Start Here: A Roadmap to Reducing Mass Incarceration

   Berman and Alder compare the US incarceration policies unfavorably to those of Asia and Europe. According to their sources (mostly from policy institutes) there are 3000 prisoners in Norway’s prisons and 50,000 detainees in the LA County Jail. There are obvious reasons; Norway has no teen pregnancies and they never had a crack epidemic. On the flip side, my research shows that there are a lot of Norwegians who should be in prison, but thanks to Norway’s liberal pacifism, they aren’t.

   The authors provide examples of programs that can keep people out of jail, while at the same time reducing the crime that sends them there. For starters, there’s Brownsville, Brooklyn, an area that deserves its terrible reputation, where the programs are seeking to change the local norms. Efforts are made to discourage the cult of easily avenged honor and violent revenge, which was the subject of the 1995 book All God’s Children. Do young people know that shooting someone over an insult is not allowed? Do they understand that they’re setting themselves up for 15 years in prison if they do it? Then there are nonprofit organizations like Harlem Children’s Zone, which tries to keep kids off the streets (at least until they’re 18) by providing activities. It has a program called The Baby College, which teaches parenting skills as a way to discourage neglect and child abuse.

    One of the problems with poor communities (not just Black areas of Brooklyn, but also White ones like Southie) is that the parents handle meagre annoyances with mean looks, yells, and smacks. Those that read the recent memoir Hillbilly Elegy will see how the idea of “parenting through intimidation” is a problem in Appalachia, and it teaches children to handle everything through aggression. While spanking kids may have been the norm in the old days, most experts now agree that it only teaches “might makes right” and leads to kids handling problems the same way. I’ve had Black kids ask me why the White parents work so hard to discipline their kids (talking to them, time-outs, withholding privileges) while Black parents just slap the kid. My response is always “What are you going to do when the kid is too big to slap? What are you going to do if he’s bigger than the parent and slaps back?” These are the problems that Harlem Children’s Zone (among others) tries to address. They form a “bottoms-up” effort that focuses on the children, because they are the most susceptible to influences.

    Money is another problem in reducing mass incarceration. If a stupid kid punches a store clerk and gets a $250 fine and probation, what happens if the parent has no money? What happens f the kid lives in a foster home and nobody supervises him? He’ll start a long cycle of jail, and learn none of the life skills he needs for independent living. Similar problems were discussed in another recent nonfiction book titled On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, where Philadelphia’s poor are constantly evading police, thanks to unpaid fines and open warrants.

    A recent documentary on Wyoming’s one and only men’s prison shows the connection between crime and local norms. Given the tiny population of Wyoming, it makes sense for them to have only one prison. Out of the prison’s entire population, there’s one Black American (how many Black Americans are there in Wyoming?) and a lot of Native Americans, and I wonder if, at an earlier time, their crimes might have been part of tribal warfare? One of the prisoners, a man with a distinct Native American accent, looks like he has FAS, which might explain his lack of self-control. If so, then the reservations might benefit from the type of social program mentioned in this book, at least if they want to discourage alcoholism. Then there’s the geography angle; as long as Wyoming remains way out west, I doubt things will get worse, because not a lot of people migrate there. However, the shale gas drilling business is increasing in the area, and if thousands of men migrate there for work, then there will be trouble. You’ll have all the problems of a town with a large ratio of men-to-women; drinking, prostitution, gambling, and crime. More arrests will follow, and that will mean another prison.

Inside Private Prisons by Lauren-Brooke Eisen

    I, personally, don’t like the idea of private prisons. I think they’re an excuse to pawn off government responsibility to people who aren’t qualified. They of the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby gets appointed (not elected) to be the school hall monitor and proceeds to play policeman. We had the same thing when I was in grade school, and it annoyed me silly for a whole bunch of reasons. First, I wasn’t going to take orders from a little kid, and second, why would the principal appoint a little kid to rat out other kids? Isn’t it the principal’s job to take care of discipline? I see a similar thing happen in a lot of wealthy families; the parents hire someone else to make their children behave, usually a nanny from Latin American or the West Indies. All over the USA, parents are subcontracting their duties to other people, and now the same thing is happening with government service. What happens if the government subcontracts law enforcement and prisons? Will it be effective, or will the lunatics run the asylum? Private prisons (henceforth referred to as PP) are increasing in the USA, and this book explores their use, importance, and their prospects for the future.

    In the book’s introduction, Reik Raemusch becomes head of corrections for the state of Colorado and tries out the solitary confinement cell. It’s horrible, he goes crazy after 23 hours, and he wants to end the practice. Next, the author cites experienced correction officers who dislike private prison, for reasons that include mass incarceration or the possibility of mass layoffs. Eastern State Penitentiary is also discussed here, because for many years the prison used solitude and prohibited speech. The program made the prisoners worse, with no chance of living a crime-free life on the outside. Then the War on Drugs tripled the number of prisoners, and the prison systems were on the lookout for a cheap solution (just like the parents looking for a quick fix.)

   Eisen points out some benefits to privatization, like the homeowner associations who take responsibility for their block, and that has benefits. Privatization happens in the legal profession too, where lawyers can hire a judge to settle the case quickly and split the fee. I’ve also seen Air National Guard bases that hire private security because there aren’t enough full-time personnel. In the business of logistics, you can use the USPS or pay for fast shipping with UPS, FedEx, or DHL. But what happens when the government hires a private company to manage a prison? It’s one thing to hire contractors to maintain police cars and handle the repairs, but here we’re talking about privatizing public safety.

    Several chapters of this book are devoted to the profit motive (known as the Prison Industrial Complex), where an entire town may depend on prison jobs. We have “prison products” like special pens that can’t be used to stab, or the toilets that don’t have seats, or showers that run on timers. One of the reasons for the huge profits in the PP is that they can hire the unqualified and pay them less (even felons). Phone companies can charge prisoners four times the usual rate, and PP can even charge visitors for the security checks, parking, and package screening. The prison commissary can charge huge markups for the junk food and toiletries, and since the prisoners can be paid less than minimum wage, local businesses can profit too. All the while, the correction officers in the private prisons make a crap wage. They can be recruited from all the applicants who were rejected by the state’s corrections department. More common in the Midwest, thanks to industry loss – also covered in this book – having a prison in the town means money;  jobs in corrections, more business for local food suppliers, visiting relatives staying at local motels, and you can charge them for parking. The future is bright for the operators; private prisons are now being used as immigrant detention centers.

    I expect private prisons to increase, unless state legislatures vote against them. Ever since the early 80’s, you’ve had industries shutting down and whole towns out of work. It’s hard to attract technology to your town when you lack skilled people, and prisons don’t require much in the way of skill. Training a correction officer is easier than training a police officer, and far easier than training a technician. As for the issues like fair wages, unionization, and civil rights, there are plenty of job-desperate red states whose politicians couldn’t care less.

Street Warrior: The True Story of the NYPD's Most Decorated Detective

   

Ralph Friedman holds the record number of combat awards for a NYC cop for two reasons; the South Bronx of the 1970’s was a war zone, and Friedman was nuts. During his wild career as an undercover drug cop he jumps across rooftops, jumps out windows, gets dragged by cars, and has daily gun battles with armed suspects. Starting his post-high-school life as a trucker and finding it boring (no argument there) he opts for the NYPD. Now before we go further, let me warn you (as all other cop memoirs will) that in the early 1970’s, nobody, absolutely nobody, wanted to be a NYC cop! The issue wasn’t the pay (schoolteachers didn’t make much either) or the hours (lots of jobs require night shifts) but the hazards. Cops were getting shot all the time, and the Black Liberation Army was using cops for target practice. Cars full of off-duty cops were following the radio cars, armed with semi-automatic rifles. For Friedman, the attraction was the fighting.

    Street Warrior gives an account of not only the violence of the NYPD in the Bronx, but also the way collars and booking were done. Cops who wanted to get into the detectives or get promoted needed lots of collars, and that could only be done according to convenience. Friedman had an advantage of working in the Bronx over Manhattan; there was less auto traffic and the courts were faster. You could grab a perp on the street, drive him back to the station in ten minutes, book him, be back out on the street in half an hour, and make more arrests. The next morning you drive to court, testify, and be back on the street by lunchtime and make more arrests. On the one occasion that he has to go to Manhattan’s courts, he gets stuck in traffic all day. He’s like “how the hell did the Manhattan cops make more than one collar a week, when the traffic took all day and the courts took all week?” He has a greater dislike for Manhattan traffic than he does for the injuries he gets.

    Unlike a lot of the self-serving cop memoirs, Friedman admits to failed cases, particularly one with the Fraunce’s Tavern bombing.  He gets a tip from a drug dealing informer about the bombers, but just as they’re about to go into a wedding venue to identify the suspect, the dealer brags that he has a gun. Goodbye to the whole operation, it now has to be called off! Friedman regrets it all to this day, it would’ve been the one chance that anyone had of catching the bombers.  

    It seems like it’s not that hard to become a detective when you work in narcotics. Most of Friedman’s work involves stalking around the neighborhood in scruffy clothes, with plenty of shooting and punching.  I imagine that being a homicide detective would involve a lot more patience; knocking on every door, checking dozens of numbers, spending cold nights in a car and watching for a suspect who might, just might, come out of a building. Those who read The French Connection know that the famous drug bust involved spending nights in hotel lobbies, fueled by coffee and dirty water hot dogs, waiting for the suspect to exit the hotel. One word – boring! But Friedman’s career is a lot more exciting and has a lot less of the waiting. In 1970’s South Bronx, you could find an armed thief every ten paces.

    Would I have wanted to be a cop in NYC in the 1970’s? The answer is yes! What other jobs were there anyway? My mother hated being a teacher in private Jewish schools (those people didn’t need any help) and wouldn’t dare teach in the public schools (might as well be a cop, no?) . Then there was my father’s career in Chase Manhattan Plaza, and I doubt he liked the long commute or the expensive suits he had to pay for (this was back in the day when the subway had no air conditioning.) If you’re a cop, you can wear what you like to work, get free parking space, change into your uniform when you get to work, and best of all, get an instant gun-carry license. The gun license was no small asset in 1970’s NYC.

    Friedman’s co-writer is Patrick Picarelli, the same writer who did Jimmy the Wags, another NYC cop memoir that I thoroughly enjoyed. The storytelling is straightforward, nobody tries to wax poetic or put on airs. But I won’t say that I like Ralph Friedman, and I won’t call him brave or tough. Anybody can shoot, kick, and punch, especially if they’re empowered to do it legally. Given, not everyone wants to risk getting shot but this guy wasn’t married and he had no kids, so it wasn’t like he had anything to worry about. I also doubt that anything the police did at the time made much of a difference, if the South Bronx was as hopeless as he portrays it. Still, it’s a fun read, and gives an uncompromising story of policing in the 1970’s.

Un-Standardizing Curriculum

    Un-Standardizing Curriculum was originally published 20 years ago, a time when some districts began a conflicting series of order to teach arts to the kids, while at the same time enforcing a fixed curriculum of math and English. Social studies, gym, and others would have to be worked in somehow. Both authors were classroom teachers, and both saw the results of saddling the teachers with an impossible curriculum; the students lose all motivation and classroom management becomes impossible.

    In the first chapter the authors discuss the benefits of a standardized curriculum and the need to include the students’ identities. Judith  Carmona says she was held back a grade when she immigrated to the USA (a standard practice for non-English-speaking students) and that none of the teachers spoke or understood Spanish. However, thanks to her own efforts, she eventually got into a humanities program for gifted students, where much of the learning was self-reflective. Christine Sleeter, however, had it a little better growing up; her father was a doctor, and her teachers encouraged the students to engage in greater discussions of what they read. Now here was have the gap in learning; for some students, what they learn at school means nothing at home, and it can be even harder to teach low-income students and/or minorities. I also have to wonder if the self-reflective seminar type of learning is any good students in Japan or China, where learning is often done by rote.

    In the second chapter, the authors discuss the teacher’s belief about knowledge and how that can either advance or hold back the learning. They give an example of a 4^th graders studying Native American mythology and customs (kind of like what I did in 4^th grade) which the teacher hopes will encourage balanced understanding. She will assume that the students will gain respect for Native American culture (and by culture, I mean the combination of religion, lore, language, and economy) and help end racist views. But is she glossing things? The students learn about the people, but what about the abuse they suffered? Do they learn how the Anglos slaughtered the buffalo as a means to control the Sioux and Blackfoot? Do they learn how the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminole were forcibly relocated? Do they learn why the towns of Nassau and Suffolk counties have Native American names, but the tribes are mysteriously no longer there? Do they learn how the tribes of the Northeast were all murdered? In the end, the teacher’s effort at cultural inclusion is more like “we’re so bloody nice because we learn about it,” yet the students don’t know how bad the tribes have it today.

    After reading this book, I have to wonder if the cultural biases can effect all subjects, not just English and social studies. Mathematics is all about numbers, not people, but what about the illustrations? If the math book for 3^rd graders uses photos of White children only, what does that tell the kids who are not? Will they get the message that they don’t count? If it uses the example of mom and dad + three children = five people in the family, what does that mean to a kid with only one parents? Even if you are racially inclusive, watch out for photos in the illustration. How many kids in the photos are overweight, have braces, crooked teeth, Down’s Syndrome, etc.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

    I often wondered how a parvenu like Princess Diana, a woman with no education, could become such a beloved icon. I also wondered how Steve Jobs, one 1/3 of the brain behind Apple Inc, could be seen as a genius rather than a guru. The answer, according to Maxwell, is in the influence. He shows how leadership is based on a combination of persona, talent, work, ambition, and foresight. Many of our notions of leadership are, according to him, nothing but myth, and he proceeds to shatter them.

