Feldman's Faves: April 11, 2022

GOOD MORNING

For six years in a row I have managed to fall asleep during the second half of the final game of March Madness. This year, I figured that the Tar Heels had the game in the bag with a 15 point lead at half time so I just closed my eyes. Well, I missed the Jayhawks comeback, the greatest in NCAA history – yes, poor me. At the same time, it was a real treat watching a legacy/legend being born the previous night when South Carolina beat Connecticut in the Women’s Finals. With Coach K retiring this year, I think that Dawn Staley could not only be the new face of college basketball but also the first woman to be a head coach in the NBA. She is a total rock star and that is my prediction of the week. Along the basketball theme, as I have discussed with Steve Halperin, the best show on TV right now is HBO’s Winning Time, which describes the rise of the Lakers dynasty in the 1980s (ironic timing given the train wreck of a season this year’s team just had). It is absolutely brilliant and you don’t need to be a basketball fan to appreciate it. When I was a kid I thought for sure that Magic Johnson would be President one day. And of course, looking forward to hosting the NBA Finals and the World Series once again this year (will reserve judgement for the time being when it comes to the Stanley Cup)…. In J-LO related news, I am can say with conviction that her sixth engagement ring is by far my favourite, but you might have a different view - https://apple.news/AwLaTf90KSOmeHHMwmE5MUw

The theme this week is issues of global significance – war and climate change – not super uplifting but a snapshot of the current state of affairs.

Lenin’s Tomb – The Last Days of the Soviet Empire By: David Remnick – New Yorker editor, David Remnick won the Pulitzer Prize for Lenin’s Tomb in 1994, and deservedly so, as it has stood the test of time. Remnick took a very deep dive in speaking to people from peasants, to reformers to the old guard to gain an understanding of life under the repressive Soviet regime and how and why the empire ultimately collapsed. The extreme poverty, corruption and terror that the people of this regime encountered for over 70 years is hard to comprehend from where we live. This book has become “the standard account” of the story of the collapse of the Soviet Union and helps place what is happening today between Russia and the Ukraine in historical context. What is clear is that the liberal democratic principles of the West do not come natural to Russia, its people and its historical mode of governance and so trying to Westernize Russia – as was Gorbachev’s plan with Perestroika and Glasnost - could (and should) be viewed as a fool’s errand. At the time of writing, Remnick, who had been in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a reporter for the Washington Post was optimistic that the days of brute force governance could possibly be over (having no idea that Putin would follow Yeltsin) as he was writing at what was a very optimistic time for Russia and its people. Remnick interviewed numerous people that survived the Stalin purges, the reforms of Khrushchev and the repression of Brezhnev. The long history of the Soviet Union (and the Russian Empire before that) was one of repression and oppression where the state controlled all aspects of daily life from media, to commerce to education and any dissent was handled swiftly and with little tolerance. So it is really no surprise that things are as they are today under Putin. In Lenin’s Tomb Remnick traces and explains the 75 years of history that comprised the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the latter of which Putin describes today as one of history’s great tragedies. When you understand the terror and fear that existed under the Soviet regime it is so clear that from the outset that the days of reform championed by Gorbachev were on borrowed time. This book does a great job of describing the roles played by key figures from Lenin, to Gorbachev to Yeltsin and even to Sakharov. If you want a really good understanding of the present situation in Russia this lesson in history is required reading. Because it was written in the early 1990’s it is understandable that Putin wasn’t predicted but in reading it with years of hindsight it is not at all surprising. Here is a good review from the NYT - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/remnick-lenin.html

TED Talks Daily - How to realistically decarbonize the oil and gas industry | Bjørn Otto Sverdrup – We all know that that energy industry is a major contributor to climate change. A recent proxy contest at Exxon Mobil (run by Engine #1) is a reflection of the fact that all stakeholders in society (even, “my people”, the hard core activist hedge funds) realize that fundamental change is required in these industries if the world is to be successful in reaching the collective carbon reduction goals that have so far proven to be elusive. The war in the Ukraine has shown that the world is not quite ready to give up its reliance on oil and gas but may also have shown the strategic vulnerability of this reliance and could potentially be an impetus to moving more quickly to cleaner energy use on a global scale. Luckily there are some very smart and motivated people out there that are coming up with innovative strategies to try to solve this problem. The jury is still out on whether this will work and it will take much more than innovation to get there. The hard part is political will. Here is an excerpt from the PODCAST itself: “Bjørn Otto Sverdrup leads the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OCGI), which gathers the CEOs of twelve of the world's largest oil and gas companies around an ambitious goal: to get one of the leading contributors to climate change to drastically lower their own carbon emissions. He describes a possible path for the industry to pivot to net-zero operations, reimagining the role it could play in helping decarbonize the economy and igniting changes in how we consume energy. (Followed by a Q&A with Countdown cofounder Lindsay Levin)” - : https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ted-talks-daily/id160904630?i=1000547575255

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon