Another Day, Another Book

I happened to turn on All Things Considered a couple of months ago, when the common 'tator was interviewing Tony Horwitz about his new book A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. I happen to love reading nonfiction, particularly those books where an author takes a seemingly narrow subject and reveals its many heretofore unknown facets. In A Voyage Long and Strange Tony Horwitz sets out to explore the century or so of "American history" between the first landing of Columbus in what we know as Haiti, in 1492, and the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth in 1620.

Trained as an historian and investigative journalist, Horwitz not only researched the copious writings left behind by the many Europeans who were exploring the "New World", but he literally followed the paths of a number of explorers, talking with locals, descendants of both Europeans and Indians, re-enactors, historians, and archaeologists along the way. The end result was this fascinating and immensely entertaining book.

It's no secret that most of the explorers were looking for cities of gold. There were the Spanish conquistadors: Coranado, who marched up from Mexico into what we know as Arizona and New Mexico, and then penetrated the Great Plains, ending up in what we know as Kansas. Had he gone a little further, he conceivably could have met another band of explorers under the leadership of De Soto, that came from Cuba, skirted the Gulf coast of Florida, then marched through what is now Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi, before crossing the Mississippi River to Arkansas and heading into the Ozarks. Along the way they raped, pillaged, burned, or enslaved the citizens of just about every indigenous settlement they encountered. [Sarcasm alert] But it's okay, because they carried with them a document called the Requerimiento, sanctified by the Crown and the Pope, which Spanish law required that they read aloud to the natives prior to commencing the slaughter. It basically outlined, in Spanish or Latin, the natives' right to convert to Catholicism before dying. Nice.

Horwitz also explores the Spanish colonial city of St. Augustine, Florida, allegedly the site of Ponce de Leon's "fountain of youth" and founded by Spaniards after they had massacred all of the inhabitants of a French Huegenot settlement just up the coast (in the name of God, of course, and the Spanish Inquisition. Apparently the Huegenots didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition. Why? Let's say it in unison: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.)

From there, Horwitz turns his attention to England's first attempts to colonize Virginia, going to the famed "Lost Colony" of Roanoke and then to Jamestown. He probes the fiction and facts surrounding Pocahontas, and while admitting that Captain John Smith was a bastard (in the modern sense), points out that in many ways he was the true and unsung "founding father" of New England, exploring its rocky coast six years before the Mayflower arrived and changing its name from "the North part of Virginia" to "New England."

I really enjoyed reading this book. We have an extremely interesting history, festering warts and all, and it does no one justice to illuminate only a handful of symbols and iconic figures, while ignoring the rest. I'm looking forward to picking up another book by Horwitz that I've got on hold at the public library (have I mentioned that I support public libraries?) called Confederates in the Attic. I can't wait to read it.

More Library Tales

I was shelving nonfiction books today and came across a book called The Lemming Migration. Ah yes, The Lemming Migration. I mentioned in the comments for my previous post that my school librarian -- we'll call her Miss McCarthy, shall we? -- was crabby crabby crabby. Maybe it's because my friends and I would take every chance we got to watch the Walt Disney movie of The Lemming Migration. We had these Super-8 viewers and film cartidges. The films were only about 5 minutes long, but you could watch them forwards and backwards. So we would watch the lemmings go of the cliff and plunge to their deaths in the icy water, and then we'd watch them all miraculously fly up out of the water and quickly back away from the cliff's edge, only to repeat it all over again. It was endlessly amusing to us. Not to Miss McCarthy though. Maybe it's because she suspected this about the movie.

As a former student of mine once said when she brought the severed duck feet in for Show & Tell: "Thome people might think thith ith kind of groth."

The Grumpy Librarian

While weeding the fiction section of the library today I came upon a book written by someone I knew: Keys For Signe, written by Marion Fuller Archer and published in 1965! Marion and her husband Leonard were long-time members of the Madison Monthly Meeting. They were both librarians. Leonard exuded Old World grace, while Marion always had a Puckish twinkle about her. As the convener of our meeting's library committee, she would periodically stand up after meeting for worship, and with a completely deadpan demeanor, identify herself as "the grumpy librarian" before giving a forthright scolding about overdue books checked out from the meetinghouse library. When I first began attending Quaker meeting I was a little intimidated by her (as well I should be -- I am a terrible offender when it comes to overdue library books.) Over time, I became aware of what a lovely person she was.

She was the consummate librarian. They don't make them like her anymore (one reason that I am so frustrated with the master's program that I'm in.) I had no idea that she was also an author. I showed the book to the librarian who is mentoring me, and then I got another surprise. He said, "Oh, she's the founder of the Golden Archer Award." Unlike other awards given for children's literature -- like the Newbery and Caldecott Awards -- which are selected by committees of adults, the Golden Archer Award, and its picture book counterpart, the Little Archer, is given each year to a book that is selected by schoolchildren all across Wisconsin. That's a pretty special kind of recognition.

Marion Archer died last year. Her husband preceded her in death by several years. I am sad that I didn't know them better. I feel as if I found a little buried treasure today.

Nancy Pelosi makes me want to spit!

From an article on Common Dreams today:

Kucinich came back with a single article, which was read into the record Tuesday. As it did with the others, the House referred it to the panel, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

But this time, Pelosi said with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm, that it would see some committee action. (Read it here.)

I consider the arrogance and disdain that she continues to show for the people of this country second only to that of the Bush despots. Yet I feel so helpless to do anything.

I wish that there would be a mutiny among the Democrats. Sigh.

Another Pacifist Under Surveillance

You may have read this post over at Enriched Geranium about the swag he received from me. I bought it from the gentleman in the video below, singer-songwriter and Friend, Tom Neilson. Notice his t-shirt (buy your own here,) and enjoy the song.

Library Conversation #3

This is with the same child as conversation #2.

"What are you doing?"

"Same thing I was doing yesterday."

"I could help you stamp the books."

"Okay."

[We set up shop at a table, me with my Sharpie in hand and her with the "DiscardeD" stamp.]

"So," she says. "Do you like working here?" [She asked me at least 5 variations of that question in about an hour. I think she was making polite conversation.]

"Yes, I do."

"Working is good. You make money." [I didn't have the stamina to explain to her that, because I am in a practicum, I actually have to pay for the privilege of working there.]

"Yeah, making money is good."

"I lost 3 tooth-es. How many tooth-es did you lose when you were a kid?"

"I don't know. All of my baby teeth."

[This went on for over an hour. She was delightful. At the end I let her choose a bunch of the books to keep. I thanked her for the help and for being good company.]

"Yeah, 'cause you get lonely, right?"

[I told the librarian that tomorrow we'll put her to work cataloging.]

Update on child from conversation #1. She came in all smiles today and announced, "I loved Hank the Cowdog!" Then she went and got another book I had recommended: My Father's Dragon.

I love working in the library (even if I'm not making any money.)

Library Conversation #2

It's summer school, and some kids have to hang out in the library waiting for siblings, especially if the classes get out at different times. One girl -- going into first grade -- has to wait for a good hour and a half for her brother, and she comes up frequently to ask me "When is it going to be time?"

One of my projects has been weeding old, ugly, unpopular, or duplicate books from the collection. Then they get deleted from the system, and all of the identifying library stamps get crossed out with a magic marker. That's what I was doing today when the aforementioned bored little girl came up to me.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking old books out of the library, so there will be room for new books."

"Do you like writing in books?" [I could tell she was somewhat scandalized.]

"I'll bet it looks weird to see someone writing in a book, because you've probably always been told not to, right?"

"Yeah."

"You know what? It feels kind of weird to be writing in a book too, because I learned the same thing as you."

Library Conversation #1

I am spending 4 weeks this summer practice teaching in an elementary school library. The following is a real life conversation I had with a little girl today.

"Can I help you find something?"

"Well, do you have anything here that's interesting?"

"Interesting? Hmmm. What are you interested in?"

"Pretty much everything."

"Wow, everything. That should be easy to find something. Have you read any of the Geronimo Stilton books?"

"Yeah, my sister has a lot of them."

"What about Ramona?"

"Uh huh. Read it."

"Junie B. Jones?"

"Uh huh."

"Boxcar Children?"

"My sister has those, but I didn't really, you know, like them."

"The Littles?"

"My mom liked those, but I didn't really."

"How about Nancy Drew? She's a teenager who is a detective. [It would be more accurate for me to have said "sleuth", but she wouldn't have known what the heck I was talking about.]

I walk her over to show her the Nancy Drew books.

"Oh yeah, I've read those!"

"What about Catwings? It's about little cats with wings who have adventures." [Brilliant synopsis, eh?]

"Oh, the cats really do have wings!"

"Do you like cats?"

"No. I like dogs."

"O-kay. Dogs. [Lightbulb appears above my head.] Have you read Hank the Cowdog? He's a dog detective who thinks he's really smart but really he's pretty dumb.

"Ooh, these look good. I think I'll get these."

[Yay! Success at last.]

More on "Human Smoke"

A comment from Quaker Dave on my last post led me to look up some of the major reviews of Human Smoke. The first one I read was originally published in the LA Times, and is by author Mark Kurlansky (who wrote the superb book Nonviolence: History of a Dangerous Idea.) You can read it here. For the record, the NY Times reviewer didn't like it.

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization

Human Smoke explores the roots of war through the lens of World War II. Using newspaper articles, diaries, letters, memoirs, and official documents, the author, Nicholson Baker, assembled hundreds of discrete vignettes into a compelling narrative that should dispel numerous myths about the early days of the "Good War." The evil of the Third Reich hardly needs more exposure, but this book offers further insight into the warped and perverse ideals that drove Hitler and his followers.

What surprised me in this book was the depth of the racism that motivated Winston Churchill. If you took speeches that Churchill made, and substituted the word "Jew" for "Hun" you might be hard-pressed to know that you weren't listening to Hitler. It was the British that began the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population of Germany, for which "the Blitz" was retaliation.

And lest you think the European arm of the war was about freeing the Jews, guess again. Churchill's 1941 blockade of food, medicine, and clothing to the German-occupied countries caused the death of thousands and thousands of civilians, many of them Jewish refugees that had been expelled from their homes. Not to mention the Jewish refugees that were rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps in England, because they were Germans too and might hold German sympathies.

Then there were the refugees that actually made it onto ships and escaped the carnage in Europe. The United States and countries of the British Commonwealth [i.e. Empire] enforced strict quotas as to how many refugees would be accepted every year. There were many instances of ships carrying refugees turned away from port after port. In some documented cases the ships were actually shelled at sea, killing most of their passengers.

(I remember my mother once telling me that the blame for the war between Israel and Palestine lay with Britain and the United States, for turning their backs on Jewish refugees. I had no idea of the magnitude.)

While Churchill is lusting for the blood of Huns, FDR is actively fomenting the Sino-Japanese War while tightening the noose around Japan, hoping to provoke them into an attack on the U.S. The attack on Pearl Harbor, when it came, was not a surprise. It was fully expected and the date that it occurred was anticipated, so essentially the 2000+ people that died in the attack were used as bait.

Baker also shows the profiteers: the arms manufacturers, the scientists and academics who saw war as a cash cow for their research, the opportunists (like Wisconsin native son, Frank Lloyd Wright, who thought the total destruction of those old European cities was a good thing, so that new cities could be built following a new plan -- his. What a weenie.)

The other thread of the story that Baker tells -- one that has not been told enough -- is that of the pacifists who actively resisted the war by working for diplomatic solutions, by defying Churchill's blockade to feed the starving population of Europe, by going to jail rather than fighting. Gandhi figures prominently, as do Clarence Pickett, Herbert Hoover, and Rufus Jones of the Religious Society of Friends. He mentions the Socialist Party and its leader Norman Thomas, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the War Resisters' League. Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin is lauded for casting the lone dissenting vote against joining the war. Many other individuals are mentioned as well, people in many countries.

Baker does not draw any parallels between his narrative and current events as we are experiencing them, but the parallels are clear. Just as the seeds of World War II were sown in World War I, we see the seeds of the Viet Nam War being sown during World War II. Violence begets violence, that is the message of this book.

Invariably when one is a pacifist, someone will say, "Yeah, but what about World War II?" Baker did impeccable research and presents reams of evidence that World War II was not inevitable, that like all wars it was motivated by a lust for power and profit, predicated on propaganda and lies.

Baker dedicates Human Smoke to "the memory of Clarence Pickett and other American and British Pacifists. They've never really gotten their due. They tried to save Jewish refugees, feed Europe, reconcile the United States and Japan, and stop the war from happening. They failed, but they were right."

I highly recommend Human Smoke. It is not a pretty book, many parts are painful to read, while others will infuriate. It is, however, in a format that is quite easy to read and I think you will find it absolutely compelling.

When clothes lines are outlawed, only outlaws have clothes lines.

After years of watching enviously while my neighbor hung her laundry out to dry, I made a trip to our friendly neighborhood Ace Hardware and bought my own umbrella-style clothes drier. Mr Ether graciously installed it for me, and I hung up my first load of laundry this afternoon.

Not only has my neighbor had a clothes line, but last week I noticed that she has a special apron that she wears, with big pockets to keep the clothes pins right at her fingertips. My jealousy knew no bounds! So yesterday, while I waited for the first load of wash to finish cycling, I sewed a clothes pin apron. You'd better believe it, bub. It's like a carpenters' apron, only girly. My own design. You can see it hanging there to the right of the tie-dye.

Woo hoo. Some people really know how to have a good time!

In case you didn't know, automatic clothes driers are the most energy wasteful appliance in the house. And while other appliances -- washing machines, refrigerators, etc. -- have been engineered in recent years to be more energy efficient, there is really nothing that can be done to improve driers.

Fortunately, we have those stalwart alternatives -- solar and wind power -- that do an excellent job, cost nothing (except the price of a clothes line apparatus and some clothes pins) and leave your garments smelling fresh as a daisy.

I know that some communities have "covenants" that forbid things like clothes lines and compost bins. If you live in one of those places, this is your chance to practice nonviolent resistance. Become an outlaw! Put up a clothes line! What can they do -- foreclose on your mortgage? Put you in the stocks? Send you to Gitmo?

(You can also go here to buy a folding drying rack, which doesn't hold as much, but it works.)

Today, a clothes line. Tomorrow, backyard chickens!