     Maxwell uses real-life examples of famous leaders, like Teddy Roosevelt, who went from being a sickly asthmatic child to all-American boxer, lawyer, naturalist, cowboy, soldier, politician, etc. Then there’s Abraham Lincoln, who succeeded at first, then failed miserably; he entered the Black Hawk War as a captain, screwed up, and left the war as a private. Maxwell believes that Lincoln could have done well as a captain, but he was not ready for the job. What he needed was to start at the bottom, learn the needed skills, and work his way up. What the author implies, though doesn’t state directly, is that Roosevelt’s education won him the respect of the upper classes, while his ranching in the Dakotas won him the respect of the lower classes. His muckraking against government corruption was risky for a politician (and still is) but his reputation as a boxer made people give him a wide berth. It brings to mind Vladimir Putin, with his (staged) judo matches and riding his (drugged) bears, followed by riding his horse shirtless in the cold. Yes, it’s likely that he grabs his coat as soon as the photographers leave, but his manipulation of his image is what gets him support.

    The chapter that resonates the most with me is The law of Navigation, where the author uses the example of Robert F. Scott. The story is tragic; Captain Scott took his men to reach the South Pole, a Norwegian beat him to it, and Scott’s entire crew died on the way home. Now before I go any further, let me warn you that I went to middle school in the UK, and we were taught that Scott was a heroic explorer. The young and old believe that he was a brave, upstanding adventurer, who remained a gentleman to the end, even as he froze to death. But today, the gentleman navy officer, full of resolve while he froze to death, is known as a bungler. He planned the wrong route, took the wrong clothes, and used the wrong transportation. Not mentioned in the book is that he dismissed the advice of his subordinate that the ponies were no good. This is an issue that the author brings forth later, when he allows a church member to lead, but only after making the needs of the church known. True leaders are willing to listen, and they accept the expertise of others. It’s a better strategy than saying “I’m in charge, just listen to me.”

    John C. Maxwell doesn’t pull any punches when discussing the skills and personality needed for leadership. He goes through the many factors that can make or break a leader – character, skills, work ethic, personality – and how famous leaders used them.

All the Answers

    The tragedy of the former child star is a story often retold, on talk shows, tabloids, documentaries on MTV. However, what makes this book different is that the former child star is not an actor, but a genius mathematician; one of the “Wiz Kids,” who wowed radio audiences in the days before television. The child prodigy genius, be he a mathematician, scientist, or writer, usually turns out okay in the end (for some reason you don’t see as much drug use among the mathematicians.) But in All the Answers, we’re faced with two questions about the lives of the child prodigy genius’ upbringing and adult life. First, does the kid really know everything, or is he a coached actor? Second, does all the attention he receives in childhood curse him in adulthood?

    Michael Kupperman’s father was once the star genius of a long-running (and long-forgotten) kid’s show. Anyone born during the Baby Boom or after won’t remember it, and I myself hadn’t heard of it until I read this book. My research shows that reporters tracked them down over the years; most of them did well in adulthood, one was on the skids, and one wrote a book about it. As for the elder Kupperman, he never speaks of it, but as his dementia worsens, his son is desperate for more information. Why won’t the old man talk about it?

    The Wiz Kids were the cast of a radio show, where they’d be asked extra hard math questions. The prize was just $75 a week (not bad in 1942), and the elder Kupperman says that it was in fact an act; he was coached beforehand, and his mother was the ultimate stage mom. Not that he holds any grudges, by the way, since the family was poor and they needed the money. As for the story’s place in history, there are several undercurrents; for one thing, WWII was a time when America needed role models, even if they were children, and it was important for Jewish media moguls to show how patriotic their people were. Jewish boxers weren’t seen as role models (it may have had to do with a prejudice against the working classes) so why not let the “smart Jew” stereotype dominate?

    The author gives an unusual retelling of his relationship with his father, the child prodigy math genius turned obscure college professor. It was as though he was told “do as you please, because you can only learn from your mistakes.” Growing up, he gets busted for shoplifting, gets kicked out of school, gets into mischief, and all the while his college professor father doesn’t get mad. He tells his boy “I don’t want you to be a successful child, just a successful adult.” As for the father’s career, she chooses to teach in a college in some remote part of Connecticut. Clearly the guy is an intellectual, but doesn’t want any pressure or attention. The last time the elder Kupperman goes on the airwaves is a short stint on The $64,000 Question, and yes, according to him, it was rigged. He wasn’t supplied with answers, but the producers were careful to ask only the kind of things that he knew. He testifies to it before Congress, and fortunately, it doesn’t hurt his career. Or does it? Maybe that’s why he ends up teaching at a less-prestigious college.

    The artwork isn’t especially exciting, it’s mostly plain black and white drawings, with none of the intensity of Maus or Persepolis. But maybe it’s the kind of artwork that this story needs? Much of it takes place in the Baby Boom, and that was a boring era. Everyone had settled down into their homes in Levittown, into the cult of domesticity and conformity. Still, there is a slight deficit to the artwork, in that it doesn’t illustrate the time and place of the story, which would be distinguished by clothing styles, hairstyles, décor, etc. We’ve seen how shows like The Wonder Years, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire made effective use of period details, and it’s lacking in All the Answers.

    Those who are unfamiliar with US history may not know about the Baby Boom era, a time when children were being indulged more than ever (blame it on Dr. Spock) and there was a push for more science education (blame it on Sputnik.) They’ll also be unfamiliar with The $64,000 Question (even if they saw the movie Quiz Show, which is not well-known in Europe.) Something tells me, this book will mean a lot more to people with an interest in American life. It shows the pitfalls in the obsession with success.

Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America

    This is not the first book that I’ve read about middle class debt in the last five years, and something tells me it won’t be the last. First there was Broke USA, then there was End of Suburbia, then Assault on the Middle Class, Opting for Elsewhere, American Way of Poverty, and now this. Right now, I expect nothing new, and as I read this book my suspicions of getting another “oh poor me, I borrowed five figures to pay for college and can’t pay it back” are being confirmed. Fortunately, the author writes about a problem not seen in the other books – pregnancy discrimination – that does in fact seem to be a recurring problem in the USA. The author uses two examples, in law firms and airlines, where women are losing their jobs. Even if the boss can’t fire you for taking time off, he can still eliminate your position and stick you with lousy clients (or demote you to the mail room.)  Either way, these jobs involve high pressure, and you don’t have the protections that teachers or civil servants have. Perhaps that’s why civil service jobs are so popular?

    The next example of “educated but can’t afford it” is a college professor in Chicago. She teaches English composition, makes 24k per year, has a disabled eight year old son, and raises him on her own with no help from his father. The professor has no student loan debt, so far so good, but she’s an idiot. She lived the hipster life, got pregnant at 28 by a 20-year-old punk rocker, and now she’s trapped. The author goes into detail about her struggle, but I couldn’t really feel any sympathy for her. Why doesn’t she go for a higher-paying teaching job in the Chicago public schools? What about the Chicago PD or the Cook County Sheriff Department? I suspect that either she wants an easy job, or she’s just not tough enough for others.

