My Country 'Tis of Thee

   Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House of Representatives (from Minnesota of all places) debates all the things he finds annoying with the nation. He complains that Nikki Haley, the Indian born governor of South Carolina, appointed the African American conservative Tea Party supporter to fill a vacant Senate seat in 2010. Have things finally gone full circle? Maybe, but this was the sate that gave us Strom Thurmond, the die-hard segregationist whose platform died after the Civil Rights movement. I might also add that Thurmond’s platform was undone thanks in part to his African-American daughter and son in law, both of whom worked in the Civil Rights movement. Regardless, I’d rather see governor Haley appoint a conservative Tea Party supporter than a Polish American sleazeball who tried to sell a vacant Senate seat and is now serving ten years in jail. For every honest right-winger there are plenty of grafters in the Rod Blagovitch mold.

    I’m going to give this book high marks because Ellison doesn’t put on airs. His parents were doctors, he grew up in Detroit, and discusses how Detroit used to be home to the African American middle class. He admits his parents weren’t perfect, doesn’t accuse anybody of holding him back. He criticizes the media for creating anti-Muslim hysteria after 9/11, but he also criticizes Minister Farakhan of the Nation of Islam. He calls out Farakhan’s presence at the Million Man March, and how it didn’t address the economic problems of the people.

    Ellison’s book reminds me a little of D.L Hughley’s book I Want You to Shut the &%#$ Up! In the way that it criticizes both sides with zero loyalty. That’s what makes some books become a great read; when you’re not concerned with loyalty or pleasing everyone, you can say what you like.

Waking From the Dream

  Kids today learn about the Civil Rights movement, but what happened after Dr. King’s assassination in ’68? The rest of it is usually absent from high school history books, and with good reason. It wasn’t an upbeat age anymore. It was tragic.

    Right after Dr. King was killed, the Civil Rights movement splintered and never recovered. Jesse Jackson and Amiri Baraka stole the spotlight, and Coretta Scott King didn’t trust either of them. Dr. King’s last accomplishment, a law against housing discrimination, couldn’t end segregation. It continued (famously) in Chicago, as well as in the Bronx, LA, Florida, and New York State. There was still plenty of work to be done, not just with equal rights, but also with poverty, drug use, teenage pregnancy, and traumatized Vietnam veterans. Jackson and Baraka focused all efforts on their own agenda at the expense of these things. Social problems were not dealt with, and they all got worse in the 1980’s. Take Detroit for example; her problems could never be cured by laws alone.

    Waking From the Dream pulls no punches in its criticism of “liberals.” One example it uses is the debate over whether to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday. Ted Kennedy said yes, Jesse Helms said no. Okay, I know we don’t expect much from Jesse Helms, but you can’t call him stupid. He pointed out that Ted, and his brothers John and Bob, ordered the FBI to spy on Dr. King. Helms felt no obligation to please anyone, and his judgment wasn’t clouded by political correctness, so he saw right through the phony liberals. He pitted the “limousine liberals” against black radicals, and just as he expected, nothing got done. Kind of reminds you of the 2014 government shut down, doesn’t it?

    You won’t find any political correctness in this book. It’s more sympathetic to white southern conservatives than it is toward the left. If you watch the documentary Eyes On the Prize you’ll see the same thing; the movement got lost in the 1970’s, and you wonder what’s been going on in the 27 years since that documentary aired. Perhaps I should quote something Bill Cosby said in one of his “call outs” back in 2006; “when the movement was over, we started partying too soon.”

    It was the same thing with the Obama election. When he won, the country partied, and the next morning woke up with a hangover. All we can hear now are the cries of the poor. Thanks to foreclosures, the rest of the land is going silent.

Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of WWII

   Jeffrey Cox has written a wonderful and well researched book on the subject of tenacity. The US, British, and Dutch forces held out against the massive Japanese onslaught in the East Indies, despite having no support and being caught off guard. Within minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan’s aircraft carrier planes were bombing Malaya, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, US controlled Philippines, and other targets in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The allied warships held out, but it’s clear from this book that it was all futile.

