What I Just Read

Because the surf was so big and dangerous, officials argued over whether or not to hold the event. While they debated over the safety of the surfers, big-wave maverick Mark Foo looked out into the maelstrom of waves and whitewater and nonchalantly told one cameraman, "Eddie would go." --From Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero and Pioneer of Big Wave Surfing by Stuart Holmes Coleman If you spend much time in Hawaii, especially up on the North Shore of Oahu, you'll be sure to see the words "Eddie Would Go." written on bumper stickers, on T-shirts and on graffiti. That phrase refers to one of Hawaii's most famous surfers, Eddie Aikau, a local kid from a well-known Hawaiian family who pioneered big wave surfing. His life story is fascinating, touching and tragic, and he's a fundamental part of island culture here in Hawaii. And most tourists here have no idea who he is. Eddie Would Go, by Stuart Holmes Coleman, is a fast read and an emo...

In government it is always easier to go forward with a program that does not work than to stop it altogether and admit failure. --David Halberstam The best history books don't just teach you about the past, they also teach you about today. The Best and the Brightest is a brilliant history of why America failed in Vietnam. It's a history of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and it's a history of the lives of the key Cabinet members and agency leaders Kennedy chose--the leaders Johnson later inherited when he unexpectedly became president. This book is also an exceptionally well-written postmortem of an era when our government made some of the worst decisions in its history. The title is an ironic reference to Kennedy's Cabinet, which he filled with the best and brightest minds of that era's establishment elites. These were leading intellectuals, captains of industry and key political thinkers of the day. People like McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk and Robert McNama...