Stephen K

The theme, or sub-theme, is in the title

Revisado: 11-11-24

This was an interesting book, and a kinda saddening book too amid so much accomplishment.

Why did Archambeau title it 'unapologetically', was there something to feel sorry for? The reader, I think, will sense that there is. This is not to detract from the book, rather it is a part of it, in my view —despite, or rather even more so, because Archambeau doubles-down and uses language with her daughter —and here I'll stop so not to give spoilers— that belie her purported feelings/actions, and the costs of success in corporate business.

The term 'ambitious' also was particularly well-suited, and part of the story. I had the feeling that ambition, with it's etymology meaning to seek political support for power, was what she felt —she loved her work in that respect, but never spoke of what the work actually was, how it improved the world or helped people, except as an example of a Black woman climbing the corporate ladder —no small feat to be sure.

One shining moment was of her in Japan, where because of her longstanding experience of being an outsider, she gave a presentation that really touched the Japanese team —again, no spoilers, but it was a very sensitive and meaningful action, and very well done, so naturally too.

Another nice and nicely-related facet was her relationship with her husband, and how they negotiated and planned for him to predominantly care for their children.

Archambeau read her own book, which adds a fuller dimension to the story. She sounded to me angry most of the time —but isn't that in line with being unapologetic? The tone of austerity with a touch of anger seemed to jibe perfectly with the story. Again, not in the surface plot of success, but of tones and hues that color it.

All in all, a good book —more subtle and with more content, perhaps, than even Archambeau consciously realised as she wrote.

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Interesting story, but the writing...

Revisado: 10-21-24

The author relates her travails in building Bantam Bagels, and offers a useful vista into the starting and growing of the business. In this respect the book was enjoyable and good.

Yet her every-chipper, long-winded narration, overstuffed with adjectives, and replete with grammatical errors and non-sequitur metaphors, was tiring. The book could've been shortened and improved had she, or an editor, pared down her litanies of unnecessary wordage.

At the same time, her overbearing, over-caffeinated writing style did appear to correctly portray her personality, and it seems no stretch to imagine that that was part of her success and ultimate outcome.

So all in all, OK.

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Run-of-the-mill politically-correct dull narrative

Revisado: 02-28-24

I read two books by Walter Isaacson recently, and was dumbfounded by his entirely statist perspectives. At the time I was unaware of his alliance with government via aVoice of America and the Defense Innovation Board. It now it makes more sense, but is none the less disappointing.

Mr Isaacson will give you the imparted wisdom re who is good, who is bad, and whom to dislike. He'll tell you the new thing to support, and oppose. He'll let the reader know that Watson is a racist to be shunned rather than quesitoned —and ignore Dr Watson's suggestion that intellectual so-called property might be aggravating wealth disparities.

No, most of Isaacson's book hinges on patent fights —that is, people vying for the use of goverment aggression to prevent others from copying -repackaged as theft. He'll never quesion the morlaity of this crucial violation of the non-aggression principle.

In the end, the book read like a story told by a childrens'-book author —simple, bland, pablum.

I finsihed it thinking that I was expecting too much from Mr Isaacson; if I want penetrating, iconoclastic, clear-eyed, deep thinkers, I must move on. Demanding such from Mr Isaacson is a fool's errand, merly demanding he give me what he does not have.

Not that he does not have his merits and his place; just not for me at this jucture in my life.

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Not my cup of tea

Revisado: 12-09-23

I listened to this book to understand a friend from whom I feel estranged who told me that they thought of me when they read it. They spoke of Wall Kimmerer’s de-centering of Western philosophy and examination and elevation of indigenous wisdom/science, and told me of eloquent passages about a world view that accounts for women and children as critical in first principles, and that labels the falsehoods of private property, political republics, consumption economies, and man-centric systems-thinking.

And I did find some of Kimmerer's observations and views sensitive and poetic, and I also found affirmation of the feeling I've long had that humans and our alteration of nature are part of nature and can be a good modification —nay, interaction with nature. There were some interesting biological facts that I enjoyed too.

I found myself wondering if Wall Kimmerer would really speak in a slow, breathy lamenting tone for all 16h44m of her book; something that almost without reprieve, she did.

I was unable to get my mind around her repudiation of State violence, her gripping narration of the forced State assimilationist education at the Indian Industrial School that strove to erasing her forbears' Native culture, while all the time embracing the State as a solution without reflection on its coercive essence, as she also works for and is paid by the State. I found her criticism of property theft, as she seemingly rejected the notion property, quite inconsistent. She did not, to my mind, speak in terms of, or explain why to reject, fundamental universal morality or basic concepts: like property, non-aggression, and contracts.

...As a person hailing from the intersection of several of the most-criticized demographics these days, I kept asking myself if I was wrongheaded, not seeing or admitting something, stuck on old, outmoded, unnecessary ideas. Yet it also did not escape my notice that when a Native taps sap from a maple tree, they are 'freeing it', and when a non-Native takes something from nature, the narration is somewhat different.

In the end I found the book tortuous to read, and while I might be missing something or judging to early, I cannot say that I'm a better person for having read it, save that I'm 16h44m-worth more skeptical of what appears to me as undefined, unclear, sometimes nicely poetically emotional, muddled thinking.

It intrigues me that this book that I found so uninteresting appeals so strongly to so may people and gets such good reviews. I'm tempted not to say aloud that I suspect that this divide may occur somewhat along lines of gender; but I think that that may indeed be the big unintended takeaway for me from the book.

And I will, after I write this evaluation, return the book and have my credit refunded.