    I recently reviewed a book called The Battle of Peach Tree Creek, which covers the Confederates desperate (and typically fearless) attempt to defend Atlanta in the Civil War. I see many similarities between that battle and the Java Sea campaign. You had one side that was bigger than the other, and the defenders wouldn’t surrender without a fight, no matter how badly they were beaten. But the difference is that the USA allowed itself to be caught off guard. Intelligence should’ve honed in on the massive Japanese fleet heading their way, and the Philippines should’ve had much better air defenses. The British, despite their numerous overseas colonies, had no aircraft carriers, and neither did the Dutch navy. According to this book, their warships were badly designed.

    The facts are the facts, but Cox crafted this book based on everything that happened during the time, and the people behind the Java Sea campaign. He writes extensively on the admirals, the leaders on both sides, and the belligerents motivation for grabbing territory and having the colonies far from home.

    I wonder if the Java Sea campaign is an example of the hazards of colonialism. The Netherlands were a tiny nation, with a massive colony oceans away, and their navy was not capable of defending it. The British, with their vast colonies, had little air defense in Asia. Perhaps they were reluctant to build up their armies after WWI? The French hid behind the useless Maginot Line, so maybe Britain and the Netherlands were similarly inclined to avoid beefing up their navy and air power?

The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

    Some call the Civil War the last “gentleman’s war” in history; a fight waged by men of honor for a cause they believed in. The southern leaders; Lee, Beauregard, and Longstreet; are remembered fondly by their people, even though they lost the war. They’re remembered because they were willing to sacrifice themselves for their homeland, despite the odds being against them from the start. They also have a reputation for bravery; while the North had trouble raising an army, there were few Southern men unwilling to fight.

    Robert Jenkins’ book portrays the Battle of Peach Tree Creek (part of Sherman’s Atlanta campaign) as a kind of a “last stand.” It illustrates the more positive aspects of the Southerner’s mentality during the war, and how they knew they’d lose, but they’d all rather go down fighting than surrender. In an earlier book titled What The Yankees Did To Us, Sherman’s tactics are portrayed as cruel and gratuitous; he laid waste to Atlanta in order to make a name for himself, not because it was necessary.

    What amazes me is that the Union officers were borderline incompetent. In one battle, the Wisconsin regiments were hit by their own cannons and had to retreat. Of course the Confederates had no cannon left, so they wouldn’t have that problem. The Yankees would eventually overwhelm them, but it wasn’t through bravery or strategy; it was simply from having more men. The Confederates had a shortage of men, ammunition, metal, and food, but the Union army wasn’t doing well either. Keep in mind that thousands of them died from food poisoning, malaria, typhoid, and typhus, while the biggest cause of death for the Confederates was getting shot at.

    Peach Tree Creek was only one of many battles in the war, but this book goes into detail of what went on and the people in there. Sherman was encircling Atlanta and the Confederate defenses were no longer any good. General Hood had no choice but to go on attack mode, and charge the invaders. Previously the Union army had to storm fort after fort, but now that changed; the Confederates were coming out of the fort and attacking head-on. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, and the Union troops were no match for them. If it weren’t for the huge Northern waves, I bet the South might’ve won.

    I don’t want to give too much away, but this book is a bit depressing. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the Confederates, portrayed positively, not like trend in most books to make them slavery-loving savages. These men were fighting for their own freedom, from what they perceived as Northern tyranny. Even after the war, Lee kept his honor in the way he negotiated the surrender; all he asked was that there be no reprisals, his men be allowed to keep their horses and weapons, and that his men be fed. He ended his days as head of a college, loved by the people around him. General Grant, on the other hand, became the worst US president, lost all his money, and died of jaw cancer, ending his life in disgrace. 

How Capitalism Failed the Arab World

I was surprised to see a book about this topic; it always appeared to me that the Middle East might be a good place to do business, if only the infrastructure were better and there wasn’t a danger of being killed. Things were looking up after the Arab Spring, now that the old dictators were falling, and that should’ve been the start of opportunity. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The author proves that not only was the Arab Spring the result of a hopeless economy, but the Arab economy is still hopeless.

    Richard Heydarian begins with the blunt facts; the Arab states are all at odds, women have few rights, and there’s poor infrastructure. The Arab governments made little effort to modernize their education system, and wasted money fighting Israel. This doesn’t make an ideal place for foreign investment, not if you’re boycotting your economically powerful Jewish neighbor and threatening to attack the country that makes the world’s most popular soda. You can’t expect to do business with people you’re scaring off.

