Author Archives: RF_Alum

Marshall Plan for the Mideast

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The commentary posted last week titled “Egyptian Turmoil” suggested that private American citizens with substantial resources should consider replicating what Herbert Hoover and other private citizens accomplished with what the American Relief Administration (ARA) did in Europe and Russia after World War I in the Mideast. “Famines were killing millions of people, The ARA set up a system of import and distribution that was feeding over ten million people a day in just the Soviet Union.”

I just finished reading “Partners in Command” about George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower by Mark Perry, and have another suggestion that I believe is worthy of consideration. Europe was in desperate shape from the devastation of World War II. Marshall said, “What was needed to prevent future wars was not just military strength, but also economic well-being, which included the provision of fuel, food, and other necessities of life for the people of those nations that had suffered most during the war.” Continue reading →

Partners in Command

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The subtitle of this book by Mark Perry is “George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. The book begins with a chronology of George Marshall’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s lives, their military service, and the major battles of World War II. The focus is on the European theatre. Review of the chronology and the listings of major military commanders and politicians at the end of the epilogue give a quick snapshot of the events of World War II. That would be useful to a casual reader, because the book is written in incredible detail. A major focus of the book is the constant and difficult conflict between the Americans and the British. The conflicts occur at nearly every step of the planning and execution of military plans. The descriptions are undoubtedly historically accurate, but I found them tedious to read.

The Prologue describes the remarkable relationship between Confederates Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and their connections with the Virginia Military Institute where George Marshall was a student and teacher. “In time he came to revere Lee and Jackson, and throughout his life he named them the two men he admired most.” The book describes that Lee chose Jackson to lead the fight and George Catlett Marshall chose Dwight Eisenhower as his partner in command. Continue reading →

Bull’s Eye, Bullseye, Bulls-eye, or Bulls Eye

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The spelling isn’t the only thing that is in doubt, although of the four versions in the title the first and the fourth seem to be preferred by some. Ask.com says “The middle of a target is called a bullseye because…archers would practice by shooting at a bull’s skull. They would practice until the hit the eye of the bull. Allexperts.com disagrees. That site has a complicated description that the origin is unclear, but not related to archery. I’ll give a short version of their theory, and that it is related to the word “center,” and “is in reference to glass—a thick boss or prominence in the center of a glass pane.” Regardless, we use the term to mean the center of a target or to describe that we have achieved exactly the goal we set out to meet.

Egyptian Turmoil

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The world is watching nervously as millions of Egyptians continue their protests in Tahrir Square after the military announced that Mohamed Morsi is no longer President of Egypt. There is another gathering of Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Morsi. Some of them are pledging to “fight to the death” to prevent Morsi’s ouster. The U.S. apparently had not anticipated this turn. Ambassador Anne Patterson had said the U.S discouraged the protests and President Obama had refused to withdraw support of Morsi. The White House is now stressing “…that it does not support any particular party in Egypt, but rather the democratic process Continue reading →

Glitch

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Glitch Cover Kate Rauner Final I seldom do reviews of fiction books, but Glitch by Kate Rauner deserves to be an exception. It is science fiction, but the descriptions of space exploration missions are based on fascinating science. The book is creative and thought-provoking, and I think it should be used as a primer by those planning future space explorations. There are speculative views of life in the future, such as voice activated amenities in the homes and apartments and “Smart Cabs” replacing most private autos. Of course, there are all manner of personal communication devices. The author writes, “The story is set in a world authentic enough, and messy enough, to be real.” Continue reading →

Horns of a Dilemma

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World Wide Words explains that the “original dilemma in rhetoric was a device by which you presented your opponent with two alternatives…” The opponent loses the argument regardless of the response. A famous example is “Have you decided to stop beating your wife?”

The origin of the expression goes back to as early as the mid-fifteen hundreds in which a scholar says “…it doesn’t matter which of the two points a person made a direct answer, either way he would run on to the sharp of the horn.”