Revisiting Noam Chomsky’s “9/11” 20 Years Later

Looking through the reviews I’ve written for Goodreads, one of them was Noam Chomsky’s book “9/11”, which surprised me because I read that book so long ago. I read this book back in high school, when I was really into journalism and writing for my school paper. While I didn’t become a journalist, I still remember many of the types of left wing rhetoric books I’ve read back then and the effects they have on my current thinking, from Seymore Hersh’s critical account of the Bush years, “Chain of Command” to Noam Chomsky’s famous left wing books, which are almost text books in how to criticize America’s weaker pointers both in America and their policies abroad. As well as more mainstream left wing books, including the only liberal bestseller at the time, Michael Moore’s humorous left wing screed “Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses For The State of The Nation.” Though I would like to revisit all these books, I think the first one to revisit is Chomsky’s “9/11.”

First I should give some background to my experience as a reader at that time. After September 11^th, growing up in New York, and being in the New York metro area as a middle school student right after the attacks happened, uncritical patriotism was reparent and understandably so. However, there were still left wing facets in America, but unlike other times, where being left wing or right wing is hotly debated in the country, being left wing at that time was absolutely a crime against humanity. The country was firmly behind President Bush, things like the Patriot Act where being enacted and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where just starting to take shape. Simply put, it wasn’t popular to question any of this. Comedian Bill Maher lost his ABC show for bringing up American abuses that could of embolden terrorists and filmmaker Michael Moore was booed off a typically left wing Oscar stage for calling the reasoning for a Iraq war a pack of lies. However, in smaller corners, academic liberalism was still going, and one of the most influential leftists in American history is author and professor Noam Chomsky.

One of the unique things about Chomsky is he is a professor of linguistics, not political science, yet his writings on politics and his activisms are more famous then the text books he’s written on languages. Reading “9/11” by Noam Chomsky, published by Seven Stories Press, a New York City based publisher known for less mainstream books, covers the many reasons America wasn’t totally free of the implications that led up to 9/11. People where asking at the time, why do they hate us? This book would provide a clear answer. Chomsky talks about America’s abusive foreign policies throughout the years in other countries. He brings up America’s poor policies in Latin America, something Chomsky has brought up multiple times before in other publications and appearances. He also brings up the many dictatorships America has helped prop up in the Middle East, leading to resentment among the people towards America.

Chomsky points out the many times America had been condemned by the World Court in the Hague for foreign policy actions, as well as asking if the United States should follow the World Court or shouldn’t they? He thinks they should, despite having a spotty record following up. 9/11 is a fast read at only 140 pages, but it’s packed with much information about abuses by America that fuelled resentment towards countries who wanted to see the United States pay, and thus helped lead to the 9/11 attack. Chomsky’s writing, is as usual, dry, as he writes in the same way he wrote his text books on language, but the information and views he shares are some of the most influence in American left wing literature.

The only right wing figure I remember commenting on Noam Chomsky’s books after 9/11 was right wing radio show host Sean Hannity, who in his book “Deliver Us From Evil”, criticized a speech Chomsky gave after 9/11 where he criticized what he called “propagandist military leading” as “bizarre”. Chomsky and co-author Edward Herrman, another professor, wrote a book together in 1988 where they criticized American media’s ability to lead people down the wrong road as “manufactured consent”, also titling the book itself that term. The themes in Chomsky’s book would be used in a more mainstream platform through Michael Moore’s Oscar winning film “Bowling For Columbine” in his infamous “Wonderful World” segment, which set footage of abuses by American policy that helped lead to 9/11 to Louis Armstrong’s recording of “It’s A Wonderful World”, considered one of the most famously powerful montages in the history of documentary making. After this week where America’s involvement in Afghanistan finally ended, 20 years after the fact, a reconsideration of leftist views should be brought up in reasonable ways so we aren’t led down the same road, and  re-reading Chomsky’s book “9/11” and other texts by him would be helpful.

"The Sundown Motel" Is One Of The Best Novels I Read This Year

The 2020 thriller “The Sun Down Motel” does a lot of things right.  In brings in creepy elements that are closer to a supernatural horror, but without them overwhelming the whole overall narrative to the point it feels out of place. The author Simone St James also heavily uses the 1^st/3^rd person narration technique. Her chapters are long enough to make me feel attached to both narration styles, which sometimes can be a problem with that writing technique. The 1^st/3^rd person narration pick is just a personal presence of mine as a reader but I understand it’s use in the thriller genre.

