Cleaning House

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , ,

By Ande Jacobson

2023 completed its first week. We passed the second anniversary of an insurrection ending the U.S. tradition of the peaceful transition of power for the first time in our history, and we watched the U.S. House of Representatives put on a chaotic spectacle taking just over four days and 15 votes before finally electing Rep. Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House. To get there, McCarthy made several concessions to the extremist faction that has taken over his party, a faction that supported the insurrection and the insurrectionists. Those concessions have been covered extensively in the media and could have dire consequences for the country as the year progresses if they come to pass. Continue reading →

The end of the King and Maxwell series

A Good Reed Review Book Review ,

By Ande Jacobson

King and Maxwell is the sixth and final book in David Baldacci’s King & Maxwell series, and it doesn’t disappoint. The last three books of the series, First Family, The Sixth Man, and King and Maxwell are closely coupled, each picking up where the last one leaves off. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are looking to get back to a more normal, less life-threatening routine when they come upon a teenager running through the woods with a gun in a vicious storm. The boy, Tyler Wingo, is frantic. He’s been informed that his father, Sam Wingo, was killed in combat in Afghanistan. The trouble is that Sam Wingo is very much alive, and he’s a hunted man though it takes a while to determine that this is the case. After some negotiation and being threatened by various government and government adjacent thugs, King, Maxwell, their client Tyler Wingo, his father Sam, and a couple of innocent bystanders are in grave danger. No matter the risks, they aren’t deterred from their quest to clear Sam’s name and get him and Tyler to safety. Continue reading →

2022 is almost over

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs ,

By Ande Jacobson

Every night (or first thing in the morning) I read Heather Cox Richardson’s latest Letter from an American. She writes her observations of the day’s events from the perspective of an historian focused on what she thinks will be important 100 years from now. Her letters often pull together disparate threads to provide a read on current events that might not always be obvious to someone not-so-well-versed in history and in which events seemingly have historical significance. One thing that she’s said many times in her various live sessions is that as an historian, she often focuses on what people say and do. This includes reading newspapers, and in her deep dives into the past, those news reports provide a fascinating view into the important events of the day. Continue reading →

The 28th Annual San Jose SaxMas happened

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By Ande Jacobson

The 28th Annual San Jose Saxophone Christmas (or SaxMas to the initiated) took place on 17 December 2022. It was a tad smaller than it had been a few years ago, but it was energetic and festive nonetheless. There’s something special about so many saxophone enthusiasts coming together to make holiday music just for the fun of it.

The players came together in the morning to run through the charts, and then they gave two concerts in the afternoon. The first one was held at San Jose’s Christmas in the Park. The second concert was held at San Jose’s Eastridge Mall. Continue reading →

‘The Daughters of Kobani’ shows just what motivated women can do

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By Ande Jacobson

In February 2021, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s groundbreaking book, The Daughters of Kobani, became available. This is an important book telling the story of the women of the Kurdish Militia, an all-female fighting force (the YPJ) that pushed back and took revenge on the men of ISIS to free Kobani and other Kurdish towns in northeastern Syria. They faced long odds and opposition from their families, the oppressive regime in their native Syria, and hostile neighboring nations. They showed that women are not only equal to men, they are a force to be taken seriously. Lemmon spent hundreds of hours on trips and interviews between 2017 and 2020. She spoke with a broad swath of militia members as well as with civilians just trying to survive in Syria and Iraq. She also talked with the American military advisors in country and with military and political functionaries in the U.S. about the challenges surrounding U.S. involvement. The U.S. was keenly aware of the dangers posed by ISIS to the region and to the world, so there was a vested interest in making this work. Continue reading →

Is Mastodon the solution?

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By Ande Jacobson

I’ve written about social media before, most recently as the Twitter turmoil was ramping up. I originally joined Twitter back in 2011 mostly to help bolster my fledgling A Good Reed Review website. Originally, that’s all I used it for. Every time I’d publish a piece on the site, I’d have it appear on the site’s Facebook page and on what I considered its Twitter account. Then I got involved in politics in a more substantial way in 2020 volunteering for the Biden text team during the general election. At that point, I started using my Twitter account for more than just the music and theater related content on my website, and I started to recognize much of the good that Twitter could do. News agencies had long used it to get important information out quickly, particularly in times of crisis. The same was true for various public figures. Continue reading →

What happened to Edgar Roy?

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

David Baldacci’s fifth book in the King & Maxwell series came out in 2011. The story in The Sixth Man picks up where First Family left off. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have again taken on more than they expected when they venture up to Maine to help out King’s old mentor on a case. A brilliant but troubled genius has been accused of mass murder. The man is Edgar Roy who theoretically worked for the IRS. In reality though, his job was far more complex than that. He was recruited to help the intelligence community in ways that are completely unimaginable. He was the only person in the country, and probably the world, who could do the job for which he was hired. He was part of something known as the E-Program, and he was the only E-Six ever discovered after a few E-Fives went down in flames. Continue reading →

Sometimes you just have to do a little Pink Panthering

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs

By Ande Jacobson

On a gray November day when the country’s future is in the balance, it can be a little stressful. Instead of obsessively watching all the midterm returns which can’t be finalized tonight, I decided instead to put this out there in case folks wanted a break.

During the first year of the pandemic, I played with an app that many of my musician friends recommended. As a result, I created a number of collaborations with myself and added them to my Appearances page. In May of 2020, I really just needed to do a little Pink Panthering, and these were the result. Both are based on a slight modification of an arrangement from my old Sax Quartet, Peninsula Saxophonica. I like the second one best with two clarinets and a tenor sax, but three clarinets have a certain appeal, and today just seemed like a day that needed a little Pink Panthering.

Enjoy!

If you’re curious what our quartet sounded like, have a listen:

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Social media again

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs ,

By Ande Jacobson

With all the hype about Elon Musk buying Twitter and taking it private to avoid oversight as a private company, it seems like a good time to revisit the world of social media. I wrote a piece about a year ago talking about the good side of Facebook (yes, it can be used for good). All of the social media platforms have one thing in common, how one uses them determines one’s user experience. Every platform can be used for good or ill, but a user can avoid most of the effects of the algorithms and advertising by using them deliberately. In this case, deliberate means not “doom scrolling” and leaving what they see to the manipulative algorithms but instead consciously choosing what content to view.

On most social media platforms, a user makes connections or follows various people and pages. To use social media platforms deliberately, one can search for or bookmark their favorite pages and go directly to those. Alternatively, one can start with their own profile and pick from there. Hiding ads also reduces the number of ads one sees pretty effectively. Continue reading →

‘Lawyers Never Lie’ is a gripping legal comedy

A Good Reed Review Book Review , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Teri Kanefield is well-known in various circles as a writer, an appellate defense attorney, and an educator. Of late she’s been part of the building legal community on Twitter, patiently explaining various high profile legal matters rippling through public discourse. Before the heightened activity of legal Twitter, she was an award winning author writing across genres including nonfiction and fiction for both young readers and adults. Her nonfiction is carefully researched and expertly presented to inform and enthrall. Her fiction is gripping, often originating from a circumstance or event she knows well adhering to the old adage of writing what you know. Kanefield’s fiction also exemplifies something she holds close to heart – that fiction or literature in an ideal world is a creative way to get to the truth. This is the case in her engaging novel, Lawyers Never Lie. The story is largely autobiographical although the names have been changed, the ages have been shuffled, and the personalities have been modified to protect the innocent. The back cover starts with:

“A boy on the roof. A house in shambles. A new baby. A lawsuit.”

And ends with:

“A story of raising children, legal ethics, and fixing what is broken.”

Continue reading →