lurkerfan

Someone even angrier than I am.  Below is a post I put on our local paper's forum offering all the local angry conservatives a real reason for being angry:

Although his name is not a household word, John Hope Franklin deserves some credit for the progress in race relations that enabled U.S. citizens to elect our current president.  A photo essay here summarizes his academic accomplishments and honors he received.

Sometime last fall, I saw him interviewed on C-Span's Book TV, a program that invites listeners to call in with comments.  Many callers responded with comments thanking Dr. Franklin for his pioneering work in documenting black history.  However, one caller unloaded a tirade to the effect that Dr. Franklin had no right to live in this country.  He calmly but sadly remarked that such comments did not merit a response.  Obviously, the work that he and others began is still not finished, in spite of the fact that we now have a president who is identified with the black minority in our country.

For some perspective, see http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

In view of Jon Stewart's continued lessons on the shortcomings of journalism as practiced at CNBC, this thoughtful article, comparing our current transition from newspapers to Who-Knows-What is very timely.  The times they are a-changing, and I'm hoping to be alive and with my wits about me long enough to see how some of these new developments play out.

Although I have no regular readers, I still like to post occasionally.  The following is a letter I just submitted to our local daily newspaper.

Dear Editor,

Two stories in today's paper (“Obama admits 'I screwed up; Daschle nomination gone'” on page A-3 and “Samson: 'I did this on my own'” on page B-1) provide a teachable moment on the subject of conflict of interest. A public official is guilty of conflict of interest when he or she uses the power of office for personal gain. Public officials are elected to serve the common good of the entire population of their constituency, not just themselves and their friends. In both cases, it was worth noting that these politicians both retained the loyalty of their fellow legislators. Is our political process so corrupted by self-serving politicians that they routinely turn a blind eye to conflict of interest?

In Northwest Florida, the public recognized that Rep. Sansom appeared to be using his considerable influence as incoming Speaker of the House to direct millions of dollars to his local community college while accepting a new lucrative job from that college. For once, the press did their job as watchdog of the use of public money by keeping this story alive until it became too hot for him to continue in his leadership position – and possibly pay back all those fellow politicians who had allowed his money grab. Maybe now they can make decisions on the basis of the needs of all the people rather than to whom they owe a political favor.

On the national scene, former Sen. Daschle was forced to withdraw as a nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services on Pres. Obama's cabinet, due to his failure to pay all of his income tax in recent years. The resulting publicity drew attention to the millions of dollars of income he had received immediately after leaving the Senate where he served for years as Democratic Majority Leader. Much of the income had come from the health services industry, which he was being nominated to reform. Could the public expect him to make unbiased policy decisions involving corporations who had contributed so much to his personal wealth? I seriously doubt it. In this case also, his fellow senators seemed ready to confirm him, making yesterday's announcement of his withdrawal strike news organizations as a bombshell. Do our U.S. Senators accept as their right the ability to make personal fortunes through their public office? Is that why the Senate is sometimes called the millionaires club?

Apparently, we the people need to remind public officials continuously that they are elected to serve all the people and not to enrich themselves and their friends.

Can't resist angua's geezer meme.  The ones I remember are in bold font.

1 Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles There were stacks of wooden cases to hold empties.
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers  (According to Wikipedia, I predate these but I do not remember them, certainly did not own any.)
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H greenstamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper (Still used at my school when I left teaching in 1981 -- a factor in the decision!)
19 Blue flashbulbs
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers (Well, a washing machine with a wringer -- rinse tubs required wringing by hand.)
26. Big, little books.
27. Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
28. Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.  Soldering is not in my skill set.
29. Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
30. Real ice boxes.  The kind you had to buy ice for, and wrap it in a blanket so it wouldn't melt on the way home.
31. Head lights dimmer switches on the floor
32. Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall. This was news to me, also.
33. Ignition switches on the dashboard. There was a key switch and [then you pushed] a starter button. You could engage the starter by pushing the button, key or no key.  I don't remember anything like this last sentence describes.

I should be able to out-geezer angua and all her friends, at my age and from my youth on a farm.

This article in Vanity Fair explains the key factors in our economic disaster as clearly and succinctly as anything I have read.  And early in the comments, someone mentions the erroneous Supreme Court "decision" that resulted in corporations being given the rights intended only for human persons.  I quote:

If Obama's foreign policy/national security team is good enough for Mother Jones, it's good enough for me.

Oh, and the New York Times agrees.

The more I see of Obama's governing style, the more I admire his wisdom in pushing for change in ways designed to stimulate the least push-back from his opponents.  It reminds me of the interview with Rachel Maddow when she asked him why he constantly criticized Pres. Bush but never criticized the Republican Party.  His answer:  "You notice, I'm winning." 