The story concerns a young women in upstate New York named Viv Delaney in 1982, who stops at a creepy motel , and ends up working there on the night shift. As she works there, she comes across a ton of creepy characters, including a salesman she suspects of being a serial killer of women. The other half of the novel takes place in 2017, where the niece she never met, Carly Kirk, comes to the now run down town in upstate to investigate the disappearance of the aunt she never met. While there, she meets a cute boy, meets a college girl who goes to a local school, and a bunch of older folks who knew her aunt back in the day. She too ends up working the night shift at the Sundown Motel. While the younger folks seem like your run of the mill college kids running around upstate New York, the older folks seem more like your salt of the earth people from the real upstate New York. I was happy to see upstate New York as a setting in a novel, because as someone who lived 10 or so years there, I can tell you it truly an interesting place and very different from down state. It’s the part of New York that isn’t iconic but is instead just a long high way drive up to Canada, and you see some interesting and weird places along the way. This book does nail that.

The ghost elements of the hotel are never too much, but are there, and adds to the creepy feeling of the place, as motels in general have a creepiness to them. The diners and movie theatres and strip malls on the side of the highway also adds to the overall upstate feeling. The pacing did keep me turning pages because I never really knew what exactly made the aunt disappear, nor if her niece was getting any closer to the truth. One of my favorite characters was the older upstate New York cop who knew her aunt back in the day, and wasn’t eager to give off too many details.

This was a excellent thriller, and one of the best books I read this year. I recommend reading it. This book did nail the night shift. Overall, this aunt and niece’s experience as the all night clerks at the Sundown Motel reflect the feeling I had as a all night guard in upstate New York much closer, and nails that creepy feeling of what it’s like to be in a place no one is really thinking about beyond the little corner of the universe you are in. Also the end I didn’t see coming, and it was excellent.

"Ready Player One" is Ready Player Fun as Long As You Don't Take It Too Seriously

 

Solidly fun book if you don't overthink it. Not great science fiction nor great cyberpunk. I would call this book "nerd porn" more than anything. Basically, this book is like if Seth MacFarlane wrote a science fiction novel. Of course, this is a book review, so I'm going to overthink it. That's what you came here for. Some people have complained about the female character being treated like a trophy for the main dorky guy character but what do you expect from a novel called READY PLAYER ONE? You really expect this not to be a male fantasy to some extent? While it doesn't have to be, there's a good shot it will be. I guess the shock it is, is more annoying to me than anything. As for the writing, Ernest Cline is more a fun writer than a good one. He even uses 80s geek references on every other page to pad out the story. If this was a dystopian future, I would think 2000s culture be their old media references by then but I digress. The Easter egg part though is a pretty good goal for the characters. As much as I enjoyed the pop culture references though, it started to become a bit of a storytelling crutch. Like every time Cline needed to pad out the book, he throw in some pro longer pop culture reference to kill a few more pages. Like I don't have enough story and....OH LOOK! A DELOREAN! REMEMBER HOW GREAT "BACK TO THE FUTURE" WAS?! THE IRON GIANT! OH MY GOD! HARRY POTTER! WOW! It's true that a ton of it doesn't make a ton of sense. Wade is dorky, but not to the point he wouldn't have no life, even in the dystopian future he's in. Samantha, the girl he meets online, and falls for, has a birth mark and...that's it. Who cares? They become these good looking avatars, but the way they are described in the book doesn't sound like they are so bad in real life. Doug Walker pointed out in his review that this is even worst in the movie as the actors and actresses are all more than average looking on the attractive scale, so when Samantha calls herself ugly in the movie over a birth mark, it rings hallow. Also, the game created by James Halliday seems like a lot of RPGs online today, and the pop culture references seem like they would be from the 2000s at this point. I love "Back To The Future", but if it was 40 years ago today, it be 60+ years ago by then. I mean, Wade even brings up watching "Family Ties" on the internet, and that's way back. Pretty sure Ernest Cline has a man crush on Michael J Fox. I'm a sucker for these type of references. Just ask my favorite show "The Big Bang Theory", but "The Big Bang Theory" also had characters I grew to care about and watch develop beyond their own little world without ever completely giving it up. When the characters in "Ready Player One" finally grow beyond nerd land, it seems more tacked on then really earned. I'm going to put a spoiler warning here for those who haven't read it so be warned. Don't read beyond this line. Wade gets the girl at the end and never logs into the game again. That's fine, and I actually think it's good when you can ditch some nerdy stuff for a bit more real life, but also, it didn't really seem earned, and you don't just ditch everything you like because you got the girl finally. Contrast that with Leonard from "The Big Bang Theory", who we watch develop confidence to try to get with Penny. He's the stereotype nerd, like Wade, and most nerds really want the same thing. A girl instead of a obsession over comic books. However, Leonard tries to find ways to expand his world to meet the girl half way instead of Wade, who basically sees the girl as a trophy in a VR game. Though "The Big Bang Theory" is a sitcom over 12 seasons, the arc isn't that complicated, and I don't see why we couldn't get that more with Wade in this book. If you want a more intelligent and serious read of the same premise, check out Neal Stephenson's novel "Reamde", also published in 2011. If you want to read a faster book than "Reamde" on the same themes, "Ready Player One" is a good choice. Ready Player One" is 374 pages while "Reamde" is 1,386 pages. Even though by the end, you get a bit annoyed with Ernest Cline and want him to shut up about his geeky obsessions and wrap this up. A sequel to "Ready Player One'' called "Ready Player Two" came out this year, so there you go. However I can see why "Ready Player One" sold a ton more copies. However, "Ready Player One" is fun and quick enough read, with at least something different to it, if you don't overthink it. Three stars. Before I wrap this up though, someone should write a female character driven version of this book. Lets go reader who is inspired by me. I expect a thanks at the end of the book.

"PIERCING THE CELESTIAL OCEAN: The Saga of the Cerulean Universe Begins" Is A Solid Piece Of Science Fiction

Thank you Kip Koelsch and Goodreads for a free copy and the opportunity to review it.

"Piercing The Celestial Ocean" by Kip Koelsch is pure old fashion science fiction for the most part. It has a very "Star Trek" feel, even down to borrowing Captain Picard's catch phrase, "Make it so" with the captain in this novel. What I think was a unique angle to the story was more of an island setting than a space one and a religion vs science angle.

The book opens with a scientist on a ship coming upon a body of a human he suspects may be a humanoid of some kind coming through a wormhole, and after that brief opening chapter, we are immediately thrown back 600 years earlier.

We first went on a short religious journey which felt more fantasy than science fiction, then later on in another period of time to a crew of scientists coming upon the remains of that journey. The crew finds out there may be a scientific basis to long standing religious beliefs, and tries to set up a mission to go underwater and prove the heavenly beings this religion believes in are actually organic beings.

The two main characters on the mission are , A’zra and G’regor, with a hinted romantic relationship,  and with A'Zra taking charge and being the one to go down in the depths of the ocean.

This novel is hard science fiction, and very well imagined, but more dense than your run of the mill popular science fiction so don't expect a straight page turner, yet it is also an adventure novel so it has that going for it too. There were some times in the book I got a bit confused with the plot, and who was who, and who was dating who, when it came to the little parts with the personal lives of the crew.  I've read dense science fiction before, but can tell you, they make for very thoughtful and detailed reads  but not for page turning reads with a ton of emotional asides. This is true for this book too.

Overall, I liked the novel a lot and it was an overall solid science fiction novel that poses questions about science vs spirituality, and how far one should go for their ideals. It felt a little disjointed in parts, but overall, at the end, it ties together really well. Three stars.

Three stars

If Lisa Jobs Reads This, I'm So Sorry And I Promise To Get To Your Memoir. Your Dad Sounded Awful. You Have My Total Sympathy

I picked up this book from a free little library in hardcover no less. 

Interesting if a somewhat lacking overview of Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson, who's written other biographies including a critically acclaimed bestseller on Albert Einstein in 2007. This was also the only authorized biography of Steve Jobs by Jobs himself before he passed, and became a bestseller right away that year, which makes the fact he comes off like a totally horrible person seem more accurate. 

Jobs himself comes with a big sense of immaturity that he see in modern day tech billionaires like Elon Musk. Jobs seemed to be so arrogant to everyone around him, even the people made rich want him to go away. At one point, Apple kicked him out of the company because he refused to hand off management to experienced business folks, citing examples even down to the smallest details like Jobs asking dumb and inappropriate questions during job interviews, like if the person was a virgin and if they ever did drugs and acting like a little kid in board meetings. He even refused when they asked him to stop wearing sandals with his feet up on the board table. He even flew to a factory somewhere in middle America making packaging to yell at some poor factory workers that they didn't understand his vision. He's lucky some working guy didn't just punch him.

He also spends his life making excuses for his personal failures, and seeing being a genius as a excuse to  be arrogant to everyone around him. He treats his first daughter like total trash. He wasn't involved in his daughter's and mother's life, but when he did become involved, he took her in with his new family, only to use her as a babysitter service, and ditch her to go on vacation with his new wife and family and LEAVE HER THERE. Who does that?  His excuse that he was adopted as a reason he couldn't be involved in his daughter's life doesn't hold up, because he was adopted very young and talks about a wonderful childhood with adoptive parents who supported him a lot. He even says they are his true parents and he wouldn't hear of anything else, yet he couldn't be a parent to his kid? What?

Not really a tech genius as much as a marketing one, the real credit for the technology of Apple goes to Steve Wozniak, who seems like a delight. Even Bill Gates also comes off like a good person who can turn off his business persona. Jobs also, like Musk today, would pay off inventors to go away so he can total credit for things he didn't invent.

I did not know Steve Jobs had much to do with Pixar as much as he did. However it takes a strain on his duties at Apple at one point he is kicked out of the company. As he was overstressing himself out, his wife asked him to pick one company and sell the other but he refused. 

The problem mainly with this book is it often comes off like a biography more of Apple than Steve Jobs himself, but every time we get a look at Steve Jobs as a person, he comes off not very good. Not he wasn't a bad man in the way he see bad rich man today. There seemed to be no Me Too stories about him, but he set the stage for society choosing bullies we can celebrate and bullies we can condemn. Job was immature and a bully, but because he was quirky and put on a great show, we excuse it even today.

That being said, Jobs did have a women problem and while it wasn't sexual, he was a male chauvinist. It's hinted at a lot his constant refusal to change his diet from anything beyond pure foods combined with his stress level led to his cancer, and it was because he refused to listen to his wife. And what happened when his wife begged him to change his diet to get strength and even the doctors where brought in to give him a intervention, telling him that his refusal to not eat anything but leave based food without anything else might of helped lead to this? He said he knew better and refused to listen to them. Then he refused to spend time with his daughters, showering all his attention on his son. As I mentioned earlier, he treated his first daughter like trash. She even released a memoir last year called "Small Fry" about how he basically emotionally abused her.

That all being said, Isaacson as a writer is stuck trying to fill the book with titbits about Apple because the actual subject is awful.

I know he's a tech icon, but he seemed like a horrible person. Though I want to read his daughter's memoir which came out last year. Two stars.

"The Game With No Name" Has Potential But Needed More Drafts

Thank you so much to GoodReads and L.G. Cunningham for giving me a free copy and the opportunity to review it.

"The Game With No Name" isn't horrible, but it feels like a first draft that needs work.

Izzy Miller is a girl who just moved to a mysterious old house with her family. Everyone is excited except for her. Though, it isn't the house she objects to as much as having to move to a new place because her genius twin brother, Noah, got into a special school for gifted kids. Izzy is a moody 12 year old girl, jealous of her twin brother receiving praise. She is also sick of her family's game nights. That all changes when a new neighbor boy shows up named Walter , and a mysterious board game appears.

The writing is fine, and very readable. This book is meant for a younger audience, and for the most part, the writing is clear. However, I didn't know Izzy was a girl until chapter two, as no hints about her gender were given in chapter one. I thought she was a boy, with her talk of basketball and her twin brother.

The neighbor kid, Walter, just shows up out of nowhere, without even a knock at the door. Izzy even thinks he's a ghost at first. He just appears in the house, which is odd. Then when they discover the game, the story kicks into a lot of action and fantasy sequences a little too fast. There are no set ups, and I didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough.

The fantasy sequences also feel a bit disjointed. One minute they are in a jungle with a rhino and the next they are in a haunted manor and the next they are in Monopoly for some reason. Then there's a twist which I didn't really get and a backstory to Walter. That's a lot to stuff in 207 pages and doesn't really allow anything to develop on a deeper level.

I could see this being a good lower middle grade novel, but this felt like a first draft. I don't think L.G. Cunningham is a bad writer, and I think he could be a really good kids writer with a couple more drafts, but this needed some work. Two stars. 

