Good reads

The library again yielded some worthwhile content to read.  I did.  The entire weekend was spent lazily soaking in history and state of the planet we occupy.

First title was Rocket Billionaires  - Musk, Bezos et al..

This narrative is the historic perspective on how the privatization of the space we call 'outer space' came to be.  A series of lucky coincidences, entrepreneurial hubris and flawed government oversight in the form of NASA and bloated bureaucracies largely paved the way for commoners to dream of cracking the Karman line (named for a Hungarian physicist), which is an imaginary plane at 100 km altitude above earth.

While full commercial flight into outer space is not a reality there are significant strides to solve for a flight of fancy.  Why someone would want to take a joy ride for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be in the rarefied atmosphere and gaze down is akin to a solution waiting for a question.

Yet there is an aspiration to reach for the next planet in the solar system and Musk and his ilk are charting a course through repeated attempts while also juggling their other money making operations that keeps Wall Street happy.

Second title read was a book written by an elder American couple, The Fallows titled - Our towns: A 100,000 mile journey into the heart of America.

This is a wonderful perspective literally from the air in a single engine propeller aircraft affording views of our planet at a vantage 2,500 feet up.  They have been consummate travelers and great companions as they criss crossed America documenting the places and the people that made them but that the large media forgot to write about.  It reads like an optimistic tale of what America is at its heart, a giving and brave nation willing to take risks and thrive.  This in spite of the drug overdoses, the strife in politics and policy, the lack of education in certain segments of the public along with the growing income divide.

Third was - How American healthcare killed my father - an eye opener by the son of a father who admitted for pneumonia later died due to some other diseases contracted at the hospital.  The irony is writ large where 100,000 or higher number of patients that came for a cure are killed each year in American health care facilities due to basic lack of common sense.  For hospitals boasting state of the art hardware, the staff not washing their hands thoroughly between two tasks along with other mundane items like picking up trash on time is resulting in a entirely solvable, massive epidemic across the country.