    What I don’t agree with here, however, is the comparison between Ataturk and Reza Shah Pahlavi. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the author’s argument on how westernization saved Turkey, but he misses a vital fact. Turkey was NOT an Arab country; the people were not Arab by ethnicity, they didn’t speak Arabic, and the Arab world at the time was weak. There was no Ba’ath party yet, no Al-Jazeera, no televisions whatsoever, and there was probably no Arab radio (even if there was, how many Arabs would’ve owned radios?) The Arab world must have been 90% illiterate, so they couldn’t have read about Kemalism in the papers. In short, the Arab world couldn’t object to Ataturk shutting down the mosques and giving women equal rights.

   The argument about Reza Shah is also, in my view, inaccurate. He was definitely pro-western, and he was not popular with the Muslim clergy, but he did absolutely none of the great things Ataturk did. He didn’t introduce the Latin Alphabet, nor did he force parents to send their kids to school. Iran ended up poor, uneducated, and in no position to become and economic power. Remember how Peter The Great went abroad to learn about warships, medicine, and architecture, so he could go back to Russia and make it powerful? Or that he insisted that the sons of noblemen go abroad to study in order to keep their titles. Reza Shah did no such thing, and blew an opportunity.

    All in all, the author blames the Arab dictator’s incompetence for economic failure. Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq were in a great position to improve. They could’ve contracted with Japan to design and manufacture a car, and have it built in the Middle East, but they didn’t. This book shows how time and time again, the Arab states missed every opportunity. Muammar Gaddafi wasted his oil billions by grabbing Soviet weaponry, training terrorist, and sponsoring African dictators. Meanwhile his own people were uneducated, hungry, and foreign investment was zero. I bet the biggest source of wealth for a Libyan was money sent home by relatives working abroad. His army officers were incompetent, he lost most of his air power in the US attack of 1986, and how he survived for another 24 years is beyond me.

    There’s one thing about this book that I don’t like, and that’s the title. If anything in this book is true, then capitalism didn’t fail the Arab world. It’s the other way around; the Arab governments failed to do what they needed for capitalism to work.

Exploring America in the 1960's: Our Voices Will Be Heard

I’ve been waiting years for a book like this, so I can teach middle school kids about the 1960’s; Civil Rights, entertainment, women’s lib, the Kennedy-Nixon televised debate. The book begins with a chapter on the charts, graphs, and diagrams for the students to take notes. The chapters cover the decade’s music, but with a funny twist; the authors pit the Beach Boys against the Beatles. They call it “Beach Music versus British Invasion, and a later chapter deals with folkies (like Bob Dylan) versus Jimi Hendrix. Music forms a big part of the Civil Rights chapter, with protest songs and gospel.

   The book does not include the actual historical sources, but it does list them. The educator will have to download Dr. Kings Letter From Birmingham Jail and the Civil Rights songs, but these are available online. I would supplement these with Harvey Pekar’s Unsung Hero (for the chapter on Vietnam) and some lessons on the 1950’s changes that preceded the 60’s, like Levittown, television, the Cold War, and the GI Bill. Though it might be a little hard to take, I might also add a lesson on the “days of rage,” because the riots in Watts (and other neighborhoods) were a problem. The comic Two Cents Plain has a few pages on how a Brooklyn neighborhood changed, and the old-time Jewish stores found themselves under siege. Perhaps, if the students are interested, they can learn about the Rolling Stones Altamont concert, and how it “ended” the 60’s. All this can encourage the students to think about whether this was our greatest decade, or our worst.

   The most important thing about this book, regardless of the topic, is that it encourages kids to think for themselves. I want my students to learn on their own, so I can sit back and let them take care of business. I think I’ll tweak these lessons plans up a notch; I’ll give select students the documents a week in advance, and let those kids teach a class or two, saving me the effort. It’s good for the kids to learn how to take control for themselves.

After all, didn’t the 60’s teach us to “stick it to the man?” 

Let Us Fight As Free Men

    The service of African Americans in WWII was a major catalyst for the Civil Rights movement. Men who’d risked their lives fighting for the USA in Europe and Asia were no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens back home. They were coming back to a country that lauded the troops as heroes, but thanks to racism, they were getting shorted on the benefits. Unlike the veterans of WWI, however, they would not take it in good humor.

    This book uses great case studies to show how racial incidents in and after the war drove the movement for change. Truman’s forcible integration of the armed forces, for instance, was not simply a spur of the moment. A. Philip Randolph, the famous African American labor leader, denounced communism and backed the invasion of Korea. Randolph disliked communism, but he also wanted to get Truman to integrate the army further. He wanted to see an end to discrimination that was there despite the 1949 integration; he didn’t want non-white sailors being relegated to the kitchens, or the airmen being denied promotions.

   The blinding of Isaac Woodward is another example of a racial incident pushing the effort for integration. Woodward was an army veteran traveling in the south, when he was arrested over a verbal spat with a bus driver. Buses were segregated at the time, and the argument was probably over this African American soldier not wanting to sit in the back. For those of you that never heard the story, he was blinded by the police while in custody, and though tried in a Federal court, the officers were foiund not guilty and never punished for their crimes. The jury was composed of locals, and only white men were selected for jury duty at the time, so there wouldn’t be a fair trial. Much of the uproar had to do with the fact that Woodward was in uniform, and people wondered why Truman would tolerate the blinding of someone in the nation’s service.

    Truman didn’t tolerate it. But the president can only enforce the law, not make laws or interpret them. It would be the efforts of private citizens that brought about the end of racial discrimination in the service, not a government edict.

Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility

It won’t take a book like this to convince me of the points here. Throughout the world, it’s been common practice to dump garbage in poorer communities, and if not, the lower income resident usually live in the most polluted areas, near the dumps, coal bins, canals, and slaughterhouses. Take Vancouver’s “Low Track” as an example; it was a low-lying area that flooded easily, so you’d get sewage pollution whenever it rained, and who would want to live there? London’s Camden Lock is another example of low-income housing built near a polluted waterway. It may be stylish now, but in 1992, it was a mess. Tourists and locals came to the Camden Lock market to shop, browse, and take pictures, but you couldn’t be there at night. The smell from the canal made it the least desirable place to live.

    Toxic Communities turns things up a notch by studying how racism as well as poverty drives the “dump in the poor town” practice. Triana, Alabama, for instance, was polluted with DDT from the Tennessee River, and the locals were eating toxic fish, not out of a desire to “eat local,” but because they were hungry. Warren County, North Carolina, was the scene of a 1979 lawsuit to stop a PCB landfill. Love Canal is barely cited in this book, because it had nothing to do with racism or poverty. On the contrary, the dump was there before the houses were built, and the owners warned the town not to build there. The problem was that the town thought the canal was leak-proof, and it wasn’t. The residents were all white, so you can’t blame racism, but what if the town built low-income housing on the site? Could the town have force section-8 tenants to move in, so they could sell valuable land where existing housing projects were?

    Native American land in the USA is also in danger of pollution. The Skull Valley reservation in Utah is one example; a massive number of sheep died there in 1968 when gases escaped from a chemical site, and nowadays the US Army stores its waste there. The reason for Reservation pollution is simple; the Tribal Councils need money badly, and there’s so little oversight against corruption, so there’s little to stop someone from allowing tanker trucks full of sewage to dump things on the land. If there are mines on the Reservation, that’s also a problem. The Pine Ridge Reservation has radioactive tailings from the mines, and the local healthcare system is ill-equipped to deal with it. Mobility is probably half the problem. If Native American leaders let in the toxic waste, the residents can’t move away. Same thing in NYC, where NYCHA apartments often have black mold from leaking pipes (not to mention crime) and the residents can’t afford to live elsewhere.

    The book is well-written and researched, but it would’ve been better if there had been interviews with the residents of the communities that suffered from waste-dumping. Photos and maps would be welcome as well, because a lot of the places mentioned here are unfamiliar to the readers.

   

Astrophysics and the Evolution of the Universe

From the start, this book makes clear that matter and energy aren’t always bound by Newton’s theory of gravity. It covers particle forces, quantum theory, and Hubble’s studies on electromagnetic waves in space. Then there’s the Doppler shift, the principal on how wavelength and frequency change depending on the direction of the source. Excellent diagrams are included as well, but some more case studies or examples of these theories and principals would be welcome. It goes into depth, thankfully, on the subject of dark matter and electromagnetic waves.

Plato At The Googleplex

    Assume that the argument is over one man’s guilt or innocence. Now turn things up a bit, and argue as to whether or not he was in his right mind. A problem with his prefrontal lobes, perhaps, or a tumor in his hypothalamus? Plato, living in the days before x-rays, would’ve known nothing about these things. But with or without any knowledge of neuroscience, the argument is still the same. That’s why Plato never ceases in relevance.

    Plato’s works were often in dialogue form, portraying arguments over philosophical issues. In one chapter of this book, two Google employees discuss slavery, which was widely practiced in Plato’s time. One of the employees argued for it, saying that if he could get away with it, he would. Plato did not object to slavery, and incidentally, neither does the Bible, which allows for slavery as punishment for debt. It also states that an Israelite slave must be treated better than a Canaanite.

    Now look at ancient Greece in terms of war. Athens wanted to conquer, often for economic reasons. Warlike Sparta, on the other hand, would not allow their army to venture far from home; it was to be used strictly for defense. Every citizen of Sparta had to be a full time combatant, leaving crafts, business, farming, and labor to the non-citizen classes. Without an active economy there was no need for an expeditionary army. The Greek wars, huge building projects, and the Acropolis were all Athens’ idea.

    Did Athens follow Plato’s advice? It looks like as soon as they ignored it, they started expanding and ran into trouble.

Fitness For Life

A great book this is, with realistic goals for exercise and nutrition. It doesn’t say that every kid can be a jock, because every kid can’t. It defines fitness as being able to do the most with the least effort, so in a nutshell it means that fitness is being able to use your body to do what you need. But it also says that fitness-demanding jobs are in decline, so fitness is now more of a concern for average cubicle-slaves.

    There’s good advice here for starting out, especially if you’re sedentary, and it shows you how to use small steps to getting in shape. It warns against fad diets and fad machines, because they don’t work. The ab-master, ab-roller- ab-vibrator, Nordic Track, Soloflex; they were advertised with beautiful, muscular models, and bought by desperate nebbishes who wanted a quick fix to a long-term problem. I should know, I was one of them, and my Nordic Track didn’t help. I should’ve just gotten rid of the TV and walked to school.

  The problem with this book is the target audience. It focuses mostly on kids, but what about the adults? People who have to drive an hour in each direction and sit at a desk all day are in a sedentary trap. What about construction workers work their knees and shoulders hard all day? What kind of fitness advise is there for them? Another problem is the photos; they’re all of beautiful young men and women. No acne, flabby bellies, fat thighs, fat butts, etc. I would be wary of showing this book to teens, because seeing all this perfection can make them hate their bodies. Not every teen has beautiful hair and a great tan. It also doesn’t take into account that some schools have the kids in there until 5pm, and they’ve cut out gym class. It also doesn’t factor that when a school has P.E. it usually favors the jocks and consists of “here’s a ball go play.” The non-athletic kids are left out, picked last.

Fights On The Little Horn

Custer at Little Big Horn is a lesson in many things; human rights, heroism, and arrogant blundering. Some laud Custer on the same pedestal as Gordon of Khartoum and the men who defended the Alamo. Others see him as too brave for his own good.

    Harper, in his chapter The Question of Disobedience, discusses the communication aspect. Whatever communication there was between Custer and his superiors would’ve been spotty. There were no radios, and Custer was deep in hostile territory. The native tribes had better guns, also an example of blundering. The US Cavalry were issued single-shot Springfield rifles, while the Sioux and Cheyanne bought repeating Winchesters. If you’re wondering why, it’s because the US government were afraid the troops would fire in the air and waste ammo. When your enemy has the tactical advantage, plus ten shots against your one shot, the odds are in his favor. The exact same thing would happen to the Italian army in Abyssinia in the 1890’s; Emperor Menelik’s men were advised to buy quick-loading rifles, which would work fine with the traditional African tactic of swarming in large numbers. The Italians were, like Custer, trekking deep into hostile territory, where supplies would run low.

    The issue of disobedience on Custer’ gets attention too. Did Custer get his men killed? How many Indians were there? Did his scouts warn him that the trail was a mile wide? Did Custer listen, or did the scouts betray him? The British army made a similar mistake when they were peacekeepers in Sierra Leone; they didn’t listen to the native troops, drove deep into the forests, and were ambushed by the West Side Niggaz (called the “West Side Boys” in the papers, courtesy of political correctness) and had to be rescued by the SAS. It was a combination of colonial arrogance, failure to listen to the locals, and underestimating the ability of the enemy.

    I’d say that this book raises important questions, and makes the facts look even less clear than before. Undoubtedly, Custer’s heroism (or screwing up) will be discussed in military schools for decades to come.

In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry From The Sixties To Slam

I confess that despite moving to NYC in 1996 and spending my entire adult life here (including four years at NYU) I knew nothing of the Nuyorican poetry movement. It wasn’t until I saw the biopic Pinero that I heard about it. Then again, few of my Puerto Rican friends and none of my Puerto Rican students had heard of it either, so I wonder.

    Urayoan Noel says in the introduction that the Nuyorican phenomena is the result of the Purto Rican diaspora, being stuck in a strange place. The East Village barrio was close to Greenwich Village and NYU, where you had all the artsy types, more so than Harlem or the Bronx. He cites Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets as a start; Thomas goes from trying to escape his community to realizing that it has its merits. On a funny note, Down These Mean Streets was banned in every community where the teenage Piri Thomas had gone to escape racism.

    The first chapter made me realize that the Nuyorican movement had none of the sponsorship that the Harlem Renaissance had. There was no Puerto Rican counterpart to the C.J. Walker company bankrolling Puerto Rican intellectuals, as Madam Walker did in the 1900’s. The Fords, Guggenheims, Astors, and Rockefellers weren’t sponsoring Puerto Rican artists or writers the way America’s millionaires had done with others. In the book Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, the author describes how Bruce Springsteen, a New Jersey native, had a big following among Andy Warhol’s transvestite crowd. His stubbly face, torn jeans, and rough guitar playing was surprisingly appealing to drag queens. But Miguel Pinero and other Puerto Rican poets and musicians; they were ignored by the established crowd. Perhaps the “arts” scene was little more than a clique, just with grown-ups rather than high school alpha-queens?

    Miguel Algarin, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, first heard the term on a trip to the island. It was used to describe the New York bred Puerto Ricans, who the natives looked down on for speaking English. He and Pinero were seen as unwanted and undesirable by Puerto Rico’s academics; Pinero’s criminal record and drug use was hardly an impression. But the fact that Algarin was a professor at Rutgers meant nothing to them either.

Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America

In the wonderful book Over P.J. Clarke’s, the author describes the Prohibition as a law that the city’s liquor-loving mayor had no desire to enforce. His name was Jimmy Walker, and he saw through the temperance movement as being anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. As a Catholic he had no problem with drinking, and as the mayor of New York City he knew not to anger the ethnic groups whose votes he needed. The people in New York had no desire to obey the Prohibition, any more than a 13 year old obeys an order never to look at internet porn. New York City in the 1920’s was a world class party town. But what gave it an edge over Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Miami, or LA?

    Supreme City will surprise you in how it pieces together all the aspects of New York City that gave it the famous Jazz Age character. NYC always tolerated silly behavior, hence the nickname “Gotham,” after an English town whose resident avoided taxes by feigning imbecility. Yet according to this book, the 20’s were a time when even the upper classes were enjoying silly things once stereotyped as low-class, like short skirts and drinking.

    The Holland Tunnel gets a chapter in this book, because at the time it was built it was a major tourist attraction. The ventilated air was cleaner than that on the street, and it ended the crowded boat traffic on the Hudson River. Before the tunnel, there were thousands of ferries crossing the river, crashing into each other, sabotaging each other, and god help the ferry pilots who had to cross at night or in fog. The waterways were now a place for pleasure boating. As for trains, the law forced them to convert from coal to electricity, so the smoke was soon gone. Even better, the tracks were forced under park Avenue, leaving Park Avenue literally what it was called; an avenue with a park in the middle (it was later removed to widen the lanes.) Property values soon rose.

    The roles of women changed too, with so many of the male sex dead from the Great War. Women were now free to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, wear short dresses, and socialize with men in way previously seen as low class. The US was the biggest exporter of grain, lumber, alcohol, beef, and fertilizer, and US corporations owned plantations in Latin America. Europe was a wreck from the war,  the US dollar value was high, and there were so many opportunities for wealth, not to mention the business of illegal alcohol. Radio programs increased, as did Hollywood and the movies, creating a greater influence than religious preaching. No temperance-minded moralist could stem the barrage of the media.

    New York City, like others, was going up. Skyscrapers were built in record time, thanks to Mohawk ironworkers, and there were no lawsuits for wrongful death, leaving the contractors with zero liability. They came from Canada and Upstate New York, lived in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, and had the Wigwam bar on Nevins Street. They left Brooklyn in the 1960’s when the highways decreased travel time and the area started getting bad.

  Supreme City isn’t full of surprises, but it does have a logical argument. If the Holland Tunnel weren’t built, and the trains hadn’t been forced under the streets, then perhaps New York City wouldn’t have been as attractive as it became. Cities on the coast have always been attractive as a tourist spot, more so than the ones within the continent, so I imagine NYC would be a bit more fun than Denver or Salt Lake City. As for Miami, it wasn’t built up yet, and there wouldn’t have been much to do, same with Los Angeles. But Chicago, now that was a city with character, also a destination in the 1920’s. However, NYC has always been popular with single adults, so it’s no surprise that the residents want to party. Once they needed more space (like Jay Gatsby) they moved out to Long Island or Westchester. The ones that stayed were the artists, writers, actors, and others who didn’t mind a cramped city.

Exploring and Engaging Spirituality for Today's Chidlren

    This book collects essays on how to discuss faith and values with children. One of the essays is about Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist, and his discussions with Ruby Bridges. For those of you that don’t know, Ruby Bridges inspired the Norman Rockwell painting of the girl being accompanied by US Marshalls on her way to school. She was the first African American to attend a previously segregated school, and Coles figured she’d have anxiety and depression, or what today we’d call PTSD. On the contrary, she was doing fine. When asked what she thought of the people yelling insults, she said “I pray for them every day.”

   There’s also an essay here by Kevin Lawson on how children were taught faith in the Middle Ages. Keep in mind that in contrast to Ruby Bridges, European Christians weren’t looking to Jesus as a beacon in their struggle for liberty and equality. The church was under the same feudal system as the nobility, and the peasants couldn’t expect to find autonomy or fortune. Furthermore it was in an era before cheap printing, and inspiring news didn’t travel fast. It was in this era that priests relied on illustrations to teach children. We all know how kids prefer picture books to “grown up” books, and why wouldn’t they, seeing as they understand pictures better than words. Religious artwork and even plays became essential at this time. While there is agreement that religious instruction would’ve changed for Protestants after the Reformation, it would’ve been more important than ever to beef up religious instruction. With the rivalry going on between the Catholic and Lutheran churches, there was most likely a rivalry going on.

    In an earlier book I reviewed, titled Moral Issues and Christian Responses, there was a part on the Nickel Mines massacre, where a gunman killed Amish school children. The Amish families weren’t driven to depression by the killings, because as part of their religious instruction they were taught to accept what happens to them. They even made condolence calls on the family of the murderer who’d been killed by the police. But when asked if they’d want him to go free had he lived, they said no. A person who is a danger to the community has to be confined so that he doesn’t continue killing.

    With the many mass killings we’ve had in the last several years, it remains to be seen if we’ll develop a method for recovery.

Xerox Ferox

    Xerox Ferox is a book about all the self-published and small press magazines (or fanzines, or “zines”) about horror movies. In the book’s introduction we get a lamentation over the horror magazines that are more concerned with worshipping the star actors than having reviews of the actual movies. This book, however, is in the spirit of Bill Landis’ Sleazoid Express; a romp through a notoriously low budget genre, promoted by low budget paper.

    Horror movies have always been a source of quick cash. Roger Corman produced several in a week, and Francis Ford Coppola’s made his debut for Corman, with Dementia 13. It was a badly-photographed, badly-scripted horror movie set in Ireland, and I could hardly see, hear, or tell what the hell was going on. But a small audience liked it, and since it hardly cost anything to make, there wasn’t much to lose. Zombie movies are also a source of quick cash, probably because they feature hordes of unnamed extras, and since zombies don’t usually speak, the actors have no lines and you can pay them reduced rates. The makeup is cheap, the sound effects are stock, and the plot doesn’t have to be Oscar-worthy. In fact, you can recycle plots from other movies; Night of the Living Dead was like High Noon, and the Italian jungle-cannibal movies could be filmed anywhere. It wouldn’t be especially hard to remake Snow White as a horror movie; just make the queen look really ugly, and add creepy sound effects.

    The horror movie zines profiled here are just like the low budget drive-in movies. They’re printed on pulp, have a small, loyal fanbase, and don’t need top quality writing. They can be printed cheaply in black and white, and are cheap to ship. The internet has probably cut into the market for them, because anyone can start a horror movie blog for free. You wouldn’t make much money from it, but then again, most horror movie zines didn’t make much anyway.

Tuareg Jewelry

    The Tuareg, despite being Muslims, have a love-hate relationship with the Arabs. When Islam reached them in the 700’s, they refused to give up a lot of their customs, and rejected a lot of Arab ones. The name Tuareg is in fact an Arab one which they do not use for themselves, possibly the name of one of their clans, which the Arabs assigned to the whole group. Since the 1960’s, when Francophone Africa was partitioned, the Tuareg’s camel routes have been restricted. Yet they have not been sucked into 20^th century society, and unlike the peoples of Arabia, they never gave up their nomadic ways.

    Most of the pieces in this book are silver, with gold rarely used. Perhaps the jewelers lacked the fuel to heat it? Or perhaps it was too valuable as currency? As for the designs, many of them show ancient Egyptian influence, others have European motifs, like the fleur-de-lis. One common type of necklace is the Tchirot, worn by men as a symbol of their clan or tribe. There are large rings, given to people in childhood, that are exchanged between couples as a sign of intimacy. Colors also come into play, because blue is a symbol of tamed spirits that can be controlled (not surprising, as blue is considered to ward off evil spirits in Arab countries.) Some of the pendants were obviously old coins of Arab, French, or British origin.

   While this book shows extensive research, I would like to have seen more about the jewelers. There were no photos of the artisans at work, and I would like to have seen more about the actual crafts process, how they learn their craft, and what kind of monetary value they place in their work. What fascinates me the most if that aside from the silver, there aren’t any precious metals or stones, just good quality craftsmanship. I’ve seen artisans here in New York making beautiful jewelry from old spoons, pickle jar lids, and worthless foreign coins that they’ve flattened and refined. It’s great to see that you can make beautiful things from cast-off metal , instead of gold and diamonds that fund African dictators.

    But unfortunately, gold and diamonds are what people want when they buy rings. A Tuareg silver wedding bracelet would not do for an American woman who expects a diamond (even though diamonds don’t come from the USA).

Protecting Your Commissions

    As a former salesman, I remember having to haggle with the owner of a massage-chair business to get the 10% he owed me. He’d find all kinds of excuses not to pay, and if that didn’t work, he’d claim he was broke. Sue him in court? I had no contract to prove my claim, and besides, he was located five states away. Nothing I could do.

    Protecting Your Commissions is all about the rights of the commissioned salesman, and if you’re being paid on a 1099 basis, knowing your rights is essential. Randall Gillary, a legal expert in the field, gives many reasons why employers would try to deny paying. An employee who works for a wage and commission, for instance, might end up selling so much that he makes more than the management. The boss gets jealous and tries to avoid paying. He gives the case of Sharon Holland as an example of how an employer might raise a quota halfway through the year, and make it retroactive.

   The last chapter is on how to know if you’re approaching termination, and I’d say this is the kind of thing you need no matter what job you have. Gillary lists all possible factors; making more money than the boss, new managers who envy what you make, sudden interests in your day-to-day expenses, and general hostility. But he doesn’t say you should just give up. The chapter includes information on how to negotiate your commissions for what you’ve sold before your termination notice.