RWL #265
baking back the forces of darkness
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The UNH president announced on Friday that the mask mandate has been lifted at UNH. I am so excited - I will actually be able to see the expressions on my students' faces for the first time in two years! It really is hard to speak to a group of people whose mouths are concealed - it is very hard to read their engagement and emotional state. Plus, as someone who is way below average in ability to retain names and faces, I have been even worse than usual. So finally, almost two years to the day, we are seeing some semblance of normal again.
I spent the day today (Saturday) cooking and baking. We’re hosting an 80th birthday party for my mother-in-law here at the LHH tomorrow. So I made a couple of pots of sauce, a couple of trays of lasagna, a cake and a batch of raspberry amaretti (pic above). I really recommend the raspberry amaretti - they are super easy and make you look more sophisticated than you actually are. Well, they make me look more sophisticated than I actually am, maybe you don’t need the help. The recipe is from the Love and Olive Oil blog which I follow religiously. I love cooking for my family and friends. As Gandalf said, “It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.”
This is a short newsletter this week. The Ukrainian crisis continues to weigh on me, just like I imagine it is weighing on you. I promise next week I will get back to other topics, but the invasion of Ukraine is a turning point in our history, much like 9/11 was. Which way we will turn, and what waits for us - we will have to see. I hope it unifies us again, and helps us see liberal democracy as a force for good, and the source of justice that it is.
We have been reminded that there are monsters out there in the dark. I hope you take the time this week to make your own small acts of kindness and love to keep the darkness at bay.
(PS - if you are feeling helpless about Ukraine, my wife and I have donated to World Central Kitchen - a chef-run, charitable non-profit bringing food to Ukrainian refugees.)
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Read
What: Book Summary: “Violence and Social Orders” by North, Wallis and Weingast
https://techratchet.com/2020/02/10/book-summary-violence-and-social-orders-by-north-wallis-weingast/
Why: When I taught Macroeconomics in the Army-Baylor program, I used about ⅓ of the course to teach institutional economics and development. I thought it was a valuable use of our time to talk about the political economy that undergirded autocracies and free societies. We would spend about two weeks discussing Violence and Social Orders. I have recommended this book more than any other book since I read it about 15 years ago. It provides a framework for understanding despotic, kleptocratic regimes like Putin’s, and simply repressive authoritarian ones like the CCP, as well as liberal democracy. Since the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, I have been reflecting on the lessons in this book. I was going to try to write a summary, but I found this one, which is quite good. Check out this summary, but I really recommend the book. It isn’t a light read, but it is accessible and it is only about 200 pages. It will change the way you think about how societies organize around power.
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Watch
What: USAF TV advertisement - Lullaby (30 seconds)
Why: This is, in my opinion, the best commercial for the US Armed Forces that I have ever seen (even if it is Air Force). We have a Department of Defense, not a Department of War.
Our warriors hold back the forces of darkness (baking can’t get it all done), and Putin has demonstrated that those forces are very real, even if we have convinced ourselves that they were not.
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Listen
What: The Good Fight, George Packer on the War in Ukraine (59 min)
Why: The whole interview is very interesting, but I’m recommending the first 6 minutes in particular. Yascha Mounk is the host of The Good Fight podcast, and he takes the mic for the first few minutes of this episode to talk about how the world has fundamentally changed as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This article by Mounk, The End of Illusion, is also very good.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Associate Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast:
http://healthleaderforge.org
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso