A Higher Loyalty: Audiobook Review

Dork score: 8/10

Oh Lordy! I was conflicted about James Comey before getting into this book. I still am, but less so. It's so much better hearing directly from a person in a long-format such as this, instead of reading headline news or a twitter post. You get much more detail and you don't have to assume so much.

Putting the presidential election aside, this book offers a ring-side seat to the inner workings of an FBI director. How cool is that? Despite what you may hear from the current white house, James Comey was highly-regarded director of the FBI. The recent Mueller report confirms that the white house press secretary Sarah Sanders directly lied to the public, painting Comey in a terrible light. It's a sad day when it is confirmed that the white house lies to us. What other lies are they telling us? In any case, to get a better idea of Comey's character, let's see what he has to say for himself. Here's a snapshot of Mueller's report:

"When a reporter indicated that the "vast majority" of FBI agents supported Corney, Sanders said , "Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things. " 48 Following the press conference, Sanders spoke to the President, who told her she did a good job and did not point out any inaccuracies in her comments. 481 Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from "countless members of the FBI" was a "slip of the tongue ."482 She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Corney was a comment she made "in the heat of the moment" that was not founded on anything. 483"

Right off the bat, you can tell this book was highly motivated by his interaction with the orange orangutan in the white house. He immediately starts talking about bullies and mob bosses. While there have been no tapes brought forward confirming this, I believe Comey when he says that the orange idiot ask him for his loyalty. As far as I am concerned, the only possible way the orange idiot has gotten so far is that he was somehow able to recruit a bunch of loyalists who blindly put their faith in him. His longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen describes his blind loyalty in his testimony to congress.

I'm not well-versed in branches of government, so this book was enlightening in the fact that Comey outlined the purpose of the FBI and the 'norms' of government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, besides what I've seen in film and TV, was a pretty big mystery to me, so it was interesting to learn more about it from its former director. Who knew most FBI agents don't actually carry guns?

My main reason for reading this book - as I am sure is the same for many people, is I wanted to hear his explanation as to why the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails was made public. The title of the book, 'A Higher Loyalty', I'm sure is a rebuke of Trump's advances and attempts to recruit him - but also a message that he, along with the whole FBI, are a separate bipartisan group that conducts their business independent of politics, religion, etc. The emails sent on a private server was a HUGE mistake by Clinton and they were brought to the attention of the FBI as the perfect time. The FBI had no choice but to investigate them.

Comey claims that he doesn't know if this open investigation had any effect on the election results and that if it did, it would make him, 'mildly nauseous'. I hate to say it, as I like the guy in general, but he's got to be somewhat delirious if he thinks this didn't affect people's votes. Or perhaps he says this to cover his butt and defend his action. While it didn't affect my vote, I can easily imagine someone on the fence, being pushed over the edge and cast their vote for Trump. Here's a good article that outlines the likelihood of this FBI investigation affecting the election results:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

Despite this, however, I cannot put myself in his shoes. What was the right thing to do? Was he put in an impossible situation? Probably, yes. The thing we have to remember was, while he was the director, the decision was not his alone. He had his own council. The decision was to conceal or to speak. Also, Comey did not make the public announcement about reopening the investigation. What he did was send a private letter to congress about it. Then, congress let this out to the public. So, we cannot put the whole blame on Comey.

This book was about more than just the 2016 election. It also goes into the details about what happened afterward. Comey saw immediately that Trump was unfit to be president and that his actions mirrored those of a gang lord. While indeed the FBI director is appointed by the acting US president, the president does not dictate how the director does his or her job. While I don't believe there are any rules in stone about this, the general relationship between the FBI and the white house is limited. The president and the director don't generally speak unless it's at the daily white house briefing. In the case of Trump, Comey was on speedial. Any many occasions, Trump indirectly asked for Comey's loyalty and compliance. Trump even asked Comey to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn. Trump repeatedly pressed Comey on issues like this and tried to bring Comey to his side.

A few months later, Comey was fired - essentially on TV. Comey was in LA at a few FBI-related events and was caught completely off guard when he was told there was a press statement from the white house informing the public that he had been dismissed. This was obviously intentional from Trump himself, as far as I am concerned. This was punishment for refusing to become loyal and for not shutting down certain ongoing investigations.

There was a dismissal letter sent simultaneous to the public announcement by Sean Spicer, but I'm fairly certain Trump knew Comey was not in washington at the time. Since he had been dismissed, he immediately lost all his privileges of being in the FBI, which meant he was essentially stranded in LA without a ride back home. Luckily, the acting director McCabe authorized Comey to fly back. McCabe later received a scolding by Trump for authorizing this. Funny enough, McCabe was also fired by the white house a few years later.

Yes, we have a malicious monster in the white house. Hopefully, for not too much longer.

Related links:
C-Span Interview
Time article/video
Vox article on Clinton emails
Trump's dismissal letter to Comey

A Man Called Ove: Audiobook Review

Dork score: 9/10

What a wonderful surprise! This was a last minute find before my long drive to work. I have since learned it was made into a film, which I promptly reserved at my local library. Apparently Tom Hanks is producing and possibly staring in an American remake of the film!

If you've seen the film, On Golden Pond, imagine a younger, widowed, Swedish Norman (played by Henry Fonda) - and you get the main character of this charming novel, Ove (oo-va).

Ove is an older retired gentleman, who lives by himself and keeps a strict daily routine. He's very stubborn, judgemental, brutally honest - even snide at times, but means well despite his outward abrasiveness. After his wife passes away and retiring, he loses his purpose in life - that is, until a foreign couple move in next door and disrupt his life.

The book's chapters are pretty linear, but contain several disjointed sections that either tell a random story from Ove's life, or a flashback to when his wife was still alive. It was unique, but eventually got a bit repetitive that each chapter's title began with, "A man called Ove" + title of chapter. I suppose this was made worse by the fact that I had to listen to the voice actor say this each time. The voice acting was very good, so I can't complain much.

Ove is a bit old fashioned, but has an open mind. He is not racist or homophobic, but he is weary and blunt. I was surprised to see how he reacted to the gay character in the story. He called him, a 'bender' - which I'm assuming is Swedish slang for gay (not straight, hence 'bend'). I'm unsure if this is an offencive term, but he meant no malice by using it. He's not emotional or sympathetic, but he does care - just in his own special way, if you happen to appeal to approach him in the right way. He's a very self-reliant, handy man, and will judge you without remorse if you are unable to do something that he views as common sense or something you should have been taught as a kid.

I can see myself and some of my family members in Ove. I have my principles, like him. I'm also pretty stubborn when it comes to certain things. He'll only ever own or purchase a Saab, I've only ever purchased Hondas - and we both judge others for driving other types of cars. Other than being able to related to the character, it's a sweet story about a grumpy old man who who eventually opens up to certain individuals that stumble their way into his life - and give him the  purpose he needs to keep living.

Becoming: Audiobook Review

Dork score: 9/10

I believe you can tell a lot from a person by the company they choose to keep; especially their life partner. Now that I've learned more about this amazing woman, I respect Michelle and Barack even more than I did before. How we went from two intelligent, well-educated, wonderful people to an orange buffoon and his fashion model wife, I'll probably never understand.

Becoming describes the journey from Michelle's childhood to White House and all the struggles and joy in between. This is a well-written memoir and a well-read audiobook by the author herself that held by attention until the epilogue.

Michelle is very well-spoken - clear and articulate down to the last letter of every word. It was interesting to hear about her grade-school struggle to pronounce the word, 'white' in elementary school and being told by her high school advisor that she wasn't Princeton material. She's come a long way since then! Not only did she get into Princeton, she graduated at the top of her class.

She kept her nose down and did what she wanted and proceeded to Harvard law school. She kept on the straight and narrow and landed a six-figure job at a fancy law firm where she met Barack - where her life started to 'swerve' as she like to refer to it. She was not fulfilled at this job, so she switched gears and took a pay cut of about half of her previous salary. She reiterated this fact several times in the book, so it's clear she was sore about it, but happier.

Barack is a fascinating character. He is apparently a little bit unpredictable and likes to 'swerve' as Michelle likes to put it. I was a bit shocked to find out right getting married to Michelle, he left her for over a month to write a book, "Dreams from My Father". He was heavily into reading books and figured writing one could make them some money - and it did! He also had his story to tell. It's a little unclear if even Barack knew he would eventually get into politics. Michelle certainly didn't know until much later on in their relationship, after they got married. Unfortunately Barack had to spend a lot of time away from both Michelle and eventually their children as he got sucked further into his legislative career.

It is pretty clear that Michelle was never a huge fan of politics - she even states this at the very end of this book. She also never plans on running for office. In the end, she did agree to go on this rollercoaster ride with Barack, and I don't think she regrets it, but it wasn't quite the life she initially saw for them. She is well aware of the dangers of being in the public spotlight. She was very honest about how she feels about Donald Trump and the hateful and dangerous things that come out of his horrid mouth. From the birther conspiracy that Trump peddled, among other things, put her family at risk and she clearly says she'll never forgive him. It's incredible what people will believe as face-value. When someone in the public eye makes any kind of statement, large amounts of people are likely to believe it without proof. I was surprised to learn about that the white house was fired upon while Obama was in office. Luckily they were in Hawaii at the time.

In any case, when you are literally helping to lead the country and consequently changing the world, there are many sacrifices you'll have to make. Michelle took full advantage of this responsibility, in a positive way. Unlike the current first lady - who is trying to stop cyber bullying (which is an absolute joke since her husband is the biggest bully of them all - especially on Twitter, Hello!), and wearing jackets in public that says in large letters, "I really don't care do you?", Michelle used her intelligence, class, common sense, and charisma to drive positive change.

Ratings & Reviews

Short version:
Don't judge a book by its cover. Be careful of reviews for sometimes they are inflated and/or fake! Favor user ratings vs critics ratings (my opinion). Also, just because something is rated low doesn't mean you won't like it.

Long version:


<-- Amazon rating system

Recently I was in the market for a new set of earphones. My first stop was Amazon. Right near the top of the search page was exactly what I was looking for. It had a great price and great reviews! Not only was it rated above 4 stars, but it had more than 300 ratings. Looking at the reviews, everyone had something good to say about the product.

Almost immediately I popped it in my shopping cart. Having a little extra time on my hands, I figure I'd shop around a bit to see if I could find a better deal or better product. After looking through several similar earphones, none had  the features at the same great price with such good reviews, so I navigated back to the product page of the item in my cart to look it over one more time.

Looking at the reviews again, I spotted something strange. The first two reviewers had similar usernames. Wait... the first three... no... the first 15 reviewers had the same exact usernames, just with different digits at the end. All these were five star reviews. This must of been the same person somehow reviewing the same product many times, inflating the products rating!

This was on Amazon! One of the biggest tech companies in the world. It's 2019... how does Amazon not have code behind the scenes that catch this trickery!? Or maybe they are aware of it and just don't do anything to prevent it because it's not affecting their sales and profit. Sad! I almost fell for it. Good thing I spent the time looking over the reviews carefully this time. I don't always have time, however. Most of the time i'll glace at the review score and perhaps the number of reviews and I'll purchase the item shortly after. This time I just happen to notice the reviewers usernames.

This got me thinking about reviews in general. I personally never write product reviews. I'll write the occasional book or restaurant review, but that's about it. What about all those product reviewers? I wonder if they are paid. If that's the case, I'm wondering if they are honest reviews. How am I supposed to trust them? Great!


<-- Rottentomatoes.com rating system

This problem applies to other reviews as well. Movie and book reviews, car and other product reviews. Want to go see a movie? How often do you hear someone ask, 'how are the reviews?'. They will typically refer to Rotten Tomatoes.com or IMDB.com. If it's not well-rated, they might pass on seeing it. I think this is sad! Form your own opinion!

Luckily, many of these websites will have two scoring systems - one that is for 'critics' and one generated by users or audience. When I do look up ratings, I gravitated to the user-generated scores. Many times, there is a large difference between the scores of the critics vs the users. A recent example is for the film, 'Venom' with Tom Hardy. While this was in the category of big, blockbuster movies, I'd put it in the cult-classic bucket. You'd likely only enjoy it if you're a fan of Marvel Comics. Venom was rated 29/100 by 312 critics and 81/100 by 37,732 users. I personally enjoyed the heck out of this movie; I'd give it a solid 85/100.

This brings back a memory of when a cousin recommended a video game to me. I looked up its ratings and they weren't spectacular, so I gave the game a pass. It was a bit awkward when I told my cousin the reason I didn't try it out. I suppose I was a bit stuck-up back then and heavily swayed by the masses' opinion.

<-- Goodreads.com rating system

I'm also reminded of the novel, 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Often it is required reading for many grade-school students. It wasn't very memorable, so I re-read it a few years ago. I can't say I was very impressed. It's know to be a classic must-read. I give it a 3/5 stars. Surprisingly, it's rated lower than I expected on goodreads.com at 3.8/5 stars by 2,404,182 (2.4 million!) users. I imagine the 'critics' would rate it higher.