Here's hoping he keeps winning this way, and delivers on the most ambitious promise of his campaign -- to end the meanness and rancor of political discourse in this country.  And it just might work.  As he continues to refuse to demonize his opponents, their meanness just becomes more and more obvious.  Well, maybe not to the "ignorant-and-proud-of-it" mind set of the citizens of my corner of northwest Florida, but to the U.S. public as a whole.

It always makes me sad to visit my sister who suffers from Alzheimer's syndrome.  One reason is that she has always been a particular favorite of mine, mothering me all my life.  Of course I loved my mother and knew she loved me, but there was always some anxiety -- a fear of her criticism or of my falling short of her expectations of me.  But from this sister, I remember only kindness and unfailing affection, and the bond between us has continued since my mother's death almost 24 years ago.

To my shame, I do not visit her and her husband as often as I think I should.  It usually makes me feel frustrated and helpless.  This past week, I spent a few days with them, and actually felt that I not only contributed a bit to making their life easier but gained a renewed awareness of the strong love between us.  Although she has trouble remembering acquaintances she has known well for years, she still recognizes close family members.  She repeatedly expressed delight at our "surprise" visit, although it was not a surprise to her husband at all.  Her memory for daily activities and events has broken down completely; she wants to start a meal whenever she feels hungry, even though it's less than a couple of hours since the last one.  Since her husband had stomach surgery eight years ago, he has to eat small, frequent meals, so meal times and snack times merge into one another in a continuous loop.  Over the last several years, her husband has gradually taken over grocery shopping and cooking.  She continues to do the dishes, washing them by hand in the sink.  If she attempts to put them away, it is an adventure for him to find where they are.

It gives me pleasure to prepare their food when we visit, and she has gradually come to accept it without question or apology.  This wasn't an easy transition, as she was more inclined to want to do things for me than to expect me to do for her.  During this last trip, I tackled the task of organizing her clothes, which was a continuing problem for her husband.  (Is it a masculine trait to have a blind spot when it comes to selecting, laundering, and storing clothes?  My husband shares this inability, probably because, like most of the women in my generation and earlier, I have always assumed complete responsibility for those duties.)

As I hauled her clothes out on the bed in their guest room, she began to resist the project.  Feeling it was her responsibility, she became anxious and didn't want me to "go to all that trouble."  Her husband's idea was that I should assemble the various pieces of an ensemble and then make a picture of it that he could refer to later to recreate it.  At first, I too wasn't sure it was worth the trouble, but as I got into the project, I began to see his point.  My sister has never had a great deal of money to spend on clothes but she had good taste and always looked well dressed when she went out to shop or attend church or other meetings.  As her disease progressed, she was unable to remember what clothes she had, where they were, nor what pieces look good together.  As the tornado a year and a half ago destroyed all their belongings, she does not even have the familiarity of old standbys in her closet.  Her family and friends showered her with many gifts of clothing, some a good deal less appropriate than others.

The more I got into the task and began to enjoy it, like the many hours I spent dressing my large collection of dolls as a child, the more she resisted.  I tried to get her to sit and watch, but she continued to protest.  Finally, I did something I do not usually do; I spoke directly of her difficulty in remembering things and explained that I was organizing her clothes to help her husband manage them.  He likes for her to look nice when she goes out, and he has been frustrated trying to select her clothes.  I told her that if I lived nearer, I could come over once a week and select her clothes for her.  She has always deferred to her husband, and this seemed to put an end to any protests, especially if I'd stop often for coffee breaks.   I'm convinced that she too began to enjoy the shared task and our time together.

At one point, she asked me how old she was when I was born.  I answered that she turned thirteen a few months before I was born.  She told me about an incident that occurred while I was a baby.  Our family was visiting a neighbor family that had a daughter the same age as my sister.  While she and her girl friend were playing on a bed with me as a baby, she realized that she was having her first menstrual period.  That memory came to her from approximately 70 years ago.  Like her, I have a great appreciation of those old memories and was moved by her recollection.  

Later, she astonished me with another unexpected memory.  While admiring a lovely dressy suit trimmed with elaborate floral appliques on the jacket and skirt, I noticed that the jacket had several buttons missing.  I commented that I'd buy some buttons and sew them on the next time I visit.  She replied, "Oh, those buttons are here somewhere," and proceeded to find them in her top dresser drawer among her jewelry.

After we left, she asked her husband if they could afford to move somewhere near my husband and me.  Of course, the answer was "No, not without selling the whole farm."  As she has lived there almost all her life, that is not a feasible option.  But I really must make the trip more often, while there is still so much of the sister I know and love.   

 

Since I last posted here, I've spent an enormous amount of time volunteering at our local Campaign for Change headquarters.  My friends and relatives in other states are happy to give me credit -- or blame, depending on their views -- for tipping Florida into the Obama camp.  I'm sure it could have happened without me, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  I was too busy to write, but should have, as a wealth of wonderful material is melting away from my memory cells every day.  Maybe I can do something yet.

A friend sent me this link to David Brooks in the New York Times on how wonderful President-elect Obama's transition team is doing in selecting people to help run the new administration.  So far, I agree, although I do lament the lack of lefties, who did so very much to ensure Obama's victory.  My view on that topic is well-expressed by this article by Christopher Hayes in The Nation.  The money quote:

 

I know everyone is obsessed with the "team of rivals" idea right now, but I feel incredibly frustrated. Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration? Also, why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left? It seems to me as though there is a team of rivals, except for the left, which is left off the team entirely.

Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation, right about global warming and right about health care. And I don't just mean in that in a sectarian way. I mean to say that the emerging establishment consensus on all of these issues came from the left. There's tons of things the left is right about that aren't even close to mainstream (taking a hatchet to the national security state and ending the prison industrial complex to name just two), but hopefully we're moving there.

Apparently, it's not enough to be right; you also have to get the whole stupid American  public to agree. 

My understanding of economic issues is limited at best, so I naturally felt unable to understand this whole subprime mortgage crisis and credit crunch.  Intuitively, I felt it was major and scary and for the first time since we retired 14 years ago, I began to worry about our financial future.  We are getting well on in years but are pretty healthy and could live quite a while longer.  I also intuitively suspected that it was Wall Street hot shots taking advantage of poor people by selling them mortgages that were sure to fail, but I had no idea how it all worked.

One of my favorite bloggers recommended this episode of Ira Glass's This American Life, and sure enough, the picture came into much clearer focus.  I was still right about Wall Street greed and the whole money market's lack of concern for "the least of these" (Obama's biblical label for the poor among us.)  The second link above is to the podcast, which is definitely worth listening to.

This video  is the strongest argument I can think of for voting FOR Sen. Obama and AGAINST Sen. McCain.  Please watch it, and let's try to get the campaign conversation away from who's the celebrity to who is the bluff-and-bluster war monger, leading the U.S. along the path of Chief Bully of the world.

The very first reason I had for supporting Sen. Obama was that he saw in 2002 the same danger that I saw as the Iraq War was "marketed" to the U.S. public.  I just didn't buy it and was appalled that so many U.S. journalists and the public were so quick to support  a preemptive war.  It was wrong in Vietnam, wrong in the first Gulf War, tragically wrong in the current Iraq War, will be wrong in any U.S. strike on Iran, and wrong in encouraging Georgia to overreach against Russia.

I'm really sick of war and politicians' lust for war.   Like Bush and Cheney before him, Sen. McCain uses a combination of fear-mongering and national pride to get the public to support military overreach. 

Isn't the public getting smarter?

Although I have been wallowing in my sense of being totally betrayed by Sen. Obama on the FISA issue, digby reminds us not to throw the baby [candidate] out with the bath, and get stuck with another rapacious Republican president.  Like the mainstream media, progressive bloggers have not given nearly enough attention to Sen. Obama's recent declaration of his resolve to overhaul the truly atrocious bankruptcy bill passed in 2005.  Her discussion of this issue comes as an aside to her comments on the recent Phil Gramm kerfuffle.  The money quote -- pun intended:

"FISA is terribly important, because core Constitutional rights cannot be trampled upon in a supposedly free society. But the heinous bankruptcy bill is also important, and while not diminishing the importance of the 4th Amendment, it's more immediately visceral to people's lives. People who are finding it impossible to pay their bills, whether because of a catastrophic health issue (1/2 of all personal bankruptcies) or a bad mortgage or an extended stop-loss in Iraq, have almost no recourse but to climb on an endless treadmill of payments to their creditors. We have locked in place a permanent underclass of people working for their debt. Now we have a Presidential candidate making the repeal of this nonsense a plank of his agenda."

Between Phil Gramm's "mental depression" nonsense and Sen. McCain's cluelessness about just about everything, we would do well to focus on what is hopeful in Sen. Obama's campaign.

How old are you? Bold the ones that are true:

I've been to a drive-in movie theater.
I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
I (could have) voted for Ronald Reagan.
I was in a Christmas pageant in public school. Probably, but I don't remember.
I remember what I was doing when John Kennedy died.
I used to watch "Star Trek" during its original run.
I know what 45 and 33-1/3 describes. [Yes, and those little plastic adapters to put in the middle of 45's.]
I've ridden in cars that didn't have seat belts.
I belonged to Future Homemakers of America. [Proudly.]
I've gone (or could have) to an Elvis Presley concert.
I own/used to own an 8-track player.
I used to wear a hat, doilie, or handkerchief on my head in church. [Especially at Easter.]
I've bought a McDonald's cheeseburger for 18 cents [If they were ever that cheap, yes.]
I would go to sleep while or just after watching Johnny Carson. [While. Not regularly.]
I have watched a black and white television.
I have/used to have a leisure suit. [My husband had a couple, and I was seen with him.  It counts.]
I attended Woodstock.
I've been to a state fair and looked at the animal barns. [Actually, a county fair, numerous times as a child.]
I've been spanked at school by a teacher/principal. [I had the palm of my hand slapped with a ruler, for talking in first grade in 1945.]
I've been to a Cher concert.
I watched "The Sonny and Cher Show" during its original run. [Regularly]
I looked forward to hearing Guy Lombardo play "Auld Lang Syne". [Yep]
I called adults "Sir" or "Ma'am." And was seriously scolded if I forgot to.
I've had a smallpox vaccination.
I used to watch Dick Clark on American Bandstand.
I've been to a rodeo.
I've competed in a rodeo.
I scheduled my evenings around Dynasty. [No, I never watched it.]
I've sold Girl Scout cookies.
I am/was in a fraternity/sorority. [Not my kind of thing.]
I've eaten breakfast at a Sambo's Restaurant.   Maybe, it sounds familiar.
I had a poster of Farrah Fawcett on my wall/door.   But I've seen that one.
I had a crush on Ricky Nelson.  No, Paul Newman.
I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. [And remember which friends watched with us.]
I had an aluminum Christmas tree and a color-wheel lamp. [My mother-in-law had an aluminum tree but not a color-wheel lamp.  But I have seen them, maybe in stores.]
You had a fondue pot and use/used it. [Yum!  Still do.]
I've used a rotary phone.   [We still do, for when the power is out.]
I remember when African-Americans were called "colored people" in polite company.  [I even remember when it was acceptable or at least common to call African Americans Negroes.
I've been to West Berlin before German reunification.
I had a paper credit card.  Probably.  Gulf, JC Penney, Sears, in the 1960s.
I played with a Water Wiggle.
I danced all night to Donna Summer and Whitney Houston.
I've driven/ridden in a Pacer.
I've stayed up all night playing Risk.
I saw the original Star Wars movie in a theater.
I remember when HIV was called HTLV-IV.
I watched "The Simpsons" when it was a short on "The Tracy Ullman Show".
I had to install MS-DOS on my computer before I installed Windows. [Nah, I had a Mac.]
I have/had a Sony Walkman.
I modeled my hair and clothes on people in Beverly Hills 90210. [Way past my time.]
I've played Pac-Man.
I put on a suit and tie/dress to go shop at the downtown department store.  No, but did to go to college football games.
I saw Top Gun in the theater more than six times. [Whatever for? I saw it once and that was plenty.]
I've read Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. [Huh? This is recent!]
I've used a Jane Fonda workout video. [Also have the book.]
I know who shot JR.  Actually, we didn't watch enough for me to remember, but I remember the hype.
I owned a pet rock. [Someone in my house had a Pet rock, and a mood ring.]
I have/had a Betamax VCR.
I had "all the way" sex before I was married and had to keep it secret. [Some things need to be private.]
I burned a bra and/or draft card. [But I remember when those hippies did.]
I've ridden in a double-decker bus. [In London, and they still have them.]
I've ridden in the back window of my parents' car.  As a child
I've edged the grass in a yard with hand clippers. 
I had a television aerial outside my house. [Until very recently.]
Watched "Captain Kangaroo." [With my kids.]
Watched the "Howdy Doody Show." [Remember hearing about it.]
Remember "Rin Tin Tin."
Watched "Sky King."
Wanted to be Penny.
Wanted/had rainbow colored suspenders because of "Mork and Mindy." [Watched the show, but was not a fashion victim.]
Had/wanted a pair of L.A. Gear High Tops. [Too recent!]
Rode in the back of the station wagon on a family trip. [We didn't have one, but friends did.]

Only 39 -- I'm actually too old for lots of these.

How about these?

