Book Review: The Making of the President

Jim, my personal library, recently gave me an American classic: "The Making of the President: 1960" by Theodore H. White.

The book chronicles Teddy White's experiences along the campaign trail with Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election. The writing is outstanding and the insights are second to none. There are countless political observations that are as true today as they were 50 years ago. However, none of those are what stand out for me. There are two paragraphs that are extremely eerie though the power of retrospection.

The first is on Page 372, when talking about Kennedy and The Oval Office: "When the windows are closed, the sound of Washington traffic, which hums as it passes by outside, is entirely locked out, and one is reminded that these windows are three inches thick of laminated glass, thick enough to stop an assassin's rifle bullet from beyond the grounds -- if the assassin gets time enough to sight."

The other disturbing reference is to a day in the life of John F. Kennedy. On page 375, Teddy White wrote: "Then the supreme and somber problem of war and peace: a long meeting of one and one quarter hours in the cabinet room with Secretary of State Dean Rusk; Secretary of National Defense Robert S. McNamara; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer; Admiral Harry D. Felt, Commander-in-Cheif, Pacific theatre; two personal advisers McGeorge Bundy and Walter Rostow; and Vice-President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. Here at this meeting he considered, not for the first time but for the decisive [Whit's italics, not mine] time, American response to the newest thrust of Communist pressure on the changing world -- the movement of Communist guerillas over the jungles and ridges of Southeast Asia into the formless Kingdom of Laos. Could anything be done there, and if it could, should anything be done there? This was the ugliest of problems; and if his decisions were right the meeting would fade into history as unimportant; but if the decisions brought war, then this, indeed, was where the Americans chose war."

I think we can say that the president decided wrong that day.

License Plate

(PICTURE: The mysterious Lexus.)

Huyen and I were riding around the city the other morning when she pointed at a car and said, "Where is that car from?" I put on my best Mister-know-it-all voice and said, "That's a Lexus. It's from Japan." Huyen politely said something like, "I know it's a Lexus you idiot, but where is the license plate from?" I squinted my eyes and then shouted, "NO WAY! That car is from California!!!":

(PICTURE: 5SLP211. Anyone in LA missing an LS600hL.)

I think this car was a sign. Huyen and I have been talking about the states a lot recently and BOOM there was a car from California. Why this car was here, I have no idea. My first guess was that it was stolen. Do any cops read my blog that can run the plates?

Obama

I remember last year, Ryan came home talking about the new Obama karaoke shop in our neighborhood. If the Vietnamese know one thing, it's how to pick up on recent trends. Well, what's hotter than the name Obama these days? The other week, Huyen and I went to a friend's wedding in a small city about two hours from Hanoi. Right down the street from our friend's house was a clothing store called --- Obama.

With a little help from my friends...

My favorite song growing up was Joe Cocker's version of, "With A Little Help From My Friends." Well, with a little help from my friends, we built a family a house!!!



(PICTURE: The house.)



(PICTURE: Our placard on the house.)

As I mentioned a long time ago, although I physically built a house last summer, Habitat hadn't used our specific donation money until recently. The money we raised helped out this family:



(PICTURE: The Family.)



(PICTURE: The Family inside the house.)

Thank you once again to all the 70+ people who helped to make this possible!!!

Blasphemy

Last week I was shocked twice by things Vietnamese teenagers said to me in regards to Ho Chi Minh. The first came after I gave a private student an essay with the topic: "If you could meet any dead person from history, who would you want to meet?" The student immediately said to me, "Ho Chi Minh." I was expecting this because 90% of my students in Vietnam have always given that answer. What I wasn't expecting was his follow reason: "I would want to meet Ho Chi Minh so I could stop him from winning the war." I was shocked and said, "Really?" He nodded and said, "Yes, if America won we could have Harvard in Vietnam." The student began to explain to me how he wished Vietnam had become part of America (most Vietnamese I have met think that America was trying to colonize Vietnam) and had they been successful would have built up Vietnam in America's own image. Needless to say, this was pretty blasphemous for a Vietnamese person to say.

However, less than 48 hours later another teenager said this to me, "I don't think Ho Chi Minh is a good role model. He lived very poorly. As the head of the country he should have lived a richer life." Again, blasphemous.

I don't think these two kids' opinions are in anyway indicative of people's thinking as a whole. However, it was still shocking to hear and in some respects, refreshing. It's nice to know that the younger generation isn't afraid to speak their mind. Perhaps the future of Vietnam will have true Freedom of Speech.

The craziest part of this is that both these remarks were made the day before and the day after Ho Chi Minh's birthday!

800TH Post!

800! 800! 800! 800! I don't know why I keep typing 800 except to wrap my head around the fact that I've sat in front of my computer 800 times to write posts!!!

I'm doing the rough calculations in my head and it seems that my 1000th post will be pretty close to my wedding...which sort of makes this 800th post totally insignificant. That said, it at least deserves a video montage...

It sure has been a good ride...and it's only gonna get better!

Random Things I See In Traffic

I often find myself laughing at random things I see in traffic that I know nobody else in the vicinity gives two thoughts about. Today I was riding my motorbike and this guy blazed by me. On the back of his shirt in big letters it said, "NEW YORK." Underneath those words in slightly smaller letters was written, "GARDEN STATE."

I'm pretty sure this t-shirt falls under the category of: "Misprinted T-shirts Shipped Across The World."