What Would Machiavelli Do?

Stanley Bing is the second reason that I buy Fortune magazine at the airport (the first depends on what is on the cover). Bing writes a column on the last page and (even if the entire magazine sucks that month) his column makes it worth the price of a latte that you have to pay for it.

What Would Machiavelli Do? by Stanley Bing, like the column, is super funny (100 Bullshit Jobs and How to Get Them is also funny). And, while Bing makes it clear (even insists) that you shouldn’t have to bother with reading the actual Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, I started to give it a try (owned it for years).

Before I even got to the text itself, I took a detour. In the foreword to the version published by “Everyman’s Library” the author writes:

The aim is to extract from observed events those recurrent features that provide a basis for practical action. If, as Machiavelli claims, politics can be a science comparable to medicine, then history is its pathology. The decline and fall of the Roman state has always had an obsessive interest for commentators; it could be called the shaping myth of western political thought. (xiii)

Of course, after reading that, I got distracted by Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy. The Prince will wait, I think, a few more years (back to the shelf with Sun Tzu and The Art of War).

The Republicans Have To Write Too

Along with the Democrats, the Republican candidates for President of the United States have been busy scribbling out some books too.

Like the Democrats, some of the Republicans manage to pop out a book “all by themselves” while others work with another author.

Rudy Giuliani wrote Leadership.

John McCain wrote Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them and Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir. McCain has written a whole passel of books so I am not going to list them all here.

Mitt Romney wrote Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games.

Ron Paul wrote A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship.

Mike Huckabee wrote From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness.

Tom Tancredo wrote In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security.

Again, I am not positive this is a complete list (politicians write a lot). If I missed one, let me know.

Either way, I have not read any of their books (as it turns out, just like the Democrats, not a time travel thriller in the bunch).

Since I plan on working my way through the books by the Democratic candidates, I think I will work my way through these too, but, where to start?

Maybe I’ll ask the Quip.

Democrats On the Write

The Democrats running for President of the United States sure are busy at their keyboards (or, whatever they use to write) churning out the books. It is almost like writing a book is the price of entry.

Some of the candidates have been writing books “all by themselves” (apparently) while others work with another author.

Joe Biden wrote Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.

Bill Richardson wrote Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life.

Chris Dodd wrote Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice.

John Edwards co-edited Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream and wrote Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives.

Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream and Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

Dennis Kucinich wrote The Courage to Believe and A Prayer for America.

Hillary Clinton re-published her famous 1996 book It Takes a Village with a new forward.

Last, even Mike Gravel has a book called Citizen Power: A People's Platform (it was published at some point in the 70s and is apparently out of print).

I am not positive this is a complete list (politicians write a lot). If I missed one, let me know.

Either way, I have not read any of their books (not a time travel thriller in the bunch). But, I think that I should. So, I’ll start with It Takes a Village (mostly because I already bought it and Citizen Power looks like it costs over $400).

"Antique, Illogical And Democratically Indefensible"

Recently, the Queen of England came and went (Carter had some interesting comments here in a post titled "Send the Queen Home").

Isn’t it totally absurd that any modern country has a heredity ruler (figurehead, whatever)?

Jeremy Paxon (author of On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry Into Some Strangely Related Families) was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart a couple nights ago. Paxon called the monarchy “antique, illogical and democratically indefensible” (after about three minutes of a meager justification – some indecipherable stuff about the embodiment of a nation blah, blah, blah).

It really just makes no sense.

Cooked

I hate to cook and will go to great lengths to avoid it. I hate talking or thinking about food or recipes. But, I truly hate cleaning up after cooking, which makes me hate the whole concept of cooking even more. At times, I think that people who say they like to cook are just saying it for no good reason.

That is how much I really dislike all things cooking related.

That all being the case, I must read Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras by Jeff Henderson.

I heard the author on NPR the other day and it sounds like an amazing story.

In the 80s he was a drug dealer in California and ended up in jail. Today, Henderson is the executive chef at the Café Bellagio in Las Vegas. And, let me tell you, based on the interview, it sounds like it was one hard road to make it.

It makes me think of Horatio Alger.

Which, then, reminds me of Dude, Where’s My Country by Michael Moore. In that book there is an entire chapter devoted to the idea that Horatio Alger stories are not possible. The chapter is called “Horatio Alger Must Die”. Henderson’s story definitely contradicts that claim.

Anyway, despite the fact that he clearly must like cooking, I have to read Henderson’s memoir!