Review: “Turmoil and Triumph. My Years at the State Department”, by George P. Shultz

 I'm a little late to report, but on New Year's Day 2026, I have finished my first book of the year.

Now, without context, this could sound like rage-bait, given that the book clocks in at approximately 1,138 pages. Truth is, it took me approximately three months or so, so rather quick by my standards. But I enjoyed it wholly, even though my favourite part was the end. Let me tell you why: Shultz described his last post, when the whole DoS staff gathered together with the President &c., and they siad him goodbye. A marching band played “California, here I come”, a song I only know in the rendition of Ray Charles and which matchesh im well, as a Stanford (CA) local. He wrote on the last page that his eyes “welled with emotion“; it meant a lot to me because throughout his tenure, according to his narration, he remained sober, level-headed, the only emotion he let through was good humour, but even then, it was strategically applied to serve his diplomatic strategem of “gardening”. His last day in office was the only one in which he allowed himself to be all human. Politics is no walk in the park; it is, in fact, a walk in the woods. 

Is Donald J. Trump an Oligarch?

Introduction

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Editorial Note

   When it comes to planning texts ahead of writing them, I do a piss poor job. Ever since I heard of President Joe Biden’s farewell address and when he came to allege his successor Donald J. Trump of being an oligarch, I was excited to learn a little more about the concept that I hitherto only heard of with reference to Russia. Little did I know, although I should have expected, that I was going to end up completely out of bounds and with a text that would be much more than a little commentary and correction of the outgoing President’s remarks. As things stand now, this little side hustle as I was getting prepared to write about the Geneva Conference of 1954 in my main project turned out to become a two-months project by itself. I do not claim that it wasn’t worth it as it was fun and I learnt a lot in the process. But I admire those who are able to discipline themselves and are able to stop adding more and more content to their project to the point where they became immobile. Alas, I know why I do not work with publishers and instead choose my independence in my hobby: It gives me space to not deal with such hindrances. 

Thoughts on an article on "Flaking"

On the Normalisation of  Antisocial Behaviour

   This is something that has been hypothetically grinding my gears, although I was not affected by it yet: The benefit of having no social circle anywhere. But I see what people are posting online, and it's not looking good, which is why I would agree with the author of this piece.

    I don't condemn those who have to opt out spontaneously because of unforeseen events, but those are also not who the author condemns. They speak about those who opt out in the last minute because they changed their mind. And that is only when they will call to notify about their absence, instead of being no-shows and AWOLs. This is just plain antisocial behaviour and cannot be justified anyhow. If you think that you don't want to attend a soirée or a party, that's fine, but give the host or whoever you meant to meet some leeway to plan ahead, rather than pushing them off minutes beforehand. 

Community Notes and Fact-Checking

 Community Notes are better than you may think

    I think that everyone has heard of Zuckerberg's plans to discontinue fact-checking cooperations in favour of Twitter-like community notes to delegate the service to the users of Meta services[1]. Many have complained that he thus gave away responsibilities for the paddling of misinformation and disinformation, more specifically its combatting, to the users, implicitly conceding to incoming POTUS Donald J. Trump. To be fair, on that latter point, I agree to some degree, although I also believe that he tries to play it cool with him as he may remember that he threatened to imprison him on the basis that is either pure retaliation or an unofficial lèse-majeste[2]. Whatever the reason may be--perhaps Ms. Telnaes was right and gradually more wealthy entrepreneurs and businesspeople kneel before the authoritarian president not only to be left alone but to appeal to him for personal or corporate benefits[3]--, but what I want to focus on is to take up the cudgels on behalf of community notes as a means of fact-checking. They are much better than their reputation gives them credit for.

Murder is bad

 On the Murder of Brian Thompson by Luigi Nicholas Mangione

   I am currently thinking about staying off Facebook for a while until the community here has found another issue to bad-mouth. You could imagine what I am thinking of at the moment, and to be honest, I find the title of Robin Hood attached to Mr. Mangione quite appropriate, because unlike those who attached it, I have read at least the Pyle book; while I haven't read the older English ballads of Robyn Hood and his posse, the theme doesn't really change, and he fit the predicate of chaotic evil. The same applies to Mangione.
   Luckily, the feuilletons have been saner than the online communities that found their new 'folk hero' in the bourgeois computer science graduate who couldn't help himself looking briefly into a camera to consequently be identified at a McDonald's. The police have later found what was called a 'manifesto' but is actually just a short handwritten note in whiche proved that he didn't understand how the healthcare system works¹ . As the above-cited Economist piece writes: