Review of "Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, Volume 3 Force War," by John Ostrander & Jan Duursema

Review of

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, Volume 3 Force War, by John Ostrander & Jan Duursema ISBN 9781616553791

Four out of five stars

 In the Star Wars graphic novel timeline, the point of before and after distinction is the time of “Star Trek IV: A New Hope.” The two eras are referred to as BSW4 (before Star Wars 4) and ASW4 (after Star Wars 4). The timeframe of this story is 36,000 years before SW4. It is a time when the users of the force are called the Je’daii, but in general the dark side is ascendant. The Je’daii are aware of the light side and can channel it, but the dark side dominates.

 The reason for this is that the Tython system is under attack by the powerful forces of the Rakata and the most powerful force in opposition is the Je’daii. Outnumbered and generally out manipulated, the Je’daii are in danger of being killed off and the Rakata eat their defeated enemies. Faced with this prospect, they find it hard to keep the dark side in check.

 This book is the story of the climactic battle for control of Tython. It takes place on that planet and there is a lot of forcesaber swinging and death. There is a search for true identity, a nascent love story and some revelation of the past. Yet, all of that is secondary, the focus is on the fighting and killing, as it is a battle for control of a gate for faster than light travel, making it a battle for control of the galaxy.

 The outcome will determine whether the creatures of the galaxy will be conquered and enslaved or remain as they are. With a powerful, gruesome villain, the story has the one feature such stories always need, the evil one. However, with a little more background and a little less humming of the forcesabers, this would have been a better story.

Review of "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race," by Margot Lee Shetterly

Review of

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly, Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2016. 368 pp., $27.99 (hardbound). ISBN 9780062363596

 Given the tremendous military power of the United States in the early twenty-first century and the technical sophistication of the military aircraft, the ways things were decades ago is generally unappreciated. At the start of World War II, like all other aspects of military preparedness, the American aeronautics industry was barely existent. There was a clear need for more and better aircraft, and one of the key skills that was needed was the ability to process numbers.

 At this time before the existence of the electronic computer, the term “computer” was generally used to refer to humans that crunched numbers. Most of the time they were female. Yet, this was not a job that required only the ability to punch the right buttons on a calculator, many of the operations required knowledge of advanced mathematics, and people with those skills were in short supply. In the desperate search for talent wherever it could be found, some extremely capable African-American women were recruited. They worked in Hampton, Virginia and at the time that area was subject to strict segregation.

 This book follows the lives of four of the women as they started work in World War II and kept working all through the fifties and sixties, playing key roles in the development of new aircraft after the war as well as in the American space program that eventually reached the moon. The four women were Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden and their experiences with segregation on and off the job.

 It is a fascinating book, for it is simultaneously a chronicle of the American war effort and how society changed through greater opportunities as well as a history of the American aeronautic and space program. There is little in the way of mathematics, this is a story of their lives, not the mathematics that they worked on.

 To explain how key these women were to the success of the American space effort, all that is needed is one anecdote. In 1962, electronic computers were new and astronaut John Glenn was preparing to be the first American to orbit the Earth. His orbital trajectory had been computed by an IBM 7090 computer, yet he did not trust the results and if they were wrong, he most likely would not survive the flight. Therefore, Glenn uttered what should be one of the most famous phrases of the space program, “Get the girl to check the numbers.” He added that if she says the number are good, then he was ready to go.

 The person that Glenn was referring to was Katherine Johnson and Glenn, along with everyone else, trusted her. She ran the numbers and they checked out, Glenn was satisfied and his flight was historic. While other events in the space program are not quite so engaging, these women made a difference in the American war and space efforts. They were also wives, mothers and community volunteers, doing all of it while being forced to follow a code that claimed their inferiority. It is a great story of great achievement.

Review of Instaread Summary, Analysis & Review of The Arbinger Institute's "The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict"

Review of

Instaread Summary, Analysis & Review of The Arbinger Institute's The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict

Three out of five stars

The book is about conflict resolution and while it is fictional, the authors chose one of the most intractable conflicts as a backdrop. The setting is a conflict resolutions retreat run by Avi Rozen and Yusuf al-Falah. Avi is a Jew whose father was killed in an Arab attack in 1973 and Yusuf is an Arab whose father was killed in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. The primary point they use to begin the process of resolution is given in key takeaway one.

“To change the behavior of others, one must first see them as human beings worthy of consideration and empathy.”

This is of course true and is an adaptation of the standard first principle of negotiations, which is to consider your opponent to have legitimate concerns. They may conflict with yours, but that does not make them illegitimate. However, in resolving conflicts when both sides have right on their side means that both sides must change.

 There are eight key takeaways and they are all valid, but nothing more than vague generalities. For example, number four is:

”People may justify their self-betrayals by placing themselves in “better-than” boxes and in related ‘I-deserve’ boxes.”

Correct, yet breaking out of the boxes is what makes the resolution of conflict so hard.

 From this summary, there is no significant rising above the general that convinces the reader that the book is a valuable addition that should be read. The summary reads like the bullet points describing many other self-help books, so there is nothing that grabs the reader with any mental force.

 The Arbinger Institute is a consulting and training organization that is hired to provide assistance in conflict resolution to businesses. Given the content of this summary, the book sounds like a lengthy commercial for their services. 

https://www.amazon.com/Summary-Analysis-Arbinger-Institutes-Instaread-ebook/dp/B01M7SVZ9C/