16 Years Ago, "Twilight" Didn't Bite Me But Why Should I Hate It? It Wasn't Supposed To

“Twilight” came out 16 years ago in 2005. I didn’t read it until a couple years later. In college, I took a course on vampire literature, and got to read some great stuff like “Dracula” and a bunch of other classic vampire novels I don’t remember, but I’m sure they were classic. I was already a fan of vampires, having devoured a bunch of Anne Rice novels. Anne Rice’s classic 1976 vampire novel “Interview With The Vampire” is still one of my favorites to this day. However, because “Twilight” was the face of vampires at the time, the professor started out with the class reading “Twilight”. I read it in 2 days, and didn’t love it but didn’t hate it either. It was alright. It had some compelling characters, a ton of wish fulfilment for it’s readership and oddness I chalked up to poor writing. It needed an editor, and it felt like there was a better novel in it with good polish. Most of the class hated it and went on and on about how it was a fantasy novel about male abuse. Obviously I was the only one who read paperback novels from my local drug store, because I saw it for what it was: a paperback novel from my local drug store, except a YA version with vampires.

I got it’s appeal, as it had no appeal to me but if I was a 12 year old girl with a poster of Harry Styles on my wall, it would have a ton of appeal to me. Stephanie Meyer was basically Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts or Judith Krantz for the younger set with teen vampires thrown in. She wasn’t even Anne Rice. She wasn’t good enough to be.
 

The response to her novel felt like, in hindsight, a prototype for woke culture. A friend of mine, a 20 something guy trying to make it as a freelance writer, wrote a long article hating on “Twilight” and Stephen King was taking shots at it. It did strike me as odd that two male writers, a mega star like Stephen King and an aspiring freelance fiction writer like my friend, were taking shots at this YA fluff novel obviously targeted to female readers. Not all novels speak to people's experiences. A lot of novels speak to people's fantasies, and there's really nothing wrong with that as long as you can either move on, or when your reading it, know what this is. Because the "Twilight" readership was often young, I assume they moved on. King said Harry Potter was about the importance of friendship and courage and "Twilight" was about the importance of having a boyfriend. Yeah, because "Twilight" inspired to be mostly escapism, not something deeper. There's room for both. Also, it didn't speak to King's experiences and fantasies, because he's a straight guy, and you know what? It doesn't speak to mine either because I'm a straight guy.

There were valid criticisms of “Twilight”, as the book was too long, a ton of it played out like a real over the top teen fantasy, with over descriptions of Edward looking amazing, a supernatural war over a girl who was nice enough but nothing really special looks wise or personality wise, and the fact that she herself was enamored with Edward to a dangerous degree. That’s not unusual with girls her age, but usually a parent or in this case, Bella’s single dad, would step in to monitor the solution a bit to make sure it played out safely, vampire or not. I mean, if a teen boy was watching my teen daughter sleep outside a window, I simply open the window bemused at the teen boy, but also tell him if he wants to date my daughter, this isn’t how this is going to play out. Go home or I’ll call your parents. The writing of Bella's dad allowing this didn't read as realistic to me, even more so because he was a small town cop.  A lot of the book doesn’t play out great in the MeToo era. Also Bella comes off very melodramatic, but she’s also a teenage girl. Teenagers, both boys and girls, are melodramatic. That’s the age. You're basically a mixture of angst and hormones you don’t understand. That’s science. You’ll be wondering what you were so angry about 20 years from now.

However, on the other hand, the book itself does embrace the totally silliness of teen romances and stories in general. It’s melodramatic, like when she tells Edward to say what he is in the woods! Say it! You're a vampire! SAY IT! Edward swooped in to save her from some creepy older guys! Edward played the piano because she inspired him! Edward being more like James Dean then Anne Rice’s complicated vampire creation Lastat! He even wears a leather jacket! He’s more like the Fonz or Uncle Jesse! He’s a bad boy...but not really! The Cullen family are all being overly attractive! Them being young forever! (well, that’s normal with vampires) The whole middle of the book where Edward gives an overly dramatic information dump about his backstory went on forever! The whole fact the vampires play baseball and the fact they sparkle! (seriously, that’s the cheesy factor up to 11). The fact I end every sentence in this paragraph with “!” is a testament to the book! 

“Twilight” was a huge deal because it was the first novel to knock “Harry Potter” off the top of the New York Times bestseller list. I really didn’t hate “Twilight”  to be honest. I was never going to read the sequels, but it was the literary version of “Saved By The Bell” for me. A silly thing you liked as a teen. All in all, I have never been a 12 year old girl but I can see the value of it for a 12 year old girl or even an older female reader. It’s pure escapism. Orson Scott Card, who is a way better writer than Stephanie Meyer, nailed it in his piece for Time Magazine the year Meyer made the Time 100 list. He said she doesn’t stand between the reader and the dream, and that does make sense. So 16 years later, what do I think of “Twilight”? It’s fine.