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Wonderful Japanese Speakers —too heavy on English

Revisado: 06-23-23

The native Japanese speakers' pronunciation and humor made this book really enjoyable and useful —particular kudos to Natsuko-san and a bloke whose name escapes me, whose clear pronunciations and animated voices were a joy to listen to. The vocabulary, phrases, and pronunciation focus were well-chosen, useful, and often entertaining as well.

The narrator, however, was way too present, and used far too much, too-intrusive, English. This frustrated me no end. I wanted to hear the native Japanese speakers whom I so enjoyed and learnt from, but he was omnipresent and so endlessly wordy that it was near impossible to neatly fast-forward over him to get to the useful Japanese parts.

All in all, if you have time or patience to listen to far more English than Japanese, this could be a good book —because it does contain worthwhile, clear, entertaining, Japanese voice recordings.

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Good ideas —prescient, before covid-lockdowns

Revisado: 08-29-22

Ferriss offers some useful proposals —sometimes he seems manic, like he had too much caffeine, yet he offers thought-provoking and paradigm-changing ideas.

The meaning and integration of his plan to commit suicide in 1999 seem hollowingly absent in this book, published several years later. To his credit, he does talk about suicide on his website, though I find myself seeking and not adequately finding more contact, more depth, in his words.

Toward the latter third of the book Ferriss lays out reams of information that were too specific to be useful to me —I ended up fast-forwarding over much in those chapters. These pages had a different vibe and read like a litany of data, giving me the impression he was tired of writing in the better style in which he set out.

All in all it was a good book, espousing several ideas that stayed with me.

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A microcosm of the very problem it discusses,

Revisado: 05-06-22

In this book, Dr Nestle reveals and discusses countless instances of research and guidelines influenced by the paymasters of the authors. She derides corporations, who's leaders lobby government, but sees government as potentially free from undue influence —if it just has enough power.

Has she never read Hayek, 'How the worst get on top', does she no nothing of history? Surely she's familiar with both, but her paymasters and powerbrokers are in the State, and she seems to fall victim to the very bias she denounces, unable or unwilling to go against a source of her income and research funds.



She wants government, not corporations, to control others with respect to food -but what does that mean, that she wants people with a monopoly on the right to initiate force against peaceful people (ie, the State) in place of voluntary relations? She should explore this, if that the road she points down.

She claims that 'the governments represent all people'. Really?

And she says that in a better world, companies wouldn't' make unhealthy products. Who decides how healthy? Would I never have eaten ice cream in her putatively better world??

Not a great book, very repetitive, and never gets down to the fundamental issues and/or solution. She does not reason from fundamental principles, like a good scientist or philosopher.

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Hagiographic narration of an iconic burger

Revisado: 12-19-21

This was an interesting book relating interesting story.

Yet, I couldn’t help feeling that it was all told by the owners of the business or by someone with a vested interest in it – I very often felt like I was reading the story of the Saints as narrated by a devout Christian.

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Not for Me

Revisado: 05-14-21

I found this dewey-eyed book, and it's breathy, mawkish reading, intolerable —not reflecting the type of person I wish to be. Except that I too greatly value understanding of my own and other's histories and internal subconscious lives, albeit not in the crying, asking-trees-for-permission-to-tie-a-rope-to-them (really), way of the author.

Perhaps there is some wisdom in the pages that I am repressing and unwilling to face. ...Could be the case; I grant that, and it would not be the first time in my life for such an occurrence.

Nevertheless, none the individuals whom I most respect and admire, from Socrates and J Christ to world-changing truth-telling contemporary philosophers and productive entrepreneurs, would comport themselves as weakly and this author seems to.

I returned the book for my credit back.

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A Tour de Force in Poor Thinking, Badly Read

Revisado: 03-18-21

This book and its reading stand out for their mental poverty an ill-preparedness; the confused semantics and substandard reading compete for the attention of the reader, leading from cringe to disbelief.

The grammar is terrible, and the diction sounds like a computer reader, with absurd pauses, and prolix and roundabout statements of the obvious —often then repeated, again.

Disjointed, righteously whining and complaining, the author says gems like the following;

'We will also have to re-introduce important bacterial strains to our bodies that have gone extinct' (Ch12)
'From the plastics in our water bottles to the can linings of our beans' (Ch 13)
'The low-dose exposures that we are exposed to'
'The necessary nutrients that we need'


Eventually the author's shabby and unpersuasive thinking cedes to increasing calls for State coercion; he/she want's a litany of State-mandated policies, and cites the Venezuelan Constitution approvingly —apparently not realising that the Constitution of the USSR was far better on paper that that of the US.

He/she sadly, yet predictably, sites all the apparently obligatory keywords including 'race, class and gender', and 'wives as a a crypto-servant class', 'BLM and white supremacists' 'Neo-Nazis', and utters the term 'free markets' only with due derision.

In the mind of the author, faced with 'too much centralisation', the solution is a 'National food growing programme'; we'll have a govt programme to grow food in parks and private urban lands. And more govt, to tax, tax, tax people and products the anointed deem bad, and —and this is cornerstone— Govt will pay people to cook at home, and we'll have State-mandated payment for housework'. That is, if we can only do away with what he/she refers to as some 'pesky personal-responsibility idea',


This is a great book to better see the enemies to our freedom and prosperity, and how they devolve from poor thinking, to bad ideas, to outright calls for force-backed State compulsion to impose them on everyone.

I'm returning it for my money back; I will not support such mediocrity and calls for coercion to impose it.

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