama's senior White House civilian team.

The repeated discussion of leaks quite upset me.   The same folks who want to lynch anyone associated with WikiLeaks are frequent leakers themselves:  Pentagon brass, White House staffers, Congressmen, you name it!   I really do not understand why Secretary Gates didn't have every single one of these leakers, whether on the DoD team or the President's, indicted for treason.   But the fact that the President lives with leaks - on Sunday morning news shows, in newspapers, in blogs - as a way of life when it comes from varied parts of his administration simply removes any moral high ground for prosecuting folks like Julian Assange.

Secretary Gates' description of the behavior of the most senior military and civilian DoD staff is also disheartening and demoralizing.  Service leaders prioritized their own turf over doing what is right for our soldiers in the field.  The Defense Department seems like a lumbering organization that consistently fails to urgently consider the needs of our soldiers and their families, but is quick to make excuses for its errors.  And even the Secretary of the Department is unable to fix the culture, perhaps because it is difficult to fire middle managers, even senior managers, in the military, or perhaps it would have taken more of a full time effort than Secretary Gates was able to devote to fixing the mess when he was busy fighting two US wars during the years he was in his position.   I imagine that if he couldn't do it, then it is unlikely to be fixed in the future.  

The implications of the lack of urgency?  Soldiers harmed in IED explosions because vehicles that would protect them weren't a priority - but humvees, made in some Congressman's district (AM General is clearly a big campaign contributor), were still on the books even though the military didn't want more of them.  So were aircraft that cost billions (yes, that's billions with a "b") but were either unnecessary or just too expensive to justify outside of a Congressman's desire to have local business move on at the expense of not only the budget (that we all pay taxes for) but at the expense of equipment that might be far more effective for our soldiers on the ground.

Drones, which could fly unmanned in dangerous regions for air cover, were not a priority in the Air Force because the only promotions and medals went to those who flew manned aircraft - unlike the attitude of the Army which saw drones as a way to advance positions more safely.   Would you want your friends or children to enter a military that - at the very top of the chain - treats their lives in such a cavalier fashion (even if the bulk of the military chain of command is actually quite competent).

Moving on to Congress:

"Why did I so dislike being back in government...?   From the bureaucratic inertia and complexity of the Pentagon to internal conflicts within the executive branch, the partisan abyss in Congress on every issue from budgets t the wars, the single-minded parochial self interest of so many individual members of Congress, and the ... micromanagement [of the Obama administration's civilian staff]..."

Congress, in particular, is described as a disaster.  Secretary Gates points out the outrage of the US Congress over Afghanistan's slow progress towards enacting important legislation in their country -- when the US Congress has been no more effective in enacting important legislation, funding the government responsibly ("... the failure of Congress to do its most basic job: appropriate money."), or running things well themselves.

"I was exceptionally offended by the constant adversarial, inquisition like treatment of executive branch officials by too many members of Congress across the political spectrum - a kangaroo-court environment in hearings, especially when the press and television cameras were present."

"I was constantly amazed and infuriated at the hypocrisy of those who most stridently attacked the Defense Department for being inefficient and wasteful but would fight tooth and nail to prevent any reduction in defense activities in their home state or district no matter how inefficient or wasteful."

"While American politics has always been a shrill, partisan, and ugly business... we have rarely been so polarized and so unable to execute even the basic functions of government... I believe that is due to the incessant scorched-earth battling between Congress and the president... but even more so to the weakening of the moderate center of both parties in Congress.  Progress in America historically has come from thinkers and ideologues on both the left and the right, but the best of those ideas have been enacted into law through compromise. Now moderation is equated with lacking principles, and compromise with 'selling out.' " 

And finally, noting that the most dovish people in any discussion of war are the military commanders who have to send their troops off to face death and massive injury:

"Too many ideologues call for the use of the American military as the first option rather than a last resort to address problems.  On the left, we hear about the 'responsibility to protect' as a justification for military intervention in Libya, Syria, the Sudan, and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to use military force in Libya, Syria, or Iran is deemed an abdication of American leadership and a symptom of a 'soft' foreign policy...And so the rest of the world sees America, above all else, as a militaristic country too quick to launch planes, cruise missiles, and armed drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces.... But not every outrage, every act of aggression, every oppression, or every crisis can or should elicit an American military response."

I have a hunch he was talking about Senator McCain as much as anyone in that last quote; my sense is that McCain wanted US troops in Syria last year, and probably at the time of this writing, he'd like to see US troops in the Ukraine, positioning a war with Russia.   He scares me, but that's beyond Secretary Gates' book.

This is a terrific book because it is a reveal of what happened in the US government under two radically different presidents (Bush 43 and Obama), and is told by a very credible and politically unaffiliated source.

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War