Again with Harris. Recently (Feb 19) the NYT Book Review issued a ridiculous review of Daniel Dennett's new book. I refer you to This review of the review.
One of the things which came up in a conversation with a friend about this was the stark contrast between the reception of Harriss' book (which won the 2005 PEN award for nonfiction) and the attempted burial of Dennett's book. Now, as a once and possibly future bookseller I can tell you that the NYT Book Review holds a great amount of sway not just with the reading public, but with book orderers as well. A bad review by them can serve to have the print run of a book cut in half, can affect the possibilities of paperback versions coming out, and can decrease dramatically the amount of copies ordered by bookstores. A controversial book with such a review will almost certainly preclude its showing up on the shelves of some major chains (both book store chains and Target/WalMart sorts).
That the NYT chose to forgo having its religion or science editor review the book and bring in instead a political writer from a neo-con publication speaks volumes about the true intentions. Rather than being weighed on its real merits, Dennett's sugestion to find out why people continue to believe things which have been repeatedly proven untrue (which could have all kinds of practical applications, from helping abuse victims to break the cycle to having religions come under stiffer scrutiny) is being dismissed by the neo con reviewer. To whose benefit? The answer is obvious: to the benefit of the ruling classes.
Do not look, they say, at the Facts. It has ever been thus. Rely instead on a better place after death. This is very handy in diffusing any attempts at improvement for this life- the one which we have proof exists.
Anyhoo. I am dangerously close to a page-by-page review of Harriss' book. So close that I have given my copy away for now (I cannot afford another one- the benefit of poverty).
In lieu of this, I am continuing for the moment with the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Trotsky's Problems of Everyday Life.
On Problems:
This is an interesting series of articles, editorials really, written by Trotsky in the early 1920's, during the initial years of building a socialist society. His eye for the details of everyday life was quite sharp. Over the next couple of days I will tackle a few of the major areas- including education, domestic living (including the role of women), and general behaviour.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Friday, March 17, 2006
West From Home- L Ingalls Wilder
In 1915, Laura Ingalls Wilder took a series of trains west from Missouri to San Francisco, where her daughter, Rose, was living with her husband. This was the year of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, about which many of Laura's letters home to her husband revolve.
It seems things were still difficult, financially speaking, and Laura's visit was also a sort of exploratory thing to see if she and Almonzo should move to the Bay Area (not then known as such). She visited San Francisco, San Jose and even Mill Valley in search of information on the cost of farming. Even then, the higher prices commanded for chickens and eggs (their main business in MO) is noted, as is also the difficulty in finding out the price of grain to feed the birds.
Before she sets out, her daughter writes to Laura: "...It will be foggy and dusty and windy and gray and you will not like San Francisco while you are here, and then when you go away you will always want to come back. Tis ever thus." Tis, indeed. I grew up in this city, and can vouch for the above statement.
It was interesting to read about places I recognized, even almost 100 years later. It was also interesting to read about the high rents- even then- in the foggy place. Also of note is the fact that, in order to persuade her to come, Rose offered to pay her mom for the time she'd be missing at the farm so there wouldn't be a burden imposed.
It was also during WW1 when Laura visited- she writes of this, of the armaments at the head of the Golden Gate, and of ships in the Bay and the possibilities of which ones will be sunk by German boats once they leave the area. She sees a number of films, including footage of the German capture of Przemys.
Truly it is an interesting time- a turning point in history. This book offers a glimpse into what the 'person on the street' saw. Laura's voice is fresh and her observations are sharp. She is one of the least judgemental writers I have seen- plain-spoken but not without point.
On her way out, she meets many people on the trains. One couple, a man who used to be a Bryan Democrat, but who is turning Socialist, and his wife who votes. (Women in Ogden had the vote by 1915. Utah may not be totaly lost, eh?) Bryan, most 'famous' for his part in the Scopes Monkey Trial, was before this, a populist candidate for President (there is, in North Miami Beach, an elementary school named for him which I attended for two years in first and fifth grades). Apparently, the man Laura met had woken up to the truth of Capitalism's failures and was switching over. It's impossible to say for certain, though, as he is afforded only the one sentence.