Lived in a house with no indoor toilet.
Lived in a house with no electrical power.
Watched my parents draw water out of a well by hand. 
Picked cotton -- by hand, pulling a long canvas sack -- to earn money.
Used the money to buy my high school textbooks, not provided by the state.
Was a member of 4-H Club.
Went to a Saturday morning movie for a dime.
Bought both a Coke and a candy bar for a dime.
Put a small bag of salted peanuts in a Coke and then drank/ate.
Bought candy called Kits for a penny, and each one had four little square individually wrapped pieces.  It came in different colors and flavors.
Played doodle-bug, doodle-bug, fly away home in the sand under the house we lived in.
Almost remember riding in a Model T Ford, as my family spoke of it often.
Actually do remember riding a 1936 Model Dodge touring car, much aged by then.
Remember the first new car my family ever owned, bought in 1942 and driven until 1950.
Got a Kewpie doll one Christmas.
Remember the first pizza I ever ate.
Heck, I even remember when we first began broiling steak.  Meat was fried, roasted or boiled in my childhood home.

This is fun.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible* [I've read great hulking chunks of it, but I wouldn't swear to have read every book. I do love parts of it, but probably not enough to give it an underline.]
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy [Hated it. Worst book ever written.]
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare Not near all, but loved most of what I've read
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh Saw the mini-series years ago; read novel recently
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery  -- But enjoyed the TV version
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Pretty sure I read it in college, eons ago, but have no memory of it.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Teaching the play version helped me fully appreciate it.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce I have it on my shelf and still intend to try
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Not all, but I really like them.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare I think any English major is required to love this.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Read: 47
Plan to read in the future: 0 (no current plans, except more Shakespeare)
Love: 17  -- love is a strong word & maybe all the underlined don't quite make it, but the ones underlined definitely left a warm memory over many years.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. 

Or Vacation Reading, Part 2

While enjoying the natural world from our motor home this spring, I read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond.  Sometime ago, by reading Guns, Germs and Steel, I gained a respect for this author's ability to think outside the box, to use a cliche, and to write about large and difficult subjects in an accessible and entertaining style.  I would recommend both books to any serious reader interested in the history -- and future -- of the human race and the environment.


Vacation Reading, Part 3, or the Very, Very, Very Long View

Of all my recent nonfiction reading, the book that takes the longest view is The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley.  Although -- or perhaps because  -- Ridley is not himself a scientist but a writer who is fascinated by science, he has the writing skill and the passion to present complex scientific ideas, studies and conclusions in an accessible and entertaining style. 



 

For a long time now, I have been appalled by the "lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" mindset of our supposed system of justice.  Being a generally law-abiding citizen, my personal experience is very limited but the whiffs of something decidedly rotten have been getting stronger and stronger for a long time.  In my last post, I included a link to a speech on the subject that Jimmy Carter gave before he ran for president, and goodness knows, the progress has been entirely backward since then.  Not long ago I heard our leading local public defender hold forth on how prisons are a growth industry and how easy it is for a youth to get branded a criminal and how hard it is for one to regain a positive role in society.   A lot of it has to do with the "war on drugs" but its roots are in Mr. and Ms John Q. Upstanding Citizen's blind trust in the authorities to protect us from the dregs of society and more recently from terrorism.

But enough generalities.  I recently ran across a couple of posts that show the situation is most likely much worse than I ever thought.  Please read this account of an actual case and then this response to the story by a conscientious attorney.

IMHO, this issue is, if possible, even more important to the future of our democracy and much-vaunted "freedom" than the current war in Iraq, though of course, both have their roots in the same vapid stupidity of our citizenry.   The Supreme Court's recent decision on the status of the Guantanamo detainees is very good news but the danger for the future is writ large in the dissenting opinion.  If McCain is elected, even the supreme law of the land is not likely to respect the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" once one more "conservative" justice is appointed.

Or Vacation Reading, part 1

At an RV park during our recent trip, I came as near as I ever have to following the the 1960's advice to "steal this book."  (Shelf space is limited in motorhomes, so many parks include a book exchange corner.)  This one, The Great Shark Hunt, Gonzo Papers Vol. 1, by Hunter S. Thompson, 1980, kept me entertained for many hours, as it contains 589 pages of vintage Gonzo journalism. 

Coming of age in the rural conservative south in the 1950's, I barely even heard of the infamous writer in his first decades of fame in the 1960s and '70s, even though we are almost contemporaries.  And if he had come to my attention, I would no doubt have dismissed him as a decadent hippie and alcoholic.  Big mistake -- tortured soul that he no doubt was, I really appreciated every page, for several reasons.