Who is Government? by Michael Lewis is a solid compilation book subtitled The Untold Story of Public Service. It came out of a series of essays done for The Washington Post, and features ten profiles of government employees by nine different writers, with Lewis providing the first and last essay.
“The Canary” by Lewis is about Christopher Mark, a former coal miner who led the development of industry-wide standards to prevent roof falls in mines. His work, accounting for all conditions in a given mine, led to 2016 being the first year of no U.S. mining roof fall fatalities. It’s a fascinating view into someone who studied mining engineering at Penn State and wound up working for the Bureau of Mines.
“The Sentinel” by Casey Cep covers Ronald E. Walters of the National Cemetery Association. It details what’s done on behalf of military veterans after they pass away, and how each is entitled to a military funeral, regardless of where or how they died. Walters is in charge of this effort, including maintaining cemeteries around the world and online records of veterans who have died. It’s a wonderful story about the pursuit of excellence for an important cause.
“The Searchers” by Dave Eggers is about employees at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking for the extraterrestrial life that they’re confident is out there. They’re searching for exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, that can support life, either intelligent life or even just bacteria. One of those profiled is Nick Siegler, the chief technologist for NASA’s exoplanet program. He was a chemical engineer, working in industry, and then at 32 applied and was accepted to Harvard’s Special Students program, and then 43 when he completed his PhD and started at NASA.
“The Number” by John Lanchester details the consumer price index produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and includes mention of the misery index, the unemployment rate plus inflation. It’s noted how a high misery index almost always correlates with the political party holding the White House losing it. The exception to this was the 2024 election, where the misery index was low, but food inflation was talked about in the news to the point where people felt it a huge problem.
“The Equalizer” by Sarah Vowell profiles Pamela Wright of the National Archives and Records Administration, and her efforts as the NARA Chief Innovation Officer to make records available for people, particularly online. Reference is made to History Hub on the NARA website, where people can submit a query and it will be answered by NARA archivists, federal staffers, and citizen volunteers, a Google search done by people. Also noted is how census records are made public 72 years after the fact, to protect privacy, and the information that people can gather on their ancestors. Mentioned as well is the staff of the National Archives are responsible for physically protecting the actual Constitution.
“The Free-Living Bureaucrat” by Michael Lewis covers Heather Stone of the Food and Drug Administration. There’s a fascinating story within about rare diseases, and how those who contract them are underserved because the disease too rare to warrant pharmaceutical company focus. Lewis writes about Walter and Amanda Smith, and their daughter Alaina. At the age of five she had a medical emergency where she seemed to suffer a seizure. Doctors diagnosed her with epilepsy, but then after her family demanded an MRI, an infection was found in her brain, one caused by her having Balamuthia, an amoeba that can enter the brain through dust and consume it. When they received this information, fewer than 200 cases had been reported worldwide, and 95% of the people infected had died from it. Heather was working in the FDA and developed and was trying to promote use of a tool to catalog treatments of rare diseases. CURE ID was designed not to be about methods that had gone through the approved for public use process, but anecdotal information that could help people learn from what others in their situation did. There’s some half a dozen cases a year of Balamuthia reported in the U.S. and the treatment that the Smiths had available for their daughter was a poor blend of cocktails, ones that just made her sick. Amanda heard about a drug out of China that might be effective at treating Balamuthia and created a LinkedIn account through which she found Heather Stone's name and called her. Stone knew of a supply of pills in California and arranged for them to ship to Dallas where Amanda's daughter was. Also, Stone obtained a letter from the FDA’s review division saying that the receiving hospital could provide the pills, extending Alaina's life.