Utah, surprisingly enough, given its present political makeup, has a long and somewhat bloody labour history. More on this in part two....
It seems things were still difficult, financially speaking, and Laura's visit was also a sort of exploratory thing to see if she and Almonzo should move to the Bay Area (not then known as such). She visited San Francisco, San Jose and even Mill Valley in search of information on the cost of farming. Even then, the higher prices commanded for chickens and eggs (their main business in MO) is noted, as is also the difficulty in finding out the price of grain to feed the birds.
Before she sets out, her daughter writes to Laura: "...It will be foggy and dusty and windy and gray and you will not like San Francisco while you are here, and then when you go away you will always want to come back. Tis ever thus." Tis, indeed. I grew up in this city, and can vouch for the above statement.
It was interesting to read about places I recognized, even almost 100 years later. It was also interesting to read about the high rents- even then- in the foggy place. Also of note is the fact that, in order to persuade her to come, Rose offered to pay her mom for the time she'd be missing at the farm so there wouldn't be a burden imposed.
It was also during WW1 when Laura visited- she writes of this, of the armaments at the head of the Golden Gate, and of ships in the Bay and the possibilities of which ones will be sunk by German boats once they leave the area. She sees a number of films, including footage of the German capture of Przemys.
Truly it is an interesting time- a turning point in history. This book offers a glimpse into what the 'person on the street' saw. Laura's voice is fresh and her observations are sharp. She is one of the least judgemental writers I have seen- plain-spoken but not without point.
On her way out, she meets many people on the trains. One couple, a man who used to be a Bryan Democrat, but who is turning Socialist, and his wife who votes. (Women in Ogden had the vote by 1915. Utah may not be totaly lost, eh?) Bryan, most 'famous' for his part in the Scopes Monkey Trial, was before this, a populist candidate for President (there is, in North Miami Beach, an elementary school named for him which I attended for two years in first and fifth grades). Apparently, the man Laura met had woken up to the truth of Capitalism's failures and was switching over. It's impossible to say for certain, though, as he is afforded only the one sentence.
Utah, surprisingly enough, given its present political makeup, has a long and somewhat bloody labour history. More on this in part two....
Monday, March 13, 2006
Redirecting you to this:
I am taken up with reading and editing at present. I am also taken up with being extremely angry. Here is an example of why- I give you a very usefull bit of reading:
Annotated Life
Annotated Life
Friday, March 10, 2006
Life- past and present. Very brief
The quandry arising from the common universal ignorance of what to do with this soul, once its existence had been accepted, after the death of the body, and not religious desire for consolation, led in a general way to the tedious notion of personal immortality.- Engles- Ludwig Fueuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosphy (pt 2-Materialism)
It is tedious. It's also dangerous and distracting. Not only does it take the focus off of what is happening *now*, it opens the door to promises which never need to be delivered. Why work for a betterment of here and now if the next world will be perfect without any effort- except that which is demanded by priests? Good excuse to maintain the status quo.
It is tedious. It's also dangerous and distracting. Not only does it take the focus off of what is happening *now*, it opens the door to promises which never need to be delivered. Why work for a betterment of here and now if the next world will be perfect without any effort- except that which is demanded by priests? Good excuse to maintain the status quo.
Friday, March 03, 2006
What I wish I'd known before- meandering thoughts about mom
Growing up as I did in a lackadaisicaly Left household, I was exposed to a number of ideas which I wish had been presented in a form other than the glancing conversational. By the time I was three, I was familiar with boycotting, overthrowing and Nixon-as-liar. I knew a few names (Debbs, Teamster, Mao (oy!), Lenin and Marx.) My mother was a reformist, member of the SDS, and seller of the Little Red Book (did she ever read it? I don't know for sure) to raise funds (irony o'irony).