    The next example of the author’s is a Baruch College professor in NYC with a 74k salary and her husband, a church organist, makes 50k. They spend most of their money on daycare and are too wealthy for affordable housing.  Now here’s the problem; in both instances, they were warned against an academic career, which is poorly paid and with few benefits or protections. If the professor complains that daycare is too much, I bet she’ll complain about the cost of private school. Will she make her kid tough enough for public school? I bet there are people in Yonkers who send their kids to less-expensive private schools, but then they’d lose the thrill of living in Manhattan. Furthermore, why haven’t these people tried to join (or start) a food co-op?

    Okay, that’s it, I’ve had it. Opt for a cheap college so you won’t have student loan debt. Do a 2-year paralegal degree at a cheap community college, go to work at a law firm or a bank, and work your way up to a 4-year degree. Or you could do a degree in nursing, which is a lot cheaper and pays a lot more (with benefits, I add) but whoops, I forgot, nursing isn’t hip or cool. Maybe you could enlist in the military and get the GI Bill for college? Let’s say you got silly and got into student loan debt, you could always go into law enforcement for the high pay, and work off the loan. Or maybe you could skip college, find an electrician who will take you on as an apprentice, and work your way up?

    I’m sorry, this book is about people who waste time and money. They chase after the dream of a cool job, while ignoring the facts of life – rent, food, childcare, health – that can make or break you. I see so many blue-collar professionals who make it work, with few debts and stable families. How do they do it? There must be some way. Why not write a book about them? We’ll call it Debt Free: How Uneducated People Lead Uncool Lives and Achieve the American Dream.

Into the Wild

    This book is one that I read many years ago, and I place it in a category that I can “read for posterity.” It’s one of those few books that reach the bestseller list in the New York Times, then continues to be read for years afterward. You can go through the bestseller list from 25 years ago and find few that are still read, save for this book, along with A Walk in the Woods and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Maybe they appeal to a unique sense of adventure? Maybe they appeal to the ideal of finding self-respect by conquering the frontier, like in Call of the Wild? All three are about men (or in the latter, a dog) who do the things that most of us aren’t strong enough to try?

    John Krakauer pieces together the life of Chris McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp), from an unsatisfied teenager to continent-crossing vagabond. I say vagabond and not vagrant, because McCandless did in fact work his way across the country, finding employment in fast food, farms, and when there was no place to work, he foraged for food. He starts by giving away his trust fund, then abandons his old car in the desert, then makes his way to Nevada, the Salton Sea, down the Colorado River into Mexico, and eventually to Alaska.

   A recurring theme or event of Into the Wild is that of living off the land. McCandless carries a book on edible plants, though it may be out of date, and there is a lingering suspicion that it contributed to his death from starvation. When his body is found on the famous old bus in the woods, he’s emaciated and has zero fat on him, and to this day the scientists suspect he ate a wild tuber that blocked the absorption of fat. The author also concludes, tacitly, that McCandless wasn’t really ready for living alone in Alaska. He did just fine in the desert, but the people who knew McCandless, and filled the author in, all say he was unprepared; he had the wrong clothes, the wrong supplies, and was going in there without a weapon. The driver who brought him to the starting point forced him to take a free pair of boots and a rifle, but even that wasn’t enough. The caliber wasn’t much good for killing large elk, only small animals, and the food that he brought was barely adequate. Even the Indians of Alaska would never have ventured into the territory he was heading for. There was no reason for anyone to venture into the middle of nowhere.

    The story of Chris McCandless was first brought to light in Outside Magazine, and it’s just the kind of story that the readers would love.  The part where he acquires an old canoe, lazily floats down the Colorado River, and lives off the fish he catches, would seriously wet the reader’s appetite. But setting aside the adventure in the wild, I’m seeing a connection to another book (also in my “bestseller that’s still read after 15 years” catalogue) titled Nickel and Dimes. The well-known expose by Barbara Ehrenreich, about her adventure through the USA, has some similarities to Into the Wild. She doesn’t live off the land, but she does travel the country without a safety net, without connections, without a useable trade, knowing absolutely nobody, and surviving on her ability to survive, that’s t nothing more. In both books, the authors do not take charity, yet I have to wonder if the middle-aged Ehrenreich would have survived alone as McCandless did? Women have to contend with the danger of being raped, McCandless did not.

    John Krakauer’s books all seem to be about people getting swallowed up by the nature of the continent. I read his book Under the Banner of Heaven, and though it was anti-Mormon, it does show how remoteness can influence anything, even religion. I’m going to say that Into the Wild will become a classis, along with A Walk in the Woods, Born to Run, Nickel and Dimes, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, all of which take the reader into dangerous or exotic worlds. Is there something about the traveler that charms the American reader? Do we envy those that can function without a safety net? Back when I read George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, I saw it as much as an adventure as an expose; the author was living on his wits, with no safety net, but he was also living without any responsibilities.

   A recent book by Chris McCandless’ sister reveals what might have been the protagonist’s motivation. They were the product of an adulterous affair by their father, who was married to someone else when they were born. She describes their father as an abusive alcoholic, and how their mother’s spinelessness enabled him, forming a nasty undercurrent in their upper-middle-class suburban life. In all the photos she provides, Chris is the only one not smiling; on the contrary, his expression comes across as very hostile. She says that she wrote this book to provide a reason why her brother chose to vanish into the wilderness, which Krakauer’s book doesn’t really say. She also says that she told all this to Krakauer when he was writing his story, but that he agreed to leave it out. She just wasn’t ready at the time for the world to know.

The People are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore

    I see a recurring theme here when I read the chapter titled Canary in the Coal Mine, just like the book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, with a chapter titled Canary in the Auto Plant. In both books, you see how the liberals became disillusioned with Obama and the Democrats, while the working-class Whites were fed up with everything. In Iowa, which Obama won in 2008, you now saw “Hillary’s Bitch” bumper stickers. It was the state that Hillary lost twice, first in ’08 and again in ’16; she came off as cold, power-hungry, too close to Wall Street, and out of touch with the invisible Americans who don’t wear suits. Then again, was there any way she could’ve saved the Democrat Party? Could Bernie Sanders have done a better job?

    Sexton mixes the journalist’s objectivity with his own surprise at the change in American attitudes towards liberalism. However, he doesn’t lose his impartiality; he has great respect for the working-class barflies, the cracker-barrel philosophers, the less ambitious people in small towns. However, he doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for cranky baby-boomers who bitch in the bar. It seems to him, during his beer-fueled writing binges, that the 2016 campaign was a beer hall rally. First came the angry white men, then the Archie Bunker and Fred Flintstone types, raising their tallboys and drinking to the health of a macho-patriot. With the election of a great American loudmouth, we’ve degenerated into open racism and it gets worse.

    Sexton admits that he did a lot of the research in bars. He went in there to see and explore the world of the beer-loving unemployed conservative, then uses it as a vantage point. While Shattered explored how Hillary Clinton lost, this book ponders how Trump won. There’s an undercurrent of delusion among Trump’s supporters, clearly seen in any small town that went downhill during the Obama years; why do they believe that the president can somehow reopen a shuttered factory, when it can’t compete with foreign labor? There is also a difference in the attitude towards the President’s responsibility when you look at the two camps. On one side, too many liberals are asking for money while on the other side, the conservative voters just want their jobs back.

Maybe it’s like the Bob Dylan song, Only a Pawn in The Game? 

Just a Journalist by Linda Greenhouse

    Linda Greenhouse questions why the media have thrown neutrality to the wind. In the first decade of the New Millennium, the newspapers were careful not to outwardly criticize George W. Bush, but now they are openly lashing out at Trump. She recounts the time that she came out and said exactly wat she was thinking – that Hugh Carey was the greatest public servant, and that Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay violated the rule of law – and ignored everyone who might accuse her of bias. I say to myself, how can it be biased to state the facts?

    When it comes to the reporters airing the views, she uses the New York Times as an example. First, the Times didn’t mince words when it came to labelling Trumps views as lies. First there was the claim that Obama was born in Kenya, then the one about the illegal alien voters, and finally the Times reported on Trump (grudgingly) retracting his claims. Greenhouse quotes Thomas E. Patterson, a Harvard, accusing the press of deferring to those in power. I won’t say I agree, but a politician can always refuse interviews with the New York Times if they give him bad press. Then there’s the law that required abortion doctors to have hospital privileges, struck down by SCOTUS in 2006. The media were clear that the law had absolutely no use, and that it was nothing more than a backdoor restriction of abortion. Whatever the Texas politicians claimed, the press were not buying it.

     Greenhouse recounts other scandals – like Senator Thomas Dodd and his misuse of campaign money – where every reporter made it clear that they weren’t interested in the Senator’s explanation. Sure, they’d print it, but the readers could tell that the writers weren’t buying it. I also recount a few from my own memory, such as the 2003 Jayson Blair debacle, where the New York Times thrashed him in the Sunday edition (no neutrality there.)  Go back a few more years, and the newspaper attacked Governor Eddy Edwards of Louisiana for taking bribes. The press were not forgiving.

    There is, however, an instance of bias that many consider unbecoming of journalism, and that is the Duke Lacrosse Case. It was back in 2007 – let’s not forget it anytime soon – and the New York Times jumped on the bandwagon, publishing studies of out-of-control athletes and coaches who enable them. They had me convinced, I admit it, I was fooled, until the case unraveled. There was clear bias in the reporting, and I have to wonder if maybe that was the beginning of the end of neutrality?

On the God of the Christians by Remi Brague

   Remi Brague  makes no graven image in his treatise about God; on the contrary, he’s pretty clear that little can be known about a creator whom you cannot see. The first question is whether the Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same deity. He goes into this with the origins of what we call “monotheism,” which he also questions, since the term wasn’t used until the time of the Renaissance. The Muslims have a mantra that there is only one God and that God is one, so we can see a closeness to Christianity’s single deity. He also discusses the Xenophanes of the Greek world (around 600 BC) who opposed Hellenic paganism.

    Next comes the chapter To Know God, the author discusses whether God is a person or thing. If we were to see God as a thing, then we would not be able to attribute much in the way of accomplishment. Then there’s the issue of knowledge, which is something of a touchy subject in the Bible. On one hand, perhaps knowledge can deepen our understanding of the sacred, but at the same time there was suspicion about scientific knowledge. The Catholic clergy were wary of Galileo’s telescope, along with other scientific discoveries, and many wondered if it would lead the people astray. Keep in mind that in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve run their carefree existence by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, but then again, is it better to be ignorant in luxury than knowledgeable in a world of work?

   “Is God the father?” wonders the author. On one hand, unlike Zeus, he doesn’t have a wife, yet he does have human attributes (as in the Book of Jeremiah, the sky is my seat and the earth is my footrest.) We say “the hand of God” or “wrong in the eyes of God,” so we can assume that God can have a body.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

    New York City in the 70’s is always great to write about, but for years nobody cared to remember the era. Back in 1993 (20 years before this book came out) nobody really cared about the city’s rough decade, but that’s all changed since 2000. The 1970’s NYC has been the subject of books, documentaries, movies, fashion trends, and just about everything you can license for profit. So why do we have such a fascination with that decade? Perhaps it was because all the peace & love stuff of the 1960’s were over, and the nation’s confidence was scarred by Vietnam? Or was it the riots here at home? America in the 1970’s seemed to be in a kind of limbo, now that the Flower Power was finished. Jimi and Janice were dead, the Beatles had broken up, and whatever feeling we all got from Woodstock was ruined at Altamont. The feeling of the 70’s was rough, and who could illustrate it better than Bruce Springsteen, the great working-class balladeer! The author Will Hermes describes Springsteen’s first gig at Max’s Kansas City as a fish out of water; the torn jeans and stubble of the singer, versus a club full of Warhol superstars.  But then we get the surprise; the audience – transvestites included – loved Bruce Springsteen! They weren’t any flower children in that audience, but lots of flagrantly gay scenesters who were turned on by Springsteen’s proletarian roughness. The kind of bands that the Warhol crowd went to see weren’t the Crosby-Stills-Nash-Young types, with fringe jackets and love beads. They wanted edgy, transgressive artists like the cross-dressing New York Dolls, weird-sounding Lou Reed, and in this case, a messy-looking guy from New Jersey. It was a sleazefest they wanted, not protest songs. Springsteen’s rough look and rough subjects were perfect for the occasion.

   Love Goes to Buildings on Fire (long title, very punk rock of the author) doesn’t gloss anything, and why would it? Given that in the 1970’s, gloss couldn’t even stick, and if it did, then it would’ve been spray painted over and ended up looking like a subway car. One of the best parts is the chapter Invent Yourself, where Abe Beam (the mayor) says “I want to be the matchmaker that brings us together.” The author says “well mazel tov, sort of, the city was bankrupt and everybody knew it.” In strides Patti Smith, with her thrift store duds and unfeminine stick figure, who fit in perfectly. She certainly wasn’t a babe, and come to think of it, she looked like a vampire. Her boyfriend (if they were intimate, which I doubt) was an equally skinny artist named Robert Maplethorpe, who everyone must’ve known was gay. This was no hippy chick in a floor-length embroidered gypsy dress with a flower in her hair; nope, that was San Francisco shit, and this was 1973 New York City. Mayor Beam wanted to be a peacemaker, and it obviously didn’t work, because there was no way to bring peace. Everyone saw him as he was; a silly little accountant in a silly little suit, out of his depth, over his head, and with the rough look of the time, way more “out of his element” than Bruce Springsteen was in a club full of cross-dressers!

    There is one issue that the author doesn’t discuss, and one that I think had an effect on the development of the NYC art scene, and that issue is labor. The NYC mayors of the time – Lindsay, Beam, and Kotch – had a terrible relationship with the transit workers, police, firemen, sanitation workers, and just about all the other city employees. It really made the city’s progress slower, and that made the city less enticing for developers. If it hadn’t been for all the strikes going on, the city’s progress would’ve been stunted, and developers would’ve gone after all those run-down neighborhoods. I also suspect that the city’s bohemian life had to do with the civil service as well; with all the hiring freezes, there were fewer full-time jobs, so that left plenty of time for everyone to be silly. The jobs that the artists and musicians took – restaurants, bookstores, record stores – didn’t mind the employees having long hair and drug addiction. If the Ramones all found full-time well-paid jobs in a unionized outfit, they probably would’ve given up their music.

   I’d better remind everyone here, 90% of the characters in this story weren’t even from New York City. Patti Smith was from New Jersey, Iggy Pop was from Detroit, Lou Reed was from Nassau County, the Ramones were from Queens, Warhol was from Pittsburg, etc. Manhattan always attracts outsiders from all over the USA (E.B. White said the same thing in his essay Here Is New York.) Perhaps that’s why the “noo-yawk” accent has vanished, except in Staten Island. But after their careers were established, a lot of these people left the city. Patti Smith moved to Michigan, several Warhol superstars went to other cities (Billy Name went upstate, Viva got kicked out of the Chelsea Hotel and moved to LA), and countless artists and musicians moved elsewhere. Manhattan, bankrupt and derelict, was perfect for men and women who didn’t mind it rough, but it wasn’t a place to raise kids. The schools were crap, the food was lousy, and when you want to have a family, safety becomes paramount.

   

    Those of you who watched the documentary NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell know that NYC in the 70’s wasn’t a place to raise kids or find happiness, but you could move here to drop out and enjoy free love. It was for people who liked it rough and messy, and if it weren’t crime-ridden, it would’ve taken New Orleans’ place as “the city that care forgot.” Punk rock, hip-hop, Latin pop, it could only happen in the most non-judgmental city in America, where high fashion meant dirty clothes, and torn jeans couldn’t keep you down. If transvestites could be accepted, then who wouldn’t be?

No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court

California’s juvenile justice system was a mess in 1996, and I don’t know exactly how much has changed in the last 22 years. I know that teenagers, at least for the type of crimes committed in this book, are tried as adults nowadays. Regardless of whether they end up in the Juvenile Courts or regular courts, there’s no guarantee of a competent lawyer, and there’s always the question of whether to keep them confined or release them to their families pending trial. Then there are the kids whom you just can’t reach.

One of the cases involves two boys robbing a man at gunpoint, they goof up, they drop the wallet they tried to steal, nobody gets hurt. Now let us look at the back story; the kid is Korean-American, with upper middle-class parents, and he wants for nothing so far so good. The problem is that two local high schools merged, and he ended up in a school with stupid kids, and he’s a bit of a follower. You’re probably thinking what I’m thinking, the parents should’ve been more alert to what was going on, but we can see that they weren’t. The parents worked long hours, so they were probably too tired to ask their kids what was going on at school, and then there was the language barrier, and then there was the culture gap. In some countries, there aren’t any minorities or a criminal underclass, so the parents are completely alien to the issue of “bad influences.”

There are some kids profiled in this book who really are criminals and really do deserve jail time. Take for instance, the boy who repeatedly punches women in the street and snatches their purses. Every time he offends, the juvenile courts let him right back out again. Is he learning that he can get away with these crimes? Is the constant leniency setting the wrong precedent? The biggest problem is that once he gets to the age where he’ll be tried as an adult, he’ll have ten strikes on his record. If he beats someone up at age 18, the judge will say “you’ve been doing this for years, so I’m throwing the book.” The juvenile courts are doing kids no favors be letting them out again and again.

I appreciate the author’s impartiality toward race. There are stories about Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic kids, one of them is an adolescent surfer who refuses to listen to his father. I could relate to the part where the surfer kid calmly says to his father “for the last time, shut up.” I’ve seen that a million times, the parents are mad at the kid, and the kid stands there looking annoyed. Parental neglect (or parental spinelessness) is a running theme in this book, and I wish the author had included what the judges have to say about it. The book centers around California’s juvenile court system, but the same in this book were happening in New York back in 1996. I read Judge Judy’s 1995 book Don’t Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining, where she details her years on the family court. It was the same thing in New York City; the kid commits a crime and gets a break, then he reoffends and gets the maximum.

Remember the scene from the documentary Scared Straight, where the convict compares the juvenile offenders to a dog pissing on the carpet? He says, “every time you go before that judge, you’re pissing on his carpet, and after a while he doesn’t know what to do with you anymore.” That’s exactly what happens to these young offenders when they’re old enough for prison. Even if the judge lets it slide, the offense is still on the record, and it’s going to add up when they offend as adult. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to give a kid a break.

Our Expanding Universe by Alex Robinson

    I won’t mince words, I find this book to be a major disappointment. It’s about a bunch of 40-year-old men who can’t seem to grow up and act their age, and there’s nothing funny about it. They gather in a playground to play boxball, which in my view is the equivalent of grown men playing Candyland. Keep in mind, one of them has children, and another is expecting one. It’s one thing for men to have hobbies that aren’t traditionally male (some men like to do needlepoint), but for these guys to play a kid’s game in a kid’s playground, that’s just plain stupid and immature. There’s a scene where a parent insists that they leave, which makes sense because playground signs clearly say “no adults except those accompanying children.” Some arguing is involved, but I couldn’t help thinking “good for her, and while you’re at it, make them sit in the corner!” It’s not fun to see grown men who play a game meant for five year old children.

    The next problem for these defeated Generation-X boys is the job thing. One of the guys is the manager of a dog grooming (or doggy day care) franchise, which he doesn’t like much, and isn’t even sure if he wants the child his wife is about to have. Then there’s the guy with the well-paid teaching job, having an affair with a sexy blonde teacher at his school. He has a wife who’s overweight, overbearing, and suspicious, but you can tell she’s not going to leave him. She’s just given birth to kid #2, and you get the vibe that this is the best she can get.

    Maybe the real problem with this book is the author Alex Robinson? I’m a big fan of his, and I loved his previous works Box Office Poison, Tricked, and Too Cool to Be Forgotten. Based on his previous efforts, Our Expanding Universe lacks any of the depth of those books. BOP was all about Generation X trying to find their way in life, and in the process, reconcile the lessons of their parents. Then came TCTBF, in which Generation X is getting older and coming to terms with adult responsibility. Now take the protagonist of TCTBF; he’s 37, losing his hair, working in IT, has a pre-teen stepdaughter, and wants to quit smoking so he won’t die on his family like his father did. Furthermore, you wonder if maybe this guy has ALWAYs been a bald 37-year-old, because you never imagine that he was once a kid. When he travels back in time to when he was 17, he finds the era to be a silly waste of time. But in OEU, the men want to keep on being kids. It’s like having dinner with an adult male who only eats fish sticks and tater tots. I wonder if this book, in contrast to Robinson’s earlier pieces, could be a study in the lack of adult responsibility in today’s men? Even the artwork is no good, compared to the others. A lot of it is filler, with none of the hilarious montages of his previous works.

    After finishing this book (which took a long time because it was so boring) I came to one conclusion; these people deserve their misery! And if Robinson’s work doesn’t improve soon, he’ll be in the same position as the characters.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

I’m a little conflicted about this book. On one hand, it’s boring, but on the other hand, it’s about the most boring country on earth. North Korea has sterile buildings, no casual socialization, no casual music or arts, and no food. So why does the author bother to draw it? There isn’t really anything to draw.

    Delise is a Quebec-born artist and animator, now living in the south of France, and travels to Pyongyang to visit the state animation studios. There are other foreigners in Pyongyang – French, Italian, and Arab – mostly doing engineering projects. There are things to entertain them – discos, cafes, and a bowling alley – all of which lack essential parts. Worse, they’re only open to foreigners, so there won’t be a lot of people there to talk to. That’s fine with Kim, because the foreigners can’t speak or understand Korean and therefore they can’t corrupt the locals with their fascinating stories of Western capitalism. On more than one occasion, the author says he’d rather be nuked.

    High rise hotels have only three occupied floors. The 1,000 foot tall pyramid-shaped hotel is a concrete shell (covered with glass by the time of this writing) and admired by only three tourists. There’s a club for tourists, situated inside an ugly Soviet-style lobby that used to be the Romanian embassy. I have to wonder why Romania needed an embassy in North Korea, when the two countries had almost no relationship. Neither country had anything to contribute to the other.

     I wasn’t surprised by the guitar-playing kids who do a performance for the tourists. I saw it on youtube, where the kids in Soviet-style outfits play an old Russian melody. The kids look like they’re less than eight years old, and they play huge guitars. I wonder how their tiny fingers can handle the massive frets. Maybe those “kids” are actually dwarves? What surprises me is that the leaders of North Korea can’t see that nobody’s fooled. They have to be aware of how foreigners are laughing at them. I also wonder how a country that hasn’t had a war in years can need to conscript men for over ten years at a time. With so many people forced into the army, it’s a wonder there’s anyone to grow the food.

   Maybe their “Dear Leader” is fully aware how the foreigners see him, but doesn’t care. The Kim family spent decades being obeyed, so maybe they’re happy as long as their own people are kept in line. One thing however, is certain; the North Koreans are brainwashed, and if the doors of North Korea ever open up, they’re going to need to bring in psychiatrists.

The Nordic Theory of Everything

From the start, the author judges the Americans as over-anxious, and blames the anxiety on parents who micromanage their children’s lives. The anxious-parent micromanagement stresses the parents, and teaches the kids nothing about taking care of themselves. They’ll spend fortunes on tutors (and even do their kids’ homework) to get them into top colleges, stress themselves to pay for it, and four years later they have less money and some kids who can’t support themselves. But in Scandinavia, things are a wee bit different; college is free, kids are expected to move out at age 18, and the parents don’t stress.

    The author quotes a US-educated Swedish academic named Lars Tradaigh on several issues. The first one is financial aid for college – which in the USA requires you to state your parents’ income – and that is alien to Scandinavia. In Sweden, your parents are no longer obligated to support you after age 18, so the idea of your parents’ income being an issue is ridiculous. The second issue is elder care, which looks bleak, since the average American can’t afford it. Look at it in terms of economics; parents today are supporting their grown children (the sandwich generation) so they can’t possibly support an aged relative as well. In Sweden, the state pays for the health care and nursing, and that’s it. The children are expected to take their elders for walks, talk to them, do stuff with them. Social workers can’t do that.

    It’s the same thing with childcare in Finland. The government provides free maternity leave and daycare, so the parents are not stressed about taking care of the children. But this would be impossible here in the USA, for a million reasons. First, the USA has a teenage pregnancy problem, which Scandinavia does not. Not only that, but all over the country you find women with lots of kids by different men, and they’re on welfare their whole lives. Scandinavia has a low birthrate and no teen pregnancy, so they’re not swamped with the bills. Then there’s another great American problem to deal with; crack babies, and the kids with FAS. Few kids in Scandinavia are born addicted to drugs, so all those Nordic teachers aren’t struggling to retarded students. Lastly, the USA has a titanic defense budget, and that cuts into what we can spend on daycare. As for the government providing free housing so 18 year old kids can live on their own, forget it. You’d have nonstop partying and trips to the ER.

   There is one Nordic practice that can work, and that’s a school curriculum involving hikes. In Sweden, the children are taken into the woods, given a compass, and told to find their way back. They’ll do this in all weathers, rain or shine, and their motto is “there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing.” The kids learn to be self-reliant, solve problems on their own, and get along without their parents. Maybe the US problem is that we’re desperate for the kids to achieve what does not exist? Look at the schools, with their uniforms (the kids look sloppy anyway) and the dress codes (that lead to conflicts.) Do truckers have dress codes? What about cab drivers? Do electricians wear neckties? Do most NYC teachers wear neckties? The answer is usually no. So why make kids dress up for school? It’s part of the spectrum, of Americans forcing useless things on their kids, and it’s all because of paranoia.

   Unfortunately, the majority of Scandinavia’s ways can’t work in the USA because…..well I guess everything here is different. Finland has  a high number of percentage of women legislators, and we have few. Norway has a tiny defense budget, ours is astronomical. Denmark has no teenage pregnancy, but we certainly do, and it’s a drain on our nation. Scandinavia has an anything-goes attitude towards sexuality, no censorship, and they’re racially homogenous. True, they have free college, but it’s only for kids that qualify, and they do have vocational training (which most US schools have gotten rid of.) The reason they can afford to have free college is that you don’t attend if your grades are no good. Here in the USA, any idiot can go to community college, even if they can barely read.

    I’d love to see the forest hikes in US schools. Maybe if we’re less paranoid about lawsuits, we might see it in this lifetime.

My Friend Dahmer

    Back in 2000, actor Noah Taylor caused a a stir by playing the young Adolf Hitler. Nobody complained about the performance; everyone agreed that he nailed it perfectly. What bothered the audience was the subject matter, and that it made the monster look, for lack of a better term, less monstrous. I remember watching the film and saying “you know, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard,” which is essentially what the character is – a lonely man with no family and no friends – wandering a world he doesn’t recognize. Maybe the problem is that we’re used to stories about monsters, but they’re easy to recognize. Human monsters, the kind that inhabit the prisons, aren’t like the trolls and dragons in fairy tales. They aren’t born with fangs, claws, and a terrible appetite. We know that at some point they were just kids, and we wonder what those kids were like.

    Backderf’s memoir of his friend (more like acquaintance) Jeffrey Dahmer is not a horror show, but a dark comedy. I wonder if Todd Solondz – creator of dark comedies set in America’s suburbs – would’ve been better suited to direct the film version? The author draws and writes of Dahmer as a freakish outcast in a 1970’s suburban school, not fitting in with any of the cliques. He’s fascinated by dead animals, but he’s not part of the group that loves science. He’s built like a football player, but has no attraction to sports. He’s weird, but doesn’t hang out with the weird kids. Dahmer spends his time alone, drinking too much, in his shed with dead specimens. Then the awkward teen starts making bizarre noises and gestures in the hallway, amusing and puzzling everyone at the same time. Backderf doesn’t draw much of the dead animal collection because he didn’t see much of it. The problem is that Dahmer kept so much hidden from everyone; the dead animals, the drinking, the problems with his family. When Dahmer’s father Lionel wrote his own memoir to try and make sense of it all, he claimed 100% ignorance. The author of this graphic memoir agrees, there was extreme ignorance on part of the adults.

    In terms of Backderf’s drawing style, I can only say that it’s perfect. His realistic drawing is necessary in the story, because the facial features, clothes, and period décor are an essential influence on the characters. Art Spiegelman’s mouthless mice wouldn’t have worked, neither would Marjane Satrapi’s block figures. The author gives us a full-on frontal assault of the 1970’s – the sterility of the school, the kitschy home décor, the foliage of the woods – and how it all influences the events. A recurring character in the story is Lloyd Figg (the school’s emotionally disturbed kid) and he’s drawn as fat and curly-haired, which helps establish the boy’s awkwardness. In fact the awkwardness is a recurring theme in My Friend Dahmer, not just social, but physical as well. Dahmer’s posture is drawn as stiff, his walk is stiff, and he doesn’t seem sure of what to do with his arms. As for his face, he’s portrayed as a wall-faced kid hiding behind long hair and glasses.

   There is no lesson to be learned from My Friend Dahmer. Like the Vegas Shooter, Dahmer showed few obvious signs that he was going to go on a killing spree. In the epilogue, the author hears that a former classmate was arrested for mass murder, and he’s certain it was Lloyd Figg. He figures is has to be, Lloyd Figg is well known to the local police. Then he hears it was Dahmer, and stares in disbelief. How could it be Jeffrey Dahmer, he wonders, if that boy showed no signs? When it comes to spotting a future serial killer, the fact is that very often you can’t.

Seeking New York: The Stories Behind Historic Architecture of Manhattan

   Tom Miller dives into the history of select buildings in Manhattan, starting with Water Street. It’s no surprise that the area was horrible in the 1800’s, because few in the city called waterfront living “upscale” until recently. What is surprising, however, is that the area was once prosperous, and 273 Water Street was once a very upscale home. The brick building was owned by the Rose family – fine lumber importers – but was later bought by a criminal who used the first floor for dog fights, then rat-versus-dog fights, then rat-versus-rat fights, hence the building’s nickname “the rat pit.”

    Miller brings forth long-forgotten firsthand accounts of the city, including well-known, yet rarely-read texts from the 19^th century. One house on his list, which I often wondered about, is 139 Green Street in Soho. It’s a small brick house, out of place among the Soho lofts, and has been boarded up for as long as I can remember. According to the author’s research, it belonged to a clothing merchant until the 1860’s (when the area got lousy) then became a brothel, and then became home to one of the many textile businesses in the area. It was also home to the French immigrants (never hear much about those) and unlike the other buildings, it was not industrial and didn’t become an artist colony. Thanks to a city preservation order, it can’t be torn down, and thanks to all the gutting done in the 1900’s there’s nothing inside. Fixing it up would be unprofitable.

   I don’t want to give too much away, because this is a very entertaining book. The author is a great writer, and he does extensive research. This book would be great material for a walking tour.

Python for Biologists by Dr. Martin Jones

    Let me begin by saying that Dr. Jones is a biologist who found computers to be essential in his work.  If you’re wondering how computers can possibly help you in the study of cells and diseases, then the answer lies in something that cells do; they duplicate!

    In biology, the same problems recur over and over again. This is where a computer language is needed. There are many applications for the use of Python in the study of biology, because of the repetitive nature of results. As opposed to C and Javascript, Python is more predictable, and widely used by scientists. It makes it easier for scientists to string together numbers and characters, the kind that you would need to do in DNA sequencing. 

    Dr. Jones uses the first chapter to do a brief intro, along with the difference between Perl and Python. For the second chapter, we get a fundamental lesson on manipulating texts, so that the computer can integrate who the text is for. Take for instance a command that is meant to be read by a person, rather than the computer. He shows how certain symbols can tell the computer to ignore the text.

   

My Soul Looks Back

    The author, a longtime professor at Queens College, lived in the West Village in the 1970’s. There were dinner parties with Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, restaurants that are now forgotten, and a circle of writers and intellectuals, many of whom I’d never heard of. She often mentions a husband-wife team of restauranteurs, both of whom are dead now and forgotten. Then there’s Maya Angelou, a central character in this book, described as being very tall with a commanding presence, though she was also extremely egocentric and seemed to live in her own world. Trips to Europe were commonplace in the author’s life, but she left the West Village in the 1980’s and remained in Brooklyn afterwards.

    She begins with her childhood, which was unusual in that it was somewhat “international.” Her parents were involved with the UN, and they sent her to a school that was geographically diverse, where she felt out of place. Not from color, but because she was American! In a class of kids who spoke multiple languages, ate exotic foods, spent summers in Europe and Asia, all she had to offer was her banal American life. Her family eventually spent a summer in Martha’s Vinyard and took a boat trip to Europe, and though she doesn’t say much about it, I wonder how the locals of the time took to having a Black family in their midst. It would be great material for a book.

    Interspersed throughout the book are recipes she picked up along the way, and lots of European ones because she’s an obvious Francophile. She mentions a 1970’s PBS show called Soul (also unknown to me) which was hosted by and featured notable Black Americans. Then there was the Upper West Side, home at the time to a sizeable number of Black intellectuals, plus Harry Belefonte, Morgan Freeman (before he got famous) and Marcia Ann Gillespie, living in luxurious apartments like Park West Village, and they all hung out at the Only Child restaurant at 226 West 79^th.  There were other restaurants, like The Cellar, Under the Stairs, and Mikell’s, for Black professionals, and they weren’t soul food joints. On the contrary, these were Black Americans with money, and they wanted fancy European menus.

    Most of the people she mentions are the ones I’d never heard of. Restauranteurs Mary Painter and George Garin have been dead for years and the restaurant gone too. By the 1980’s, AIDS was killing off a lot of these people, which may be one of the reasons she moved to Brooklyn. I wonder if she missed it? Was there another great circle of luminaries for her to hang out with? It might make a good sequel to this book. I also learn here that Maya Angelou, aside from her eccentricity and strange taste in men, was allergic to fish.

  

Lots of discussion about food, but a little too much nostalgia.