By the time I was 6, I knew first hand that I did not like the FBI. My uncle, you see, had been involved with a group which had done a bombing (late 60's) of a power supply plant or something. No one was injured, but the Wisconsin police were cracking down and my uncle, being still underage, was - though not actually present at the bombing, nor actually involved in the action- fingered by the group who figured that he'd get off easy and that their sentences would be reduced for naming the name. Nice.
Well, what actually happened was that they decided to prosecute him as an adult, so he went on the run. For years we didn't know where he was. The FBI followed us from state to state, followed my mother to work, and likely have a couple of good photos of me at montessori school. I vaguely remember biting an officer who came to the house.
All of this, combined with our cutting our Mexican Vacation short when Allende fell, scared my mom out of being very vocal about politics other than the boycotting (Nestle in particular, and Libby's). She will talk about who she hates in politics, but it has devolved into a weird belief that the Democrats offer any alternative, and that there is an "evil" in the White House. I don't think living in New Age Marin helped any of us, but she has taken a lot of the claptrap to heart. I still love her.
What this all adds up to is this for me: Years of intellectual wandering. I knew what "seemed right", and I knew how to spot a blatant lie. It's a start, to be sure. But what I wish I'd had was a grounding in Marx and Trotsky. I wish that boxes and boxes of books had not been left behind when we left Wisconsin. Even though I know a lot of the SDS (and their tactics in particular) is a load of hooey, historically speaking, I want those boxes back.
There are days when I think about writing a Trotsky For Tots book- even if it were never published, at least my own child would have a head start. Lenin for the Little ones. The problem I see is that these concepts deserve to not be juvenalised- indeed, they need to not be. It's a quandry. How do you communicate these things to a kid? I know there are Bible Stories for Kids, but I tend to classify them with the fairy tale genre.
There's a series of books which Boy likes- about seasons, robots, and science (I read them to him, and he likes the pictures), so I know that even a two-year-old want to know about the world around him. It's not hopeless, it's just tricky.
By the time I was 6, I knew first hand that I did not like the FBI. My uncle, you see, had been involved with a group which had done a bombing (late 60's) of a power supply plant or something. No one was injured, but the Wisconsin police were cracking down and my uncle, being still underage, was - though not actually present at the bombing, nor actually involved in the action- fingered by the group who figured that he'd get off easy and that their sentences would be reduced for naming the name. Nice.
Well, what actually happened was that they decided to prosecute him as an adult, so he went on the run. For years we didn't know where he was. The FBI followed us from state to state, followed my mother to work, and likely have a couple of good photos of me at montessori school. I vaguely remember biting an officer who came to the house.
All of this, combined with our cutting our Mexican Vacation short when Allende fell, scared my mom out of being very vocal about politics other than the boycotting (Nestle in particular, and Libby's). She will talk about who she hates in politics, but it has devolved into a weird belief that the Democrats offer any alternative, and that there is an "evil" in the White House. I don't think living in New Age Marin helped any of us, but she has taken a lot of the claptrap to heart. I still love her.
What this all adds up to is this for me: Years of intellectual wandering. I knew what "seemed right", and I knew how to spot a blatant lie. It's a start, to be sure. But what I wish I'd had was a grounding in Marx and Trotsky. I wish that boxes and boxes of books had not been left behind when we left Wisconsin. Even though I know a lot of the SDS (and their tactics in particular) is a load of hooey, historically speaking, I want those boxes back.
There are days when I think about writing a Trotsky For Tots book- even if it were never published, at least my own child would have a head start. Lenin for the Little ones. The problem I see is that these concepts deserve to not be juvenalised- indeed, they need to not be. It's a quandry. How do you communicate these things to a kid? I know there are Bible Stories for Kids, but I tend to classify them with the fairy tale genre.
There's a series of books which Boy likes- about seasons, robots, and science (I read them to him, and he likes the pictures), so I know that even a two-year-old want to know about the world around him. It's not hopeless, it's just tricky.
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